From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 00:01:54 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2019 18:01:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] iq misconception In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: g as a symbol for general intelligence goes back to the 1930s or so. It's hardly new. bill w On Tue, Dec 31, 2019 at 5:43 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 2:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> (In response to a passing remark made today) >> >> This battle has been going on for many decades: is intelligence just one >> thing, generally called g, or is it several several things? >> > > As far as I know, g is 9.8m/s^2 and I will refuse to accept any attempt to > have it mean anything else. > > I cite precedent in the AI vs AGI debate. > > We don't need new meanings to old words/letters/acronyms; we need whole > new alphabets/emojis/idea tokens > > > >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 04:57:31 2020 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig@pobox.com) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 15:57:31 +1100 Subject: [ExI] john In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 1 Jan 2020 at 03:16, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I think everyone has heard everything John has had to say, and agree or > disagree. > > So why not just stop the whole conversation? Stop replying to him. > Yep, I'm over it. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://fav.me/dqkgpd our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 07:15:29 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 02:15:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] iq misconception In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:12 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > g as a symbol for general intelligence goes back to the 1930s or so. It's > hardly new. bill w > Do you(all) really not have people in your lives who use sarcasm in jokes? [sigh] I'll try harder to be more clear > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Wed Jan 1 12:01:58 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2020 04:01:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Molecular Materialism In-Reply-To: References: <20191230013628.Horde.AiaK7dI6nc9qvB9uPMDqXe7@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Brent Allsop : >> >> Don't back-pedal on me here, Brent. If "redness" is not correlated >> with red light, then "redness" is a misnomer. > > > But who's redness? Remember there is a good chance that your redness is > what most people represent green with. So who's redness would be > correlated with red light? > Empirically everybody who successfully commutes through a city on a daily basis for starters. Whatever way it is like to see red light for whomever's freaky brain is redness to that person. The fact that traffic-lights at intersections work rather successfully for traffic control suggests that for most people redness is correlated with red light. So I suppose most people correlate redness with red light. It worries me that I have to explain that to you. > >> If glutamate is >> associated with red strawberries in humans and the ultraviolet >> signature of flowers burgeoning with nectar in honeybees, then the >> glutamate molecule cannot be said to have the redness quale as a >> property. > > > This doesn't follow at all. Why couldn't a bee use my redness to represent > knowledge of something, different, entirely? Because it is by your own definition, "your" redness. Brent-redness is not bee-redness even if bee-redness were a thing, which it is not. You shaped Brent-redness out of the chaos of sensation when you were an infant. It is as unique to you as your fingerprints. >> Instead, the best one could say is that glutamate is a >> component of some systems that have the redness quale as a property in >> the context of red light and yet others that have the "yummy flower" >> quale as property in the context of ultraviolet light. That would mean >> that qualia are mental constructs instead of physical properties. >> > > I'm having troubles understanding the way you think about consciousness or > what you are trying to say here. > Any "mental construct" must be physical, right? Mental constructs up to and including mind are physical in the sense that energy or information is physical, but not physical in the sense of matter composed of particles. Very little of you is composed of particles, most of you is composed of information. That being said particles are necessary for you to exist. You could think of these particles as your boundary, they are necessary but not sufficient for you. They are a but a small percentage of you. Most of you is intangible energy and information. That information can be represented in a carbon-gel cell-matrix like your body or any sufficiently complex medium. Perhaps you could even be run on a gigantic abacus operated by the entire population of China as Chalmers suggests. > You would then be forced to admit you have an abstract soul >> constructed of math and numbers, poor thing. But, take heart for so do >> the honeybees, and you have it so much better than they do. >> > > How does thinking redness is just a colorness property of something like > glutamate, and that glutamate can be engineered to represent anything > knowledge lead one to we have a "soul constructed of numbers"? Because when you have something that is able to represent something else entirely, that is where symbolism arises. This is where information processing begins and thus mind and soul spring forth. One can think of the genetic code that shaped life on Earth through evolution by natural selection as a rudimentary mind running an algorithm based on symbolism. >> Bat?s use echolocation instead of light. Their echolocation can detect >>> objects in the air. I'd predict that a bat's brain uses the same >>> redness/glutamate to highlight whatever echolocated data was is important >>> to the bat. >> >> Yes. Now you get it, glutamate is a symbol whose meaning is purely >> subjective. Congratulations, you are finally qualia blind. :-) >> > > The word "red" is an abstract symbol, we can define it any way we want. > Physical redness is a set of physics which can also be a symbol we can use > to represent anything we want. Yeah . . . so? > We can define redness to represent red light, or green light, or knowledge > of echolocated bugs flying through the air, just as we can do with the word > "red" But there is nothing the word red is like, while redness is physical > redness. You are starting to sound like Newspeak from 1984 with your "redness is green-light" nonsense. Redness is not physical in the sense that you think it is. You need new physics to understand it. Redness is an emergent property of neural activity in your brain. Redness exists between molecules in your brain not within them. > This model is the opposite of a qualia blind model, so I don't understand > what you are trying to say or describe. I realize that. It will take a book to explain properly. But in a nutshell, I have discovered a way to mathematically describe how emergent properties arise in complex systems through synergy. It is unobserved quantum information being used to perform computation giving rise to higher order phenomena. In other words, any sufficiently complex physical system is a quantum computer constantly performing computations all of the time. For example, when a bunch of water molecules get together, all of the quantum information that you forgo measuring, like the quantum states of all the individual water molecules, are thereby qubits available to perform a computation the result of which is the wetness property of bulk water or the coldness of ice, depending on inputs from the environment like temperature. Your brain is matter that is so complex that it has sufficient surplus qubits to compute your mind. Does that help? Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 13:49:56 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 08:49:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] john In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks everybody. And HAPPY NEW YEAR! John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbard at wisc.edu Wed Jan 1 13:45:56 2020 From: hibbard at wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 13:45:56 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Is IQ composed of different skills? Message-ID: The idea that intelligence is composed of different skills seems relevant when we are comparing humans with AI. An AI can directly observe billions of humans and search for patterns in those observations that are hopelessly beyond human ability. This issue doesn't come up when comparing the intelligence of different humans. We may not think of "big data" skills as intelligent, but they do make AI effective in the world. As a more extreme example, we may not think of genetic natural selection as intelligent, but it had the skill to create humans. And human social processes have skills beyond any individual human. Even between humans I am a little skeptical, ever since I had a girlfriend (decades ago) who wasn't good at math but could read people very well. From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 14:04:19 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 09:04:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Betelgeuse again Message-ID: Betelgeuse continues to fall in brightness, 2 months ago it was the 10th brightest star in the sky, as of December 28 it had dropped to number 21. Nobody seems to know if that means anything important but it's certainly odd. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 14:14:24 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 09:14:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 31, 2019 at 5:27 PM Brent Allsop wrote: *> Yes, an important thing is ?how many different types of labels there > are.?* > > *But if ?The ?red? label IS the qualia?, which physical qualia, um, I > mean, which physical quality are we talking: glutamate or glycine?* > Fundamentally it doesn't matter what you use as a label as long as one label is physically distinguishable from another label. Glutamate could stand for light with a red wavelength and glycine could stand for light of a green wavelength and then I could switch your brain around so that now glutamate stood for light with a green wavelength and glycine stood for light of a red wavelength and there would be no objective way I could see any change in your behavior and, as long as the change was complete so things remained consistent, there is no way you could even subjectively tell that a change had been made. A red qualia in isolation to all other visual qualia is not a qualia at all because qualia, just like everything else that is meaningful, needs contrast. If from birth the only signal your eyes sent to your brain was a homogeneous field of black you'd be completely blind and it would not change things objectively or subjectively if instead of black that field was white or red or green or blue, Your brain would soon stop even trying to extract meaning from that monotonous useless signal. Areas of the brain like the visual cortex are less highly specialized than we once thought, they can be repurposed to do other things under certain circumstances, like being blind from birth and using the visual cortex to analyze sound instead of sight. There is some indication that's why blind people's hearing seems so acute, their ears are no better but they have more processing power available that can analyze auditory signals than sighted people have. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 1 14:28:59 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 06:28:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Betelgeuse again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002b01d5c0af$cef1f1b0$6cd5d510$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Betelgeuse again Betelgeuse continues to fall in brightness, 2 months ago it was the 10th brightest star in the sky, as of December 28 it had dropped to number 21. Nobody seems to know if that means anything important but it's certainly odd. John K Clark There is an excellent article on Sky and Telescope https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/fainting-betelgeuse/ Looks to me like it has gone really active in the last decade or so. It might also be that we have a pile of ground-based amateur telescopes on this, collecting piles of data. The CCD arrays became really practical around 10 yrs ago, so any yahoo with a couple thousand bucks worth of equipment can take scientifically-useful data. You would need about a 20 cm telescope, plenty of those available cheap online, a CCD camera, a tracker, a computer to collect and store the data. Fun note on the streaky nature of that data: there are waaaay more telescopes doing business while Betelgeuse is visible at convenient observing times and is far from the sun. We can still do brightness measurements when it is closer to the sun, but it requires more expensive gear. For the next few month, we get lots of data. If you are a veteran star-gazer, the change in Betelgeuse this cycle is easy to see, without instruments. We may get to see a terrific celestial show sometime in the next 100k years. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 19:19:22 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 12:19:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Molecular Materialism In-Reply-To: <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20191230013628.Horde.AiaK7dI6nc9qvB9uPMDqXe7@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: No, that doesn?t seem to help. It just shows me that some people have very different ways of thinking about qualia. There are both composite redness and elemental redness. Composite redness is made up of lots of different physical things all computationally bound together. For example, the name ?red?, your knowledge of you being a subjective observer and aware of redness, that redness is a warm color, knowledge that strawberries of that color are ripe, blood?.. For every single piece of information, there must be something physical that is that particular piece of information. And for every relationship, there must be some computational binding machinery that is that relationship knowledge. Elemental redness is just one of these elemental pieces that is computationally bound into everything else that makes up the composite redness experience. You can tell by the way many people talk, that they think a redness quale is everything but the elemental redness quality. (they think red is only a property of the strawberry). I see evidence from what you are saying here that you are thinking of qualia in a very different way than what all the supporters of ?Representational Qualia Theory ? think elemental redness is. ?I realize that. It will take a book to explain properly.? In my experience this isn?t a good sign. In my experience, people that think they need to write huge books to explain their ideas are just lost down some rat holes and confusion. For example Dennett?s huge book ?Consciousness Explained? can be summed up in one sentence. ?We don?t have qualia, it just seems like we do.? Having redness and greenness computationally bound into composite experiences including things like ?names? and other pieces of information isn?t that complex of an idea. And knowing what qualitative colorness something is is even simpler. If you can?t concisely state the way you are thinking about things, especially in reference to how your ideas differ from competing ways of thinking about things (like concisely stated Representational Qualia Theory ) And if you can?t point to other people that are thinking the same way. (There are more than 40 people of the total 60 participants that are convinced and supporting Representational Qualia Theory .) then to me that is strong evidence that your ideas aren?t of much theoretical benefit to experimentalists. The best theories are falsifiable theories. Representational Qualia Theory is the first theory to provide information on how to falsify all the competing sub camps predicting the nature of qualia supporting it. ?Your brain is matter that is so complex that it has sufficient surplus qubits to compute your mind.? How can any neuro experimentalist do anything with this? Does anything you are saying provide any way to bridge the explanatory gap or eff the ineffable nature of qualia? (The only real hard problem). How might any of this be falsified or objectively observable? How might one reproduce, engineer, or expand this kind of "compute your mind"? On Wed, Jan 1, 2020 at 6:42 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Quoting Brent Allsop : > > > >> > >> Don't back-pedal on me here, Brent. If "redness" is not correlated > >> with red light, then "redness" is a misnomer. > > > > > > But who's redness? Remember there is a good chance that your redness is > > what most people represent green with. So who's redness would be > > correlated with red light? > > > Empirically everybody who successfully commutes through a city on a > daily basis for starters. Whatever way it is like to see red light for > whomever's freaky brain is redness to that person. The fact that > traffic-lights at intersections work rather successfully for traffic > control suggests that for most people redness is correlated with red > light. So I suppose most people correlate redness with red light. It > worries me that I have to explain that to you. > > > > >> If glutamate is > >> associated with red strawberries in humans and the ultraviolet > >> signature of flowers burgeoning with nectar in honeybees, then the > >> glutamate molecule cannot be said to have the redness quale as a > >> property. > > > > > > This doesn't follow at all. Why couldn't a bee use my redness to > represent > > knowledge of something, different, entirely? > > Because it is by your own definition, "your" redness. Brent-redness is > not bee-redness even if bee-redness were a thing, which it is not. You > shaped Brent-redness out of the chaos of sensation when you were an > infant. It is as unique to you as your fingerprints. > > >> Instead, the best one could say is that glutamate is a > >> component of some systems that have the redness quale as a property in > >> the context of red light and yet others that have the "yummy flower" > >> quale as property in the context of ultraviolet light. That would mean > >> that qualia are mental constructs instead of physical properties. > >> > > > > I'm having troubles understanding the way you think about consciousness > or > > what you are trying to say here. > > Any "mental construct" must be physical, right? > > Mental constructs up to and including mind are physical in the sense > that energy or information is physical, but not physical in the sense > of matter composed of particles. Very little of you is composed of > particles, most of you is composed of information. That being said > particles are necessary for you to exist. You could think of these > particles as your boundary, they are necessary but not sufficient for > you. They are a but a small percentage of you. Most of you is > intangible energy and information. That information can be represented > in a carbon-gel cell-matrix like your body or any sufficiently > complex medium. Perhaps you could even be run on a gigantic abacus > operated by the entire population of China as Chalmers suggests. > > > You would then be forced to admit you have an abstract soul > >> constructed of math and numbers, poor thing. But, take heart for so do > >> the honeybees, and you have it so much better than they do. > >> > > > > How does thinking redness is just a colorness property of something like > > glutamate, and that glutamate can be engineered to represent anything > > knowledge lead one to we have a "soul constructed of numbers"? > > Because when you have something that is able to represent something > else entirely, that is where symbolism arises. This is where > information processing begins and thus mind and soul spring forth. One > can think of the genetic code that shaped life on Earth through > evolution by natural selection as a rudimentary mind running an > algorithm based on symbolism. > > >> Bat?s use echolocation instead of light. Their echolocation can detect > >>> objects in the air. I'd predict that a bat's brain uses the same > >>> redness/glutamate to highlight whatever echolocated data was is > important > >>> to the bat. > >> > >> Yes. Now you get it, glutamate is a symbol whose meaning is purely > >> subjective. Congratulations, you are finally qualia blind. :-) > >> > > > > The word "red" is an abstract symbol, we can define it any way we want. > > Physical redness is a set of physics which can also be a symbol we can > use > > to represent anything we want. > > Yeah . . . so? > > > We can define redness to represent red light, or green light, or > knowledge > > of echolocated bugs flying through the air, just as we can do with the > word > > "red" But there is nothing the word red is like, while redness is > physical > > redness. > > You are starting to sound like Newspeak from 1984 with your "redness > is green-light" nonsense. Redness is not physical in the sense that > you think it is. You need new physics to understand it. Redness is an > emergent property of neural activity in your brain. Redness exists > between molecules in your brain not within them. > > > This model is the opposite of a qualia blind model, so I don't understand > > what you are trying to say or describe. > > I realize that. It will take a book to explain properly. But in a > nutshell, I have discovered a way to mathematically describe how > emergent properties arise in complex systems through synergy. It is > unobserved quantum information being used to perform computation > giving rise to higher order phenomena. > > In other words, any sufficiently complex physical system is a quantum > computer constantly performing computations all of the time. For > example, when a bunch of water molecules get together, all of the > quantum information that you forgo measuring, like the quantum states > of all the individual water molecules, are thereby qubits available to > perform a computation the result of which is the wetness property of > bulk water or the coldness of ice, depending on inputs from the > environment like temperature. > > Your brain is matter that is so complex that it has sufficient surplus > qubits to compute your mind. > > Does that help? > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 20:51:53 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 15:51:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Molecular Materialism In-Reply-To: References: <20191230013628.Horde.AiaK7dI6nc9qvB9uPMDqXe7@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 1, 2020, 2:22 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > No, that doesn?t seem to help. It just shows me that some people have > very different ways of thinking about qualia. > >> When everyone else is wrong, it might be time to stop trying to tell them what is right There was a recent post suggesting everyone stop replying to John because his unwavering position is not "conversational" for most casual interactions. I suggested a subject prefix of [politics] so i knew which emails to ignore, but a [qualia] tag would be even more welcomed. It's not that I don't find the topic interesting, it's that the conversation has become boring. Calling people "qualia-blind" because they don't faithfully say your words back to you is impolite if not abusive. Whatever. Words mean whatever you think they mean. That we ever believe anyone "understands" anything is some rabbit hole full of 'qualia' and 'p-zombies' and that's good or bad depending on whatever meaning has been assigned to those words - since I'm not classically trained in their "proper" use, I'm easily disregarded as an uneducated noob. *shrug* > >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 22:02:17 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 15:02:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Qualia Blindness] Was re: Molecular Materialism In-Reply-To: References: <20191230013628.Horde.AiaK7dI6nc9qvB9uPMDqXe7@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: Hi Mike, Calling people "qualia-blind" because they don't faithfully say your words back to you is impolite if not abusive. Thanks for this feedback. This is good to know that some people think this way. For me it is a lot more than just ?saying (my) words back to me? It is a fact that perception involves at least 2 important physical properties. The properties of the target of perception, and the properties of our knowledge of such. These two properties can easily be inverted from each other simply by inverting the signal anywhere in between the two. It is also a fact that in order to know what ?red? means, you need to point to a particular set of physical properties for which you mean for ?red? to be a label for. In order to know what physical color something is, you need more than one word (like red and redness) as labels for these very different physical things. If you only have one word, you can?t tell which physical property you are talking about. It is just stupid, clueless, and sloppy at best. Today, all physical science, and all peer reviewed articles on perception of color, only use one word for ?red?. In other words, it is ALL qualia blind. The ever growing number of experts joining and supporting ?Representational Qualia Theory ? are basically signing a petition telling everyone we need to stop being qualia blind, and start using two words (like red and redness) so we can think about colors of things, and perception of such, in a rigorous non ambiguous way. It is a fact that no physicist can tell you which, of all their descriptions of physics is a description of a redness quality. They don?t know the color of anything. It is time we start calling out people that don?t realize this, as not thinking clearly. If someone writes a paper about the perception of red, and they are only using one word, and not clearly specifying which set of physics they intend for that word to be a label of, they have a naive and inadequate way of talking about physical qualities or colors. It?s time that everyone be given the tools to recognize all such naive thinking and pointing out how that particular person has no clue about what they are talking about. Mike, let me ask you. Do you think anyone know what it is, in this world, that is physically responsible for or has a redness quality? It?s about time that people start realizing this. Again, it isn?t ?hard mind body? problem. It is just a color problem. We need to start thinking and talking about things in a more than simplistic and naive way that is obvious to anyone that thinks about it in any kind of rigorous way is ?Qualia Blind?. I'd bet that most people here would agree they understand what "qualia blindness" is and that it is important that everyone start noticing and calling out this kind of sloppy thinking about the colors of things. On Wed, Jan 1, 2020 at 2:01 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 1, 2020, 2:22 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> No, that doesn?t seem to help. It just shows me that some people have >> very different ways of thinking about qualia. >> >>> > When everyone else is wrong, it might be time to stop trying to tell them > what is right > > There was a recent post suggesting everyone stop replying to John because > his unwavering position is not "conversational" for most casual > interactions. > > I suggested a subject prefix of [politics] so i knew which emails to > ignore, but a [qualia] tag would be even more welcomed. It's not that I > don't find the topic interesting, it's that the conversation has become > boring. Calling people "qualia-blind" because they don't faithfully say > your words back to you is impolite if not abusive. > > Whatever. Words mean whatever you think they mean. That we ever believe > anyone "understands" anything is some rabbit hole full of 'qualia' and > 'p-zombies' and that's good or bad depending on whatever meaning has been > assigned to those words - since I'm not classically trained in their > "proper" use, I'm easily disregarded as an uneducated noob. > > *shrug* > >> >>> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 00:24:11 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 19:24:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Qualia Blindness] Was re: Molecular Materialism In-Reply-To: References: <20191230013628.Horde.AiaK7dI6nc9qvB9uPMDqXe7@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 1, 2020, 5:04 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hi Mike, > > > > Calling people "qualia-blind" because they don't faithfully say your words > back to you is impolite if not abusive. > > > > Thanks for this feedback. This is good to know that some people think > this way. > > > > > > Mike, let me ask you. Do you think anyone know what it is, in this world, > that is physically responsible for or has a redness quality? > I am "colorblind" i know my ability to detect red is different from others. I'm acutely aware of this. I don't know that there IS a physical reason for red[ness] I also know that I can't make a point that isn't already in one or more camps in your canonizer. I'm having a difficult time even explaining why. Imagine explaining how Rational numbers do/don't "fit" in the set of Integers... sure, you can eventually get to fractions... and with enough discipline the Integerist might be able to relate to the Rationalist. Maybe the experience will have prepared the Rationalist to meet a Realist... with "irrational" numbers being a difficult construction to overcome - effectively forcing each to upgrade/ expand their concept of what exists. If you're still with me, thank you. I think color and number are useful words even without rigorous proof that you and I are using them in exactly the same nuances. I don't use examples of 3 and 3ness to badger you over the distinction between the properties of 3ness that makes us able to recognize the essence of 3. We don't need to ensure that you recognize 3 because of the font family you're using (or require that both of our email clients use the same fonts, screen size, aspect ratio, and dots per inch) i can write "three" and you know it contains sufficient 3ness to generate proper reference to actual 3. To insist there is something that is physically responsible for representing 3ness in the brain feels wrong to me. I can't make further assertion because being wrong on a minor point causes the major point to be lost. How neurons work to run the machine seems to me to have nothing to do with the software that we are discussing for what something "means" > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 05:50:43 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 23:50:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] iq misconception In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <80308614-7912-451A-8F8F-4E74FDACA1A5@gmail.com> The current usage for internet sarcasm is the ?/s? at the end of one?s message. SR Ballard > On Jan 1, 2020, at 1:15 AM, Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:12 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >> g as a symbol for general intelligence goes back to the 1930s or so. It's hardly new. bill w > > > > Do you(all) really not have people in your lives who use sarcasm in jokes? > > [sigh] I'll try harder to be more clear > >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 12:22:02 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 07:22:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] iq misconception In-Reply-To: <80308614-7912-451A-8F8F-4E74FDACA1A5@gmail.com> References: <80308614-7912-451A-8F8F-4E74FDACA1A5@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 12:53 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The current usage for internet sarcasm is the ?/s? at the end of one?s > message. > OK Boomer /s I still like " :) " to signal that I am smiling and so should you. :) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 12:47:18 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 07:47:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] AI and its implications for socialism Message-ID: It's not just truck drivers and other low paid low skill workers that will have to face unemployment in the immediate future, physicians will too. Yesterday in the journal Nature Google announced that they had a new computer program for reading X-ray mammograms. Google's program was better than human radiologists at finding breast cancer, it had 9.4% fewer false positives and 5.7% fewer false negatives, and this is just an early version of the program. Until very recently image recognition was one of the few areas where humans could still beat machines but no more, the next step is manual dexterity and surgeons should be looking over their shoulders. And after that its nurses and Orderlies. It's stuff like this that made me think that I need to reevaluate my previous very negative opinion of socialism because I think it would be rather nice if human society didn't completely disintegrate and I sorta like the fact that my head is connected to my shoulders. One thing I know for sure, millions of unemployed starving people will not go gentle into that good night, they will rage against the dying of the light, and I don't want to be there when they do. Evaluation of an AI system for breast cancer screening John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 13:40:47 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 13:40:47 +0000 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= Message-ID: As this book is very critical of the mass media it is difficult to find a good review from mass media sources. What a surprise! Try : Quotes: The ?Ten Rules of Hate? ?So long as the public is busy hating each other and not aiming its ire at the more complex financial and political processes going on off-camera, there?s very little danger of anything like a a popular uprising,? Taibbi writes. His expos? of the media?s lucrative take on pedaling hate offers ?Ten Rules of Hate? as a primer through this cesspool of inhumanity. Ten Rules of Hate 1. There are only two ideas 2. The two ideas are in permanent conflict 3. Hate people, not institutions 4. Everything is someone else?s fault 5. Nothing is everyone?s fault 6. Root, don?t think 7. No switching teams 8. The other side is literally Hitler 9. In the fight against Hitler, everything is permitted 10. Feel superior ------------ There can be little doubt that both sports and politics continue to profit from fomenting such tribalism. A chapter in his book titled ?How We Turned the News into Sports? is Taibbi?s takedown of this conflation. Another chapter, ?How Reading the News is like Smoking,? addresses the addictive toxicity level of such media assaults with this warning: ?Like cigarettes, this product can have have a profound negative impact on your health. Almost without exception it will make you lonelier, more anxious, more distrustful of others, and more depressed.? >From Hannity to Maddow, Hate Inc. disrobes the theatrics that is 24/7 news to reveal corporate media for the highly profitable infotainment product it truly is. Both the book and the documentary examine various common threads like tribalism, but the most common thread is money and control. Hate, it turns out, pays off big time. --------------- BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 14:51:05 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 08:51:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] AI and its implications for socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It seems to me that there are two kinds of socialism: one where the government runs the economy (which seems to be disastrous in every case), and one where they don't (which is what all first world countries have). Correct me if I am wrong. The second kind is where people tax themselves so they can have streets paved, police and fire protection, a military, and so on. No harm here, it seems. If AI pushes some radiologists out of work, just how is that socialism? We have unemployment benefits now, though not of the kind we will need when millions are out of work. bill w On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 6:50 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It's not just truck drivers and other low paid low skill workers that will > have to face unemployment in the immediate future, physicians will too. > Yesterday in the journal Nature Google announced that they had a new > computer program for reading X-ray mammograms. Google's program was better > than human radiologists at finding breast cancer, it had 9.4% fewer false > positives and 5.7% fewer false negatives, and this is just an early version > of the program. Until very recently image recognition was one of the few > areas where humans could still beat machines but no more, the next step is > manual dexterity and surgeons should be looking over their shoulders. And > after that its nurses and Orderlies. > > It's stuff like this that made me think that I need to reevaluate my > previous very negative opinion of socialism because I think it would be > rather nice if human society didn't completely disintegrate and I sorta > like the fact that my head is connected to my shoulders. One thing I know > for sure, millions of unemployed starving people will not go gentle into > that good night, they will rage against the dying of the light, and I don't > want to be there when they do. > > Evaluation of an AI system for breast cancer screening > > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 15:11:41 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 10:11:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] AI and its implications for socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 9:53 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It seems to me that there are two kinds of socialism: one where the > government runs the economy (which seems to be disastrous in every case), > and one where they don't (which is what all first world countries have). > So the US gov't doesn't "run the economy"? Correct me if I am wrong. The second kind is where people tax themselves so > they can have streets paved, police and fire protection, a military, and so > on. No harm here, it seems. > Yeah, no harm at all, if you ignore all the harm done by our government. We've been at war somewhere continually since 2000 and most of the years before that. The gov't has run up $23 trillion of debt. We've spent billions on the War on Drugs creating a vast black market that kills thousands of people and incarcerates tens of thousands. We're separating families at the border and mistreating those we've incarcerated. This list goes on and on. If AI pushes some radiologists out of work, just how is that socialism? We > have unemployment benefits now, though not of the kind we will need when > millions are out of work. > That's what John is talking about, I believe. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 15:26:22 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 10:26:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] AI and its implications for socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 9:54 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It seems to me that there are two kinds of socialism: one where the > government runs the economy (which seems to be disastrous in every case), > and one where they don't (which is what all first world countries have). Correct > me if I am wrong. The second kind is where people tax themselves so they > can have streets paved, police and fire protection, a military, and so on. > I think in just a few years robots and AIs will BE the economy, and everyone will receive a guaranteed income sufficient to have a upper middle class lifestyle even if they do nothing but sit on their ass. Yes I know, that strikes a lot of people with libertarian tendencies as just plain wrong, me too, but I don't see any alternative if the entire human social structure is not to collapse into bloody chaos. > If AI pushes some radiologists out of work, > It's not just radiologists! Whatever your job is it's only a matter of time, and it's now looking like not a lot of time, before a machine can do your job better than you can. > > just how is that socialism? > Permanent unemployment is not socialism, it's the only way prevent blood in the streets. > We have unemployment benefits now, though not of the kind we will need > when millions are out of work. > Indeed. What I'm talking about is permanent unemployment benefits on steroids. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 2 16:04:55 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 08:04:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Book review - Hate Inc. Why Today?s Media Makes Us Despise One Another by Matt Taibbi >...As this book is very critical of the mass media it is difficult to find a good review from mass media sources. What a surprise! Try : https://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/2019/12/07/review-hatred-inc-and-why-we-hate-cast-light-on-todays-quagmires/ Quotes: >...The ?Ten Rules of Hate? ?So long as the public is busy hating each other and not aiming its ire at the more complex financial and political processes going on off-camera, there?s very little danger of anything like a a popular uprising... >...but the most common thread is money and control. Hate, it turns out, pays off big time. --------------- BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, I have been long pondering the best way to cash in on this, make buttloads of money, rule the world and so forth. I have an idea, inspired by a birthday party I attended yesterday for a longtime friend who just turned 60. She and I were friends in college, she was my bride's roommate. We are not particularly religious in our old age, but we were at one time. All of us who attended (all either already 60 yrs or are approaching it) are feeling a kind of cultural alienation. We do not understand rap and hip hop. We do not like mainstream Hollywood movies, but at that party, the birthday girl received several videos of a genre in which Hollyweird takes little interest. There are no helicopter chases, no one is murdered, there is no crime, it's really all just talking heads, the kind of stuff people under 30 would wonder when something was going to happen. There is a genre of its own: Hallmark movies. Oh ick, mercy, those things are so icky sweet ya just want to barf, but think about it: we could create a genre that has no shoot em ups, no CGI, doesn't really require big name thespians, doesn't cram society's problems into our faces constantly, but can still teach us something useful and interesting, such as historical fiction. If we can make those kinds of scripts and keep the cost of production down, we could make a buttload off of people like me. We are legion, I tells ya! We don't want to see movies about hate. We don't want the usual garbage that the next generation seems to devour so eagerly (why I don't know.) Perhaps what I am thinking about is more movies like Chariots of Fire (oh that one is so good.) And The Truman Show. Next... we could come up with a news channel that was a bit more upbeat, not so focused on politics, perhaps a business-oriented slant where they talk about stuff like the rise of Apple, or Tesla or something, a kind of fun upbeat sympathetic documentary. Hell we might even get Elon to pay for it. It wouldn't be hate. It would be in many ways the opposite of hate. We could create Like Media. It causes one to come away feeling good about our world, and this has a special meaning for me, because I do feel good about our times. I know the mainstream media bombards us with constant negative messages, because it sells, but I think positive messages can find a market too, perhaps an even bigger one. Oh I could go totally Simon bar Sinister and rule the world. spike From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 2 17:08:39 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 09:08:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> References: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000201d5c18f$47c27cb0$d7477610$@rainier66.com> >... positive messages can find a market too, perhaps an even bigger one. Oh I could go totally Simon bar Sinister and rule the world... OK time for a little fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGvrmltfMrA ...heeeeeehehehehehehehehheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 17:35:16 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 11:35:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> References: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: can still teach us something useful and interesting, such as historical fiction. spike Are you talking about something like Downtown Abbey? My wife loved it. bill w On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 10:07 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > BillK via extropy-chat > Subject: [ExI] Book review - Hate Inc. Why Today?s Media Makes Us Despise > One Another by Matt Taibbi > > >...As this book is very critical of the mass media it is difficult to > find a good review from mass media sources. What a surprise! > Try : > > > https://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/2019/12/07/review-hatred-inc-and-why-we-hate-cast-light-on-todays-quagmires/ > > > Quotes: > > >...The ?Ten Rules of Hate? > ?So long as the public is busy hating each other and not aiming its ire at > the more complex financial and political processes going on off-camera, > there?s very little danger of anything like a a popular uprising... > >...but the most common thread is money and control. Hate, it turns out, > pays off big time. > --------------- > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > BillK, I have been long pondering the best way to cash in on this, make > buttloads of money, rule the world and so forth. I have an idea, inspired > by a birthday party I attended yesterday for a longtime friend who just > turned 60. She and I were friends in college, she was my bride's roommate. > > We are not particularly religious in our old age, but we were at one > time. All of us who attended (all either already 60 yrs or are approaching > it) are feeling a kind of cultural alienation. We do not understand rap > and hip hop. We do not like mainstream Hollywood movies, but at that > party, the birthday girl received several videos of a genre in which > Hollyweird takes little interest. There are no helicopter chases, no one > is murdered, there is no crime, it's really all just talking heads, the > kind of stuff people under 30 would wonder when something was going to > happen. > > There is a genre of its own: Hallmark movies. Oh ick, mercy, those things > are so icky sweet ya just want to barf, but think about it: we could create > a genre that has no shoot em ups, no CGI, doesn't really require big name > thespians, doesn't cram society's problems into our faces constantly, but > can still teach us something useful and interesting, such as historical > fiction. If we can make those kinds of scripts and keep the cost of > production down, we could make a buttload off of people like me. We are > legion, I tells ya! We don't want to see movies about hate. We don't want > the usual garbage that the next generation seems to devour so eagerly (why > I don't know.) > > Perhaps what I am thinking about is more movies like Chariots of Fire (oh > that one is so good.) And The Truman Show. > > Next... we could come up with a news channel that was a bit more upbeat, > not so focused on politics, perhaps a business-oriented slant where they > talk about stuff like the rise of Apple, or Tesla or something, a kind of > fun upbeat sympathetic documentary. Hell we might even get Elon to pay for > it. It wouldn't be hate. It would be in many ways the opposite of hate. > We could create Like Media. It causes one to come away feeling good about > our world, and this has a special meaning for me, because I do feel good > about our times. I know the mainstream media bombards us with constant > negative messages, because it sells, but I think positive messages can find > a market too, perhaps an even bigger one. Oh I could go totally Simon bar > Sinister and rule the world. > > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 2 17:52:53 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 09:52:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: References: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001401d5c195$755db120$60191360$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Book review - Hate Inc. Why Today?s Media Makes Us Despise One Another by Matt Taibbi can still teach us something useful and interesting, such as historical fiction. spike Are you talking about something like Downtown Abbey? My wife loved it. bill w Ja kinda like that. I liked Downton Abbey too, up until they let Anna Smith Bates get raped. Oh that bastard, I wanted to kill Mr. Green and severely scold the reprehensible ass who wrote that script. We loved Anna with all our hearts, then to let something bad happen to her, unacceptable! I chose to brutally not watch the show any more. Those were highly educational however, and I liked them, right up until episode 2 of season 4. I have read ahead and learned that things turn out OK for Anna and Mr. Bates, so I might go view the rest of them and the recently-released movie. I want movies or even short-format videos (to match our shortened attention spans in the internet age) with a positive message. Here?s a 12 minute example written by my colleague?s son when he was a student at UCLA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w9cKFiCrSU Kurt Kuenne saw the future. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 18:41:30 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 10:41:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> References: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 8:06 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Perhaps what I am thinking about is more movies like Chariots of Fire (oh > that one is so good.) And The Truman Show. > I wonder, would any major studio produce a film based on shadow people promulgating these ten rules, and an enlightened few who try to fight them? That would seem to be an effective way to get the public educated about resisting these specific manipulations. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 2 19:00:38 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 11:00:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: References: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001b01d5c19e$ed792230$c86b6690$@rainier66.com> >> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Book review - Hate Inc. Why Today?s Media Makes Us Despise One Another by Matt Taibbi On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 8:06 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Perhaps what I am thinking about is more movies like Chariots of Fire (oh that one is so good.) And The Truman Show. I wonder, would any major studio produce a film based on shadow people promulgating these ten rules, and an enlightened few who try to fight them? That would seem to be an effective way to get the public educated about resisting these specific manipulations. Perhaps not. The videos would need to be low budget. If you viewed Rent-A-Person, that was made for a few thousand bucks. The guy who made it used his friends and college roommate to act the parts. His father is the banker you see shaking the rising business-startup guy?s hand. His roommate is the photographer at the end of the story. These kinds of productions would be in competition with the mainstream Hollyweird nonsense. It is said that art imitates life. Kurt Kuenne?s works Rent-A-Person and Validation are the artworks that imitate the life I live. None of the Hollyweird films describe even slightly anything I know. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 19:30:03 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 13:30:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: <001b01d5c19e$ed792230$c86b6690$@rainier66.com> References: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> <001b01d5c19e$ed792230$c86b6690$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: the artworks that imitate the life I live. None of the Hollyweird films describe even slightly anything I know spike But spike, most people's live are dull. They don't want to see dull lives. They want fantasy. Would I like to see a movie based on a week of your life? Hmmm? The 20th century featured scores of supermen and other fantasy creatures in movies, books, TV, video games, cartoons. That was the century of neoteny: the persistence of the juvenile into adulthood. Look at me: I am nearly 78 and read sci-fi and fantasy. Maybe not the Power Rangers. bill w On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 1:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *>*> *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Book review - Hate Inc. Why Today?s Media Makes Us > Despise One Another by Matt Taibbi > > > > On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 8:06 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Perhaps what I am thinking about is more movies like Chariots of Fire (oh > that one is so good.) And The Truman Show. > > > > I wonder, would any major studio produce a film based on shadow people > promulgating these ten rules, and an enlightened few who try to fight them? > > > > That would seem to be an effective way to get the public educated about > resisting these specific manipulations. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Perhaps not. The videos would need to be low budget. If you viewed > Rent-A-Person, that was made for a few thousand bucks. The guy who made it > used his friends and college roommate to act the parts. His father is the > banker you see shaking the rising business-startup guy?s hand. His > roommate is the photographer at the end of the story. > > > > These kinds of productions would be in competition with the mainstream > Hollyweird nonsense. > > > > It is said that art imitates life. Kurt Kuenne?s works Rent-A-Person and > Validation are the artworks that imitate the life I live. None of the > Hollyweird films describe even slightly anything I know. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 20:14:27 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 12:14:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: References: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> <001b01d5c19e$ed792230$c86b6690$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I dunno, some weeks of my life could almost support a movie. >_> On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 11:31 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > the artworks that imitate the life I live. None of the Hollyweird films > describe even slightly anything I know spike > > > But spike, most people's live are dull. They don't want to see dull > lives. They want fantasy. Would I like to see a movie based on a week of > your life? Hmmm? The 20th century featured scores of supermen and other > fantasy creatures in movies, books, TV, video games, cartoons. That was > the century of neoteny: the persistence of the juvenile into adulthood. > Look at me: I am nearly 78 and read sci-fi and fantasy. Maybe not the > Power Rangers. > > > bill w > > On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 1:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *>*> *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Book review - Hate Inc. Why Today?s Media Makes Us >> Despise One Another by Matt Taibbi >> >> >> >> On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 8:06 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> Perhaps what I am thinking about is more movies like Chariots of Fire (oh >> that one is so good.) And The Truman Show. >> >> >> >> I wonder, would any major studio produce a film based on shadow people >> promulgating these ten rules, and an enlightened few who try to fight them? >> >> >> >> That would seem to be an effective way to get the public educated about >> resisting these specific manipulations. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Perhaps not. The videos would need to be low budget. If you viewed >> Rent-A-Person, that was made for a few thousand bucks. The guy who made it >> used his friends and college roommate to act the parts. His father is the >> banker you see shaking the rising business-startup guy?s hand. His >> roommate is the photographer at the end of the story. >> >> >> >> These kinds of productions would be in competition with the mainstream >> Hollyweird nonsense. >> >> >> >> It is said that art imitates life. Kurt Kuenne?s works Rent-A-Person and >> Validation are the artworks that imitate the life I live. None of the >> Hollyweird films describe even slightly anything I know. >> >> >> >> spike >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 21:12:46 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 15:12:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: References: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> <001b01d5c19e$ed792230$c86b6690$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Tragedy or comedy? bill w On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 2:16 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I dunno, some weeks of my life could almost support a movie. >_> > > On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 11:31 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> the artworks that imitate the life I live. None of the Hollyweird films >> describe even slightly anything I know spike >> >> >> But spike, most people's live are dull. They don't want to see dull >> lives. They want fantasy. Would I like to see a movie based on a week of >> your life? Hmmm? The 20th century featured scores of supermen and other >> fantasy creatures in movies, books, TV, video games, cartoons. That was >> the century of neoteny: the persistence of the juvenile into adulthood. >> Look at me: I am nearly 78 and read sci-fi and fantasy. Maybe not the >> Power Rangers. >> >> >> bill w >> >> On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 1:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> *>*> *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat >>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Book review - Hate Inc. Why Today?s Media Makes Us >>> Despise One Another by Matt Taibbi >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 8:06 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> Perhaps what I am thinking about is more movies like Chariots of Fire >>> (oh that one is so good.) And The Truman Show. >>> >>> >>> >>> I wonder, would any major studio produce a film based on shadow people >>> promulgating these ten rules, and an enlightened few who try to fight them? >>> >>> >>> >>> That would seem to be an effective way to get the public educated about >>> resisting these specific manipulations. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Perhaps not. The videos would need to be low budget. If you viewed >>> Rent-A-Person, that was made for a few thousand bucks. The guy who made it >>> used his friends and college roommate to act the parts. His father is the >>> banker you see shaking the rising business-startup guy?s hand. His >>> roommate is the photographer at the end of the story. >>> >>> >>> >>> These kinds of productions would be in competition with the mainstream >>> Hollyweird nonsense. >>> >>> >>> >>> It is said that art imitates life. Kurt Kuenne?s works Rent-A-Person >>> and Validation are the artworks that imitate the life I live. None of the >>> Hollyweird films describe even slightly anything I know. >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 21:16:37 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 13:16:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: References: <005601d5c186$605cf1a0$2116d4e0$@rainier66.com> <001b01d5c19e$ed792230$c86b6690$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: More comedy than tragedy, if one counts dark humor as humor. On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 1:14 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Tragedy or comedy? bill w > > On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 2:16 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I dunno, some weeks of my life could almost support a movie. >_> >> >> On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 11:31 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> the artworks that imitate the life I live. None of the Hollyweird >>> films describe even slightly anything I know spike >>> >>> >>> But spike, most people's live are dull. They don't want to see dull >>> lives. They want fantasy. Would I like to see a movie based on a week of >>> your life? Hmmm? The 20th century featured scores of supermen and other >>> fantasy creatures in movies, books, TV, video games, cartoons. That was >>> the century of neoteny: the persistence of the juvenile into adulthood. >>> Look at me: I am nearly 78 and read sci-fi and fantasy. Maybe not the >>> Power Rangers. >>> >>> >>> bill w >>> >>> On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 1:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> *>*> *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat >>>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Book review - Hate Inc. Why Today?s Media Makes >>>> Us Despise One Another by Matt Taibbi >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 8:06 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>> Perhaps what I am thinking about is more movies like Chariots of Fire >>>> (oh that one is so good.) And The Truman Show. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I wonder, would any major studio produce a film based on shadow people >>>> promulgating these ten rules, and an enlightened few who try to fight them? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> That would seem to be an effective way to get the public educated about >>>> resisting these specific manipulations. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Perhaps not. The videos would need to be low budget. If you viewed >>>> Rent-A-Person, that was made for a few thousand bucks. The guy who made it >>>> used his friends and college roommate to act the parts. His father is the >>>> banker you see shaking the rising business-startup guy?s hand. His >>>> roommate is the photographer at the end of the story. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> These kinds of productions would be in competition with the mainstream >>>> Hollyweird nonsense. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> It is said that art imitates life. Kurt Kuenne?s works Rent-A-Person >>>> and Validation are the artworks that imitate the life I live. None of the >>>> Hollyweird films describe even slightly anything I know. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> spike >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 21:26:07 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 13:26:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Book_review_-_Hate_Inc=2E_Why_Today=E2=80=99s_Me?= =?utf-8?q?dia_Makes_Us_Despise_One_Another_by_Matt_Taibbi?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0E9CD695-8BF7-4472-894C-B66B57CDCA5E@gmail.com> On Jan 2, 2020, at 7:38 AM, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?As this book is very critical of the mass media it is difficult to > find a good review from mass media sources. What a surprise! > Try : > > > Quotes: > > The ?Ten Rules of Hate? > ?So long as the public is busy hating each other and not aiming its > ire at the more complex financial and political processes going on > off-camera, there?s very little danger of anything like a a popular > uprising,? Taibbi writes. His expos? of the media?s lucrative take > on pedaling hate offers ?Ten Rules of Hate? as a primer through this > cesspool of inhumanity. > > Ten Rules of Hate > 1. There are only two ideas > 2. The two ideas are in permanent conflict > 3. Hate people, not institutions > 4. Everything is someone else?s fault > 5. Nothing is everyone?s fault > 6. Root, don?t think > 7. No switching teams > 8. The other side is literally Hitler > 9. In the fight against Hitler, everything is permitted > 10. Feel superior > ------------ > > There can be little doubt that both sports and politics continue to > profit from fomenting such tribalism. A chapter in his book titled > ?How We Turned the News into Sports? is Taibbi?s takedown of this > conflation. > > Another chapter, ?How Reading the News is like Smoking,? addresses the > addictive toxicity level of such media assaults with this warning: > ?Like cigarettes, this product can have have a profound negative > impact on your health. Almost without exception it will make you > lonelier, more anxious, more distrustful of others, and more > depressed.? > > From Hannity to Maddow, Hate Inc. disrobes the theatrics that is 24/7 > news to reveal corporate media for the highly profitable infotainment > product it truly is. Both the book and the documentary examine various > common threads like tribalism, but the most common thread is money and > control. > Hate, it turns out, pays off big time. > --------------- This reminds me of the work of Neil Postman. He homed in how news isn?t really about being informed so much as believing one is being informed while actually being entertained and actually being entertained by tragedies and scandals. (He doesn?t make a case that you can?t be both informed and entertained, but that the news generally doesn?t do both.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Thu Jan 2 23:15:55 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2020 15:15:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Molecular Materialism In-Reply-To: References: <20191230013628.Horde.AiaK7dI6nc9qvB9uPMDqXe7@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <20200102151555.Horde.10y1jCOi6fIYlDOkFFfTjW2@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Brent Allsop : > No, that doesn?t seem to help. It just shows me that some people have very > different ways of thinking about qualia. There are both composite redness > and elemental redness. Composite redness is made up of lots of different > physical things all computationally bound together. > For example, the name > ?red?, your knowledge of you being a subjective observer and aware of > redness, that redness is a warm color, knowledge that strawberries of that > color are ripe, blood?.. For every single piece of information, there must > be something physical that is that particular piece of information. Here is where my new physics that I call Synergic Systems Theory comes in: As the number of components of a system increases, more of the information about the system is embodied by the relationships between components than by the components themselves. Those relationships readily change in complex systems thereby providing a plethora of microstates that can, and are, used for computation. > And > for every relationship, there must be some computational binding machinery > that is that relationship knowledge. The relationship itself holds information and therefore knowledge, no additional machinery is necessary. > Elemental redness is just one of > these elemental pieces that is computationally bound into everything else > that makes up the composite redness experience. You can tell by the way > many people talk, that they think a redness quale is everything but the > elemental redness quality. (they think red is only a property of the > strawberry). I see evidence from what you are saying here that you are > thinking of qualia in a very different way than what all the > supporters of ?Representational > Qualia Theory ? > think elemental redness is. The problem appears to be that you think I am talking about a philosophical argument regarding qualia and consciousness. Synergic systems theory is not a theory about qualia or consciousness. It is a physical theory that explains emergent properties in complex systems. It just so happens to explain qualia and consciousness as readily as it explains all other emergent phenomena like biological life, intelligence, culture, the bulk properties of matter, etc. My theory explains why water is wet, why a living cell is different than a dead cell, and why you can think about stuff. It is a far more general a theory than anything on the Canonizer, and I don't have time to figure out how to shoe-horn it in somewhere for your benefit. You seem to have no problem with the existence of composite-redness. All I am trying to convince you of is that if composite redness exists, then elemental redness is superfluous and unnecessary. Redness is simply the one property that all red things have in common. The mathematical center of a cluster in color space. I have already given you an experimental method to support or refute your idea of elemental redness. Either put your money where your mouth is and do the experiment or admit that representational qualia rests on an untested assumption. > In my experience this isn?t a good sign. In my experience, people that > think they need to write huge books to explain their ideas are just lost > down some rat holes and confusion. For example Dennett?s huge book > ?Consciousness Explained? can be summed up in one sentence. ?We don?t have > qualia, it just seems like we do.? If that really is the crux of Dennett's argument then it is indeed self-contradictory nonsense. If you seem to be experiencing something, you are in fact experiencing something, even if what you are experiencing is not real. I do not doubt that a schizophrenic experiences the imaginary voices that he talks to. > > ?Your brain is matter that is so complex that it has sufficient surplus > qubits to compute your mind.? > > How can any neuro experimentalist do anything with this? Does anything you > are saying provide any way to bridge the explanatory gap or eff the > ineffable nature of qualia? (The only real hard problem). How might any > of this be falsified or objectively observable? How might one reproduce, > engineer, or expand this kind of "compute your mind"? > I doubt Synergic Systems Theory will be of any help in effing the ineffable, but I think it does admirably address the explanatory gap as to how inanimate molecules give rise thinking feeling organisms with minds. Stuart LaForge From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jan 3 01:52:03 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 18:52:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Molecular Materialism In-Reply-To: <20200102151555.Horde.10y1jCOi6fIYlDOkFFfTjW2@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20191230013628.Horde.AiaK7dI6nc9qvB9uPMDqXe7@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200102151555.Horde.10y1jCOi6fIYlDOkFFfTjW2@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: Hi Stuart, OK, yea, that explains a lot. Thanks for going into detail on this. I completely agree that it is now up to the experimentalists, which theory of qualia is correct, now that us theoreticians are describing the falsifying experiments. The current leading consensus is functionalism , as in qualia emerge from software functioning correctly. ?Synergic Systems Theory? certainly agrees with the ?emergent? part of this theory. They predict that consciousness is ?substrate independent?. Is Synergic Systems Theory like that? Or maybe it is simply emergent from physics in a substrate dependent way (like emerging wetness depends on the right concentrations of H2O?) If it?s the former, we simply need to add an (AKA ?Synergic Systems Theory? and add some of your great insights). If it is the latter, then we create a super camp around ?emergent? and push the competing substrate dependent and independent doctrines down to supporting sub camps or something? On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 4:58 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Quoting Brent Allsop : > > > No, that doesn?t seem to help. It just shows me that some people have > very > > different ways of thinking about qualia. There are both composite > redness > > and elemental redness. Composite redness is made up of lots of different > > physical things all computationally bound together. > > For example, the name > > ?red?, your knowledge of you being a subjective observer and aware of > > redness, that redness is a warm color, knowledge that strawberries of > that > > color are ripe, blood?.. For every single piece of information, there > must > > be something physical that is that particular piece of information. > > Here is where my new physics that I call Synergic Systems Theory comes > in: As the number of components of a system increases, more of the > information about the system is embodied by the relationships between > components than by the components themselves. Those relationships > readily change in complex systems thereby providing a plethora of > microstates that can, and are, used for computation. > > > And > > for every relationship, there must be some computational binding > machinery > > that is that relationship knowledge. > > The relationship itself holds information and therefore knowledge, no > additional machinery is necessary. > > > Elemental redness is just one of > > these elemental pieces that is computationally bound into everything else > > that makes up the composite redness experience. You can tell by the way > > many people talk, that they think a redness quale is everything but the > > elemental redness quality. (they think red is only a property of the > > strawberry). I see evidence from what you are saying here that you are > > thinking of qualia in a very different way than what all the > > supporters of ?Representational > > Qualia Theory >? > > think elemental redness is. > > The problem appears to be that you think I am talking about a > philosophical argument regarding qualia and consciousness. Synergic > systems theory is not a theory about qualia or consciousness. It is a > physical theory that explains emergent properties in complex systems. > It just so happens to explain qualia and consciousness as readily as > it explains all other emergent phenomena like biological life, > intelligence, culture, the bulk properties of matter, etc. My theory > explains why water is wet, why a living cell is different than a dead > cell, and why you can think about stuff. It is a far more general a > theory than anything on the Canonizer, and I don't have time to figure > out how to shoe-horn it in somewhere for your benefit. > > You seem to have no problem with the existence of composite-redness. > All I am trying to convince you of is that if composite redness > exists, then elemental redness is superfluous and unnecessary. Redness > is simply the one property that all red things have in common. The > mathematical center of a cluster in color space. I have already given > you an experimental method to support or refute your idea of elemental > redness. Either put your money where your mouth is and do the > experiment or admit that representational qualia rests on an untested > assumption. > > > In my experience this isn?t a good sign. In my experience, people that > > think they need to write huge books to explain their ideas are just lost > > down some rat holes and confusion. For example Dennett?s huge book > > ?Consciousness Explained? can be summed up in one sentence. ?We don?t > have > > qualia, it just seems like we do.? > > If that really is the crux of Dennett's argument then it is indeed > self-contradictory nonsense. If you seem to be experiencing something, > you are in fact experiencing something, even if what you are > experiencing is not real. I do not doubt that a schizophrenic > experiences the imaginary voices that he talks to. > > > > > ?Your brain is matter that is so complex that it has sufficient surplus > > qubits to compute your mind.? > > > > How can any neuro experimentalist do anything with this? Does anything > you > > are saying provide any way to bridge the explanatory gap or eff the > > ineffable nature of qualia? (The only real hard problem). How might any > > of this be falsified or objectively observable? How might one reproduce, > > engineer, or expand this kind of "compute your mind"? > > > > I doubt Synergic Systems Theory will be of any help in effing the > ineffable, but I think it does admirably address the explanatory gap > as to how inanimate molecules give rise thinking feeling organisms > with minds. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 3 02:08:23 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 21:08:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Molecular Materialism In-Reply-To: <20200102151555.Horde.10y1jCOi6fIYlDOkFFfTjW2@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20191230013628.Horde.AiaK7dI6nc9qvB9uPMDqXe7@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200102151555.Horde.10y1jCOi6fIYlDOkFFfTjW2@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 6:59 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Here is where my new physics that I call Synergic Systems Theory comes > in: As the number of components of a system increases, more of the > information about the system is embodied by the relationships between > components than by the components themselves. Those relationships > readily change in complex systems thereby providing a plethora of > microstates that can, and are, used for computation. > > Have you published anything on this yet? I was thinking this today. Specifically, where do thoughts cover from? And idea of surplus precision or unobserved interactions could act as generators for information that influence larger parts of the network... You probably have collected various examples already if you've been thinking of it for a while? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jan 3 03:35:02 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 19:35:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Media and origin of hate Message-ID: If you buy into human psychological traits having evolved, that is being subject to selection, then hating people is (or at least was) adaptive. However, the psychological trait of hating people seems to be turned on and off by environmental conditions. Human populations have been running up against ecological limits for at least a million years. The first response is moving over the horizon to an unoccupied place. That's the reason humans settled every part of the world that could be settled. If you can't move because everywhere is settled, then killing the neighbors and taking their resources (including their young women) is adaptive if your group is under resource stress. If your group is not under resource stress, then attacking the neighbors (with whom you normally exchange women for wives) has never been adaptive, and unstressed humans don't do it. One of the big ways humans differ from our sister species (chimps) is that we are in "war mode" only when justified by selection. (Chimps are in "war mode" all the time.) Humans have highly evolved mechanisms to detect a resource crisis a-coming. When they do, one of the psychological mechanisms turned on is xenophobia. The members of the group start circulating memes that work up hate for the targeted neighbors. So function does the modern media have? 100,000 years ago a resource crisis was a direct experience. It still is for people who realize that their prospects are diminished in comparison to there parents' time. But "the media" constantly bombards us with stories about various pending resource crises. It is no wonder that there is so much hate against anyone different from your close group. Alas, this insight doesn't suggest easy solutions to me, especially at a worldwide level. If you have ideas, please respond. Keith PS Stressed humans are also attracted to irrational leaders. Irrational leaders typically take the group into war, which, win or lose, functioned (in the stone age) to improve the population to resource ratio. Thinking about the current crop of leaders in this light is scary. From avant at sollegro.com Fri Jan 3 03:31:06 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2020 19:31:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Molecular Materialism In-Reply-To: <62547457.3993272.1578020821930@mail.yahoo.com> References: <20191230013628.Horde.AiaK7dI6nc9qvB9uPMDqXe7@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200101040158.Horde.u6jAvbGjHRgPDO8c-VayBiQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20200102151555.Horde.10y1jCOi6fIYlDOkFFfTjW2@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <62547457.3993272.1578020821930@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20200102193106.Horde.Cyt5HOyhlhIqRS-V63iT6VY@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Mike Dougherty: > ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Mike Dougherty via > extropy-chat To: ExI chat list > Cc: Mike Dougherty > Sent: Thursday, January 2, 2020, 06:08:55 PM > PSTSubject: Re: [ExI] Molecular Materialism > On Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 6:59 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat > wrote: > >> Here is where my new physics that I call Synergic Systems Theory comes? >> in: As the number of components of a system increases, more of the? >> information about the system is embodied by the relationships between? >> components than by the components themselves. Those relationships? >> readily change in complex systems thereby providing a plethora of? >> microstates that can, and are, used for computation. > > Have you published anything on this yet? No, I have not. I am so far outside of academic circles that I am not sure what my option of venues to publish in were so I have been aiming for writing a popular science book which I am nowhere near finished with. > I was thinking this today.? Specifically,? where do thoughts cover > from? And idea of surplus precision or unobserved interactions could > act as generators for information that influence larger parts of the > network... > You probably have collected various examples already if you've been > thinking of it for a while? Yes, I have and also derived math that connects the examples into a coherent theory. If you have been working on this topic too, then I am open to collaboration and coauthoring. Especially if you are affiliated with a university or something, that would be a big help in getting it published. Stuart LaForge From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jan 3 05:49:30 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 23:49:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] iq misconception In-Reply-To: References: <80308614-7912-451A-8F8F-4E74FDACA1A5@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5F847E65-F3E1-4CDB-A437-4FD47811606A@gmail.com> My Dad?s a Boomer, but just barely ? still in the womb when JFK was shot. SR Ballard > On Jan 2, 2020, at 6:22 AM, Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 12:53 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> The current usage for internet sarcasm is the ?/s? at the end of one?s message. > > > OK Boomer > /s > > I still like " :) " to signal that I am smiling and so should you. > > :) >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 3 22:16:54 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 16:16:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the past decade Message-ID: http://www.mooncap.com/a-decade-worth-celebrating/ bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 3 23:21:37 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 17:21:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] new tv Message-ID: Sony Bravia. Super. I am not sure how to phrase this question. This TV is a 4k model - four times the usual resolution, and they make an 8K model. Just how much resolution can we really see on TV? How much just looking around the room? What's the resolution of life? (well, ok, death but that's not the question) At what point does an increase in resolution not result in a sharper picture to us? Eagles can tell at higher resolutions than we can.. It's probably a function of the density or retinal cells if I had to guess. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 3 23:26:54 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 17:26:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] proven nootropics Message-ID: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experience-engineering/202001/5-science-backed-nootropics-improving-mood bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 00:45:52 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 19:45:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] proven nootropics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sounds good. Have tried some of the harder core noots too (noopept, piracetam, vinpocetine) and they are decent but the side effects can be a lot. Best noot is microdosed psychedelics imo. Or just a strong dose of a psychedelic or a dissociative like ketamine which can have positive effects lasting years. Micro is less risky of course though. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 07:53:28 2020 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:53:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] iq misconception In-Reply-To: <5F847E65-F3E1-4CDB-A437-4FD47811606A@gmail.com> References: <80308614-7912-451A-8F8F-4E74FDACA1A5@gmail.com> <5F847E65-F3E1-4CDB-A437-4FD47811606A@gmail.com> Message-ID: An Artificial Gravity Inducer would revolutionize literally all human engineering, but would not, I think, kick off a technological singularity the way Artificial General Intelligence would. :) On Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 10:57 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > My Dad?s a Boomer, but just barely ? still in the womb when JFK was shot. > > SR Ballard > > On Jan 2, 2020, at 6:22 AM, Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 12:53 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> The current usage for internet sarcasm is the ?/s? at the end of one?s >> message. >> > > OK Boomer > /s > > I still like " :) " to signal that I am smiling and so should you. > > :) > >> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 10:27:02 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 18:27:02 +0800 Subject: [ExI] 50+ Reasons Our Favorite Emerging Technologies Had an Amazing 2019 Message-ID: "For most of history, technology was about atoms, the manipulation of physical stuff to extend humankind?s reach. But in the last five or six decades, atoms have partnered with bits, the elemental ?particles? of the digital world as we know it today. As computing has advanced at the accelerating pace described by Moore?s Law, technological progress has become increasingly digitized. SpaceX lands and reuses rockets and self-driving cars do away with drivers thanks to automation, sensors, and software. Businesses find and hire talent from anywhere in the world, and for better and worse, a notable fraction of the world learns and socializes online. From the sequencing of DNA to artificial intelligence and from 3D printing to robotics, more and more new technologies are moving at a digital pace and quickly emerging to reshape the world around us. In 2019, stories charting the advances of some of these digital technologies consistently made headlines. Below is, what is at best, an incomplete list of some of the big stories that caught our eye this year. With so much happening, it?s likely we?ve missed some notable headlines and advances?as well as some of your personal favorites. In either instance, share your thoughts and candidates for the biggest stories and breakthroughs on Facebook and Twitter. With that said, let?s dive straight into the year..." https://singularityhub.com/2019/12/31/50-reasons-our-favorite-emerging-technologies-had-an-amazing-2019/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 10:30:14 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 18:30:14 +0800 Subject: [ExI] How a Machine That Can Make Anything Would Change Everything Message-ID: "As Burke puts it, ?This will destroy the current social, economic, and political system, because it will become pointless?every institution, every value system, every aspect of our lives have been governed by scarcity: the problem of distributing a finite amount of stuff. There will be no need for any of the social institutions.? https://singularityhub.com/2019/12/29/how-a-machine-that-can-make-anything-would-change-everything/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 11:49:40 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 19:49:40 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Sf short film about cryonics- "New" Message-ID: An excellent short film about a couple who are revived in the future, after having undergone cryonic suspension. It shows their relationship evolve over time. A bittersweet story... http://www.recursor.tv/new/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 13:14:12 2020 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 14:14:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] iq misconception In-Reply-To: References: <80308614-7912-451A-8F8F-4E74FDACA1A5@gmail.com> <5F847E65-F3E1-4CDB-A437-4FD47811606A@gmail.com> Message-ID: Den l?r 4 jan. 2020 08:56Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> skrev: > An Artificial Gravity Inducer would revolutionize literally all human > engineering, but would not, I think, kick off a technological singularity > the way Artificial General Intelligence would. > It would likely be the result of a technological singularity though. /Henrik > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 4 13:46:27 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 13:46:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4eac1251-730c-5ae9-7d54-f1f7e0266964@zaiboc.net> > > From: > William Flynn Wallace > Date: > 31/12/2019, 19:54 > > To: > ExI chat list > > > Just what is it that anyone here sees as good reasons to fight a major > war? Yes, you can come up with thousands of 'if'scenarios. I want > reasons that exist right now.? bill w The conflict between the two main world-views characterised by (mainly, but not exclusively, and not strictly) these words: Progressive, libertarian (as in "Social Libertarian" rather than the economic type. (I know that's a problematic word for americans)), pro-rationality, anti-superstition, curious, optimistic, tolerant, supportive of individual freedom of choice, happy. vs. Conservative, controlling, pro-superstition, anti-rationality, unquestioning, pessimistic, intolerant, dismissive of individual freedom of choice, angry. I can't really see any compromise or common ground between these two general world-views, so they are, and probably always will be, at war. What form the war takes, though, is something that changes all the time. I don't think it will lead to a shooting war. At least not very often. Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 14:21:45 2020 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 15:21:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties In-Reply-To: <4eac1251-730c-5ae9-7d54-f1f7e0266964@zaiboc.net> References: <4eac1251-730c-5ae9-7d54-f1f7e0266964@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: 10 or 20 years ago, I would have agreed with this. Now, it seems to me that the camps are not defined as clearly. In particular, it is the "progressives" who, more and more, are "intolerant, dismissive of individual freedom of choice, angry." Regardless of labels, yes, those will always be at war against those who are "tolerant, supportive of individual freedom of choice, happy." As you say, let's hope this war won't take a very nasty form soon, but I'm afraid the conditions are there. On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 2:47 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > From: > William Flynn Wallace > > Date: > 31/12/2019, 19:54 > > To: > ExI chat list > > Just what is it that anyone here sees as good reasons to fight a major > war? Yes, you can come up with thousands of 'if'scenarios. I want reasons > that exist right now. bill w > > > The conflict between the two main world-views characterised by (mainly, > but not exclusively, and not strictly) these words: > > Progressive, libertarian (as in "Social Libertarian" rather than the > economic type. (I know that's a problematic word for americans)), > pro-rationality, anti-superstition, curious, optimistic, tolerant, > supportive of individual freedom of choice, happy. > > vs. > > Conservative, controlling, pro-superstition, anti-rationality, > unquestioning, pessimistic, intolerant, dismissive of individual freedom of > choice, angry. > > > I can't really see any compromise or common ground between these two > general world-views, so they are, and probably always will be, at war. What > form the war takes, though, is something that changes all the time. I don't > think it will lead to a shooting war. At least not very often. > > Ben Zaiboc > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 4 15:02:19 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 15:02:19 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55a30b6f-021b-698d-ff2c-e0b70b109bcb@zaiboc.net> Brent Allsop wrote: > > Ben, let me ask you this.? What do you think your knowledge of a strawberry is composed of? The same thing as my knowledge of anything is composed of. The same thing my, or anyone else's, experience (and any other mental phenomena you care to mention) of anything is composed of: Patterns of neural activation in my brain. What are they composed of? An enormous number of spike-trains (sets of action potentials in a bewildering array of combinations) in an enormous number of axons, interacting in various ways (neural circuits involving lots of feedback loops, reinforcement, cancellation, etc.) via summation functions in neural hillocks and dynamic connections mediated by synapses, and modified by various enzymes in synaptic gaps and the properties of synaptic membranes. Plus a few other things not worth mentioning here. (this is as far as we know to date (as far as I know)). And what are all those things composed of? Probably the best answer to that, if anyone really wants to know, is to study biology, and especially neurology, to at least degree-level. Probably not the kind of answer you're looking for, but expecting simple answers to complex questions is rarely going to make anyone happy (except perhaps those of a religious disposition), and certainly isn't going to lead to any useful knowledge. One thing that is quite clear to me, though, is that no amino acid possesses an intrinsic 'quality' that has nothing to do with its chemical composition, but relates directly to mental phenomena like the perception of a colour. In fact, that makes no sense whatsoever. Glutamate in particular, is one of the most common amino acids in our bodies, is present in most proteins, and its use in the brain as a neurotransmitter is of no real significance. Anything else would be just as good, as long as there were corresponding receptors for it. If glutamate really did possess 'elemental red' (pretending for a minute that that means something), why would it be present in our fingernails? Our hair? and a hundred other places in our bodies apart from the brain? Someone else has remarked that its role in the brain as a neurotransmitter could be taken by glycine instead, with the relevant receptors changed to glycine receptors, with no change in any mental phenomena at all. I'd go further than that, and say it could just as well be exchanged for, say, sodium iodide, with NaI receptors, and the required metabolic pathways for its synthesis and breakdown, and it would make /absolutely no difference whatever/. If this exchange was made in your brain, you would have no way of telling, apart from doing a chemical analysis of your brain tissue. Any other substance would do as well, as long as it was biologically plausible. It certainly would not affect your experience of the colour red, or anything else. You could even replace all the glutamate circuits with a dozen different neurotransmitter/receptor pairs, anywhere you like in the brain. It would make things unnecessarily complicated, biochemically (as if the brain wasn't complicated enough!), but wouldn't make any subjective difference. All the neural circuits would work exactly the same as before. Which brings me back to my statement, "the concept of 'elemental red' is sheer nonsense". Experiencing a colour is very far from 'elemental', it's a complex process involving thousands of neural events. Apart from anything else, just think of some of the many different things that "Experiencing a colour" can mean! How many different varieties of Red can you picture or apprehend? See? Remember? Imagine? What do they have in common? Anything? Perhaps a category label, very abstract, that we can articulate as the word "red". I say 'perhaps', because one man's red can be another man's orange (or purple). And as far as strawberries are concerned, what if my 'knowledge of a strawberry' doesn't even consider the colour? Having seen yellow and green strawberries, I might conclude that their colour is irrelevant. Do our brains possess an amino acid that is 'elemental strawberry'? I'm confident that they don't. Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 15:15:23 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 10:15:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? Message-ID: You don't have to invoke Quantum Mechanics or Relativity to figure out there are some funny things about time. In our world we, perhaps naively, believe the past exists and is knowable but the future doesn't exist in the same concrete way and we can only speculate what it will be like, but that may not be true everywhere. Conway's Game of Life has just a few very simple rules that are 100% deterministic, so given the current state it's easy to figure out what the next generation will be, and the generation after that and so on for as far into the future as you'd like, however it is not reversible. Given the present state there is no way to know what the previous state was, you can rule out some states but because more than one state could have produced the present one there is no way to know which one actually did. We also know that although ridiculously simple it's more than just a toy universe because the fundamental laws of physics in Conway's universe allow for the construction of a Universal Turing Machine; so at least in theory a AI could exist that lived entirely in Conways world and operated according to his simplified physics. To such a being the future would be certain and hold no mystery but the past could only be speculated about. To such a being would the arrow of time point in the opposite direction from the way we see it? I can't see why it wouldn't. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 15:25:13 2020 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 16:25:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Interesting thoughts. One thing: That Conway's Life is deterministic does NOT mean that the future holds no mystery, because Life is computationally irreducible. There are no shortcuts that permit prediction the future without doing the computations, or in other words, there's no way to predict what will happen tomorrow in less than one day. In Life, the fastest way to predict the future is waiting for the future to happen. On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 4:17 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > You don't have to invoke Quantum Mechanics or Relativity to figure out > there are some funny things about time. In our world we, perhaps naively, > believe the past exists and is knowable but the future doesn't exist in the > same concrete way and we can only speculate what it will be like, but that > may not be true everywhere. Conway's Game of Life has just a few very > simple rules that are 100% deterministic, so given the current state it's > easy to figure out what the next generation will be, and the generation > after that and so on for as far into the future as you'd like, however it > is not reversible. Given the present state there is no way to know what the > previous state was, you can rule out some states but because more than one > state could have produced the present one there is no way to know which one > actually did. > > We also know that although ridiculously simple it's more than just a toy > universe because the fundamental laws of physics in Conway's universe allow > for the construction of a Universal Turing Machine; so at least in theory a > AI could exist that lived entirely in Conways world and operated according > to his simplified physics. To such a being the future would be certain and > hold no mystery but the past could only be speculated about. To such a > being would the arrow of time point in the opposite direction from the way > we see it? I can't see why it wouldn't. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 15:39:38 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 10:39:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Sf short film about cryonics- "New" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 6:52 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *> An excellent short film about a couple who are revived in the future, > after having undergone cryonic suspension. It shows their relationship > evolve over time. A bittersweet story...* > > http://www.recursor.tv/new/ > Thanks for the recommendation I enjoyed that. I'm not sure I'd go stir crazy like the hero did, I can usually find ways to amuse myself. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 15:48:49 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 10:48:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 10:35 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *>Interesting thoughts.* > > *One thing: That Conway's Life is deterministic does NOT mean that the > future holds no mystery, because Life is computationally irreducible. There > are no shortcuts that permit prediction the future without doing the > computations, or in other words, there's no way to predict what will happen > tomorrow in less than one day. In Life, the fastest way to predict the > future is waiting for the future to happen. * > Good point. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbard at wisc.edu Sat Jan 4 16:01:42 2020 From: hibbard at wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 16:01:42 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties Message-ID: > Progressive, libertarian (as in "Social Libertarian" rather than the > economic type. (I know that's a problematic word for americans)), > pro-rationality, anti-superstition, curious, optimistic, tolerant, > supportive of individual freedom of choice, happy. > > vs. > > Conservative, controlling, pro-superstition, anti-rationality, > unquestioning, pessimistic, intolerant, dismissive of individual freedom > of choice, angry. "If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Compassion is the root of the progressive desire to make society more equitable and just. But so often that leads to a lack of compassion towards people who are seen as barriers to equity and justice. As in Solzhenitsyn's Russia, China, etc. From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 4 16:36:58 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 16:36:58 +0000 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 196, Issue 4 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7d50b8eb-7a6f-40dd-309e-4dd619ec7b38@zaiboc.net> On 04/01/2020 15:02, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > John Grigg > Date: > 04/01/2020, 10:30 > > To: > ExI chat list > > > "As Burke puts it, ?This will destroy the current social, economic, > and political system, because it will become pointless?every > institution, every value system, every aspect of our lives have been > governed by scarcity: the problem of distributing a finite amount of > stuff. There will be no need for any of the social institutions.? ?This will destroy the current ... economic ... system" "soon enough you?ll be able to *buy* one that can fit on a desk" LOL. Even the person who is going on about how disruptive this could be, doesn't seem to realise how disruptive it could be. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 16:50:03 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 10:50:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In every single government on earth, it seems the style if to get in office and stay there, regardless of what happens to the economy or anything else. The leaders should resign if their society is going downhill and give someone else a chance. Our leaders are no better. Public opinion of Congress is at an all-time low. Do they care. No. As Dogbert said to Dilbert, when Dilbert asked "Do you want my opinion?" "What are the odds of that?" bill w On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 10:03 AM Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Progressive, libertarian (as in "Social Libertarian" rather than the > > economic type. (I know that's a problematic word for americans)), > > pro-rationality, anti-superstition, curious, optimistic, tolerant, > > supportive of individual freedom of choice, happy. > > > > vs. > > > > Conservative, controlling, pro-superstition, anti-rationality, > > unquestioning, pessimistic, intolerant, dismissive of individual freedom > > of choice, angry. > > "If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere > insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to > separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line > dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. > And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" > - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn > > Compassion is the root of the progressive desire to > make society more equitable and just. But so often > that leads to a lack of compassion towards people > who are seen as barriers to equity and justice. As > in Solzhenitsyn's Russia, China, etc. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 4 16:58:00 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 08:58:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] 50+ Reasons Our Favorite Emerging Technologies Had an Amazing 2019 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00dd01d5c320$1fa31950$5ee94bf0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Grigg via extropy-chat >?SpaceX lands and reuses rockets ? John I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a guy who has been my friend since we were in second grade together, we went all the way thru and even went to engineering school together. He worked on the shuttle when it came along in 1979 (he left college to do that) for several years, then has been contracting at the Cape in various capacities on and off since then. He is a business owner and knows plenty about what goes on. I was delighted by his comments. When he worked for NASA in the 80s, he hated it, didn?t like the way things went, eventually left that work and did his own thing for less money. Yesterday he was telling me how the Rocket Ranch has been transformed by SpaceX and the other civilian companies launching stuff. He tells me it is such a joy to work with the new companies, for so many reasons. For starters, they are incentivized to save money rather than to waste money. They have no reason to spread the work to all 50 states in order to get congressional support, so most of the stuff is now made locally, which makes it so much easier and more practical to keep your eye on things. The efficiency is 10 times greater, as local businesses have synergy, share talent, work as a team while they compete with each other. My friend has lived across the river from the Cape his whole life. He tells me there is nothing cooler, nothing he has ever seen cooler than watching two rockets come down feet first and land in unison. He fully understands why the Chinese can launch stuff so much cheaper: the old way was intentionally inefficient. Now, when someone is paying the bill, he demands efficiency and he damn-well gets efficiency. Cool part: the same guy, Elon Musk, has changed the complexion of both our neighborhoods, revitalized both areas. Musk built an electric car company up the street from me and is doing much of the launching at the Rocket Ranch in Florida. I could hug that man (in a totally hetero clumsy sideways shoulder hug of course.) May we be carried into a glorious future by shrewd businessmen rather than wasteful politicians. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 4 17:08:59 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 09:08:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? >?You don't have to invoke Quantum Mechanics or Relativity to figure out there are some funny things about time. In our world we, perhaps naively, believe the past ? To such a being the future would be certain and hold no mystery but the past could only be speculated about. To such a being would the arrow of time point in the opposite direction from the way we see it? I can't see why it wouldn't. John K Clark I think about the people living in Capernicus? time, and Galileo?s experience. They knew the equations indicated the sun was the center of the universe which doesn?t bother us at all now, even as we learn that the sun orbits the center of the galaxy and the universe has no center, etc. Think about those who were being told that regardless of Galileo?s stupid equations, the earth is the center of the universe and disregard that heretical bastard, etc. But they could work the equations, and those equations were telling them something that must have been very uncomfortable. Now we have QM in its current form is telling us stuff we just can?t really get our heads around: we might all be simulations. The equations vaguely suggest it somehow, ja? We are told to shut up and calculate, which most of us do, but the same notion surely was told to the students in the long time agos: shut up and use these heretical Galilean equations to get the right answers but when you finish, confess, pray and give money to the church, while keeping in mind the earth is the center of everything. I don?t want to accept that we are all just sims, self-aware avatars, but I can?t escape the feeling that QM kinda suggests it in a way. On the other hand? if I am a sim, I can be run over and over again, cool. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 18:35:26 2020 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 19:35:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Terry Pratchett, one of my favourite authors all time, hypothesed that you walk through life backwards since you can see the past but not the future. /Henrik Den l?r 4 jan. 2020 16:18John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> skrev: > You don't have to invoke Quantum Mechanics or Relativity to figure out > there are some funny things about time. In our world we, perhaps naively, > believe the past exists and is knowable but the future doesn't exist in the > same concrete way and we can only speculate what it will be like, but that > may not be true everywhere. Conway's Game of Life has just a few very > simple rules that are 100% deterministic, so given the current state it's > easy to figure out what the next generation will be, and the generation > after that and so on for as far into the future as you'd like, however it > is not reversible. Given the present state there is no way to know what the > previous state was, you can rule out some states but because more than one > state could have produced the present one there is no way to know which one > actually did. > > We also know that although ridiculously simple it's more than just a toy > universe because the fundamental laws of physics in Conway's universe allow > for the construction of a Universal Turing Machine; so at least in theory a > AI could exist that lived entirely in Conways world and operated according > to his simplified physics. To such a being the future would be certain and > hold no mystery but the past could only be speculated about. To such a > being would the arrow of time point in the opposite direction from the way > we see it? I can't see why it wouldn't. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 18:44:55 2020 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 19:44:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: If we indeed are the results of simulation, then I agree, it has potential for serious cool. Quantum tunneling = wall-hack or just stuttering in the simulation? Hawkins radiation as a result of sloppy coding...... Also we have a duty? of climbing our strings and bring "night of the broken dolls" to the creator as a thank you for the wonderful experience. /Henrik Den l?r 4 jan. 2020 18:11spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> skrev: > > I don?t want to accept that we are all just sims, self-aware avatars, but > I can?t escape the feeling that QM kinda suggests it in a way. > > > > On the other hand? if I am a sim, I can be run over and over again, cool. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 19:02:08 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 12:02:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sf short film about cryonics- "New" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Wait, what? ?Everyone we know is Dead.?? ?You just don?t get it!?? ?I?m going stir crazy.?? "I don't have any real friends?" Didn?t they forget the ?still?, as in ?Everyone we know is still dead?? ?Museums? With original pianos?? There will be approaching atomic level history stored. We?ll be able to literally recreate and live every single point and location in history, exactly as it was, any time we want. We?ll be running simulations to see how things would have turned out different, had we made different decisions and so on and so on. There will be hundreds, if not thousands of people, who literally would not exist if it were not for the life we (and all our ancestors) lived. This will especially be true if you had 3 children, as they did, who had 3 children, who had 3 children?.. They will all be worshipping the very few of us in comparison, (paying us back, with interest) as they welcome us, back into the still exponentially growing world of the living filling the galaxy. And of course, the top thing on the list of priorities, before they go to Satterun and stuff like that will be fixing things like the ?still dead? loved ones. We won?t be going ?stir crazy.? Oh, and we?ll only be resurrected into that kind of primitive body we died with for continuity reasons. We?ll soon after that be uploaded. Once uploaded, we won?t be in that primitive body, trapped inside that restaurant bottle required to protect that primitive body from space, as we view the rings of Saturn. We?ll have bodies specifically designed to thrive and travel in space, directly experiencing those rings, and everything else. In other words, we won?t need space suits?. Trying to go to space before we achieve that is just bass ackwards. In case you haven?t read this yet, I think it?s going to be much more like I?ve described in this ?1229 years after Titanic ? fan fiction. On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 8:48 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 6:52 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >> *> An excellent short film about a couple who are revived in the future, >> after having undergone cryonic suspension. It shows their relationship >> evolve over time. A bittersweet story...* >> >> http://www.recursor.tv/new/ >> > > Thanks for the recommendation I enjoyed that. I'm not sure I'd go stir > crazy like the hero did, I can usually find ways to amuse myself. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 19:30:50 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 13:30:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: spike wrote the universe has no center, Ignorant, idle, and possibly stupid question: why not? When the Big Bang occurred, didn't everything go out from there? Has too much time passed such that we cannot reverse the motions of the galaxies and find out where that is? bill w On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 11:10 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *John Clark via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's > Game of Life? > > > > >?You don't have to invoke Quantum Mechanics or Relativity to figure out > there are some funny things about time. In our world we, perhaps naively, > believe the past ? To such a being the future would be certain and hold no > mystery but the past could only be speculated about. To such a being would > the arrow of time point in the opposite direction from the way we see it? I > can't see why it wouldn't. John K Clark > > > > > > I think about the people living in Capernicus? time, and Galileo?s > experience. They knew the equations indicated the sun was the center of > the universe which doesn?t bother us at all now, even as we learn that the > sun orbits the center of the galaxy and the universe has no center, etc. > Think about those who were being told that regardless of Galileo?s stupid > equations, the earth is the center of the universe and disregard that > heretical bastard, etc. But they could work the equations, and those > equations were telling them something that must have been very > uncomfortable. > > > > Now we have QM in its current form is telling us stuff we just can?t > really get our heads around: we might all be simulations. The equations > vaguely suggest it somehow, ja? We are told to shut up and calculate, > which most of us do, but the same notion surely was told to the students in > the long time agos: shut up and use these heretical Galilean equations to > get the right answers but when you finish, confess, pray and give money to > the church, while keeping in mind the earth is the center of everything. > > > > I don?t want to accept that we are all just sims, self-aware avatars, but > I can?t escape the feeling that QM kinda suggests it in a way. > > > > On the other hand? if I am a sim, I can be run over and over again, cool. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 20:41:01 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 20:41:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 4 Jan 2020 at 19:33, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > spike wrote the universe has no center, > > Ignorant, idle, and possibly stupid question: why not? When the Big Bang occurred, didn't everything go out from there? Has too much time passed such that we cannot reverse the motions of the galaxies and find out where that is? > Short answer - If there is a centre of the universe then to find it you first have to find the edges of the universe and then the centre would be a point where the distances to the edges would be maximized. But we can only see a tiny part of the universe and are unable to see the edges of the universe so we would never be able to calculate the centre. Current theory is that the universe is probably infinite - no edges. The Big Bang wasn't like an explosion. It was an expansion that happened everywhere at once. Search on 'universe has no center' for many more detailed discussions. e.g. BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 21:14:03 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 16:14:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 2:33 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Ignorant, idle, and possibly stupid question: why not? When the Big > Bang occurred, didn't everything go out from there? Has too much time > passed such that we cannot reverse the motions of the galaxies and find out > where that is? > The Big Bang wasn't like a modern day explosion where matter expanded into empty space, the Big Bang created empty space which expanded into nothing. So the Big Bang happened where I am and where you are and where everybody is, there is no unique place where the Big Bang happened. But there is a unique time when it happened, 13.8 billion years ago. In addition to that I can think of 4 other differences between space and time: 1) None of the 3 spatial dimensions has a preferred direction but the time dimension does, from the past to the future. The Second Law of Thermodynamics can explain part of the reason for that. Entropy will be higher tomorrow than today because there are just more ways to be disorganized than organized so if things are going to be different tomorrow then things will almost certainly be more disorganized tomorrow (have a larger Entropy) than today. However by that exact same line of reasoning you'd have to falsely conclude that yesterday the Entropy was lower than today too, UNLESS you take into account initial conditions. For reasons that nobody understands in the first instant of the Big Bang the universe must have been in a very low Entropy state and it's been increasing ever since. In fact I think the Big Bang should have been predicted in the mid 19th century as soon as the laws of thermodynamics became clear. 2) I can imagine a consciousness existing in a time without a place but not in a place without time. 3) For reasons nobody understands there are 3 spatial dimensions but only one time dimension. 4) A straight line path on a flat surface or a geodesic on a curved surface is always the shortest distance between 2 points in space, but a straight line in flat Minkowski space or a geodesic in curved spacetime will always be the longest proper time distance, that is to say a clock following that path will show the longest time duration, any other path will show a shorter elapsed time. A straight line or geodesic is also the path taken by a body that is not being accelerated by a force, and in General Relativity gravity is not considered a force. That's why you've got to use non-Euclidean geometry in General Relativity, a minus sign for the time dimension creeps into Pythagoras's Theorem for calculating the distance s in Spacetime and it becomes s^2= x^2 +y^2 +z^2 - ct^2 where c is the speed of light. Or to put it another way, you want the spacetime distance to be proportional to the difficulty of making a trip, and the larger the spacial distance is the harder it is to make a trip, but the larger amount of time you have to make a trip the easier it is. So when figuring the spacetime distance the spacial dimensions have a positive sign but the time dimension has a negative sign. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 21:39:26 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 15:39:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Well thanks so much for blowing away my cosmic religion. Everybody said that was a Big Bang, and now they changed their minds (or more likely, in a fit of pique, decided that the way to clean house for newer and different theories was to just decide that everyone in the past was a big dope). Just can't get the data to fit, I suppose. Why can't they just do what people in economics and psychology do - make up your own. You know this makes monkeys out of a lot of intelligent people who we now know knew no more about it than your mophead. But thanks to John, I finally have an appropriate name for my house: Larger Entropy (with more than one Fibber McGee's closets as special features -old radio show - in the intro Fibber refers to 'my big old fat wife..' Imagine that nowadays). If entropy continues to get larger there may be a day when not even Martha can organize a two car funeral. bill w On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 3:16 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 2:33 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Ignorant, idle, and possibly stupid question: why not? When the Big >> Bang occurred, didn't everything go out from there? Has too much time >> passed such that we cannot reverse the motions of the galaxies and find out >> where that is? >> > > The Big Bang wasn't like a modern day explosion where matter expanded into > empty space, the Big Bang created empty space which expanded into nothing. > So the Big Bang happened where I am and where you are and where everybody > is, there is no unique place where the Big Bang happened. But there is a > unique time when it happened, 13.8 billion years ago. > > In addition to that I can think of 4 other differences between space and > time: > > 1) None of the 3 spatial dimensions has a preferred direction but the time > dimension does, from the past to the future. The Second Law of > Thermodynamics can explain part of the reason for that. Entropy will be > higher tomorrow than today because there are just more ways to be > disorganized than organized so if things are going to be different tomorrow > then things will almost certainly be more disorganized tomorrow (have a > larger Entropy) than today. However by that exact same line of reasoning > you'd have to falsely conclude that yesterday the Entropy was lower than > today too, UNLESS you take into account initial conditions. For reasons > that nobody understands in the first instant of the Big Bang the universe > must have been in a very low Entropy state and it's been increasing ever > since. In fact I think the Big Bang should have been predicted in the mid > 19th century as soon as the laws of thermodynamics became clear. > > 2) I can imagine a consciousness existing in a time without a place but > not in a place without time. > > 3) For reasons nobody understands there are 3 spatial dimensions but only > one time dimension. > > 4) A straight line path on a flat surface or a geodesic on a curved > surface is always the shortest distance between 2 points in space, but a > straight line in flat Minkowski space or a geodesic in curved spacetime > will always be the longest proper time distance, that is to say a clock > following that path will show the longest time duration, any other path > will show a shorter elapsed time. A straight line or geodesic is also the > path taken by a body that is not being accelerated by a force, and in > General Relativity gravity is not considered a force. That's why you've got > to use non-Euclidean geometry in General Relativity, a minus sign for the > time dimension creeps into Pythagoras's Theorem for calculating the > distance s in Spacetime and it becomes s^2= x^2 +y^2 +z^2 - ct^2 where c is > the speed of light. > > Or to put it another way, you want the spacetime distance to be > proportional to the difficulty of making a trip, and the larger the spacial > distance is the harder it is to make a trip, but the larger amount of time > you have to make a trip the easier it is. So when figuring the spacetime > distance the spacial dimensions have a positive sign but the time dimension > has a negative sign. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 4 22:05:22 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 14:05:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009301d5c34b$0fa0fd30$2ee2f790$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? spike wrote the universe has no center, Ignorant, idle, and possibly stupid question: why not? When the Big Bang occurred, didn't everything go out from there? Has too much time passed such that we cannot reverse the motions of the galaxies and find out where that is? bill w Eh, not exactly. The inflationary model of the universe explains that any point in the universe is as valid a center as any other. We cannot point our telescopes one way and see fewer galaxies than we do in the opposite direction. Anywhere you go in the universe, the same observation: the density is uniform in all directions. By current cosmology, there is no center to the universe. Granted that concept is hard to wrap one?s head around. We tend to think of it as a big firecracker. But there is always a speck of something on the outside of a firecracker that moves the most, and it can look back and see most of the rest of the explosion. The firecracker analogy breaks down however if one recognizes that everything started at exactly the same point, whereas the firecracker bits do not. It?s weird, but that?s what the equations are telling us. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Jan 5 02:28:09 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 19:28:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <55a30b6f-021b-698d-ff2c-e0b70b109bcb@zaiboc.net> References: <55a30b6f-021b-698d-ff2c-e0b70b109bcb@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Ben, OK, thanks for that. That helps me understand your thinking. Let me further clarify what I am asking. Let's say you are looking at a strawberry. We record the signals coming from the retina, through the optic nerve, of that strawberry. Now we surgically remove your eyes, put you on a room with no light, and send the identical recorded signal down the optic nerve. Except for one pixel, on the surface of the strawberry difference. This one pixel is now changing from red to green, in this signal. As illustrated in this video: https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/ What is it, in your brain, that is this one pixel changing from red to green? It's also important to distinguish between compsite qualitative experiences being different from elemental qualities from which composite experiences are composed. When we experience red, there are lots of other physical memories and things computationally bound to that elemental redness, just as you pointed out. When many people think of Qualia, they think of everything but the elemental redness quality. They think that is a property of the strawberry. But of course, in this case, there is no strawberry or light, falsifying that belief. So ignoring all the other physical knowledge that comes to mind, when that one pixel of awareness changes from red to green, what physical thing is it that changes, for only the elemental part of that one pixel? Also, even if this physical change in your pixel of awareness was a single neuron switching between firing with glutamate and glycene, you would not be aware of all the other physical redness in the world because it is not computationally bound to the composit experience that is your consciousness. On Sat, Jan 4, 2020, 8:03 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Brent Allsop wrote: > > > > Ben, let me ask you this. What do you think your knowledge of a > strawberry is composed of? > > > The same thing as my knowledge of anything is composed of. The same thing > my, or anyone else's, experience (and any other mental phenomena you care > to mention) of anything is composed of: > > Patterns of neural activation in my brain. > > What are they composed of? > > An enormous number of spike-trains (sets of action potentials in a > bewildering array of combinations) in an enormous number of axons, > interacting in various ways (neural circuits involving lots of feedback > loops, reinforcement, cancellation, etc.) via summation functions in neural > hillocks and dynamic connections mediated by synapses, and modified by > various enzymes in synaptic gaps and the properties of synaptic membranes. > > Plus a few other things not worth mentioning here. > (this is as far as we know to date (as far as I know)). > > And what are all those things composed of? > > Probably the best answer to that, if anyone really wants to know, is to > study biology, and especially neurology, to at least degree-level. > > Probably not the kind of answer you're looking for, but expecting simple > answers to complex questions is rarely going to make anyone happy (except > perhaps those of a religious disposition), and certainly isn't going to > lead to any useful knowledge. > > One thing that is quite clear to me, though, is that no amino acid > possesses an intrinsic 'quality' that has nothing to do with its chemical > composition, but relates directly to mental phenomena like the perception > of a colour. In fact, that makes no sense whatsoever. Glutamate in > particular, is one of the most common amino acids in our bodies, is present > in most proteins, and its use in the brain as a neurotransmitter is of no > real significance. Anything else would be just as good, as long as there > were corresponding receptors for it. > > If glutamate really did possess 'elemental red' (pretending for a minute > that that means something), why would it be present in our fingernails? Our > hair? and a hundred other places in our bodies apart from the brain? > > Someone else has remarked that its role in the brain as a neurotransmitter > could be taken by glycine instead, with the relevant receptors changed to > glycine receptors, with no change in any mental phenomena at all. I'd go > further than that, and say it could just as well be exchanged for, say, > sodium iodide, with NaI receptors, and the required metabolic pathways for > its synthesis and breakdown, and it would make *absolutely no difference > whatever*. If this exchange was made in your brain, you would have no way > of telling, apart from doing a chemical analysis of your brain tissue. Any > other substance would do as well, as long as it was biologically plausible. > It certainly would not affect your experience of the colour red, or > anything else. > > You could even replace all the glutamate circuits with a dozen different > neurotransmitter/receptor pairs, anywhere you like in the brain. It would > make things unnecessarily complicated, biochemically (as if the brain > wasn't complicated enough!), but wouldn't make any subjective difference. > All the neural circuits would work exactly the same as before. > > Which brings me back to my statement, "the concept of 'elemental red' is > sheer nonsense". Experiencing a colour is very far from 'elemental', it's a > complex process involving thousands of neural events. Apart from anything > else, just think of some of the many different things that "Experiencing a > colour" can mean! How many different varieties of Red can you picture or > apprehend? See? Remember? Imagine? What do they have in common? Anything? > Perhaps a category label, very abstract, that we can articulate as the word > "red". I say 'perhaps', because one man's red can be another man's orange > (or purple). > > And as far as strawberries are concerned, what if my 'knowledge of a > strawberry' doesn't even consider the colour? Having seen yellow and green > strawberries, I might conclude that their colour is irrelevant. Do our > brains possess an amino acid that is 'elemental strawberry'? > > I'm confident that they don't. > > Ben Zaiboc > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 5 14:44:44 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 06:44:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] smarter monkeys Message-ID: <003a01d5c3d6$abee0c60$03ca2520$@rainier66.com> I have wondered about this for a long time: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/scientists-put-a-human-intelligence-gene-into-a-monkey-other-scientists-are We can do genetic manipulation. Looks to me like they could poke around and figure out what causes humans to have these enormous heads. Can you imagine what we must look like to apes? Probably like those bulbous-head creatures from the original Star Trek pilot. We could set up a company in China, breed up some genetically-modified monkeys with huge heads, teach them to write code or Hollyweird movie scripts for bananas, oh we could make a buttload of money. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 5 15:09:37 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 07:09:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005b01d5c3da$260423b0$720c6b10$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? >?Well thanks so much for blowing away my cosmic religion. Everybody said that was a Big Bang, and now they changed their minds (or more likely, in a fit of pique, decided that the way to clean house for newer and different theories was to just decide that everyone in the past was a big dope). Just can't get the data to fit, I suppose. Why can't they just do what people in economics and psychology do - make up your own? Bill, it is still a big bang. That didn?t actually change: everything started from a point, the same point, which is why there is no center now, and ja that model has a kind of ugliness, but plenty of modern physics notions are that way. To me it keeps pointing toward the notion that it is a mathematical abstraction rather than a physical thing, which keeps telling me this is all a big simulation. One can scarcely get any uglier than half-dead cats and a universe that splits every time a coin is tossed or an atom decays. The famous double-slit experiment is simultaneously the height of beauty and the depth of ugly. We?re sims. >? But thanks to John, I finally have an appropriate name for my house: Larger Entropy? Might I suggest Ever-larger Entropy, with a nod to the second law of thermodynamics. >? (with more than one Fibber McGee's closets as special features -old radio show - in the intro Fibber refers to 'my big old fat wife..' Imagine that nowadays)? Much of the humor from the olden days was flaming-hot politically incorrect. The entertainment industry is having a hell of a time figuring out how to do comedy without offending anyone. Damned if I would want to be in that biz. Anything you say or do will somehow be offensive to some. Consider a recent Eddie Murphy interview in which he was talking about the 1980s. Oh that guy made me laugh, he made the 80s such fun. Now he is walking on eggshells even doing kinda harmless fun stuff like Mister Robinson?s Neighborhood: https://www.thewrap.com/snl-eddie-murphy-brings-back-mr-robinsons-neighborhood-to-explain-gentrification-video/ That guy has talent. >?If entropy continues to get larger? Do let me assure you sir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics >?there may be a day when not even Martha can organize a two car funeral. bill w Bill, Mrs. McGee was Mollie. But it is still a funny line, back from the days when comedy couples could have the wife as the dummy and the husband as the smart one. I think the last example of that was Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. After that, the husband has to be the dummy, in every case. Otherwise we play into stereotypes, which is the new scarlet letter in comedy. In the olden days it was adultery which was the big favorite sin. Now, it?s stereotyping. Big scarlet letter S. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Sun Jan 5 15:38:46 2020 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 16:38:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] smarter monkeys In-Reply-To: <003a01d5c3d6$abee0c60$03ca2520$@rainier66.com> References: <003a01d5c3d6$abee0c60$03ca2520$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: And get sued by Hollywood. That business model have been explored already and it will make it difficult to recruit investors. But if you accept to work for bananas, pices of dead animals and some general beatings, I might have a gang of investors from the middle of Africa...... :-P /Henrik Den s?n 5 jan. 2020 15:48spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> skrev: > > > > > I have wondered about this for a long time: > > > > > https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/scientists-put-a-human-intelligence-gene-into-a-monkey-other-scientists-are > > > > We can do genetic manipulation. Looks to me like they could poke around > and figure out what causes humans to have these enormous heads. Can you > imagine what we must look like to apes? Probably like those bulbous-head > creatures from the original Star Trek pilot. > > > > We could set up a company in China, breed up some genetically-modified > monkeys with huge heads, teach them to write code or Hollyweird movie > scripts for bananas, oh we could make a buttload of money. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Jan 5 16:35:14 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 08:35:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? Message-ID: wrote: snip > By current cosmology, there is no center to the universe. True. But by observation, we do have a substantial velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background. Keith From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 5 16:48:34 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 08:48:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d5c3e7$f8c41780$ea4c4680$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat ubject: Re: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? wrote: snip >>... By current cosmology, there is no center to the universe. >...True. But by observation, we do have a substantial velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background. Keith _______________________________________________ I coulda worded that better if I had said "...there is no unique center to the universe." Either way, it is hard to wrap one's head around. We don't really have the code in there to do it. Yet. spike From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jan 5 18:45:15 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 13:45:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] new tv In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 3, 2020 at 6:23 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Just how much resolution can we really see on TV? How much just looking > around the room? What's the resolution of life? (well, ok, death but > that's not the question) At what point does an increase in resolution not > result in a sharper picture to us? > The eye can distinguish about 60 pixels per degree, so for a TV it depends upon how close you are to the screen. > Eagles can tell at higher resolutions than we can.. It's probably a > function of the density or retinal cells if I had to guess. > Yes, specifically those in the fovea. For TVs, though, the real limitation isn't so much the TV as the content. Little is 4k and less is 8k. Non-interlaced 1080 is still pretty rare. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sun Jan 5 20:11:33 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 15:11:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] new tv In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'd add that while streaming 4K does look nice, it is still very heavily compressed compared to a UHD disc player which makes it even harder to view 4K in its best light for those of us who don't want to invest in a UHD player and disc purchases. On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 1:46 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > For TVs, though, the real limitation isn't so much the TV as the content. > Little is 4k and less is 8k. Non-interlaced 1080 is still pretty rare. > > -Dave > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jan 5 22:40:45 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 22:40:45 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <356123dc-64ef-b274-3246-88e757e97099@zaiboc.net> Brent Allsop wrote: >When we experience red, there are lots of other physical memories and things computationally bound to that elemental redness, just as you pointed out. No, I didn't. I was pointing out that 'elemental redness' literally doesn't mean anything, as far as I can see. You seem to think it does. Please explain that. Just that, without any of the other stuff. What do you mean by 'elemental redness'? >Also, even if this physical change in your pixel of awareness was a single neuron switching between firing with glutamate and glycene. I know that the 'one neuron, one neurotransmitter' paradigm has recently been challenged, but as far as I know, if a glutaminergic neuron somehow started secreting glycene from the same synapses, then nothing would happen because the post-synaptic receptors wouldn't have glycine receptors, would they? But in any case, as I keep saying, individual neurotransmitters are irrelevant. Another term I'm not sure about the meaning of, is 'pixel of awareness'. Many of the things you say don't seem to relate to neuroscience at all, as far as I'm aware. It would help greatly if you could ground your ideas in what we actually know about how the brain works, then I might be able to make some sense of them. -- Ben Zaiboc From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 04:24:21 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 21:24:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <356123dc-64ef-b274-3246-88e757e97099@zaiboc.net> References: <356123dc-64ef-b274-3246-88e757e97099@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Ben, On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 3:42 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Brent Allsop wrote: > > >When we experience red, there are lots of other physical memories and > things computationally bound to that elemental redness, just as you > pointed out. > > No, I didn't. I was pointing out that 'elemental redness' literally > doesn't mean anything, as far as I can see. You seem to think it does. > Please explain that. Just that, without any of the other stuff. What do > you mean by 'elemental redness'? > When you experience a redness quality, when you are dreaming or not, there must be something, that is that redness quality you are experiencing. My redness could be like your greenness, either naturally, or engineered to be that way. You claim glutamate could function identically to glycine, but that physical difference is the point. If you engineered someone to be identical to you, except that person swapped all redness/glutamate with glycine/grenness, and visa versa, you would function identically, but qualitatively your knowledge would be physically different. My redness would be like your grenness. > >Also, even if this physical change in your pixel of awareness was a > single neuron switching between firing with glutamate and glycine. > > I know that the 'one neuron, one neurotransmitter' paradigm has recently > been challenged, but as far as I know, if a glutaminergic neuron somehow > started secreting glycine from the same synapses, then nothing would > happen because the post-synaptic receptors wouldn't have glycine > receptors, would they? > This is missing the point. The idea of a single neuron firing with with either glutamate or glycine is just an over simplified example to simplify understand how we might bridge the explanatory gap, or find out whether your redness is more like my grenness, or not. Once we can bridge the explanatory gap (eff the ineffable) with an overly simplified theory, we can use the same qualitative effing thinking on all more capable theories. But in any case, as I keep saying, individual neurotransmitters are > irrelevant. > The idea that glutamate has the redness physical property is meant to be easily falsified, via the ways you are proposing, or any other way. Falsifiability is the point. If this is falsified, you just try something else in the brain, till you can't falsify it. Then you replace glutamate with whatever that is. Then you know what it is that has the redness quality you can directly experience. > Another term I'm not sure about the meaning of, is 'pixel of awareness'. > For every pixel, on every surface you are aware of, there must be something, physical, that is that conscious knowledge of that point, and it must be able to change to any other color, at any time. We're trying to imagine the simplest possible theory for this simplest point of knowledge, where falsifiability is the point. > Many of the things you say don't seem to relate to neuroscience at all, > as far as I'm aware. It would help greatly if you could ground your > ideas in what we actually know about how the brain works, then I might > be able to make some sense of them. > Objective observation of the brain can give you descriptions of everything in the brain. The problem is, you can't know, qualitatively, what any of that is describing. The only thing qualitative is direct awareness of the colorness properties of something in your brain. We some how need to make the connection between the abstract objective and the qualitative subjective. Again, once you understand how it could be true, in a world simpler than our own, that our abstract descriptions of glutamate, binding to a glutamate receptor could be a description of what we directly experience as redness, the connection would be made. Again, if it isn't glutamate, you keep trying other stuff in the brain till you find which abstract description of stuff in the brain is the description of subjective redness. Then you replace whatever that turns out to be with all instances of the word glutamate I have been using. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 04:58:05 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 15:58:05 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <356123dc-64ef-b274-3246-88e757e97099@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Jan 2020 at 15:26, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hi Ben, > > On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 3:42 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Brent Allsop wrote: >> >> >When we experience red, there are lots of other physical memories and >> things computationally bound to that elemental redness, just as you >> pointed out. >> >> No, I didn't. I was pointing out that 'elemental redness' literally >> doesn't mean anything, as far as I can see. You seem to think it does. >> Please explain that. Just that, without any of the other stuff. What do >> you mean by 'elemental redness'? >> > > When you experience a redness quality, when you are dreaming or not, there > must be something, that is that redness quality you are experiencing. My > redness could be like your greenness, either naturally, or engineered to be > that way. You claim glutamate could function identically to glycine, but > that physical difference is the point. If you engineered someone to be > identical to you, except that person swapped all redness/glutamate with > glycine/grenness, and visa versa, you would function identically, but > qualitatively your knowledge would be physically different. My redness > would be like your grenness. > If you swapped glutamate for glycine and glutamate receptors for glycine receptors, then the redness and greenness qualia would remain the same, as I thought you (almost) agreed in an earlier discussion with me. This is assuming that the neurotransmitters and receptors only do what we know them to do; if glutamate has other effects, like its breakdown products stimulating other neurons, then there might be a difference. > >Also, even if this physical change in your pixel of awareness was a >> single neuron switching between firing with glutamate and glycine. >> >> I know that the 'one neuron, one neurotransmitter' paradigm has recently >> been challenged, but as far as I know, if a glutaminergic neuron somehow >> started secreting glycine from the same synapses, then nothing would >> happen because the post-synaptic receptors wouldn't have glycine >> receptors, would they? >> > > This is missing the point. The idea of a single neuron firing with with > either glutamate or glycine is just an over simplified example to simplify > understand how we might bridge the explanatory gap, or find out whether > your redness is more like my grenness, or not. Once we can bridge the > explanatory gap (eff the ineffable) with an overly simplified theory, we > can use the same qualitative effing thinking on all more capable theories. > > But in any case, as I keep saying, individual neurotransmitters are >> irrelevant. >> > > The idea that glutamate has the redness physical property is meant to be > easily falsified, via the ways you are proposing, or any other way. > Falsifiability is the point. If this is falsified, you just try something > else in the brain, till you can't falsify it. Then you replace glutamate > with whatever that is. Then you know what it is that has the redness > quality you can directly experience. > > > >> Another term I'm not sure about the meaning of, is 'pixel of awareness'. >> > > For every pixel, on every surface you are aware of, there must be > something, physical, that is that conscious knowledge of that point, and it > must be able to change to any other color, at any time. We're trying to > imagine the simplest possible theory for this simplest point of knowledge, > where falsifiability is the point. > > > >> Many of the things you say don't seem to relate to neuroscience at all, >> as far as I'm aware. It would help greatly if you could ground your >> ideas in what we actually know about how the brain works, then I might >> be able to make some sense of them. >> > > Objective observation of the brain can give you descriptions of everything > in the brain. The problem is, you can't know, qualitatively, what any of > that is describing. > The only thing qualitative is direct awareness of the colorness properties > of something in your brain. We some how need to make the connection > between the abstract objective and the qualitative subjective. Again, once > you understand how it could be true, in a world simpler than our own, that > our abstract descriptions of glutamate, binding to a glutamate receptor > could be a description of what we directly experience as redness, the > connection would be made. Again, if it isn't glutamate, you keep trying > other stuff in the brain till you find which abstract description of stuff > in the brain is the description of subjective redness. Then you replace > whatever that turns out to be with all instances of the word glutamate I > have been using. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 05:02:36 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 00:02:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Thirty Meter Telescope is now officially dead In-Reply-To: <62144361-24B0-400B-9D1A-A4D52163F94D@gmail.com> References: <62144361-24B0-400B-9D1A-A4D52163F94D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 4:11 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > > You?re being extremely smug and self-righteous but what does it help? You?re patting your back over being morally and intellectually better, which you consider to be the same. ### Most likely I am smarter than the average anti-telescope protester, there is nothing smug in noting it. Quite independently of that, I am also morally superior to every single protester, since I do not condone lawless violence, do not agree that simply feeling morally superior (as they feel in their own mind) is a sufficient reason to violently intrude on the lives of other citizens. I see no reason to engage in ritual displays of fake humility on this list. -------------------------- > > That?s nice. > > But what is a SOLUTION to the issue at hand? What would you suggest? Do you want the National Guard to patrol the mountain with tanks and give the scientists armed escorts and have them live in fear of terrorist attacks? Is that the solution to this problem? What do you suggest? ### I don't have much in the way of suggestions. Our side is weakened by scruples and internal divisions. As enticing as it might feel, tanks running our enemies off the mountain would be counterproductive. However, ruthless mockery of these stone age arrogant fools might eventually do the trick. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 05:06:53 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 00:06:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Limits to Growth reviewed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 6:56 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Unless a new miracle clean energy source is discovered and put into > production quickly (e,g, nuclear fusion power, AI created tech, etc,) > then the world is headed for much disruption. ### This is laughable. Futures markets seem to be oblivious to the impending catastrophe, even though trillions of dollars could be made on short-selling the whole world. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 05:08:54 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 22:08:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <356123dc-64ef-b274-3246-88e757e97099@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 9:59 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, 6 Jan 2020 at 15:26, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Hi Ben, >> >> On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 3:42 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Brent Allsop wrote: >>> >>> >When we experience red, there are lots of other physical memories and >>> things computationally bound to that elemental redness, just as you >>> pointed out. >>> >>> No, I didn't. I was pointing out that 'elemental redness' literally >>> doesn't mean anything, as far as I can see. You seem to think it does. >>> Please explain that. Just that, without any of the other stuff. What do >>> you mean by 'elemental redness'? >>> >> >> When you experience a redness quality, when you are dreaming or not, >> there must be something, that is that redness quality you are >> experiencing. My redness could be like your greenness, either naturally, >> or engineered to be that way. You claim glutamate could function >> identically to glycine, but that physical difference is the point. If you >> engineered someone to be identical to you, except that person swapped all >> redness/glutamate with glycine/grenness, and visa versa, you would function >> identically, but qualitatively your knowledge would be physically >> different. My redness would be like your grenness. >> > > If you swapped glutamate for glycine and glutamate receptors for glycine > receptors, then the redness and greenness qualia would remain the same, as > I thought you (almost) agreed in an earlier discussion with me. This is > assuming that the neurotransmitters and receptors only do what we know them > to do; if glutamate has other effects, like its breakdown products > stimulating other neurons, then there might be a difference. > > Again, when we experience a point of redness experience, there must be something, physical, that is that point of physical redness colorness property. If this physical redness colorness property changes to a grenness experience, there must be something physical, that does all the corresponding changes to the entire system. When you say: "if glutamate has other effects..." then the glutamate theory works. If there are no global effects, and no computer binding is being accomplished, it must be something else. Again, replace whatever else you want, with glutamate, and the appropriate binding system, so one can have a composite qualitative experience of at least two colors like redness and grenness. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 05:22:10 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 00:22:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Thirty Meter Telescope is now officially dead In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 29, 2019 at 7:14 PM ddraig--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > NONE OF US ARE AGREEING WITH THE MOB - we are attempting to *understand* > the mob, something you seem incapable of doing. > ### I think John understands the mob, it's not that difficult and it does not matter. They are enemies, and the only reason it's important to understand enemies is that it often makes it easier to defeat them. Our enemies see themselves as underdogs fighting an empire, victims of oppression, valiant defenders of mystic nationhood, brown people sticking it to the white man. They could be defeated by feelings of shame, boredom, sprinkled with a touch of anxiety and fear. Screaming loudspeakers, angry counterprotesters getting in their faces, pushing and pushing and pushing, twitter outrage mobs, constant lawfare. That might work. Pity the astronomers are such wusses. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 05:48:34 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 00:48:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Thirty Meter Telescope is now officially dead In-Reply-To: <009601d5c015$83d0e7d0$8b72b770$@rainier66.com> References: <009601d5c015$83d0e7d0$8b72b770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 31, 2019 at 3:06 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > There is one more point here: a minority willing to commit violence is > more powerful than the majority. This mob is acting illegally and are > willing to physically harm the astronomers and builders. With that > willingness, they win, just as the mafia wins so many rounds, for they are > willing to commit violence. > > > > I don?t have the answers. > > > ### Punch back twice as hard? I think that could work, if our side had enough warm bodies willing to show up. Would a bit of camping on the observatory road with a loudspeaker be a good holiday diversion? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 05:52:37 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 00:52:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <3a76ae64-663d-80f3-cc4d-471aad8fe5f4@zaiboc.net> References: <3a76ae64-663d-80f3-cc4d-471aad8fe5f4@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 29, 2019 at 5:52 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Put another way, the concept of 'elemental red' is sheer nonsense. The > concept of 'red' (or, to be more accurate, the mental cagegory of 'the > colour red') has to be made up of many simpler things going on in our > brains. Things which are very likely (to say the least) to vary between > individual people. ### Absolutely! Since my brain performs calculations producing the red experience using a different (but similar) neural network than your brain, our respective experiences of redness are different, and as I wrote in another thread, incommensurate. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 06:13:24 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 01:13:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 11:03 AM Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Compassion is the root of the progressive desire to > make society more equitable and just. ### I have yet to see a modern "progressive" who desires justice and progress, or one that sees compassion as anything but a rhetorical ploy. Their idea of progress nowadays is banning plastic straws, showers, and vaccinations. And a lot more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 06:59:46 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 22:59:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7663E169-494D-4506-9101-5726DE9F3051@gmail.com> On Jan 5, 2020, at 10:15 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 11:03 AM Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> Compassion is the root of the progressive desire to >> make society more equitable and just. > > ### I have yet to see a modern "progressive" who desires justice and progress, or one that sees compassion as anything but a rhetorical ploy. > > Their idea of progress nowadays is banning plastic straws, showers, and vaccinations. And a lot more. Anti-vaxxers are well represented on the Right, don?t you think? In fact, while anti-vaxxers can be found across the political spectrum (I imagine whether one views it as one dimensional or two or more dimensional), those who identify as conservative have a tendency towards being anti-vaxxers. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5784985/ To date, most of the anti-vaxxers I?ve met have self-identified as on the Right and are often religious conservatives. I?m relying on memory and this is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt. But that my experience also matches the above study probably means I?m not living inside some weird bubble with regard to this. (For the record, too, all the politically active Democrats who seem progressive that I know personally are pro-vax.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Mon Jan 6 12:46:16 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 07:46:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] new tv In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <367AD65B-55C5-403A-941C-AF10F0A5D28E@alumni.virginia.edu> I?ve been using a home theater style 1080p projector for a while now, and I had a 720p one before that. Screen is 8ft wide. I don?t think I?d bother with a 4K TV unless I was going for a projector. You need a pretty big screen/tv plus a good source to appreciate 4K worth of pixels imho. >> On Jan 5, 2020, at 3:12 PM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > ? > I'd add that while streaming 4K does look nice, it is still very heavily compressed compared to a UHD disc player which makes it even harder to view 4K in its best light for those of us who don't want to invest in a UHD player and disc purchases. > >>> On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 1:46 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> >> For TVs, though, the real limitation isn't so much the TV as the content. Little is 4k and less is 8k. Non-interlaced 1080 is still pretty rare. >> >> -Dave > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Mon Jan 6 12:50:34 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2020 12:50:34 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5E132D1A.4070300@zaiboc.net> > On Jan 5, 2020, at 10:15 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > wrote: >> On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 11:03 AM Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat >> > > wrote: >> >> >> Compassion is the root of the progressive desire to >> make society more equitable and just. >> >> >> ### I have yet to see a modern "progressive" who desires justice and >> progress, or one that sees compassion as anything but a rhetorical ploy. >> >> Their idea of progress nowadays is banning plastic straws, showers, >> and vaccinations. And a lot more. > > Anti-vaxxers are well represented on the Right, don't you think? In > fact, while anti-vaxxers can be found across the political spectrum (I > imagine whether one views it as one dimensional or two or more > dimensional), those who identify as conservative have a tendency > towards being anti-vaxxers. See: > > https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5784985/ > > To date, most of the anti-vaxxers I've met have self-identified as on > the Right and are often religious conservatives. I'm relying on memory > and this is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt. But that my > experience also matches the above study probably means I'm not living > inside some weird bubble with regard to this. (For the record, too, > all the politically active Democrats who seem progressive that I know > personally are pro-vax.) OK, my fault. I shouldn't have use the word 'progressive'. Like 'libertarian', that word can be used to describe a number of completely different viewpoints. My idea of what constitutes progress will be totally different to the idea of a religious fundamentalist, for example. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 13:33:21 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 08:33:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <356123dc-64ef-b274-3246-88e757e97099@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 11:27 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *> When you experience a redness quality, when you are dreaming or not, > there must be something, that is that redness quality you are > experiencing. * > But that redness qualia could not exist in isolation, it needs contrast to have a meaning and only other color qualia can provide that. So the important thing determining what you subjective experience will be is how many distinguishable labels (aka color qualia) you can stick on wavelengths of light not the particulars of what chemicals the labels are made of. > > *My redness could be like your greenness,* > We already know some things about that, we know that my redness can't be identical to your redness because we have a different brain structure, and we both know that whatever qualia the other uses to label electromagnetic waves with a frequency of 400 terahertz it's consistent, I put the same label on both strawberries and ripe tomatoes and you do the same. But is my redness closer to your redness or your greenness? Suppose we merged our brains Avatar like as you suggest, the resulting creature, Brent Clark, would have to be consistent in its use of qualia just as we are and that includes the memories that both of us have. For the sake of argument let's suppose our red and green qualia really are reversed, if so what would Brent Clark experience when he looked at a ripe tomato? There is no unique answer to that, any consistent labeling system would do; perhaps he would see a tomato as my red (your green) or perhaps as your red (my green) or maybe he would see a combination of both and see a tomato as being what we both think of as yellow. Brent Clark would know the answer, he would know what it's like for Brent Clark to look at a tomato, but that's all he'd know. And neither Brent Allsop or John Clark would have learned anything about how the other views the world. > > *If you engineered someone to be identical to you, except that > person swapped all redness/glutamate with glycine/grenness, and visa versa, > you would function identically, but qualitatively your knowledge would be > physically different. My redness would be like your grenness.* > I don't see how the knowledge could be different if there is no way you could even KNOW that such a change had happened, and there wouldn't be as long as the change was made consistently. There would be a objective difference in brain structure but that change would produce no change in objective behavior, and there would be no change in subjective experience at all. > *> The idea of a single neuron firing with with either glutamate or > glycine is just an over simplified example to simplify understand how we > might bridge the explanatory gap, or find out whether your redness is more > like my grenness, or not. * > I don't think that is over simplified. In fact I think if you're topic is qualia then worrying about the detailed chemistry of glutamate and glycine is being overly complex, the only thing you need to know about them is that there is at least one physical process that can distinguish between the two chemicals. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 13:50:31 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 07:50:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Exoplanet loss Message-ID: A miniature satellite tasked with searching for planets outside the solar system has gone dark, mission operators at Nasa have said. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) saidthey were last able to communicate with the satellite, dubbed ASTERIA, on 5 December. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-asteria-satellite-exoplanets-space-earth-stars-a9271186.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Mon Jan 6 13:57:25 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2020 13:57:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5E133CC5.50901@zaiboc.net> On 06/01/2020 07:00, Brent Allsop wrote: >When you experience a redness quality, when you are dreaming or not, there must be something, that is that redness quality you are experiencing. My redness could be like your greenness, No, I very much doubt it. In order for your 'redness' to be like my 'greenness', it would have to be associated with the perception of grass, racing cars, limes, and hundreds of other things linked to the word 'green' in my mind. The 'something that I'm experiencing' (but see below) when I see a lime and am just concentrating on the colour, is far from a simple thing. And it's probably a different thing, to some degree, each time I do this. The 'thing that is green', or the subjective experience of a specific green object, is not somethihng like a physical property of a chemical. It's a large pattern of neural activation in my brain. This pattern is necessarily linked to other patterns that represent instances of green objects, among many other patterns. The phrase "what it is that has the redness quality you can directly experience" betrays a dualistic mind-set, I think. As though the 'me' that was experiencing the sight (or memory, etc.) of a red object, or just a flat field of the colour red, or even the abstract notion of 'redness', was a different thing to the actual experience. Which of course gives rise to all sorts of awkward and nonsensical questions. That's not what I think is happening. The way of looking at this that currently makes sense to me, is that when I'm in that state of 'experiencing a red thing', that is what I am. There are not two separate things, one having an experience, and the other being the experience. There is just one. There is a pattern of neural activation going on in a brain. At that moment, 'I' am not 'experiencing' that pattern, the pattern is what I am. The next moment, of course, the pattern (or rather, the complex set of all the patterns that are currently active) changes, and I am something else. This is why I say that "elemental redness" is a nonsense concept, and why I don't give any credence to the idea of a chemical substance somehow having a 'red property'. If that was the case, I would be that red property of that chemical. Which gives rise, again, to all sorts of nonsensical questions. Which molecule am I? How do I think of something other than red? and so on. -- Ben Zaiboc From ben at zaiboc.net Mon Jan 6 14:09:46 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2020 14:09:46 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Using CC in replies to list posts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5E133FAA.4050202@zaiboc.net> I've received more than one email from list posters via the 'CC' field. I just wanted to point out that I'm already on the mailing list, so there's no point doing this, and it creates unnecessary duplication (and extra work for me, deleting redundant emails). I get an email from the list, then another email from the poster. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a mailing list. -- Ben Zaiboc From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 15:14:33 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 10:14:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: <005b01d5c3da$260423b0$720c6b10$@rainier66.com> References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> <005b01d5c3da$260423b0$720c6b10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 10:11 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Bill, it is still a big bang. That didn?t actually change: everything > started from a point, the same point, which is why there is no center now, > ... > So if everything started from a point and expanded outward at the same rate, seems like that point would still be the center-of-mass of the universe, even if the universe is infinite. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 15:37:39 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 07:37:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Using CC in replies to list posts In-Reply-To: <5E133FAA.4050202@zaiboc.net> References: <5E133FAA.4050202@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <16A4B18C-EA1D-4707-9271-1AE3A40213BC@gmail.com> On Jan 6, 2020, at 6:11 AM, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?I've received more than one email from list posters via the 'CC' field. I just wanted to point out that I'm already on the mailing list, so there's no point doing this, and it creates unnecessary duplication (and extra work for me, deleting redundant emails). I get an email from the list, then another email from the poster. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a mailing list. If I?m guilty of this it?s almost always unintentional. But I wonder if some here cc because of past problems with the list emails. You know, you post something and it doesn?t send to the list? (I don?t believe I?ve done that here, though I?ve done that with other groups.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 16:03:52 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 16:03:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Limits to Growth reviewed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Jan 2020 at 05:16, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 6:56 AM BillK via extropy-chat wrote: >> Unless a new miracle clean energy source is discovered and put into >> production quickly (e,g, nuclear fusion power, AI created tech, etc,) >> then the world is headed for much disruption. > > > ### This is laughable. Futures markets seem to be oblivious to the impending catastrophe, even though trillions of dollars could be made on short-selling the whole world. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ :) BillK From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 16:07:31 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 09:07:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <356123dc-64ef-b274-3246-88e757e97099@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Oh wow. Ever more scientific evidence continues to come out very nearly identical to what ?Representational Qualia Theory ? has been predicting. Last month there was this ?*Distinct Laminar Processing of Local and Global Context ? *describing how the brain is able to get the strawberry from a cortical column pixel, um I man a ?forest from the tree?. We?ve been instructing the animators working on our video to hypothetically place the binding neuron in the outer most layer of the cortex, computationally binding these cortical columns. And this ?*Distinct Laminar Processing of Local and Global Context ?* just came out this morning. It looks to me like this new discovery could be exactly describing neural logic with multiple inputs that could react differently, based on the diverse physical qualities of the many inputs, in the outer most layer of the cortex. Again, this is all exactly as we?ve portrayed knowledge of a strawberry laid out in the visual cortex: [image: image.png] With the Deep ?Longitudinal Fissure? between the two hemispheres, and the ?Transverse occipital sulcus? splitting the visual cortex, yet again, into 4 sections, from top to bottom making room so the cortex can scrunch down in this cross of folds in the center of vision, to make room for the higher resolution of pixels at the center of the field of vision. Oh, and John asked: *?Suppose we merged our brains Avatar like as you suggest, the resulting creature, Brent Clark, would have to be consistent in its use of qualia just as we are and that includes the memories that both of us have. For the sake of argument let's suppose our red and green qualia really are reversed, if so what would Brent Clark experience when he looked at a ripe tomato??* Again, you are talking about composite functionality, while I?m talking elemental physics, out of which such composite functionality is composed. In your brain the definition of redness is wired to glutamate. In your partner's brain, the definition of redness is wired to glycine. You could bind things at different levels of functionality. But just as you point out, the higher you go in your binding, things become exponentially more complex. But you could still find creative ways to do things, or just simply bind it at the elemental level. You of course would want to keep some of your memories bound to particular sensations private, and not share things like that. Though it would be hard to include the binding of the same name to different physical qualities, you could find ways to enable such in a more complex computationally bound way. So, you are facing your partner with both of your visual cortexes computationally bound. Your visual cortex has knowledge of what is in front of you. Your partners visual cortex has knowledge of what is behind you. You are looking at a strawberry, above and behind the head of your partner. Assuming you were doing the computational binding at the simplest elemental level this is what it would be like. As you rotate the strawberry around from in front of you, to behind you, as this knowledge of the strawberry moved between your visual cortex and your partner?s, it would change from redness to greenness, just as it does in our video, when the cell phone moves across the field of light between the strawberry and the eye. On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:35 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 11:27 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >> *> When you experience a redness quality, when you are dreaming or not, >> there must be something, that is that redness quality you are >> experiencing. * >> > > But that redness qualia could not exist in isolation, it needs contrast to > have a meaning and only other color qualia can provide that. So the > important thing determining what you subjective experience will be is how > many distinguishable labels (aka color qualia) you can stick on wavelengths > of light not the particulars of what chemicals the labels are made of. > > >> > *My redness could be like your greenness,* >> > > We already know some things about that, we know that my redness can't be > identical to your redness because we have a different brain structure, and > we both know that whatever qualia the other uses to label electromagnetic > waves with a frequency of 400 terahertz it's consistent, I put the same > label on both strawberries and ripe tomatoes and you do the same. But is my > redness closer to your redness or your greenness? Suppose we merged our > brains Avatar like as you suggest, the resulting creature, Brent Clark, > would have to be consistent in its use of qualia just as we are and that > includes the memories that both of us have. For the sake of argument let's > suppose our red and green qualia really are reversed, if so what would > Brent Clark experience when he looked at a ripe tomato? > > There is no unique answer to that, any consistent labeling system would > do; perhaps he would see a tomato as my red (your green) or perhaps as your > red (my green) or maybe he would see a combination of both and see a tomato > as being what we both think of as yellow. Brent Clark would know the > answer, he would know what it's like for Brent Clark to look at a tomato, > but that's all he'd know. And neither Brent Allsop or John Clark would have > learned anything about how the other views the world. > > >> > *If you engineered someone to be identical to you, except that >> person swapped all redness/glutamate with glycine/grenness, and visa versa, >> you would function identically, but qualitatively your knowledge would be >> physically different. My redness would be like your grenness.* >> > > I don't see how the knowledge could be different if there is no way you > could even KNOW that such a change had happened, and there wouldn't be as > long as the change was made consistently. There would be a objective > difference in brain structure but that change would produce no change in > objective behavior, and there would be no change in subjective experience > at all. > > >> *> The idea of a single neuron firing with with either glutamate or >> glycine is just an over simplified example to simplify understand how we >> might bridge the explanatory gap, or find out whether your redness is more >> like my grenness, or not. * >> > > I don't think that is over simplified. In fact I think if you're topic is > qualia then worrying about the detailed chemistry of glutamate and glycine > is being overly complex, the only thing you need to know about them is that > there is at least one physical process that can distinguish between the two > chemicals. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 105766 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 16:30:57 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 10:30:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] your big chance Message-ID: I can't call myself a libertarian because I am in favor of some social programs. I can't call myself a liberal because some of you think that liberals are for suppression/banning of hate speech, setting up safe zones where certain things may not be said, and are opposed to vaccines. I am actually conservative on some issues. So - your big chance - what should I call myself? What should you call me? I am a liberal first and a libertarian second and a conservative third (a fairly distant third). So you could call me a liberal if you put the qualifier 'moderate' in front, or conversely put 'extreme' in front of the liberals who hold those wacky views above. I would really appreciate it. Otherwise I am going to have to respond to posts that equate 'liberal' with 'extreme liberal' and point out the difference between them and me. Make it a resolution, eh? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 16:22:14 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 09:22:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <356123dc-64ef-b274-3246-88e757e97099@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: OH, sorry. I duplicated the two scientific discovery references. The second reference that just came out this morning that could be the discovery of a binding neuron system was this Scientists Uncover a Never-Before-Seen Type of Signal Occurring in The Human Brain On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 9:07 AM Brent Allsop wrote: > Oh wow. Ever more scientific evidence continues to come out very nearly > identical to what ?Representational Qualia Theory > ? has been > predicting. Last month there was this ?*Distinct Laminar Processing of > Local and Global Context > ? *describing > how the brain is able to get the strawberry from a cortical column pixel, > um I man a ?forest from the tree?. > > > > We?ve been instructing the animators working on our video to > hypothetically place the binding neuron in the outer most layer of the > cortex, computationally binding these cortical columns. And this ?*Distinct > Laminar Processing of Local and Global Context > ?* just came > out this morning. It looks to me like this new discovery could be > exactly describing neural logic with multiple inputs that could react > differently, based on the diverse physical qualities of the many inputs, in > the outer most layer of the cortex. > > > > Again, this is all exactly as we?ve portrayed knowledge of a strawberry > laid out in the visual > cortex: > [image: image.png] > > > > > With the Deep ?Longitudinal Fissure? between the two hemispheres, and the > ?Transverse occipital sulcus? splitting the visual cortex, yet again, into > 4 sections, from top to bottom making room so the cortex can scrunch down > in this cross of folds in the center of vision, to make room for the higher > resolution of pixels at the center of the field of vision. > > > > > > Oh, and John asked: > > > > *?Suppose we merged our brains Avatar like as you suggest, the resulting > creature, Brent Clark, would have to be consistent in its use of qualia > just as we are and that includes the memories that both of us have. For the > sake of argument let's suppose our red and green qualia really are > reversed, if so what would Brent Clark experience when he looked at a ripe > tomato??* > > > > Again, you are talking about composite functionality, while I?m talking > elemental physics, out of which such composite functionality is composed. > In your brain the definition of redness is wired to glutamate. In your > partner's brain, the definition of redness is wired to glycine. You > could bind things at different levels of functionality. But just as you > point out, the higher you go in your binding, things become exponentially > more complex. But you could still find creative ways to do things, or just > simply bind it at the elemental level. > > > > You of course would want to keep some of your memories bound to particular > sensations private, and not share things like that. Though it would be > hard to include the binding of the same name to different physical > qualities, you could find ways to enable such in a more complex > computationally bound way. > > > > So, you are facing your partner with both of your visual cortexes > computationally bound. Your visual cortex has knowledge of what is in > front of you. Your partners visual cortex has knowledge of what is behind > you. You are looking at a strawberry, above and behind the head of your > partner. Assuming you were doing the computational binding at the simplest > elemental level this is what it would be like. As you rotate the > strawberry around from in front of you, to behind you, as this knowledge of > the strawberry moved between your visual cortex and your partner?s, it > would change from redness to greenness, just as it does in our video, when > the cell phone moves across the field of light between the strawberry and > the eye. > > > > On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:35 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 11:27 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >>> *> When you experience a redness quality, when you are dreaming or not, >>> there must be something, that is that redness quality you are >>> experiencing. * >>> >> >> But that redness qualia could not exist in isolation, it needs contrast >> to have a meaning and only other color qualia can provide that. So the >> important thing determining what you subjective experience will be is how >> many distinguishable labels (aka color qualia) you can stick on wavelengths >> of light not the particulars of what chemicals the labels are made of. >> >> >>> > *My redness could be like your greenness,* >>> >> >> We already know some things about that, we know that my redness can't be >> identical to your redness because we have a different brain structure, and >> we both know that whatever qualia the other uses to label electromagnetic >> waves with a frequency of 400 terahertz it's consistent, I put the same >> label on both strawberries and ripe tomatoes and you do the same. But is my >> redness closer to your redness or your greenness? Suppose we merged our >> brains Avatar like as you suggest, the resulting creature, Brent Clark, >> would have to be consistent in its use of qualia just as we are and that >> includes the memories that both of us have. For the sake of argument let's >> suppose our red and green qualia really are reversed, if so what would >> Brent Clark experience when he looked at a ripe tomato? >> >> There is no unique answer to that, any consistent labeling system would >> do; perhaps he would see a tomato as my red (your green) or perhaps as your >> red (my green) or maybe he would see a combination of both and see a tomato >> as being what we both think of as yellow. Brent Clark would know the >> answer, he would know what it's like for Brent Clark to look at a tomato, >> but that's all he'd know. And neither Brent Allsop or John Clark would have >> learned anything about how the other views the world. >> >> >>> > *If you engineered someone to be identical to you, except that >>> person swapped all redness/glutamate with glycine/grenness, and visa versa, >>> you would function identically, but qualitatively your knowledge would be >>> physically different. My redness would be like your grenness.* >>> >> >> I don't see how the knowledge could be different if there is no way you >> could even KNOW that such a change had happened, and there wouldn't be as >> long as the change was made consistently. There would be a objective >> difference in brain structure but that change would produce no change in >> objective behavior, and there would be no change in subjective experience >> at all. >> >> >>> *> The idea of a single neuron firing with with either glutamate or >>> glycine is just an over simplified example to simplify understand how we >>> might bridge the explanatory gap, or find out whether your redness is more >>> like my grenness, or not. * >>> >> >> I don't think that is over simplified. In fact I think if you're topic >> is qualia then worrying about the detailed chemistry of glutamate and >> glycine is being overly complex, the only thing you need to know about them >> is that there is at least one physical process that can distinguish between >> the two chemicals. >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 105766 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Jan 6 18:02:03 2020 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 13:02:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1aac1134400e40b30ccd8f2556367239.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> On Mon, January 6, 2020 11:30, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > I can't call myself a libertarian because I am in favor of some social > programs. I can't call myself a liberal because some of you think that > liberals are for suppression/banning of hate speech, setting up > safe zones where certain things may not be said, and are opposed to > vaccines. I am actually conservative on some issues. > > So - your big chance - what should I call myself? What should you call > me? Well now... You can call yourself whatever you want. Personally, I'd call you bill w. :D Aside from that, why do you want to pigeonhole yourself? Are you thinking to vote some straight-party ticket, and need to know what box to check? I'm beginning to see this pigeonholing thing as detrimental. It can become tribe-making, an us-vs-them. We've too much of that right now in the USA, IMHO. Most people are conglomerates of beliefs. Everyone has an individual viewpoint which will skew what they see, what they think, and what they decide. Regards, MB From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 18:25:22 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 12:25:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <1aac1134400e40b30ccd8f2556367239.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <1aac1134400e40b30ccd8f2556367239.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: You are truly right, except that I am also a contrarian, so you have to be wrong. About what I'll figure out later. I just don't want assumptions made about me that pigeonhole me. So you meet someone and segue into politics. The other person says something along of the lines of 'just what are you?' So you want me to launch into a dissertation of all my views and nuances thereof, which would take quite a while, since my view on abortion may seem at odds with my views on the economy or the military or or or. ??? Some people, and not to summarily exclude anyone on this list, will pigeonhole you just knowing one view of yours. I hope nobody on the list is that stupid, but many people are, I am afraid. May I suggest that we just stop using liberal or conservative or any other label? Because for some of us on the list any statement with those words is likely not to fit. It will be hard to do. People against vaccines arouse a tendency in me to generalize and call them morons who don't hold a single correct view on anything. The tendency to generalize is very hard to resist since that is the way our brains work. bill w On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 12:12 PM MB via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Mon, January 6, 2020 11:30, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > > I can't call myself a libertarian because I am in favor of some social > > programs. I can't call myself a liberal because some of you think that > > liberals are for suppression/banning of hate speech, setting up > > safe zones where certain things may not be said, and are opposed to > > vaccines. I am actually conservative on some issues. > > > > So - your big chance - what should I call myself? What should you call > > me? > > Well now... You can call yourself whatever you want. Personally, I'd call > you bill w. :D > > Aside from that, why do you want to pigeonhole yourself? Are you > thinking to vote some straight-party ticket, and need to know what box to > check? > > I'm beginning to see this pigeonholing thing as detrimental. It can > become tribe-making, an us-vs-them. We've too much of that right now in > the USA, IMHO. > > Most people are conglomerates of beliefs. Everyone has an individual > viewpoint which will skew what they see, what they think, and what they > decide. > > Regards, > MB > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 18:46:47 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 13:46:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: <1aac1134400e40b30ccd8f2556367239.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 1:27 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I just don't want assumptions made about me that pigeonhole me. > There's nothing you can do to prevent that. So you meet someone and segue into politics. The other person says > something along of the lines of 'just what are you?' So you want me to > launch into a dissertation of all my views and nuances thereof, which would > take quite a while, since my view on abortion may seem at odds with my > views on the economy or the military or or or. ??? > "My political beliefs don't fall neatly into any political party." > May I suggest that we just stop using liberal or conservative or any other > label? > Certainly "liberal" and "conservative" have outlived their usefulness. As a libertarian (or anarchist or voluntaryist), qualifying them like "socially liberal" and "fiscally conservative" helps a lot. "Libertarian" is a little better, but no two libertarians are on exactly the same page. Bottom line is that labels aren't perfect but they're necessary for quickly identifying your beliefs to others, who don't necessarily want a super detailed or accurate description of your beliefs. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Jan 6 19:25:00 2020 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 14:25:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: <1aac1134400e40b30ccd8f2556367239.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <8329f7a9689ac011cd76dd8fbb73b54c.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> On Mon, January 6, 2020 13:25, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > You are truly right, except that I am also a contrarian, so you have to be > wrong. About what I'll figure out later. I just don't want assumptions > made about me that pigeonhole me. And yet... you did ask us (the list) to define you, label you, pigeonhole you. Maybe you are correct, "Contrarian" fits well here. :) > > So you meet someone and segue into politics. The other person says > something along of the lines of 'just what are you?' You might offer "unaffiliated". :) My great-aunt told me, "We are a mixed-bag". The longer I live the more sense that makes. Pigeonholing people is something folks are *really good at*. Ummm, they're really skilled at putting other folks into pigeonholes... not the *correct* pigeonholes, though. Crazy! > May I suggest that we just stop using liberal or conservative or any other > label? Because for some of us on the list any statement with those words > is likely not to fit. It will be hard to do. People against vaccines > arouse a tendency in me to generalize and call them morons who don't hold > a > single correct view on anything. The tendency to generalize is very hard > to resist since that is the way our brains work. I am in agreement. Same with "Democrat" and "Republican"... those terms have lost whatever meaning they may once have had and are now just insults. ... so if you want a pigeonhole, how about this one: You're a cranky old white guy (isn't that just the kiss of death nowadays? ;) ) who lives in the deep south of the USA (another nail in the coffin). and you're tired of the "stupid" tail wagging the dog. (.. another nail?) How objectionable it all is. blecch. Regards, MB From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 20:00:08 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 12:00:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 6, 2020, at 8:35 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote:? > > I can't call myself a libertarian because I am in favor of some social programs. I can't call myself a liberal because some of you think that liberals are for suppression/banning of hate speech, setting up > safe zones where certain things may not be said, and are opposed to vaccines. Almost all self-identifies US liberals I know are pro-vax. On the issue of libertarianism: Does anyone have a right to rule over anyone else? Does anyone have a duty to obey anyone else? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 20:47:46 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 14:47:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: dan wrote On the issue of libertarianism: Does anyone have a right to rule over anyone else? Does anyone have a duty to obey anyone else? You can go live in the woods. But if you want to live among us, you have to follow the rules. The key issue for me is this: governing by the consent of the governed. If you don't consent, you will get into trouble with every aspect of the law, especially the tax people! I don't like to be told what to do, and I don't like it that most politicians are corrupt. But we keep electing the same old same old, and so we are just as corrupt, in a way, as they are. bill w On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 2:02 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 6, 2020, at 8:35 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:? > > I can't call myself a libertarian because I am in favor of some social > programs. I can't call myself a liberal because some of you think that > liberals are for suppression/banning of hate speech, setting up > safe zones where certain things may not be said, and are opposed to > vaccines. > > > Almost all self-identifies US liberals I know are pro-vax. > > On the issue of libertarianism: Does anyone have a right to rule over > anyone else? Does anyone have a duty to obey anyone else? > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 22:29:13 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 17:29:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 11:36 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I can't call myself a libertarian because I am in favor of some social > programs. I can't call myself a liberal because some of you think that > liberals are for suppression/banning of hate speech, setting up > safe zones where certain things may not be said, and are opposed to > vaccines. I am actually conservative on some issues. So - your big > chance - what should I call myself? What should you call me? > Welcome to the club Bill, I have the same problem. There are a basket of issues that people have called liberal for some reason and another basket they call conservative but it's often hard to figure out what those things have in common. Why would somebody's position on suppression/banning of hate speech have anything to do with their position on free trade? Why would somebody's position on euthanasia have anything to do with how they feel about sending more American soldiers to the mideast? What does a position about banning end to end encryption have to do with increasing the national debt? And Conservative is supposed to mean maintaining the status quo but they want to change things regarding reproductive rights and the separation of church and state, and there is a strong negative correlation between political conservatism and environmental conservatism. As for the anti vaccine people and the Hawaiian telescope protesters, they belong in a third basket, the stupid basket. > I am a liberal first and a libertarian second and a conservative third (a > fairly distant third). > At one time I proudly called myself a libertarian but in 2016 the word became contaminated, so like you I need a new word. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 23:12:28 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 15:12:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance Message-ID: <1B61F137-64B9-4713-B0C2-3137DF6A51C2@gmail.com> ? ? ?On Jan 6, 2020, at 12:50 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > dan wrote On the issue of libertarianism: Does anyone have a right to rule over anyone else? Does anyone have a duty to obey anyone else? > > You can go live in the woods. But if you want to live among us, you have to follow the rules. That really sidesteps my questions. Does anyone have a right to rule you or anyone else isn?t a question about rules but about rulers. And it?s about a right to rule ? not about living outside society. One can follow rules without saying someone or some group has a right to rule. A right to rule means that person or group has a just claim to telling you what to do regardless of any other considerations. Similarly, a duty to obey means you (or whoever has such a duty) must obey. Again, this isn?t about doing whatever you want ? if you have no duty to obey a person or a group. You?d still be bound by other just claims. (Of course, no offense, but the fact that we?re having this libertarianism 101 discussion here tells me you don?t know what libertarianism means or entails.) > The key issue for me is this: governing by the consent of the governed. If you don't consent, you will get into trouble with every aspect of the law, especially the tax people! I don't like to be told what to do, and I don't like it that most politicians are corrupt. But we keep electing the same old same old, and so we are just as corrupt, in a way, as they are. This is entirely a different matter. Let me try an analogy. There?s a crime boss in your neighborhood and the cops are paid off by him. Does he have right to rule over the neighborhood? Do the residents there have a duty to obey him (and his cronies)? No and no. However, in any run in with him (and his cronies) you might just do what he asks (depending on what that is). But this kind of compelled obedience doesn?t mean that he has a right to rule and you have a duty to obey. (If it did, then only dogged resistance would mean you don?t consent. Compelled consent isn?t consent. If you need another case, think of robbery or rape: the criminal offering a choice between compliance or extreme violence isn?t being consented to when their victim complies to avoid the violence.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 23:20:11 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 17:20:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: broad-minded, liberal, nonconventional, nonorthodox, nontraditional, open-minded, radical, unconventional, unorthodox. Words Related to *progressive*. advanced, contemporary, modern. Well, this is certainly me, but I am not sure that Wikipedia is reflecting the public's view. bill w On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 4:32 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 11:36 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > I can't call myself a libertarian because I am in favor of some social >> programs. I can't call myself a liberal because some of you think that >> liberals are for suppression/banning of hate speech, setting up >> safe zones where certain things may not be said, and are opposed to >> vaccines. I am actually conservative on some issues. So - your big >> chance - what should I call myself? What should you call me? >> > > Welcome to the club Bill, I have the same problem. There are a basket of > issues that people have called liberal for some reason and another basket > they call conservative but it's often hard to figure out what those things > have in common. Why would somebody's position on suppression/banning of > hate speech have anything to do with their position on free trade? Why > would somebody's position on euthanasia have anything to do with how they > feel about sending more American soldiers to the mideast? What does a > position about banning end to end encryption have to do with increasing the > national debt? And Conservative is supposed to mean maintaining the status > quo but they want to change things regarding reproductive rights and the > separation of church and state, and there is a strong negative correlation > between political conservatism and environmental conservatism. > > As for the anti vaccine people and the Hawaiian telescope protesters, they > belong in a third basket, the stupid basket. > > > I am a liberal first and a libertarian second and a conservative third >> (a fairly distant third). >> > > At one time I proudly called myself a libertarian but in 2016 the word > became contaminated, so like you I need a new word. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 23:21:35 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 17:21:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <1B61F137-64B9-4713-B0C2-3137DF6A51C2@gmail.com> References: <1B61F137-64B9-4713-B0C2-3137DF6A51C2@gmail.com> Message-ID: Dan it is clear to me that you do not understand 'consent of the governed' bil w On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 5:14 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > ? > ? > ?On Jan 6, 2020, at 12:50 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > dan wrote On the issue of libertarianism: Does anyone have a right to > rule over anyone else? Does anyone have a duty to obey anyone else? > > You can go live in the woods. But if you want to live among us, you have > to follow the rules. > > > That really sidesteps my questions. Does anyone have a right to rule you > or anyone else isn?t a question about rules but about rulers. And it?s > about a right to rule ? not about living outside society. One can follow > rules without saying someone or some group has a right to rule. A right to > rule means that person or group has a just claim to telling you what to do > regardless of any other considerations. > > Similarly, a duty to obey means you (or whoever has such a duty) must > obey. Again, this isn?t about doing whatever you want ? if you have no duty > to obey a person or a group. You?d still be bound by other just claims. (Of > course, no offense, but the fact that we?re having this libertarianism 101 > discussion here tells me you don?t know what libertarianism means or > entails.) > > The key issue for me is this: governing by the consent of the governed. > If you don't consent, you will get into trouble with every aspect of the > law, especially the tax people! I don't like to be told what to do, and I > don't like it that most politicians are corrupt. But we keep electing the > same old same old, and so we are just as corrupt, in a way, as they are. > > > This is entirely a different matter. Let me try an analogy. There?s a > crime boss in your neighborhood and the cops are paid off by him. Does he > have right to rule over the neighborhood? Do the residents there have a > duty to obey him (and his cronies)? No and no. However, in any run in with > him (and his cronies) you might just do what he asks (depending on what > that is). But this kind of compelled obedience doesn?t mean that he has a > right to rule and you have a duty to obey. (If it did, then only dogged > resistance would mean you don?t consent. Compelled consent isn?t consent. > If you need another case, think of robbery or rape: the criminal offering a > choice between compliance or extreme violence isn?t being consented to when > their victim complies to avoid the violence.) > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 22:33:09 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 14:33:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i am software: wasRE: utah: RE: Frank Jackson's brilliant color scientist Mary In-Reply-To: References: <012b01d5bc14$592e9310$0b8bb930$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I see orange and cyan there, too. Also, a rainbow is a gradient, which your list of words fails to note. There is also no mention of the sky, clouds, or arc of the rainbow, nor of the transparency toward one end. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Exacttness of that measure aside, trying to equate a picture to a very few words is a strawman argument, and as such fails to refute the concept that image qualia can be represented in other forms. On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 8:44 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Your wrong, unless you see no difference between this > [image: image.png] > and the abstract words "red, yellow, green, purple and blue". > > Notice how I can redefine the words purple and blue. > You can't redefine your purpleness, and blueness, it just is, and you know > that more absolutely than you know anything. > > > > > > On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 10:47 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 10:43 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> On Mon, Dec 23, 2019 at 4:29 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >> >> >>>? *In other words, both (255, 0, 0) and "red" are not physically >> red. You need to point to something and say: "THAT is red" to provide a >> physical definition to those abstract terms. * >> >> >> >> >>?If you're interested in subjectivity, or in gaining understanding of >> the most basic fundamental nature of anything, not just consciousness, >> you've got to forget about definitions because ultimately that always leads >> to circularity, instead you've got to use examples. You point to a ripe >> tomato and say "That is (255, 0, 0), aka pure red". ? John K Clark >> >> >> >> John K Clark >> >> >> >> >> >> *?*> *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] utah: RE: Frank Jackson's brilliant color scientist >> Mary >> >> >> >> >?I think it's only circular if there is only one example. bill w >> >> >> >> >> >> The entire discussion has helped me accept what I have long suspected: I >> am a digital avatar. I ?think? only in terms of numbers and equations. >> You perhaps have heard of that creepy movie where the boy saw dead people, >> everywhere, walking around. They didn?t even know they are dead. Well, I >> am his digital counterpart: I see simulated people walking around >> everywhere. They don?t even know they are software. I didn?t know I was >> one until the recent qualia discussion. >> >> >> >> Be that as it may, I am a really cool avatar. Self-aware I am! (Or >> should it be ?it am?? (It are? (It be?))) Of course it be only digitally >> simulated self-awareness, but that?s better than none at all. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 128065 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Jan 6 23:34:09 2020 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 18:34:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd484b14bb18e88121981cfd0af7a57.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Interesting. The anti-vax people I've interacted with have been new-agey kinda folks. They are certainly not fundies! Some are wicked-smart, but INHO are looney. Some are all freaked out about contrails and flouride and things of that sort too. Tremendously upset about plastics of all sorts, GMO, any kind of gene-work. Un-natural, you know. Organic gardening, etc. Maybe they are some *modern* type of fundie? Not any type of Christian. Thank heaven I've not met many of them. Regards, MB From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 23:48:48 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 15:48:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As you?ve used the phrase below, it appears to me you don?t understand it. In classical liberal theory, consent of the governed was used to justify the state as well as a standard by which to judge overall state policy. However, the problem with government by consent is what happens when either consent isn?t given or is removed. (Classical liberals differ in how they deal with this, though usually they opted for some form of tacit consent and restricting removal of consent to extreme cases like tyranny. But a libertarian approach to consent would mean consent would have to be expressed (not tacit) and should be fairly easy to remove and not face any severe penalties for either not consenting or for removing consent.) Your statements below seem to presume that consent of the governed is merely something one must do either to avoid ?living in the woods? or to avoid getting into legal trouble (presumably, fined, arrested, jailed, exiled, or maybe executed). This seems a very strange ? which is to say wrong ? approach to consent. It?s sort of like telling someone ?consent to sex or the rapist might beat you up, and no one wants that.? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 6, 2020, at 3:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > Dan it is clear to me that you do not understand 'consent of the governed' bil w > >> On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 5:14 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> ? >> ? >> ?On Jan 6, 2020, at 12:50 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> dan wrote On the issue of libertarianism: Does anyone have a right to rule over anyone else? Does anyone have a duty to obey anyone else? >>> >>> You can go live in the woods. But if you want to live among us, you have to follow the rules. >> >> That really sidesteps my questions. Does anyone have a right to rule you or anyone else isn?t a question about rules but about rulers. And it?s about a right to rule ? not about living outside society. One can follow rules without saying someone or some group has a right to rule. A right to rule means that person or group has a just claim to telling you what to do regardless of any other considerations. >> >> Similarly, a duty to obey means you (or whoever has such a duty) must obey. Again, this isn?t about doing whatever you want ? if you have no duty to obey a person or a group. You?d still be bound by other just claims. (Of course, no offense, but the fact that we?re having this libertarianism 101 discussion here tells me you don?t know what libertarianism means or entails.) >> >>> The key issue for me is this: governing by the consent of the governed. If you don't consent, you will get into trouble with every aspect of the law, especially the tax people! I don't like to be told what to do, and I don't like it that most politicians are corrupt. But we keep electing the same old same old, and so we are just as corrupt, in a way, as they are. >> >> This is entirely a different matter. Let me try an analogy. There?s a crime boss in your neighborhood and the cops are paid off by him. Does he have right to rule over the neighborhood? Do the residents there have a duty to obey him (and his cronies)? No and no. However, in any run in with him (and his cronies) you might just do what he asks (depending on what that is). But this kind of compelled obedience doesn?t mean that he has a right to rule and you have a duty to obey. (If it did, then only dogged resistance would mean you don?t consent. Compelled consent isn?t consent. If you need another case, think of robbery or rape: the criminal offering a choice between compliance or extreme violence isn?t being consented to when their victim complies to avoid the violence.) >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 00:02:47 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 17:02:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <5E133CC5.50901@zaiboc.net> References: <5E133CC5.50901@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Ben, *?The 'thing that is green', or the subjective experience of a specific green object, is not something like a physical property of a chemical.?* And *?The phrase "what it is that has the redness quality you can 'directly experience' betrays a dualistic mindset"* There are some very smart ?substance dualists ? pointing out that this view hasn?t yet been falsified. If we falsify that all known physics aren?t responsible for the redness we experience, we must conclude that is it some new physics, possibly something interfaced through to some neither world of the dead? There are a whole heap of ?Property Dualists .? In fact this is still one of the leading consensus ladder of camps. I was once a supporter of this camp. But now I?ve realized, along with multiple others, how misleading even this view is and are now ?monist s?. There are two ways of knowing things. First is objective perception of color and such. In this view there is the target of perception (like the sugar content or ripeness of a strawberry) there is the very different physics our senses detect as they represent that, and finally there is our knowledge of such. All of these obviously different physical things. You don?t perceive colorness properties, you are directly aware of them, in computationally bound register pixels of our conscious CPU. These are the final result of perception. The first method is abstract (requires correct interpretation of whatever physics is landing on our senses), and therefor can be mistaken. As in the case when something ?seems? different than it really is. Colorness is a physical property that just is and can?t be mistaken. It is the mistaken seeming knowledge that may be incorrectly representing its referent. It is a necessary truth, that if you consciously know something, there must be something that is that knowledge, and it must be computationally bound into your awareness. We have knowledge of spirits, in our diorama of knowledge (represented as if existing behind and looking out of our knowledge of our eyes.) While most of our visual knowledge has a referent in reality, our knowledge of our spirit does not. The funny thing about people that believe in Ghosts, is that even a ghost, like a ?homunculus in a cartesian theater.? if they are ?self-aware? there necessarily must be some subset of that ghost that is its knowledge of self. Which of course is kind of absurd. On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 7:00 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On 06/01/2020 07:00, Brent Allsop wrote: > > > >When you experience a redness quality, when you are dreaming or not, > there must be something, that is that redness quality you are > experiencing. My redness could be like your greenness, > > > No, I very much doubt it. In order for your 'redness' to be like my > 'greenness', it would have to be associated with the perception of > grass, racing cars, limes, and hundreds of other things linked to the > word 'green' in my mind. The 'something that I'm experiencing' (but see > below) when I see a lime and am just concentrating on the colour, is far > from a simple thing. And it's probably a different thing, to some > degree, each time I do this. > > The 'thing that is green', or the subjective experience of a specific > green object, is not somethihng like a physical property of a chemical. > It's a large pattern of neural activation in my brain. This pattern is > necessarily linked to other patterns that represent instances of green > objects, among many other patterns. > > The phrase "what it is that has the redness quality you can directly > experience" betrays a dualistic mind-set, I think. As though the 'me' > that was experiencing the sight (or memory, etc.) of a red object, or > just a flat field of the colour red, or even the abstract notion of > 'redness', was a different thing to the actual experience. Which of > course gives rise to all sorts of awkward and nonsensical questions. > > That's not what I think is happening. The way of looking at this that > currently makes sense to me, is that when I'm in that state of > 'experiencing a red thing', that is what I am. There are not two > separate things, one having an experience, and the other being the > experience. There is just one. There is a pattern of neural activation > going on in a brain. At that moment, 'I' am not 'experiencing' that > pattern, the pattern is what I am. The next moment, of course, the > pattern (or rather, the complex set of all the patterns that are > currently active) changes, and I am something else. > > This is why I say that "elemental redness" is a nonsense concept, and > why I don't give any credence to the idea of a chemical substance > somehow having a 'red property'. If that was the case, I would be that > red property of that chemical. Which gives rise, again, to all sorts of > nonsensical questions. Which molecule am I? How do I think of something > other than red? and so on. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 02:38:20 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 19:38:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] i am software: wasRE: utah: RE: Frank Jackson's brilliant color scientist Mary In-Reply-To: References: <012b01d5bc14$592e9310$0b8bb930$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hi Adrian, Thanks for jumping in. And I often get sucked into missing when people are just yanking my chain. So, just to get that out of the way, this entire response seems like someone is just yanking my chain, it seems to me to be so obviously wrong and twisted in so many ways. ?fails to refute the concept that image qualia can be represented in other forms. Along with most everything else in this reply that is so mistaken, are you really implying that I think that rainbow picture can?t be represented by an array of values including RGB(FF0000), as it appears here? Are you saying that RGB(FF,00,00). or any other such abstract software is physically red? Software = qualia people are so infuriating to me. The best I can understand from what qualia arise from software say is redness arises from software via . They certainly never provide anything better than that, that I can see. I wonder what a person believing qualia arise from software will do if experimentalists discover that the only thing anyone can find in this universe that has a physical redness quality is glutamate. Would they continue to try to find some way to make something like RGB(FF,00,00) produce a redness experience for someone, and continue to claim you can?t disprove a negative as the theists always do about the existence of their God? After all, you never know, if you add enough RGB(FFFFFFFFFFFFFF?.,00,00) it could finally result in a physical redness quality, right? If you are not yanking my chain, again, still, thanks for jumping in. I still must not be adequately communicating what I?m trying to describe. Or maybe I'm just failing to understand what you are trying to say. I appreciate everyone?s patience on this. It is always helpful when a new person joins in. I?ve improved a lot in the way I say things (having much more success than I once had), but I evidently still have a LONG way to go. Unless you are yanking my chain? ;) Brent On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 4:37 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I see orange and cyan there, too. Also, a rainbow is a gradient, which > your list of words fails to note. There is also no mention of the sky, > clouds, or arc of the rainbow, nor of the transparency toward one end. > > It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Exacttness of that > measure aside, trying to equate a picture to a very few words is a strawman > argument, and as such fails to refute the concept that image qualia can be > represented in other forms. > > On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 8:44 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> Your wrong, unless you see no difference between this >> [image: image.png] >> and the abstract words "red, yellow, green, purple and blue". >> >> Notice how I can redefine the words purple and blue. >> You can't redefine your purpleness, and blueness, it just is, and you >> know that more absolutely than you know anything. >> >> >> >> >> >> On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 10:47 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 10:43 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> On Mon, Dec 23, 2019 at 4:29 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>? *In other words, both (255, 0, 0) and "red" are not physically >>> red. You need to point to something and say: "THAT is red" to provide a >>> physical definition to those abstract terms. * >>> >>> >>> >>> >>?If you're interested in subjectivity, or in gaining understanding of >>> the most basic fundamental nature of anything, not just consciousness, >>> you've got to forget about definitions because ultimately that always leads >>> to circularity, instead you've got to use examples. You point to a ripe >>> tomato and say "That is (255, 0, 0), aka pure red". ? John K Clark >>> >>> >>> >>> John K Clark >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> *?*> *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] utah: RE: Frank Jackson's brilliant color >>> scientist Mary >>> >>> >>> >>> >?I think it's only circular if there is only one example. bill w >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> The entire discussion has helped me accept what I have long suspected: I >>> am a digital avatar. I ?think? only in terms of numbers and equations. >>> You perhaps have heard of that creepy movie where the boy saw dead people, >>> everywhere, walking around. They didn?t even know they are dead. Well, I >>> am his digital counterpart: I see simulated people walking around >>> everywhere. They don?t even know they are software. I didn?t know I was >>> one until the recent qualia discussion. >>> >>> >>> >>> Be that as it may, I am a really cool avatar. Self-aware I am! (Or >>> should it be ?it am?? (It are? (It be?))) Of course it be only digitally >>> simulated self-awareness, but that?s better than none at all. >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 128065 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avant at sollegro.com Tue Jan 7 05:03:48 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2020 21:03:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? Message-ID: <20200106210348.Horde.UIFVar6HDrDIlVZdk32VAlr@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Dave Sill: > On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 10:11 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Bill, it is still a big bang. That didn?t actually change: everything >> started from a point, the same point, which is why there is no center now, >> ... >> > > So if everything started from a point and expanded outward at the same > rate, seems like that point would still be the center-of-mass of the > universe, even if the universe is infinite. Your "even if" clause complicates the answer to your question so let's deal with it first. Many people think of infinity as the largest possible number. Mathematically that is incorrect. The smallest possible infinity is defined as counting FOREVER meaning that it is a the literal non-existence of a largest number rather than any actual number. Such an infinity is called Aleph-0. The continuum of real numbers on a mathematical line is an even bigger infinity because you can't even begin to count it. Pick a point and start counting the successive points. Between the point you call 1 and 2 there are an uncountable number of other points that you could have easily chosen as number 2. Two mathematical points on a number line can be arbitrarily close to one another, therefore it is impossible to choose a 2 because any point you choose will have an infinite number of points between it and 1. That infinity is uncountable because you can't even choose a number 2 even if you had forever to choose it. The official name for this infinity Aleph-1. So if the universe is infinite, then, regardless of whether it is flat or open, the notion of center of mass or any center really, is mathematically meaningless. Take an infinite geometric line. No matter which point you pick to be the center, the line goes on FOREVER to either side. An imaginary infinite beam that could support its own weight would be perfectly balanced no matter where you put the fulcrum. Therefore there is no center of mass to the universe. Now let's address case of the very large but finite universe. For this, I can't rely on pure math and must invoke physics. If the universe is closed, then the overall shape of the universe is a hypersphere which can be visualized by analogy with the common sphere. Think of a sphere as a globe of the planet earth for example. The sphere consist of a 2-dimensional surface "wrapped" around a 3rd dimension. You can label points on the surface of the sphere by a pair of coordinates latitude and longitude. Every such point on the surface of a sphere is at an equal distance from the center of the sphere called the radius. The radius can be thought of the distance from the center of the sphere in the 3rd, inaccessible, dimension. Take note that the coordinates 0 degrees latitude, 0 degrees longitude is completely arbitrary and in no way counts as the "center" of the sphere. It should be clear that the center of mass of sphere does not lie anywhere on the 2-dimensional surface of the sphere but must instead lie in its 3rd dimension, completely hidden and unreachable by any flat-lander trapped on the surface of the sphere. To apply this picture to the 4-dimensional universe, simply think of the "surface" of the hypersphere as 3-dimensional space and the radius as being the 13.8 billion years of elapsed time since the "center of the universe" otherwise known as the big bang. No matter where you go, embedded in the 3-dimensional "surface" of the hypersphere, you can assign yourself yourself the coordinates (0,0,0) but you are nowhere near the center because you would have move backwards in time to get there. And moving backwards in time is generally forbidden for normal matter. So the location of the "big bang" and therefore, the center of mass lies in the past and not at any current location in space. For a very large but finite flat or open universe, which would have an edge or boundary of some kind that lies beyond what we can observe through our best telescopes, the argument is a little more subtle. Center of mass is a gravitational concept and as such can only be meaningful for causally-connected space. The influence of gravity as demonstrated by LIGO, travels at the speed of light. Therefore the largest structure that can have a center of mass that is meaningful to us is our causal cell or Hubble sphere. Anything outside of the Hubble radius is receding from us at faster than light speed due to the expansion of space. And because the Hubble radius is 13.7 biilion light-years away from us in every direction, we are, by definition, at the center of our causal cell even if we are not the center of the entire universe. Furthermore since the opposite edges of such a large but finite universe cannot causally affect one another, there can be no physically meaningful gravitational center or center of mass to such a universe. Sorry for the long-winded answer, but your simple question was deceptively profound. TLDR; The universe does not have center of mass whether the universe is infinite or not. But any point in the universe is an equally valid geometric origin for ones coordinate system provided one is not too close to the hypothetical boundary of a finite universe. Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 12:01:42 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 07:01:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> <005b01d5c3da$260423b0$720c6b10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 10:17 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *if everything started from a point and expanded outward* > There was no outward to expand into, instead the distance between every point became larger, so the point of view from everyone at every point would be the same, things are flying away from them and the more distant they are the faster they are receding from them. If no point can claim a unique vantage point then there can be no center of mass. *> at the same rate, seems like that point would still be the > center-of-mass of the universe,* > Perhaps from the point of view from somebody outside the universe looking in, but that is a point of view that can not physically exist. > > *even if the universe is infinite.* > It makes no difference. If 3D space is finite then it must be closed and curved and have no center just as the 2D surface of a sphere has no center. And if it's infinite then it has no center for the same reason that the set of integers has no center. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 13:15:51 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 08:15:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <1B61F137-64B9-4713-B0C2-3137DF6A51C2@gmail.com> References: <1B61F137-64B9-4713-B0C2-3137DF6A51C2@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:15 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> Does anyone have a right to rule you or anyone else isn?t a question > about rules but about rulers. And it?s about a right to rule* It's a objective fact that some people do in fact rule over other people and have done so for all of written history, so the question of "rights" must live in the subjective world. And in my subjective opinion rights should be consistent with civilization not collapsing into chaos and bloody violence. That's why, in light of the AI revolution and the turmoil it will certainly produce, I've felt the need to moderate my former rather extreme libertarian views and support things I never would have just a few years ago, such as universal basic income (like Finland already has) and healthcare for all citizens (as every technologically advanced country in the world already has EXCEPT for the USA). As for rights that don't involve money (such as freedom of the press and the right to put any drug I want into my body) my former libertarian (small l) philosophy has needed far less radical change. By the way, I don't drink and don't take happy pills and have never even smoked a marijuana cigarette, but that's just my choice and in my subjective view you should be free to do what you want. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Tue Jan 7 13:39:56 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 08:39:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sorry this response wasn?t formulated yet when it was Sent prematurely. > On Jan 6, 2020, at 7:50 PM, Henry Rivera <4chaos.onelove at gmail.com> wrote: > > ? > ?In a pan-psychist view consistent with modern physics, Planck-scale spin networks encode protoconscious (?fundamental?) experience (qualia) as well as Platonic values.? > >>> On Jan 6, 2020, at 7:03 PM, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >> ? >> Hi Ben, >> >> ?The 'thing that is green', or the subjective experience of a specific green object, is not something like a physical property of a chemical.? >> >> And >> >> ?The phrase "what it is that has the redness quality you can 'directly experience' betrays a dualistic mindset" >> >> There are some very smart ?substance dualists? pointing out that this view hasn?t yet been falsified. If we falsify that all known physics aren?t responsible for the redness we experience, we must conclude that is it some new physics, possibly something interfaced through to some neither world of the dead? >> >> There are a whole heap of ?Property Dualists.? In fact this is still one of the leading consensus ladder of camps. I was once a supporter of this camp. But now I?ve realized, along with multiple others, how misleading even this view is and are now ?monists?. >> >> There are two ways of knowing things. First is objective perception of color and such. In this view there is the target of perception (like the sugar content or ripeness of a strawberry) there is the very different physics our senses detect as they represent that, and finally there is our knowledge of such. All of these obviously different physical things. >> >> You don?t perceive colorness properties, you are directly aware of them, in computationally bound register pixels of our conscious CPU. These are the final result of perception. >> >> The first method is abstract (requires correct interpretation of whatever physics is landing on our senses), and therefor can be mistaken. As in the case when something ?seems? different than it really is. >> >> Colorness is a physical property that just is and can?t be mistaken. It is the mistaken seeming knowledge that may be incorrectly representing its referent. >> >> It is a necessary truth, that if you consciously know something, there must be something that is that knowledge, and it must be computationally bound into your awareness. >> >> We have knowledge of spirits, in our diorama of knowledge (represented as if existing behind and looking out of our knowledge of our eyes.) While most of our visual knowledge has a referent in reality, our knowledge of our spirit does not. >> >> The funny thing about people that believe in Ghosts, is that even a ghost, like a ?homunculus in a cartesian theater.? if they are ?self-aware? there necessarily must be some subset of that ghost that is its knowledge of self. Which of course is kind of absurd. >> >> >>> On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 7:00 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> On 06/01/2020 07:00, Brent Allsop wrote: >>> >>> >>> >When you experience a redness quality, when you are dreaming or not, >>> there must be something, that is that redness quality you are >>> experiencing. My redness could be like your greenness, >>> >>> >>> No, I very much doubt it. In order for your 'redness' to be like my >>> 'greenness', it would have to be associated with the perception of >>> grass, racing cars, limes, and hundreds of other things linked to the >>> word 'green' in my mind. The 'something that I'm experiencing' (but see >>> below) when I see a lime and am just concentrating on the colour, is far >>> from a simple thing. And it's probably a different thing, to some >>> degree, each time I do this. >>> >>> The 'thing that is green', or the subjective experience of a specific >>> green object, is not somethihng like a physical property of a chemical. >>> It's a large pattern of neural activation in my brain. This pattern is >>> necessarily linked to other patterns that represent instances of green >>> objects, among many other patterns. >>> >>> The phrase "what it is that has the redness quality you can directly >>> experience" betrays a dualistic mind-set, I think. As though the 'me' >>> that was experiencing the sight (or memory, etc.) of a red object, or >>> just a flat field of the colour red, or even the abstract notion of >>> 'redness', was a different thing to the actual experience. Which of >>> course gives rise to all sorts of awkward and nonsensical questions. >>> >>> That's not what I think is happening. The way of looking at this that >>> currently makes sense to me, is that when I'm in that state of >>> 'experiencing a red thing', that is what I am. There are not two >>> separate things, one having an experience, and the other being the >>> experience. There is just one. There is a pattern of neural activation >>> going on in a brain. At that moment, 'I' am not 'experiencing' that >>> pattern, the pattern is what I am. The next moment, of course, the >>> pattern (or rather, the complex set of all the patterns that are >>> currently active) changes, and I am something else. >>> >>> This is why I say that "elemental redness" is a nonsense concept, and >>> why I don't give any credence to the idea of a chemical substance >>> somehow having a 'red property'. If that was the case, I would be that >>> red property of that chemical. Which gives rise, again, to all sorts of >>> nonsensical questions. Which molecule am I? How do I think of something >>> other than red? and so on. >>> >>> -- >>> Ben Zaiboc >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 06:39:29 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 22:39:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i am software: wasRE: utah: RE: Frank Jackson's brilliant color scientist Mary In-Reply-To: References: <012b01d5bc14$592e9310$0b8bb930$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: > are you really implying that I think that rainbow picture can?t be represented by an array of values including RGB(FF0000), as it appears here? You appear to be defending the position that there is some ineffable, not-representable-by-other-means qualia in the image. Without agreeing or disagreeing with that position, I am pointing out that the specific example given is a remarkably weak defense of that position. > Are you saying that RGB(FF,00,00). or any other such abstract software is physically red? No. I say it is a representation of red, similar in nature to representations of red in the human brain. "Physically red", to me, consists of reflecting and/or emitting - within the visible spectrum - primarily red photons, which are photons close to 680 nanometers in wavelength. A mathematical construct (such as "RGB(FF,00,00)", which is in turn most often represented as the number 16,711,680) is not a physical object, and thus is not "physically" anything. It can, however, serve as part of an instruction for a physical thing - say, a pixel on a monitor - to become physically red. Physical redness can be measured, just like any other physical color properties, but the number that results from the measurement is just another representation. "The map is not the territory", as it's said. This debate in general seems to be suffering from a remarkable level of redefinitions on the fly and goalpost-moving. I am not saying you exclusively are doing that, I'm saying that's the discussion in general. This has been my main reason for staying out of the debate until now. Most egregiously, what exactly is "qualia", other than "magic that defines the experience of redness/et cetera"? Some people seem to be insisting that qualia can not be defined in any measurable terms. Over and over, I have seen strawman examples set up - the original supposition about a "color scientist who had all the physical information, and then one day actually saw red" being an example. One reason there is dissonance is that, intuitively we know there can not be such a thing as someone with "all the physical information", thus the premise is rejected and what is actually evaluated is someone who has a lot of data but nowhere near "all". Another reason is that it confuses "information" in the intellectual sense with memories of experiences: of course someone who doesn't have a specific memory won't have that memory, but that says nothing about that person's ability to learn information. Perhaps this debate could be settled more quickly if people simply did not use words that have been muddled so much within the conversation itself. Specifically, state the concepts without using the word "qualia" (or making up any other words). For instance, going back to Mary the color scientist. Let's say she is color-blind due to a defect located entirely in her eyes, but knows how to do brain surgery, specifically on the sensorimotor cortex. Might she be able to implant something, or rewire someone's brain, so they see red? If so, would it be correct to say that she has triggered that person's perception of red? Let's say she then programs a robot or instructs other people to do the same surgery to her. They do (let us assume correctly and perfectly, which is certainly possible), and she gets a perception that she has never had before - but she has a word for it: "red". Everything that can be measured says Mary and this other person had the same experience. They both use the word "red" for it, but of course words can mean different things to different people. There are probably different emotional connotations and reactions, but these trigger off the representation in the brain, not actually off the physical redness itself. (In almost all real cases, physical redness is the only viable means to create this representation - but that doesn't make physical redness and the representation literally the same thing.) On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:38 PM Brent Allsop wrote: > Hi Adrian, > > > > Thanks for jumping in. > > > > And I often get sucked into missing when people are just yanking my chain. > > So, just to get that out of the way, this entire response seems like > someone is just yanking my chain, it seems to me to be so obviously wrong > and twisted in so many ways. > > > > ?fails to refute the concept that image qualia can be represented in > other forms. > > > > Along with most everything else in this reply that is so mistaken, are you > really implying that I think that rainbow picture can?t be represented by > an array of values including RGB(FF0000), as it appears here? Are you > saying that RGB(FF,00,00). or any other such abstract software is > physically red? > > > > Software = qualia people are so infuriating to me. The best I can > understand from what qualia arise from software say is redness arises from > software via . They certainly never provide anything > better than that, that I can see. I wonder what a person believing qualia > arise from software will do if experimentalists discover that the only > thing anyone can find in this universe that has a physical redness quality > is glutamate. Would they continue to try to find some way to make > something like RGB(FF,00,00) produce a redness experience for someone, and > continue to claim you can?t disprove a negative as the theists always do > about the existence of their God? After all, you never know, if you add > enough RGB(FFFFFFFFFFFFFF?.,00,00) it could finally result in a physical > redness quality, right? > > > > If you are not yanking my chain, again, still, thanks for jumping in. I > still must not be adequately communicating what I?m trying to describe. Or > maybe I'm just failing to understand what you are trying to say. I > appreciate everyone?s patience on this. It is always helpful when a new > person joins in. I?ve improved a lot in the way I say things (having much > more success than I once had), but I evidently still have a LONG way to > go. Unless you are yanking my chain? ;) > > > > Brent > > On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 4:37 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I see orange and cyan there, too. Also, a rainbow is a gradient, which >> your list of words fails to note. There is also no mention of the sky, >> clouds, or arc of the rainbow, nor of the transparency toward one end. >> >> It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Exacttness of that >> measure aside, trying to equate a picture to a very few words is a strawman >> argument, and as such fails to refute the concept that image qualia can be >> represented in other forms. >> >> On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 8:44 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> Your wrong, unless you see no difference between this >>> [image: image.png] >>> and the abstract words "red, yellow, green, purple and blue". >>> >>> Notice how I can redefine the words purple and blue. >>> You can't redefine your purpleness, and blueness, it just is, and you >>> know that more absolutely than you know anything. >>> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 128065 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 15:51:31 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 09:51:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] libertarianism Message-ID: Here is the way I think of it: Mill's On Liberty: your right to swing your fist stops where my nose starts. That premise can yield infinite numbers of deductions. You live in a country where a dictator rules. You have no rights to choose the ruler. But you do have duties to obey him - or else his military, the only reason he is a ruler, will descend upon you. You live in a democracy/republic of sorts, and choose your rulers. You have rights that are guaranteed by a constitution. You have duties to support it. If you choose to think of taxation as confiscation and evade taxes, then you are not pulling your weight and should be punished. The constitution is the set of premises: deductions from it, laws, that are not logical are unconstitutional and void. All of the valid laws are instances of the restraining of your fist and thus your ability to do as you choose. You don't like some of the laws, and so you don't follow them. I do that regularly, but if I got caught I would not complain - I voted with my butt to stay here and agree to follow laws, and when I don't I expect to suffer the consequences. That's what I need to know. Any more than that, I don't even want to know, so please just applaud and hold your tongue, particularly is it's a sneering one. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 19:09:57 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 11:09:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i am software: wasRE: utah: RE: Frank Jackson's brilliant color scientist Mary In-Reply-To: References: <012b01d5bc14$592e9310$0b8bb930$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 10:50 AM Brent Allsop wrote: > Today physicists can?t tell us the qualitative color of anything. Though > they can abstractly describe everything about physics (just as Frank > Jackson?s Mary can) they can?t tell us anything about the physical quality > any of these descriptions are describing. For example, it could be that > our descriptions of how glutamate reacts in a synapse could be describing > what we directly experience as redness. > Well, I can tell you what part of "redness" is. There are certain photoreceptors in the human eye that trigger upon receipt of red photons, and do not trigger upon receipt of photons of other colors. It's the specific neurons that matter: the receptors for red, green, and blue all use glutamate in the same way. The brain recognizes these patterns, but associating them to the word "red" is very much a cultural, learned thing - see https://k-international.com/blog/colors-in-other-languages/ among many other sources. Thus, "redness" gets into sociology and the humanities, so of course pure biophysics struggles to give a full picture of what "redness" boils down to. Put another way, to take a specific example that page notes: we have direct physical evidence that "blueness" differs between those whose first language is Russian and those whose first language is English. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Tue Jan 7 19:17:10 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 19:17:10 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/01/2020 04:09, Brent Allsop wrote: There are two ways of knowing things.? First is objective perception of color and such.? In this view there is the target of perception (like the sugar content or ripeness of a strawberry) there is the very different physics our senses detect as they represent that, and finally there is our knowledge of such.? All of these obviously different physical things. You don?t perceive colorness properties, you are directly aware of them, in computationally bound register pixels of our conscious CPU.? These are the final result of perception. The first method is abstract (requires correct interpretation of whatever physics is landing on our senses), and therefor can be mistaken.? As in the case when something ?seems? different than it really is. Colorness is a physical property that just is and can?t be mistaken.? It is the mistaken seeming knowledge that may be incorrectly representing its referent. It is a necessary truth, that if you consciously know something, there must be something that is that knowledge, and it must be computationally bound into your awareness. We have knowledge of spirits, in our diorama of knowledge (represented as if existing behind and looking out of our knowledge of our eyes.)? While most of our visual knowledge has a referent in reality, our knowledge of our spirit does not. The funny thing about people that believe in Ghosts, is that even a ghost, like a ?homunculus in a cartesian theater.?? if they are ?self-aware? there necessarily must be some subset of that ghost that is its knowledge of self.? Which of course is kind of absurd. Sorry, I have absolutely no idea what you're saying. Many of your sentences don't even make grammatical sense, and I can't get any meaning from them at all. e.g. "You don?t perceive colorness properties, you are directly aware of them". You seem to be saying that awareness of colour and perception of colour are different things. I don't know about you, but I can't be aware of something that I haven't perceived, and I can't perceive something without being aware of it. The two words effectively mean the same thing. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 19:47:57 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 12:47:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you surgically remove your eyes, and are put into a room with no light, then stimulate the optic nerve, identical to the way it would be when looking at a strawberry. You would have identical knowledge of the strawberry. What is that knowledge, and what is it that has the redness quality you experience? This can?t be ?perception? as that requires eyes. It is simply conscious knowledge, the result of perception. On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 12:19 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 07/01/2020 04:09, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > There are two ways of knowing things. First is objective perception of > color and such. In this view there is the target of perception (like the > sugar content or ripeness of a strawberry) there is the very different > physics our senses detect as they represent that, and finally there is our > knowledge of such. All of these obviously different physical things. > > > > You don?t perceive colorness properties, you are directly aware of them, > in computationally bound register pixels of our conscious CPU. These are > the final result of perception. > > > > The first method is abstract (requires correct interpretation of whatever > physics is landing on our senses), and therefor can be mistaken. As in the > case when something ?seems? different than it really is. > > > > Colorness is a physical property that just is and can?t be mistaken. It > is the mistaken seeming knowledge that may be incorrectly representing its > referent. > > > > It is a necessary truth, that if you consciously know something, there > must be something that is that knowledge, and it must be computationally > bound into your awareness. > > > > We have knowledge of spirits, in our diorama of knowledge (represented as > if existing behind and looking out of our knowledge of our eyes.) While > most of our visual knowledge has a referent in reality, our knowledge of > our spirit does not. > > > > The funny thing about people that believe in Ghosts, is that even a ghost, > like a ?homunculus in a cartesian theater.? if they are ?self-aware? there > necessarily must be some subset of that ghost that is its knowledge of > self. Which of course is kind of absurd. > > > Sorry, I have absolutely no idea what you're saying. Many of your > sentences don't even make grammatical sense, and I can't get any meaning > from them at all. e.g. "You don?t perceive colorness properties, you are > directly aware of them". You seem to be saying that awareness of colour > and perception of colour are different things. I don't know about you, but > I can't be aware of something that I haven't perceived, and I can't > perceive something without being aware of it. The two words effectively > mean the same thing. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 18:49:58 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 11:49:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] i am software: wasRE: utah: RE: Frank Jackson's brilliant color scientist Mary In-Reply-To: References: <012b01d5bc14$592e9310$0b8bb930$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hi Adrian, ?This debate in general seems to be suffering from a remarkable level of redefinitions on the fly and goalpost-moving.? This is the problem with the entire Theory and Philosophy of mind field. The peer review system just makes this even worse. Everyone describes their own ideas, in their own unique language. Nobody talks about things everyone agrees on, giving everyone the false belief that nobody agrees on anything. Even good neural scientists that want to understand things like ?qualia?, after struggling to research the ?peer reviewed? finally just give up, since it is all just religiously biased BS. There is absolutely nothing of any theoretical value to an experimentalist describing what experimentalists should be looking for, or how any of the theories could be falsified. That is why we created Canonizer.com, to build and track consensus around concise descriptions of the best language, in collaboratively agreed on terminology. For example, qualia are described as ?ineffable?. We need a new word that means communicating that which is ineffable. So we are building consensus around the best term to use here . There is a surprising amount of consensus forming around what is now being called ?Representational Qualia Theory ?. Even Dennett?s ?Predictive Baylean Coding Theory ? is now in a supporting sub camp position to ?Representational Qualia Theory ?. This camp defines consciousness to be ?Computationally bound elemental physical qualities in the brain we are directly aware of like redness and greenness.? This camp also points out how most people?s (including all known peer reviewed journals on color perception) thinking and terminology are ?qualia blind?. Most people use a word like ?red? in only abstract ways which provides no physical definition. If they tie it to physics at all, it is only tied to wavelengths of light. Check out this video which illustrates the problem, showing how perception can be red / green inverted anywhere along the chain of perception, resulting in inverted red/green knowledge of something like strawberry. This proves that a redness qualitative experience has nothing to do with the strawberry or light. So, in order to talk about physical properties, it requires more than just one word for ?red?. Typically, the word ?red? is used as a label for anything that reflects or emits red light, as you mentioned. Red things initiate the perception process. We need a completely different word to describe the physical properties of our knowledge of such. As demonstrated by the inversion video, has nothing to do with ?red? things. So, in order to not be qualia blind, you must use a different word like ?redness? as a label for a very different physical quality. We detect color properties via objective observation. Since the physics being detected by our senses are nothing like the physics of the target of perception, correct interpretation is required to know what they represent. All information obtained through this kind of objective observation is abstract and devoid of any qualitative information. Colorness properties are different. These are the physical qualities of the final result of the perception process we are directly aware of. Objectively perceived information can be mistaken, if it is miss interpreted, for example. Something may ?seem? red, but that knowledge could be mistaken. That mistaken redness seeming, is a colorness property of physics we are directly aware of. This ?seeming? cannot be mistaken. Notice how everything you are saying is classically qualia blind. Today physicists can?t tell us the qualitative color of anything. Though they can abstractly describe everything about physics (just as Frank Jackson?s Mary can) they can?t tell us anything about the physical quality any of these descriptions are describing. For example, it could be that our descriptions of how glutamate reacts in a synapse could be describing what we directly experience as redness. This is all described in more detail in this ?Objectively, We are Blind to Physical Qualities ? paper presented at last years ?Long Island Philosophical Society?. On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 7:11 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > are you really implying that I think that rainbow picture can?t be > represented by an array of values including RGB(FF0000), as it appears > here? > > You appear to be defending the position that there is some ineffable, > not-representable-by-other-means qualia in the image. Without agreeing or > disagreeing with that position, I am pointing out that the specific example > given is a remarkably weak defense of that position. > > > Are you saying that RGB(FF,00,00). or any other such abstract software > is physically red? > > No. I say it is a representation of red, similar in nature to > representations of red in the human brain. > > "Physically red", to me, consists of reflecting and/or emitting - within > the visible spectrum - primarily red photons, which are photons close to > 680 nanometers in wavelength. A mathematical construct (such as > "RGB(FF,00,00)", which is in turn most often represented as the number > 16,711,680) is not a physical object, and thus is not "physically" > anything. It can, however, serve as part of an instruction for a physical > thing - say, a pixel on a monitor - to become physically red. Physical > redness can be measured, just like any other physical color properties, but > the number that results from the measurement is just another > representation. "The map is not the territory", as it's said. > > This debate in general seems to be suffering from a remarkable level of > redefinitions on the fly and goalpost-moving. I am not saying you > exclusively are doing that, I'm saying that's the discussion in general. > This has been my main reason for staying out of the debate until now. > > Most egregiously, what exactly is "qualia", other than "magic that defines > the experience of redness/et cetera"? Some people seem to be insisting > that qualia can not be defined in any measurable terms. Over and over, I > have seen strawman examples set up - the original supposition about a > "color scientist who had all the physical information, and then one day > actually saw red" being an example. One reason there is dissonance is > that, intuitively we know there can not be such a thing as someone with > "all the physical information", thus the premise is rejected and what is > actually evaluated is someone who has a lot of data but nowhere near > "all". Another reason is that it confuses "information" in the > intellectual sense with memories of experiences: of course someone who > doesn't have a specific memory won't have that memory, but that says > nothing about that person's ability to learn information. > > Perhaps this debate could be settled more quickly if people simply did not > use words that have been muddled so much within the conversation itself. > Specifically, state the concepts without using the word "qualia" (or making > up any other words). > > For instance, going back to Mary the color scientist. Let's say she is > color-blind due to a defect located entirely in her eyes, but knows how to > do brain surgery, specifically on the sensorimotor cortex. Might she be > able to implant something, or rewire someone's brain, so they see red? If > so, would it be correct to say that she has triggered that person's > perception of red? > > Let's say she then programs a robot or instructs other people to do the > same surgery to her. They do (let us assume correctly and perfectly, which > is certainly possible), and she gets a perception that she has never had > before - but she has a word for it: "red". > > Everything that can be measured says Mary and this other person had the > same experience. They both use the word "red" for it, but of course words > can mean different things to different people. There are probably > different emotional connotations and reactions, but these trigger off the > representation in the brain, not actually off the physical redness itself. > (In almost all real cases, physical redness is the only viable means to > create this representation - but that doesn't make physical redness and the > representation literally the same thing.) > > On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:38 PM Brent Allsop > wrote: > >> Hi Adrian, >> >> >> >> Thanks for jumping in. >> >> >> >> And I often get sucked into missing when people are just yanking my chain. >> >> So, just to get that out of the way, this entire response seems like >> someone is just yanking my chain, it seems to me to be so obviously wrong >> and twisted in so many ways. >> >> >> >> ?fails to refute the concept that image qualia can be represented in >> other forms. >> >> >> >> Along with most everything else in this reply that is so mistaken, are >> you really implying that I think that rainbow picture can?t be represented >> by an array of values including RGB(FF0000), as it appears here? Are you >> saying that RGB(FF,00,00). or any other such abstract software is >> physically red? >> >> >> >> Software = qualia people are so infuriating to me. The best I can >> understand from what qualia arise from software say is redness arises from >> software via . They certainly never provide anything >> better than that, that I can see. I wonder what a person believing qualia >> arise from software will do if experimentalists discover that the only >> thing anyone can find in this universe that has a physical redness quality >> is glutamate. Would they continue to try to find some way to make >> something like RGB(FF,00,00) produce a redness experience for someone, and >> continue to claim you can?t disprove a negative as the theists always do >> about the existence of their God? After all, you never know, if you add >> enough RGB(FFFFFFFFFFFFFF?.,00,00) it could finally result in a physical >> redness quality, right? >> >> >> >> If you are not yanking my chain, again, still, thanks for jumping in. I >> still must not be adequately communicating what I?m trying to describe. Or >> maybe I'm just failing to understand what you are trying to say. I >> appreciate everyone?s patience on this. It is always helpful when a new >> person joins in. I?ve improved a lot in the way I say things (having much >> more success than I once had), but I evidently still have a LONG way to >> go. Unless you are yanking my chain? ;) >> >> >> >> Brent >> >> On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 4:37 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I see orange and cyan there, too. Also, a rainbow is a gradient, which >>> your list of words fails to note. There is also no mention of the sky, >>> clouds, or arc of the rainbow, nor of the transparency toward one end. >>> >>> It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Exacttness of that >>> measure aside, trying to equate a picture to a very few words is a strawman >>> argument, and as such fails to refute the concept that image qualia can be >>> represented in other forms. >>> >>> On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 8:44 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Your wrong, unless you see no difference between this >>>> [image: image.png] >>>> and the abstract words "red, yellow, green, purple and blue". >>>> >>>> Notice how I can redefine the words purple and blue. >>>> You can't redefine your purpleness, and blueness, it just is, and you >>>> know that more absolutely than you know anything. >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 128065 bytes Desc: not available URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 19:57:12 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 12:57:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] i am software: wasRE: utah: RE: Frank Jackson's brilliant color scientist Mary In-Reply-To: References: <012b01d5bc14$592e9310$0b8bb930$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: This 'part' of redness you are talking about is only yet more abstract labels and language. You are only talking about red, and not providing a qualitative definition of physical redness. All we know of light, is abstract descriptions, there is no qualitative meaning in that. Remember, you can invert red with green, anywhere in the perception chain, including in the optic nerve, disconnecting redness from anything in the eye and anything you are talking about. Talking about how some people experience and use different words for red, again, tells you nothing about what it is, that has a redness quality, which for all practical purposes, my redness could be the same physics as your grenness. Nobody, including you, can provide a qualitative definition of, or what it is that has a redness quality. Brent On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 12:11 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 10:50 AM Brent Allsop > wrote: > >> Today physicists can?t tell us the qualitative color of anything. Though >> they can abstractly describe everything about physics (just as Frank >> Jackson?s Mary can) they can?t tell us anything about the physical quality >> any of these descriptions are describing. For example, it could be that >> our descriptions of how glutamate reacts in a synapse could be describing >> what we directly experience as redness. >> > > Well, I can tell you what part of "redness" is. There are certain > photoreceptors in the human eye that trigger upon receipt of red photons, > and do not trigger upon receipt of photons of other colors. It's the > specific neurons that matter: the receptors for red, green, and blue all > use glutamate in the same way. > > The brain recognizes these patterns, but associating them to the word > "red" is very much a cultural, learned thing - see > https://k-international.com/blog/colors-in-other-languages/ among many > other sources. Thus, "redness" gets into sociology and the humanities, so > of course pure biophysics struggles to give a full picture of what > "redness" boils down to. > > Put another way, to take a specific example that page notes: we have > direct physical evidence that "blueness" differs between those whose first > language is Russian and those whose first language is English. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 20:36:38 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 14:36:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 1:50 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > If you surgically remove your eyes, and are put into a room with no light, > then stimulate the optic nerve, identical to the way it would be when > looking at a strawberry. You would have identical knowledge of the > strawberry. What is that knowledge, and what is it that has the redness > quality you experience? This can?t be ?perception? as that requires eyes. > It is simply conscious knowledge, the result of perception. > > This is totally self-contradictory: if you can (and I would say that you > cannot) stimulate the optic exactly as it would be if the eye was intact, > you should get exactly the same sensation and perception. bill w > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 20:54:29 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 14:54:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] blind dreams Message-ID: Brent's post made me Google this. Blind people do dream and so have visual images, though the article did not give any details. For instance, if one has never seen anything how can they dream about people or trees or anything visual. Could not find that out. The dreams were different depending on when they went blind. Those that kept their sight into adulthood tended to have dreams indistinguishable from ours. Also, unlike myself, they have dreams involving touch, taste, smell, and touch. My dreams are rather poor by comparison. Shucks. So you don't need functional eyes to dream or to see in your dreams. All you need is stimulation of the visual areas. Thought you might find this interesting. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 21:01:36 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 13:01:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 11:49 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > If you surgically remove your eyes, and are put into a room with no light, > then stimulate the optic nerve, identical to the way it would be when > looking at a strawberry. You would have identical knowledge of the > strawberry. > Technically not identical. You would know the information comes from a different source. This may color - pun thoroughly intended - how you treat this information, making the knowledge perhaps less reliable. > What is that knowledge, and what is it that has the redness quality you > experience? This can?t be ?perception? as that requires eyes. > Incorrect. It is entirely possible to perceive via sound, touch, smell, and taste. If you had other senses, such as a visual-replacement as you describe here, those could perceive too. Indeed, one might say that the ability to perceive via it is required for a thing to qualify as a "sense". -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 23:17:00 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 17:17:00 -0600 Subject: [ExI] a little fun Message-ID: Lest we forget: "Families is where our nation finds hope where wings take dream." "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." "What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas, I think vulcanize society." "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." "I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy." "I would have to ask the questioner. I haven't had a chance to ask the questioners the question they've been questioning." "They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program." "One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected." "The California crunch is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants." "I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well." "How do you know if you don't measure if you have a system that simply suckles kids through?" "They misunderestimated me." Yeah. They expected that their expectations would not expect less. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 23:27:07 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 17:27:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] even more fun Message-ID: >From Family Feud: Q name a fruit that is yellow A orange Q name something that floats in the bath A water Q Name a famous cowboy A Buck Rogers Q Name a number you have to memorize A seven Q Name a body part beginning with N A knee Q Something you do before going to bed A sleep Q Name a bird with a long neck A Naomi Campbell Q Name something with a hole in it. A window Q Name a holiday when the stores are always busy A Monday Q Name something some people do clothed that others do without clothes A ride a motorcycle Q Name something you do in the bathroom A decorate Q Name the first thing you take off after work A underwear Q Something that flies that doesn't have an engine A a bicycle with wings Q Name an occupation where you need a torch A burglar Q Name an animal you might see in a zoo A a dog Q A job around the house that has to be done every fall A Spring cleaning Q Something you might be allergic to A skiing. Q Name a famous bridge A the bridge over troubled waters. Q Name something a cat does A goes to the bathroom Q Name a song with Moon in the title A Blue Suede Moon Q Name an item of clothing worn by the three Musketeers A a horse Q Name a famous group of singers A The Simpsons Did you ever think that stage fright wasn't real? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 23:28:59 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 18:28:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] a little fun In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 6:20 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > They expected that their expectations would not expect less. I could not fail to disagree with you less. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 23:39:36 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 16:39:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: you should get exactly the same sensation and perception. bill w That is what I?m trying to say. So what is it that has that redness quality you are experiencing as knowledge of the strawberry, even though there is not light and no strawberry? On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 2:02 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 11:49 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> If you surgically remove your eyes, and are put into a room with no >> light, then stimulate the optic nerve, identical to the way it would be >> when looking at a strawberry. You would have identical knowledge of the >> strawberry. >> > > Technically not identical. You would know the information comes from a > different source. This may color - pun thoroughly intended - how you treat > this information, making the knowledge perhaps less reliable. > > >> What is that knowledge, and what is it that has the redness quality you >> experience? This can?t be ?perception? as that requires eyes. >> > > Incorrect. It is entirely possible to perceive via sound, touch, smell, > and taste. If you had other senses, such as a visual-replacement as you > describe here, those could perceive too. Indeed, one might say that the > ability to perceive via it is required for a thing to qualify as a "sense". > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 23:45:10 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 17:45:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] a little fun In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 5:37 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 6:20 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > They expected that their expectations would not expect less. > > > John - I could not fail to disagree with you less. > Well, you don't have to be blind to see that. bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 23:46:44 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 17:46:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What has that redness quality is what area of your brain the stimulation of the optic nerve arrives at. On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 5:45 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > you should get exactly the same sensation and perception. bill w > > > > That is what I?m trying to say. So what is it that has that redness > quality you are experiencing as knowledge of the strawberry, even though > there is not light and no strawberry? > > On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 2:02 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 11:49 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> If you surgically remove your eyes, and are put into a room with no >>> light, then stimulate the optic nerve, identical to the way it would be >>> when looking at a strawberry. You would have identical knowledge of the >>> strawberry. >>> >> >> Technically not identical. You would know the information comes from a >> different source. This may color - pun thoroughly intended - how you treat >> this information, making the knowledge perhaps less reliable. >> >> >>> What is that knowledge, and what is it that has the redness quality you >>> experience? This can?t be ?perception? as that requires eyes. >>> >> >> Incorrect. It is entirely possible to perceive via sound, touch, smell, >> and taste. If you had other senses, such as a visual-replacement as you >> describe here, those could perceive too. Indeed, one might say that the >> ability to perceive via it is required for a thing to qualify as a "sense". >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 00:03:22 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 17:03:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It sounds like you are saying it is something in the brain. Are you saying that we know what it is? Or do you agree that nobody can tell us which of all our descriptions of physics are descriptions of a redness quality? Or in other words that we don?t know the qualitative color of anything. On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 4:58 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What has that redness quality is what area of your brain the stimulation > of the optic nerve arrives at. > > On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 5:45 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> you should get exactly the same sensation and perception. bill w >> >> >> >> That is what I?m trying to say. So what is it that has that redness >> quality you are experiencing as knowledge of the strawberry, even though >> there is not light and no strawberry? >> >> On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 2:02 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 11:49 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> If you surgically remove your eyes, and are put into a room with no >>>> light, then stimulate the optic nerve, identical to the way it would be >>>> when looking at a strawberry. You would have identical knowledge of the >>>> strawberry. >>>> >>> >>> Technically not identical. You would know the information comes from a >>> different source. This may color - pun thoroughly intended - how you treat >>> this information, making the knowledge perhaps less reliable. >>> >>> >>>> What is that knowledge, and what is it that has the redness quality you >>>> experience? This can?t be ?perception? as that requires eyes. >>>> >>> >>> Incorrect. It is entirely possible to perceive via sound, touch, smell, >>> and taste. If you had other senses, such as a visual-replacement as you >>> describe here, those could perceive too. Indeed, one might say that the >>> ability to perceive via it is required for a thing to qualify as a "sense". >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 01:36:28 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 18:36:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] blind dreams In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Right, that?s the whole idea behind Descartes old idea of being a brain in a vat, as described by Descartes so long ago. Just as portrayed in the Matrix . All that ?juicy? steak physical knowledge isn?t in the matrix, it is in the brain, in the vat, in the basement level physical reality. All being generated in the brain, from the matrix overriding a human?s normal sensory input and control neurons. So, do you agree that science can?t yet tell us the qualitative color of anything, yet? As in: "It's not a 'hard mind body problem" it's just a color problem". On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 1:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Brent's post made me Google this. Blind people do dream and so have > visual images, though the article did not give any details. For instance, > if one has never seen anything how can they dream about people or trees or > anything visual. Could not find that out. > > The dreams were different depending on when they went blind. Those that > kept their sight into adulthood tended to have dreams indistinguishable > from ours. Also, unlike myself, they have dreams involving touch, taste, > smell, and touch. My dreams are rather poor by comparison. Shucks. > > So you don't need functional eyes to dream or to see in your dreams. All > you need is stimulation of the visual areas. Thought you might find this > interesting. > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 02:53:47 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 21:53:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties In-Reply-To: <5E132D1A.4070300@zaiboc.net> References: <5E132D1A.4070300@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 7:56 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 5, 2020, at 10:15 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > wrote: > > On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 11:03 AM Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> Compassion is the root of the progressive desire to >> make society more equitable and just. > > > ### I have yet to see a modern "progressive" who desires justice and > progress, or one that sees compassion as anything but a rhetorical ploy. > > Their idea of progress nowadays is banning plastic straws, showers, and > vaccinations. And a lot more. > > > Anti-vaxxers are well represented on the Right, don?t you think? In fact, > while anti-vaxxers can be found across the political spectrum (I imagine > whether one views it as one dimensional or two or more dimensional), those > who identify as conservative have a tendency towards being anti-vaxxers. > See: > > https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5784985/ > > To date, most of the anti-vaxxers I?ve met have self-identified as on the > Right and are often religious conservatives. I?m relying on memory and this > is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt. But that my experience also > matches the above study probably means I?m not living inside some weird > bubble with regard to this. (For the record, too, all the politically > active Democrats who seem progressive that I know personally are pro-vax.) > > > > OK, my fault. I shouldn't have use the word 'progressive'. Like > 'libertarian', that word can be used to describe a number of completely > different viewpoints. My idea of what constitutes progress will be totally > different to the idea of a religious fundamentalist, for example. > > - > > ### Yes, exactly. For me this word is tainted by association with leftist supremacism, even though if we concentrated on the etymology I could be classified as a raging progressive, what with my penchant for genetic engineering, uploading, anarcho-capitalism and the like. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 02:56:55 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 21:56:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties In-Reply-To: <7663E169-494D-4506-9101-5726DE9F3051@gmail.com> References: <7663E169-494D-4506-9101-5726DE9F3051@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 2:02 AM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > To date, most of the anti-vaxxers I?ve met have self-identified as on the > Right and are often religious conservatives. I?m relying on memory and this > is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt. But that my experience also > matches the above study probably means I?m not living inside some weird > bubble with regard to this. (For the record, too, all the politically > active Democrats who seem progressive that I know personally are pro-vax.) > > ### Dunno. The largest number of anti-vaxxer patients I had was in Bellingham, WA, which is a nest of leftists. I never saw anti-vaxxers in Williamsport, PA, or Bismarck, ND, or Green Bay WI, which are middle of the road. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 03:10:16 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 22:10:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <5fd484b14bb18e88121981cfd0af7a57.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <5fd484b14bb18e88121981cfd0af7a57.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:50 PM MB via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Interesting. > > > The anti-vax people I've interacted with have been new-agey kinda folks. > They are certainly not fundies! Some are wicked-smart, but INHO are > looney. > > Some are all freaked out about contrails and flouride and things of that > sort too. Tremendously upset about plastics of all sorts, GMO, any kind of > gene-work. Un-natural, you know. Organic gardening, etc. > > Maybe they are some *modern* type of fundie? Not any type of Christian. > > Thank heaven I've not met many of them. > ### Stay out of Bellingham WA then! :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 04:25:10 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 23:25:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 11:35 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I can't call myself a libertarian because I am in favor of some social > programs. > ### I think I am still a libertarian, maybe even more so than before. In the past few years I have become viscerally aware of tribalism, and the difficulty it poses to libertarian thinking, which tends to assume people assemble primarily to trade for mutual benefit, rather than assemble primarily to attack or defend. But,these difficulties notwithstanding, I am temperamentally inclined towards libertarianism, which I prefer to summarize as a combination of "live and let live" and the scientific method. So, yes, as unlibertarian as it may be, we have to come together to fight the "other", because in this imperfect world some of the others want our stuff. This implies we need to persecute traitors that weaken us and we need to strive for political unity. We need the secret police, we need to pay killers to protect us. This is only reasonable, because the alternative is defeat. But then the reasonable libertarian will be forever suspicious of political power, will use as little of it as possible, given the circumstances and the available technologies. We recognize that every society is a machine that relies on various technologies to perform its functions, which is why an engineer's approach of testing, measuring and tinkering is necessary, much more so that moralizing. Success in building a society is, as much as anything in the real world, an art of the possible. It's pretty easy to come up with uplifting slogans, so mass-market tribes generate them in abundance for striving lemmings to boldly proclaim. It's much more difficult to think your way through complexity, so that the machinery of freedom does not corrupt itself into the machinery of oppression. There is a dichotomy between the exigencies of mass-market politics, which is instinctual and thus hard to improve upon, and the reasoned, in-depth political philosophy that contributes to actual social progress. This is why mass-market political tags, such as "Democrat" or "conservative", convey so little information. Progress is slow, fickle and often accidental because political thinking rather than emoting is hard work, system 2, and thus is short supply. I am a systematizer and I always tried to remove internal inconsistencies from my beliefs, leading me to some discoveries about myself, some of which were mildly unflattering. So after some first-principles analysis, years of observation, being occasionally schooled by my betters and much soul-searching it looks like the middle-market "libertarian" tag is the closest description of my beliefs. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 05:12:59 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 21:12:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Happy 2020, and welcome to the magic twenties In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16F5D95D-1EB5-4895-8493-69C9E88F79AD@gmail.com> On Jan 7, 2020, at 7:05 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 2:02 AM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> To date, most of the anti-vaxxers I?ve met have self-identified as on the Right and are often religious conservatives. I?m relying on memory and this is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt. But that my experience also matches the above study probably means I?m not living inside some weird bubble with regard to this. (For the record, too, all the politically active Democrats who seem progressive that I know personally are pro-vax.) > > > ### Dunno. The largest number of anti-vaxxer patients I had was in Bellingham, WA, which is a nest of leftists. I never saw anti-vaxxers in Williamsport, PA, or Bismarck, ND, or Green Bay WI, which are middle of the road. You and can match off our respective different experiences with regard to this, but did you read the study? Basically: anti-vaxxers vary a lot and are all over the political spectrum, though the study finds there?s more of a tilt to the Right. Not a big one though and not enough to define as a Right phenom with a few Left and others added to the mix. And don?t get me wrong here. I?m aware of Left anti-bad people. I?m just talking about my friends, colleagues, and acquittances ? the ones who?ve mentioned being vaccinations at all. I don?t go around pestering people on this and I don?t have any professional role that would me ask them. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 13:00:54 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 08:00:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] blind dreams In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 3:57 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > if one has never seen anything how can they dream about people or trees > or anything visual. Who said dreams can only be visual? Sight is only one sense, there are 4 others. I'm not blind but when I dream about other people what I remember most about it when I wake up is not what they looked like but what they said, even though they usually don't seem nearly as eloquent in the light of day as they did when I was sleeping. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 13:23:44 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 08:23:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 6:45 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> So what is it that has that redness quality you are experiencing as > knowledge of the strawberry, even though there is not light and no > strawberry?* > First of all the memory of a red strawberry is not the same as looking at at red strawberry, the mind can distinguish between the two experiences and it's a good thing too, otherwise when you saw red you'd have no way of knowing if it was because of something you were seeing now or if it came from something you saw a year ago. And if you want to research the redness quilia you can't pretend that it is the only qualia that exists, red is only red because of the way it contrasts with other color qualia. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 13:40:30 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 08:40:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] a little fun In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 6:52 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> They expected that their expectations would not expect less. >> >> >> >> John - I could not fail to disagree with you less. >> > > > Well, you don't have to be blind to see that. bill w > After all is said and done more is usually said and done. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 14:39:48 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 08:39:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] a little fun In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 7:42 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > After all is said and done more is usually said and done > > correction: I believe it's: After all is said and one, more is usually >>> said than done >>> >> bill w > >>> >>> >> John - I could not fail to disagree with you less. >>> >> >> > Well, you don't have to be blind to see that. bill w >> > > . > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 8 14:55:00 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 06:55:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] a little fun In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00d501d5c633$9a78afd0$cf6a0f70$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] a little fun On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 7:42 AM John Clark via extropy-chat > wrote: >>?After all is said and done more is usually said and done >?correction: I believe it's: After all is said and one, more is usually said than done bill w _______________________________________________ Well, sure. But small typos often lead to greater insights, such as this case. Let us assume that after all is said and done, more is usually said and done. The comment is self-contradictory of course: if more is said and done, then all was not said and done to start with. Self-contradictory statements often lead to greater insights, such as this case. All is never all said and done. There is always more saying and more doing, for at least 11 more years. That last part was an inside joke. For those outside the US: one of our leading politicians has made a startling prediction. If true, we are approaching the negative 11th anniversary of the end of the world. For the next 11 years until the world ends, all is never all said and done. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 8 15:13:23 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 07:13:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology Message-ID: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> We used to write a lot in this forum on conflict technology, but now we do not for it seems to persistently devolve into political chaos. I offer a challenge to our small technology-oriented forum. Write about this topic if you will, but without mentioning the name of any political leader, party, nation, anything that is not a universally-applicable meta-concept. Recent historical events are fair game of course, and relevant, but who did what is not. Twenty years ago on this forum we wrote a lot about future warfare, which would do away with marching columns of young men with rifles on their shoulders, desperate hungry refugees, destroyed cities, generally do away with the horrors of warfare. We thought of how much better it would be if warfare was a battle of technology, or at least better from the point of view of technology-enabled societies. Recently we saw a fulfilment of a dream. We saw persistent conflict between two nations. The more advanced nation fired one missile and took out one military leader and his staff. The enraged victim nation very carefully fired back 15 missiles but hit nothing. Intense but very localized destruction, low loss of life, few of the traditional well-known horrors of war. The reason I prefaced this discussion on requesting we leave off with politics and focus on technology and the future: we don't live in the real world. We don't. Look at us. The closest to a real-world person here might be BillW, for he is a retired college professor who has seen it all, but we haven't. But consider the rest of us. Good chance no one here suffers poverty or real hunger, no one here is desperate or addicted, everyone here at least has a computer and an internet connection. I look at myself: I grew up in a rural area, went to a small college, studied engineering, worked for a company surrounded by people who had never done anything wrong more serious than ripping a tag off an old pillow, and could strap on a polygraph and prove it. That isn't the real world. I have some second cousins who live in the real world. I am horrified by the vague descriptions I hear from them. We live on the same planet, different worlds. However. they vote, and there are more of them than there are of us. So. I urge that we focus on what we know best: science and technology. By some mysterious means the other guy does not have, a tech-advanced society reached in with one missile that came from some unseen radar-invisible source, guided by some undetectable technology of some kind, achieved the result the tech-enabled society wanted with little of the traditional horrors of war. If we look back 20 yrs in the ExI archives, we had a demonstration of the dream we wrote about and vaguely envisioned. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 15:18:58 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 09:18:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have been in this group for quite some time, but I have not read anything as scary as 'paid killers' and 'secret police'. Just why do we need those? Rafal? bill w On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 10:27 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 11:35 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I can't call myself a libertarian because I am in favor of some social >> programs. >> > > ### I think I am still a libertarian, maybe even more so than before. In > the past few years I have become viscerally aware of tribalism, and the > difficulty it poses to libertarian thinking, which tends to assume people > assemble primarily to trade for mutual benefit, rather than assemble > primarily to attack or defend. But,these difficulties notwithstanding, I am > temperamentally inclined towards libertarianism, which I prefer to > summarize as a combination of "live and let live" and the scientific method. > > So, yes, as unlibertarian as it may be, we have to come together to fight > the "other", because in this imperfect world some of the others want our > stuff. This implies we need to persecute traitors that weaken us and we > need to strive for political unity. We need the secret police, we need to > pay killers to protect us. This is only reasonable, because the alternative > is defeat. > > But then the reasonable libertarian will be forever suspicious of > political power, will use as little of it as possible, given the > circumstances and the available technologies. We recognize that every > society is a machine that relies on various technologies to perform its > functions, which is why an engineer's approach of testing, measuring and > tinkering is necessary, much more so that moralizing. Success in building a > society is, as much as anything in the real world, an art of the possible. > > It's pretty easy to come up with uplifting slogans, so mass-market tribes > generate them in abundance for striving lemmings to boldly proclaim. It's > much more difficult to think your way through complexity, so that the > machinery of freedom does not corrupt itself into the machinery of > oppression. > > There is a dichotomy between the exigencies of mass-market politics, which > is instinctual and thus hard to improve upon, and the reasoned, in-depth > political philosophy that contributes to actual social progress. This is > why mass-market political tags, such as "Democrat" or "conservative", > convey so little information. Progress is slow, fickle and often accidental > because political thinking rather than emoting is hard work, system 2, and > thus is short supply. > > I am a systematizer and I always tried to remove internal inconsistencies > from my beliefs, leading me to some discoveries about myself, some of which > were mildly unflattering. So after some first-principles analysis, years of > observation, being occasionally schooled by my betters and much > soul-searching it looks like the middle-market "libertarian" tag is the > closest description of my beliefs. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 15:27:26 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 10:27:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:15 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > So? I urge that we focus on what we know best: science and technology. > > > > By some mysterious means the other guy does not have, a tech-advanced > society reached in with one missile that came from some unseen > radar-invisible source, guided by some undetectable technology of some > kind, achieved the result the tech-enabled society wanted with little of > the traditional horrors of war. If we look back 20 yrs in the ExI > archives, we had a demonstration of the dream we wrote about and vaguely > envisioned. > The trouble with improving conflict technology is that it make it more likely to be used, as this recent case demonstrates. "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn?t stop to think if they should." -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 15:27:49 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 10:27:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] a little fun In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 9:42 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> correction: I believe it's: After all is said and one, more is usually > said than done* Yeah I guess that quote is better known, but I'm sorta an expert on fame, in fact very few people know how famous I am. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 15:39:23 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 09:39:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Re: poverty. After a divorce: I have cooked a hamburger over pine straw. Surprisingly good. I have had the toilet water in my trailer freeze. Out of propane and had no money to get more. Procedure: get in bed with electric blanket. Get up in the morning, run into the bathroom and turn on the shower hot water. Do the usual. Get dressed. Open the door to 25 degrees in the house. Am sweaty. Run to the car, which has a plugged up heater core, (1965 Mustang, btw) so no heat, and drive seven miles to school. It wasn't real poverty, of course, but I missed a payment at the bank and went to the president where I nearly chocked up explaining why I could not pay him this month. Not real poverty - but it was a taste of it. bill w On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 9:15 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > We used to write a lot in this forum on conflict technology, but now we do > not for it seems to persistently devolve into political chaos. > > > > I offer a challenge to our small technology-oriented forum. Write about > this topic if you will, but without mentioning the name of any political > leader, party, nation, anything that is not a universally-applicable > meta-concept. Recent historical events are fair game of course, and > relevant, but who did what is not. > > > > Twenty years ago on this forum we wrote a lot about future warfare, which > would do away with marching columns of young men with rifles on their > shoulders, desperate hungry refugees, destroyed cities, generally do away > with the horrors of warfare. We thought of how much better it would be if > warfare was a battle of technology, or at least better from the point of > view of technology-enabled societies. > > > > Recently we saw a fulfilment of a dream. We saw persistent conflict > between two nations. The more advanced nation fired one missile and took > out one military leader and his staff. The enraged victim nation very > carefully fired back 15 missiles but hit nothing. Intense but very > localized destruction, low loss of life, few of the traditional well-known > horrors of war. > > > > The reason I prefaced this discussion on requesting we leave off with > politics and focus on technology and the future: we don?t live in the real > world. We don?t. Look at us. The closest to a real-world person here > might be BillW, for he is a retired college professor who has seen it all, > but we haven?t. But consider the rest of us. Good chance no one here > suffers poverty or real hunger, no one here is desperate or addicted, > everyone here at least has a computer and an internet connection. > > > > I look at myself: I grew up in a rural area, went to a small college, > studied engineering, worked for a company surrounded by people who had > never done anything wrong more serious than ripping a tag off an old > pillow, and could strap on a polygraph and prove it. That isn?t the real > world. I have some second cousins who live in the real world. I am > horrified by the vague descriptions I hear from them. We live on the same > planet, different worlds. However? they vote, and there are more of them > than there are of us. > > > > So? I urge that we focus on what we know best: science and technology. > > > > By some mysterious means the other guy does not have, a tech-advanced > society reached in with one missile that came from some unseen > radar-invisible source, guided by some undetectable technology of some > kind, achieved the result the tech-enabled society wanted with little of > the traditional horrors of war. If we look back 20 yrs in the ExI > archives, we had a demonstration of the dream we wrote about and vaguely > envisioned. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 16:12:10 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 16:12:10 +0000 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 8 Jan 2020 at 15:51, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Re: poverty. After a divorce: I have cooked a hamburger over pine straw. Surprisingly good. I have had the toilet water in my trailer freeze. Out of propane and had no money to get more. > > Procedure: get in bed with electric blanket. Get up in the morning, run into the bathroom and turn on the shower hot water. Do the usual. Get dressed. Open the door to 25 degrees in the house. Am sweaty. Run to the car, which has a plugged up heater core, (1965 Mustang, btw) so no heat, and drive seven miles to school. It wasn't real poverty, of course, but I missed a payment at the bank and went to the president where I nearly chocked up explaining why I could not pay him this month. > > Not real poverty - but it was a taste of it. bill w Reminds me of the question -- 'What book has had the biggest effect on your life?'. Answer -- The instruction manual for my microwave oven. Full of life-changing goodness. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 8 17:04:19 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 09:04:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] a little fun In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003a01d5c645$ab6e3ff0$024abfd0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat ubject: Re: [ExI] a little fun On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 9:42 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > correction: I believe it's: After all is said and one, more is usually said than done Yeah I guess that quote is better known, but I'm sorta an expert on fame, in fact very few people know how famous I am. John K Clark HAH! I can do better than that! I am a stealth celebrity. No one knows how famous I am, or for what I am famous. I am the world humility co-champion, silver medalist in the Humility Olympics. There is a story behind it, available on request. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 18:01:29 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 12:01:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] a little fun In-Reply-To: <003a01d5c645$ab6e3ff0$024abfd0$@rainier66.com> References: <003a01d5c645$ab6e3ff0$024abfd0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I am positive that I would have won world honors in procrastination, but if I procrastinate replying to the group the thread will be lost. More on frozen toilet: I could not afford a contract and big tank of propane so I bought a used 25 gallon that I put in the trunk of my Mustang, drove to get gas, and drove home. So, the question is, if I had been rear-ended would it have been a really spectacular explosion and I would not be here today? Are we really talking about famous or, given the people involved, infamous? Or having achieved notoriety, notorious? bill w On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 11:07 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *John Clark via extropy-chat > *ubject:* Re: [ExI] a little fun > > > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 9:42 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > *> **correction: I believe it's: After all is said and one, more is > usually said than done* > > > > Yeah I guess that quote is better known, but I'm sorta an expert on fame, > in fact very few people know how famous I am. > > > > John K Clark > > > > > > HAH! I can do better than that! I am a stealth celebrity. No one knows > how famous I am, or for what I am famous. I am the world humility > co-champion, silver medalist in the Humility Olympics. > > > > There is a story behind it, available on request. > > > > spike > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 18:03:57 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 12:03:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Or setting up a gas oven and testing. I was quick to get out a match, when I turned to the guy and asked: is this safe? He said, yes, it was safe, as long as there was no leak. bill w On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:14 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, 8 Jan 2020 at 15:51, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > Re: poverty. After a divorce: I have cooked a hamburger over pine > straw. Surprisingly good. I have had the toilet water in my trailer > freeze. Out of propane and had no money to get more. > > > > Procedure: get in bed with electric blanket. Get up in the morning, > run into the bathroom and turn on the shower hot water. Do the usual. Get > dressed. Open the door to 25 degrees in the house. Am sweaty. Run to the > car, which has a plugged up heater core, (1965 Mustang, btw) so no heat, > and drive seven miles to school. It wasn't real poverty, of course, but I > missed a payment at the bank and went to the president where I nearly > chocked up explaining why I could not pay him this month. > > > > Not real poverty - but it was a taste of it. bill w > > > Reminds me of the question -- > 'What book has had the biggest effect on your life?'. > > Answer -- The instruction manual for my microwave oven. > Full of life-changing goodness. > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 18:48:41 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 13:48:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: As for addiction, I was addicted to heroin. Been to numerous open-air drug markets and trap houses. Never lived in those places, but I was there a lot. The drug markets in particular were eye-opening. Ever seen a line of heroin addicts lined up in broad daylight to get their fix? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 8 19:07:11 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 11:07:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> >?> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology >?As for addiction, I was addicted to heroin. Been to numerous open-air drug markets and trap houses. Never lived in those places, but I was there a lot. >?The drug markets in particular were eye-opening. Ever seen a line of heroin addicts lined up in broad daylight to get their fix? Oh Jaysus. Mercy, me lad. I am AGIN it, I tells ya! All of it, all forms of dope, everything, AGIN it! Bad medicine it is. Poison. Toxic to mind, body and spirit. OK so we have at least two who know something of the real world, and at least one who hopes he never has to see a line of addicts, for I would struggle to not stroll right up to whoever is doling out that dope and swat the bastard with a baseball bat. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Wed Jan 8 18:10:09 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2020 10:10:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? Message-ID: <20200108101009.Horde.Mksf3iQl4vxyPE5KQu2CquU@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: > It makes no difference. If 3D space is finite then it must be closed and > curved and have no center just as the 2D surface of a sphere has no center. If the universe were a simulation running on someones quantum computer, then it could be finite and flat or even finite and open. Once something crosses the cosmic horizon, there is no more evidence that it continues to exist than there is for gliders that that go off the screen in Conway's Game of Life (CGoL). All you are seeing is the photons from the final moment just after it crossed the horizon frozen in time and red-shifted like crazy. I say just after because the Hubble number(!) is supposed to be getting smaller. But if the has a statistically significant difference in value every time they use a different method to measure it, then I am no longer confident that is the case. As Spike has recently noted, quantum weirdness could be interpreted as evidence that we are in a sim. I would add to Spike's observation that the gravitational time dilation caused by massive objects in general relativity could also be interpreted as evidence of a simulation. Massive objects tend to be composed of more elementary particles than light objects. Each particle represents information in addition to mass, so the slowdown of the passage of time in the vicinity of massive objects could be considered the slowdown associated with overloaded information processing. For example, think about the slowdown of video games at the more advanced levels when there are too many sprites moving around the screen at one time. With the conflicting values of the Hubble number measured by different highly precise instruments, perhaps the simulation hypothesis should be taken seriously by cosmologists. After all their old models aren't working all that well any more. Stuart LaForge Stuart LaForge From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 20:15:03 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 14:15:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike - why don't you get upset with alcohol and tobacco? They kill far, far more people than any illegal drugs do. As for heroin, it takes about two weeks to get addicted to it, so it's hardly fair to say that people are duped into using it. Sure i'ts hard to get off of it, but it's not impossible at all. Crystal meth, now that's a real deadly drug - no argument about that one. Marijuana- safest drug on the planet - even safer than water (how many people have died from dystentery etc. from water?). C'mon, be fair - rant again legal drugs. Tobacco - half a million a year die? Maybe less now. Alcohol - gotta count drunk driving and deaths therefrom. I don't know that data, but it's gotta be tens of thousands. LSD? Maybe Will will kick in here. I imagine the death rate is very low; a few jumping off buildings like Art's 'Kids Say the Darndest Things' son. I kicked tobacco (two packs a day) and alcohol (a liter a day) without help and not a lot of trouble. But I wanted to - many addicts don't. It's not the fault of the drug, or the drug pusher (and you will never get rid of all of those as the War on Drugs has shown explicitly). This whole thing is about the psychology of the individual - how do we change people to heal themselves of their addictions. That's where the money for research should go. This brings up a book like I have not enjoyed in a long time: Richard Grant - American Nomad: covers old west cowboys, Indians, up to modern RV groups, hoboes and train riders and so on. The drug use was incredible. Terrific writer! I am going to read all of his. Check him out. bill w On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 1:09 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *>?*> *On Behalf Of *Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology > > > > >?As for addiction, I was addicted to heroin. Been to numerous open-air > drug markets and trap houses. Never lived in those places, but I was there > a lot. > > > > >?The drug markets in particular were eye-opening. Ever seen a line of > heroin addicts lined up in broad daylight to get their fix? > > > > > > Oh Jaysus. Mercy, me lad. > > > > I am AGIN it, I tells ya! All of it, all forms of dope, everything, AGIN > it! Bad medicine it is. Poison. Toxic to mind, body and spirit. > > > > OK so we have at least two who know something of the real world, and at > least one who hopes he never has to see a line of addicts, for I would > struggle to not stroll right up to whoever is doling out that dope and swat > the bastard with a baseball bat. > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 20:44:23 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 15:44:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yes, alcohol and tobacco are probably the worst "dope" on the planet. Meanwhile, we all know about medical cannabis (I don't support daily recreational use of it though.) And there are amazing strides being made on psychedelic- and MDMA-assisted therapy. I would also advise anyone here to take psychedelics. I'm not exactly an "everyone trip now!!!!!" kinda guy but smart people taking psychedelics is good. It's incredible what the mind is capable of. Spike--I challenge you to do some mushrooms. If you don't think it's an extremely interesting and rewarding experience, I will pay you $1000. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 21:47:02 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 16:47:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: <20200108101009.Horde.Mksf3iQl4vxyPE5KQu2CquU@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200108101009.Horde.Mksf3iQl4vxyPE5KQu2CquU@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 3:05 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > It makes no difference. If 3D space is finite then it must be closed and curved >> and have no center just as the 2D surface of a sphere has no center. > > > * > If the universe were a simulation running on someones > quantum computer, then it could be finite and flat or even finite and > open. * If our universe is a simulation then all bets are off.... or almost all... it still wouldn't have a center. > > > > > > > * > the gravitational time dilation caused by massive objects in general > relativity could also be interpreted as evidence of a simulation. Massive > objects tend to be composed of more elementary particles than light > objects. Each particle represents information in addition to mass, so the > slowdown of the passage of time in the vicinity of massive objects could > be considered the slowdown associated with overloaded information > processing.* > Except that Black Holes are the most massive thing in the universe but also the simplest, they can be completely described by just 3 numbers, mass, spin, and electrical charge; 2 really because electrical charge would always be zero or close to it. The Earth was made with far fewer particles than a Black Hole but it's vastly more complex, you'd need a hell of a lot more than 2 numbers or even 3 to describe it. > > * > For example, think about the slowdown of video games at the more > advanced levels when there are too many sprites moving around the screen > at one time.* If they're running out of processing power but the simulators still want to fool us then the solution would be simple, just slow down the simulation of the people you're trying to fool, then to us it would look like the super complex processing hogging thing had sped up. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 22:31:23 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 16:31:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: One good and one bad thing about maryjane: Scientific American though it was entirely possible that mj interfered with the brain development of people under 25 so I'd be careful about that and advise those people to wait. It also said that they had some pretty good evidence that mj was good for old people,though I don't remember what for (irony?) Psychedelics have always scared me. They say that you can have a bad trip, and a trip can last up to 12 hours, and that does not seem like a great idea to me. But for $1000 I might try just about anything someone else has taken safely. My impression is that you get an Oh Wow experience but it does nothing for any ability you have. Mj is great for sex and i think I"ll stick to that. bill w On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 2:46 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Yes, alcohol and tobacco are probably the worst "dope" on the planet. > > Meanwhile, we all know about medical cannabis (I don't support daily > recreational use of it though.) And there are amazing strides being made > on psychedelic- and MDMA-assisted therapy. > > I would also advise anyone here to take psychedelics. I'm not exactly an > "everyone trip now!!!!!" kinda guy but smart people taking psychedelics is > good. It's incredible what the mind is capable of. > > Spike--I challenge you to do some mushrooms. If you don't think it's an > extremely interesting and rewarding experience, I will pay you $1000. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 22:39:15 2020 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 23:39:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <20200108101009.Horde.Mksf3iQl4vxyPE5KQu2CquU@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: > > >> >> * > For example, think about the slowdown of video games at the more >> advanced levels when there are too many sprites moving around the screen >> at one time.* > > > If they're running out of processing power but the simulators still want > to fool us then the solution would be simple, just slow down the simulation > of the people you're trying to fool, then to us it would look like the > super complex processing hogging thing had sped up. > > John K Clark > Most likely we are an interesting side product of an simulation of something else and nobody's trying to fool us. If we get up to some real macroenginering, an unimaginative sim-operator might restart the sim to remove the unwanted bugs not realising that we are the equivalent of gliders. /Henrik > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 23:56:05 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 18:56:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 5:32 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It also said that they had some pretty good evidence that mj was good for > old people,though I don't remember what for (irony?) > It's been speculated it reduces inflammation in the brain and under that theory of AD/dementia, it may help delay/prevent onset of it, but ALOT more work needs to be done. Mj is great for sex and i think I"ll stick to that. bill w > If you think sex on MJ is good, try it on LSD! It's also great on MDMA although you may need a little blue pill help on either of those substances unlike MJ. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 9 01:11:27 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 17:11:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] ligo results suggest two different types of neutron star mergers Message-ID: <012701d5c689$b84bc410$28e34c30$@rainier66.com> Lotsa buzz in the LIGO community on a signal received a coupla days ago. The only article I can find is from Forbes, but it starts right out with an obvious mistake so I am waiting for CalTech to kick out a report. This is all we have so far: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20200106 spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 9 01:20:33 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 17:20:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003301d5c68a$fdf228f0$f9d67ad0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Mj is great for sex and i think I"ll stick to that. bill w >?If you think sex on MJ is good, try it on LSD! It's also great on MDMA although you may need a little blue pill help on either of those substances unlike MJ. Or don?t. I see it is perfectly legitimate to counter-suggest this notion. Sounds like a dangerous way to have fun to me. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 9 01:26:28 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 17:26:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003e01d5c68b$d1528e60$73f7ab20$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology Spike - why don't you get upset with alcohol and tobacco? I do. I do not like breathing other peoples? drug habits. Fortunately for me, I don?t need to very much anymore: tobacco use has become very rare where I live. It is less often than once a month I even see someone smoking and it has been at least a coupla years since I smelled tobacco smoke. >? They kill far, far more people than any illegal drugs do? I agree. Currently a developer is wanting to put a lounge right across the street from my neighborhood. We are fighting it, arguing that it doesn?t belong here, doesn?t fit in a residential area, particularly one right off a freeway exit. Yahoos get off the freeway, slam a brew or two, or three, then get back on, take a nap and kill somebody. Bad idea. Take that elsewhere. Take it far from my neighborhood. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 01:36:56 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 18:36:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi John, Yes, we?ve had this discussion before where I?ve stressed how important it is to recognize exactly what you are saying - that memory of red is way different than actual redness knowledge. But what does that have to do with having an identical signal being supplied to the optic nerve to what the retina would supply ? resulting in an identical redness experience of the strawberry, not just a memory quale of it. And for that matter, we should also be asking which physics is it that is the memory of redness quale, and how does this differ, physically, from actual physical redness. So, does anyone disagree that physicists can?t yet tell us the qualitative color of anything? On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 6:25 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 6:45 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > *> So what is it that has that redness quality you are experiencing as >> knowledge of the strawberry, even though there is not light and no >> strawberry?* >> > > First of all the memory of a red strawberry is not the same as looking at > at red strawberry, the mind can distinguish between the two experiences and > it's a good thing too, otherwise when you saw red you'd have no way of > knowing if it was because of something you were seeing now or if it came > from something you saw a year ago. And if you want to research the redness > quilia you can't pretend that it is the only qualia that exists, red is > only red because of the way it contrasts with other color qualia. > > John K Clark > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 01:53:24 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 17:53:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 5:43 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > So, does anyone disagree that physicists can?t yet tell us the qualitative > color of anything? > 1) Absence of comment does not constitute agreement or disagreement. 2) The term "qualitative color" is basically meaningless. You can state a definition, sure, but as a not-widely-used term it can be redefined in the next post and quite probably no one would notice. 3) If you mean to ask about some phenomenon in the brain (such as what exactly happens after red photons enter a person's eye, that generates perception and memory), that's biology, not physics. The fact that physicists are not experts on the biology of the brain does not itself make the workings of the brain a mystery beyond all human comprehension. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 02:05:45 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 21:05:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <003301d5c68a$fdf228f0$f9d67ad0$@rainier66.com> References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> <003301d5c68a$fdf228f0$f9d67ad0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 20:26 spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > Sounds like a dangerous way to have fun to me. > > Dangerous how? Cannabis and LSD have extremely low toxicity, several levels of magnitude below e.g. alcohol. MDMA can definitely be dangerous especially because of cuts and uninformed use, but it tends to be fairly safe as well if pure and used in low doses. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 02:11:36 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 21:11:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 4, 2020, 16:15 John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > 2) I can imagine a consciousness existing in a time without a place but > not in a place without time. > What do you mean by this exactly? I think I may not understand your stance on consciousness as well as I thought. You are a curious one. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 9 02:17:40 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 18:17:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> <003301d5c68a$fdf228f0$f9d67ad0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005c01d5c692$f811ab10$e8350130$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Sent: Wednesday, January 8, 2020 6:06 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Will Steinberg Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology On Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 20:26 spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Sounds like a dangerous way to have fun to me. >?Dangerous how? Cannabis and LSD have extremely low toxicity, several levels of magnitude below e.g. alcohol. MDMA can definitely be dangerous especially because of cuts and uninformed use, but it tends to be fairly safe as well if pure and used in low doses. Will and others, I am not claiming expertise. I just have a bad feeling about use of chemicals to fool with your brain. That?s not a toy, it?s a tool. A tool is a toy of course, but I have fun with mine using no chemicals. The chemical enhancements sound like a bad idea, not the way to have fun, risky, and I don?t cotton to it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 02:28:33 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 21:28:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <005c01d5c692$f811ab10$e8350130$@rainier66.com> References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> <003301d5c68a$fdf228f0$f9d67ad0$@rainier66.com> <005c01d5c692$f811ab10$e8350130$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I would never say psychedelics are for everyone but they are something special and can be an incredibly powerful experience under the right circumstances. On Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 9:20 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Wednesday, January 8, 2020 6:06 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* Will Steinberg > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 20:26 spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > Sounds like a dangerous way to have fun to me. > > >?Dangerous how? Cannabis and LSD have extremely low toxicity, several > levels of magnitude below e.g. alcohol. MDMA can definitely be dangerous > especially because of cuts and uninformed use, but it tends to be fairly > safe as well if pure and used in low doses. > > > > > > > > Will and others, I am not claiming expertise. I just have a bad feeling > about use of chemicals to fool with your brain. That?s not a toy, it?s a > tool. A tool is a toy of course, but I have fun with mine using no > chemicals. > > > > The chemical enhancements sound like a bad idea, not the way to have fun, > risky, and I don?t cotton to it. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 03:02:06 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 22:02:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:23 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I have been in this group for quite some time, but I have not read > anything as scary as 'paid killers' and 'secret police'. Just why do we > need those? Rafal? > ### Every day when you wake up and notice that your house has not been burglarized and your throat has not been slit by bandits, say thanks to the thin blue line that stands between us and chaotic evil. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Thu Jan 9 03:29:05 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 22:29:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <005c01d5c692$f811ab10$e8350130$@rainier66.com> References: <005c01d5c692$f811ab10$e8350130$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <22D3B41A-B171-41F5-8F9B-1EECBB090DA9@alumni.virginia.edu> The other way to frame it is learning to operate your brain with neurochemicals. I say that claiming expertise. It?s really not to be taken lightly either. These are very powerful tools. It?s very extropian to me. -Henry > On Jan 8, 2020, at 9:20 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > > > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > Sent: Wednesday, January 8, 2020 6:06 PM > To: ExI chat list > Cc: Will Steinberg > Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology > > > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 20:26 spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > Sounds like a dangerous way to have fun to me. > >?Dangerous how? Cannabis and LSD have extremely low toxicity, several levels of magnitude below e.g. alcohol. MDMA can definitely be dangerous especially because of cuts and uninformed use, but it tends to be fairly safe as well if pure and used in low doses. > > > > Will and others, I am not claiming expertise. I just have a bad feeling about use of chemicals to fool with your brain. That?s not a toy, it?s a tool. A tool is a toy of course, but I have fun with mine using no chemicals. > > The chemical enhancements sound like a bad idea, not the way to have fun, risky, and I don?t cotton to it. > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 03:41:00 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 22:41:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <22D3B41A-B171-41F5-8F9B-1EECBB090DA9@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <005c01d5c692$f811ab10$e8350130$@rainier66.com> <22D3B41A-B171-41F5-8F9B-1EECBB090DA9@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: That's the way I look at them as well... On Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 10:30 PM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The other way to frame it is learning to operate your brain with > neurochemicals. I say that claiming expertise. It?s really not to be taken > lightly either. These are very powerful tools. It?s very extropian to me. > -Henry > > On Jan 8, 2020, at 9:20 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Wednesday, January 8, 2020 6:06 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* Will Steinberg > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 20:26 spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > Sounds like a dangerous way to have fun to me. > > >?Dangerous how? Cannabis and LSD have extremely low toxicity, several > levels of magnitude below e.g. alcohol. MDMA can definitely be dangerous > especially because of cuts and uninformed use, but it tends to be fairly > safe as well if pure and used in low doses. > > > > > > > > Will and others, I am not claiming expertise. I just have a bad feeling > about use of chemicals to fool with your brain. That?s not a toy, it?s a > tool. A tool is a toy of course, but I have fun with mine using no > chemicals. > > > > The chemical enhancements sound like a bad idea, not the way to have fun, > risky, and I don?t cotton to it. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 03:52:29 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 19:52:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology Message-ID: wrote: snip > I am AGIN it, I tells ya! All of it, all forms of dope, everything, AGIN it! Bad medicine it is. Poison. Toxic to mind, body and spirit. That's rather inconsistent with libertarianism. Keith From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 04:29:34 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 20:29:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8E4C86FC-7B08-422D-B3F4-1D465802F84B@gmail.com> On Jan 8, 2020, at 7:04 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:23 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >> I have been in this group for quite some time, but I have not read anything as scary as 'paid killers' and 'secret police'. Just why do we need those? Rafal? > > ### Every day when you wake up and notice that your house has not been burglarized and your throat has not been slit by bandits, say thanks to the thin blue line that stands between us and chaotic evil. You must live in a different universe because statistics seem to show the folks in blue tend to take more, reduce overall freedom, and even have a strong tendency to shoot unarmed people and their dogs. As for a secret police, that?s another kettle of fish. Any libertarian who supports secret police seems have misunderstood the whole point of libertarianism: it?s about a just and free society not a prison camp. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 04:39:33 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 21:39:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Adrian, Let me try this. I claim all of the following are facts: 1. In order to define a word like ?red?, like your mother did, you need to point to something and say: ?That is red?. 2. Physical Knowledge of red is only arbitrarily related to red as demonstrated by the facts portrayed in this video . In other words, any brain could arbitrarily use different sets of physics, like your greenness, to represent red with. 3. Since there are two different sets of physics here, we need two different words to adequately model all of these physical facts. For example, red for something that reflects or emits red light. Redness as the quality of the of your knowledge of red. (My redness could be like your greenness.) 4. If we don?t use two words, we can?t model the arbitrary relationship (i.e. our models and language are qualia blind.) 4. We also need a different label for physical properties like color. For example, colorness is the subjective quality of physics we can directly experience in our brain. Let?s call this colorness. 5. The redness quality we subjective experience has causal properties; in that it causes us to say: ?That is red.? 6. It is a hypothetical possibility that our descriptions of the causal properties of glutamate, as it reacts in a synapse, are the same physical properties we directly experience as redness, which causes us to say: That is red. 7. In that case the color of glutamate would be ?white? and the colorness of glutamate would be ?redness?. 8. In other words, you would define both the words glutamate and redness, by pointing to a pile of glutamate. [image: image.png] On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 6:54 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 5:43 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> So, does anyone disagree that physicists can?t yet tell us the >> qualitative color of anything? >> > > 1) Absence of comment does not constitute agreement or disagreement. > > 2) The term "qualitative color" is basically meaningless. You can state a > definition, sure, but as a not-widely-used term it can be redefined in the > next post and quite probably no one would notice. > > 3) If you mean to ask about some phenomenon in the brain (such as what > exactly happens after red photons enter a person's eye, that generates > perception and memory), that's biology, not physics. The fact that > physicists are not experts on the biology of the brain does not itself make > the workings of the brain a mystery beyond all human comprehension. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 41429 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 04:58:08 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 20:58:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 8:39 PM Brent Allsop wrote: > In other words, any brain could arbitrarily use different sets of physics, > like your greenness, to represent red with. > Again, it isn't physics, it's biology - the specific patterns that have been associated with the colors. This is no more physics than designing CPUs is physics: to state it in terms of physics without so much as acknowledging the topology is, at best, extremely misleading. In physics terms, you are discarding necessary detail to understand and model the system, and then - predictably - coming up with bizarre maps that fail to correspond to reality. By analogy, consider the inherent physics of the US/Mexico border. Try to describe any distinct physical properties that make a physical object - a piece of rock, say - part of that border or not part of that border. If you're ignoring the location, you can't find any such property. Likewise, what are the physics of a NOT gate in silicon? What gives each molecule of that its NOTness? Ain't no such thing, if you're ignoring the overall pattern. Same thing here. It is the pattern of neurons and their attached memories that give something its redness. > It is a hypothetical possibility that our descriptions of the causal > properties of glutamate, as it reacts in a synapse, are the same physical > properties we directly experience as redness > In other words, that statement is false. There is no such hypothetical possibility for an anonymous synapse, as opposed to very specific synapses that are associated with the recall of things that are red. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 9 05:25:42 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 21:25:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Sent: Wednesday, January 8, 2020 7:52 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Keith Henson Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology wrote: snip > I am AGIN it, I tells ya! All of it, all forms of dope, everything, AGIN it! Bad medicine it is. Poison. Toxic to mind, body and spirit. That's rather inconsistent with libertarianism. Keith _______________________________________________ On the contrary sir. I didn't say anything about law, or prohibiting anyone from these things. I unapologetically state my suggestion to leave it all alone. I know there are those who have success with various things, but I also have lived long enough to know plenty who do not, plenty who have wrecked lives. I went to my 30th high school reunion, I noted who had passed on. We all knew who was the doper crowd back in the day, and who was not. I could find enough representatives of each group to get a statistically significant result by comparing the groups. In general, the non-dopers do better. This is perfectly compatible with libertarianism, which recognizes that prohibition is a failure. Living near San Francisco, I also recognize that removing all restrictions on dope is also a failure. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 09:38:46 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 20:38:46 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 8 Jan 2020 at 06:49, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > If you surgically remove your eyes, and are put into a room with no light, > then stimulate the optic nerve, identical to the way it would be when > looking at a strawberry. You would have identical knowledge of the > strawberry. What is that knowledge, and what is it that has the redness > quality you experience? This can?t be ?perception? as that requires eyes. > It is simply conscious knowledge, the result of perception. > Perception of red does not require the eyes, it is equivalent to "red experience" or "red qualia"; but that is just a semantic point. One could speculate that the red qualia occur in the eye and therefore they would be absent if you removed the eye; but then stimulating the optic nerve would result in the subject SAYING he experiences red qualia, since the language centres in the brain do not receive input directly from the eyes and would not know any better. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 12:27:11 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 07:27:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ligo results suggest two different types of neutron star mergers In-Reply-To: <012701d5c689$b84bc410$28e34c30$@rainier66.com> References: <012701d5c689$b84bc410$28e34c30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 8:19 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> it starts right out with an obvious mistake* I'm glad to hear you say that, I thought I was the only one confused by that article. I could be wrong but what I think that badly written story was trying to say is that after the merger the massive object stuck around as a Neutron Star for several milliseconds before collapsing into a Black Hole. If that is indeed what it was trying to say, and it may not be, that would be surprising because Neutron Star theory says anything more than 2.7 solar masses should immediately collapse into a Black Hole even if it's spinning very fast, 2.2 if it's not spinning at all. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 13:50:42 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 07:50:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <003301d5c68a$fdf228f0$f9d67ad0$@rainier66.com> References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> <003301d5c68a$fdf228f0$f9d67ad0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I'll tell you a little story that might help you someday. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996. I had it out. No disturbance of urinary function (!!!!!), and it nearly killed my sex functions. I was told that my nerves had been spared and some function would return. It did but extremely slowly, reminding me of having my thyroid out and losing most of my voice for three years. The nerves,did regain full function. In fact they may have repaired themselves better than they were before the surgery. Result: mind-blowing orgasms, nearly causing me to faint. Not as often as before but there.This is quite enough for me. When you get prostate cancer you will probably have more and better options than I did, but if you have to have it out, remember the above. If you have the nerve-sparing surgery,much bloodier than the other one, it will come back to at least normal. That is my experience. One interesting part: my surgeon, a urologist, had to have his out a year later and complained to me about his sexual function after I asked. He had no idea what his patients had been going through. After that I have noticed that doctors are quite ignorant of post-surgery events. Poor communication between doctor and patient. I suspect that many patients lie about lack of functions. Sex function is extremely important. There isn't a man on earth who wouldn't lie about it. Crazy though, lying to your doctor. bill w On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 7:27 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat > > > > Mj is great for sex and i think I"ll stick to that. bill w > > > > >?If you think sex on MJ is good, try it on LSD! It's also great on MDMA > although you may need a little blue pill help on either of those substances > unlike MJ. > > > > > > > > Or don?t. I see it is perfectly legitimate to counter-suggest this > notion. Sounds like a dangerous way to have fun to me. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 14:22:23 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 08:22:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: This is perfectly compatible with libertarianism, which recognizes that prohibition is a failure. Living near San Francisco, I also recognize that removing all restrictions on dope is also a failure. spike Being new to libertarianism long ago, I was in favor of no laws governing what I could put in my mouth, including prescription drugs. Young and foolish, I was. And just too naive about people. There are people of all IQ levels who have no sense at all about abusing their bodies and minds. There are good reasons, I now know, for letting physicians be the gatekeeper re what chemicals we can buy. Maybe you and I could handle just about anything, but most (?) people can't. They would be dying by the millions with free access to prescription drugs and illegal drugs (though there would be no illegal drugs under my youthful plan). Some of you know what a pinch hitter is. One of those is my daily dose of pot. Scare tactics don't work. Prohibition doesn't work. You probably have heard of that Mischel study of kids, some of whom waited for a second treat and some wanted it right now, and the later success in life of those who waited. What if this can be learned? Along with other things in life which we should wait for (sex, for one - I would teach and encourage masturbation). This would be teaching emotional control. I am not sure we know just how to do that, but I think we need to learn and teach it to parents and to school kids. I would teach both abstention and moderation. The first is the only cure for those who, when taking a first hit of something, act like it was priming the pump and continue to take more and more until they pass out. No moderation is possible with brains like that. My use of alcohol was a bit like that. bill w On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 11:28 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Sent: Wednesday, January 8, 2020 7:52 PM > To: ExI chat list > Cc: Keith Henson > Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology > > wrote: > > snip > > > I am AGIN it, I tells ya! All of it, all forms of dope, everything, AGIN > it! Bad medicine it is. Poison. Toxic to mind, body and spirit. > > That's rather inconsistent with libertarianism. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > > > On the contrary sir. I didn't say anything about law, or prohibiting > anyone > from these things. I unapologetically state my suggestion to leave it all > alone. > > I know there are those who have success with various things, but I also > have > lived long enough to know plenty who do not, plenty who have wrecked lives. > I went to my 30th high school reunion, I noted who had passed on. We all > knew who was the doper crowd back in the day, and who was not. I could > find > enough representatives of each group to get a statistically significant > result by comparing the groups. In general, the non-dopers do better. > > This is perfectly compatible with libertarianism, which recognizes that > prohibition is a failure. > > Living near San Francisco, I also recognize that removing all restrictions > on dope is also a failure. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 14:33:35 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 08:33:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <8E4C86FC-7B08-422D-B3F4-1D465802F84B@gmail.com> References: <8E4C86FC-7B08-422D-B3F4-1D465802F84B@gmail.com> Message-ID: ### Every day when you wake up and notice that your house has not been burglarized and your throat has not been slit by bandits, say thanks to the thin blue line that stands between us and chaotic evil. I am very thankful to local police, fire departments, etc. To the Army etc. Those things are a very long way from secret police investigating rumors supplied by neighbors by kicking in doorways and terrorizing citizens. We don't have that now because we have a Constitution and other laws. bill w On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:32 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 8, 2020, at 7:04 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:23 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I have been in this group for quite some time, but I have not read >> anything as scary as 'paid killers' and 'secret police'. Just why do we >> need those? Rafal? >> > > ### Every day when you wake up and notice that your house has not been > burglarized and your throat has not been slit by bandits, say thanks to the > thin blue line that stands between us and chaotic evil. > > > You must live in a different universe because statistics seem to show the > folks in blue tend to take more, reduce overall freedom, and even have a > strong tendency to shoot unarmed people and their dogs. > > As for a secret police, that?s another kettle of fish. Any libertarian who > supports secret police seems have misunderstood the whole point of > libertarianism: it?s about a just and free society not a prison camp. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 14:51:28 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 09:51:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 9:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Spike wrote: > >This is perfectly compatible with libertarianism, which recognizes that > >prohibition is a failure. > > > >Living near San Francisco, I also recognize that removing all restrictions > >on dope is also a failure. > So you (Spike) support restrictions but not prohibition? Is there really a difference? Being new to libertarianism long ago, I was in favor of no laws governing > what I could put in my mouth, including prescription drugs. Young and > foolish, I was. And just too naive about people. There are people of all > IQ levels who have no sense at all about abusing their bodies and minds. > There are good reasons, I now know, for letting physicians be the > gatekeeper re what chemicals we can buy. > There are also bad reasons, like pharma kickbacks and under-informed physicians. > Maybe you and I could handle just about anything, but most (?) people > can't. They would be dying by the millions with free access to > prescription drugs and illegal drugs (though there would be no illegal > drugs under my youthful plan). > I think "millions" is an exaggeration, and opening access to drugs should be accompanied by a comprehensive education program as well as facilities designed to foster safe use of recreational drugs, but people will do stupid things and some of them will die. That's a universal truth that we just need to accept. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Thu Jan 9 15:21:57 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 10:21:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <705046DD-55C0-4B8D-A957-F00651ED22DE@alumni.virginia.edu> Regarding removing restrictions on dope being a failure, I respectfully disagree and refer you to this report which is a summary of the heroin maintenance data up to 2015. https://findings.org.uk/PHP/dl.php?file=Strang_J_30.txt1 While this isn?t ?unrestricted? dope availability exactly, it?s far from prohibition, and I think it represents an approach that has removed so much of the harm associated with using and acquiring unregulated opiates off the black market. I have the original article they summarize if anyone wants it. > On Jan 9, 2020, at 12:26 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Sent: Wednesday, January 8, 2020 7:52 PM > To: ExI chat list > Cc: Keith Henson > Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology > > wrote: > > snip > >> I am AGIN it, I tells ya! All of it, all forms of dope, everything, AGIN > it! Bad medicine it is. Poison. Toxic to mind, body and spirit. > > That's rather inconsistent with libertarianism. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > > > On the contrary sir. I didn't say anything about law, or prohibiting anyone > from these things. I unapologetically state my suggestion to leave it all > alone. > > I know there are those who have success with various things, but I also have > lived long enough to know plenty who do not, plenty who have wrecked lives. > I went to my 30th high school reunion, I noted who had passed on. We all > knew who was the doper crowd back in the day, and who was not. I could find > enough representatives of each group to get a statistically significant > result by comparing the groups. In general, the non-dopers do better. > > This is perfectly compatible with libertarianism, which recognizes that > prohibition is a failure. > > Living near San Francisco, I also recognize that removing all restrictions > on dope is also a failure. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 9 15:54:49 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 07:54:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] ligo results suggest two different types of neutron star mergers In-Reply-To: References: <012701d5c689$b84bc410$28e34c30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008401d5c705$1fcd74a0$5f685de0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] ligo results suggest two different types of neutron star mergers On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 8:19 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > it starts right out with an obvious mistake I'm glad to hear you say that, I thought I was the only one confused by that article. I could be wrong but what I think that badly written story was trying to say is that after the merger the massive object stuck around as a Neutron Star for several milliseconds before collapsing into a Black Hole. If that is indeed what it was trying to say, and it may not be, that would be surprising because Neutron Star theory says anything more than 2.7 solar masses should immediately collapse into a Black Hole even if it's spinning very fast, 2.2 if it's not spinning at all. John K Clark John I have been working out what I think they meant and made a cool discovery from fooling with the equations, one anyone can do, without mastery of general relativity (well, kinda.) Imagine two neutron stars are in a decaying circular orbit. We can envision, even without calculating anything, a steady ringing signal as they spiral in. Now imagine two neutron stars in a highly elliptical decaying orbit where at closest approach their combined mass gets you damn close to adios amigos but their mutual aphelion (apneutrion?) is way out there. In the second scenario, the peri?neutrion(?) doesn?t change much while the apneutrion is reeled on in like a prize sailfish. Wouldn?t those two have different decay signals? Retract maybe it does require a good understanding of general relativity to answer that one, and I have insufficient mastery of the 4-vector calculus. I think we need to wait for the next paper from CalTech. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 15:57:39 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 07:57:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2020, 6:53 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 9:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Maybe you and I could handle just about anything, but most (?) people >> can't. They would be dying by the millions with free access to >> prescription drugs and illegal drugs (though there would be no illegal >> drugs under my youthful plan). >> > > I think "millions" is an exaggeration > I don't, especially if we're talking worldwide and not just in the US. opening access to drugs should be accompanied by a comprehensive education > program as well as facilities designed to foster safe use of recreational > drugs > Only to see said education and facilities debudgeted by later government generations as a cost saving measure. (We still don't have sufficient funding restored for mental health.) people will do stupid things and some of them will die. That's a universal > truth that we just need to accept. > This is true, but we can save some from dangers and stupidity we know are unsafe, long enough to give them a chance of growing into responsible adults. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 15:57:42 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 10:57:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <00e401d5c321$a83cc670$f8b65350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 9:14 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> I can imagine a consciousness existing in a time without a place but not >> in a place without time. >> > > > What do you mean by this exactly? > I can imagine a consciousness with a deep understanding of number theory and the laws of logic but not know anything about high school geometry or even have the knowledge or the ability to sense that space exists; but a mind needs to be dynamic and change with time, without time a mind couldn't have a train of thought and without that it's not a mind. A mind is what a brain does, so a brain in a vat with no sense transducers connected to the outside world would produce a mind that had no knowledge that space even existed, but it would still have a sense of time because it would still experience a sequence of thoughts. A mind like that would exist in only one dimension, time. > *I think I may not understand your stance on consciousness as well as I > thought. You are a curious one.* > You are very polite and tactful, I've been called far worse. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 16:05:03 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 11:05:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: References: <20200108101009.Horde.Mksf3iQl4vxyPE5KQu2CquU@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 5:42 PM Henrik Ohrstrom via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *> Most likely we are an interesting side product of an simulation of > something else and nobody's trying to fool us.* > If we're simulated I think the simulators want to fool us for the same reason psychologists don't tell their test subjects what they're testing for, or lie and tell them an say they're testing for something they really aren't. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 9 16:09:57 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 08:09:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009f01d5c707$3d647570$b82d6050$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 9:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: Spike wrote: >This is perfectly compatible with libertarianism, which recognizes that >prohibition is a failure. > >Living near San Francisco, I also recognize that removing all restrictions >on dope is also a failure. So you (Spike) support restrictions but not prohibition? Is there really a difference? Eh, there seems to be no good solution to this. Real libertarianism true to principle would allow anyone to do anything they wanted, but as soon as they camped on the sidewalk, that is someone else?s property, so they put them on a bus and haul them out to the central valley, adios amigo, good luck, here?s yer tent. San Francisco (and Portland) seem to think they can supply the dope (and food (and to some extent shelter)) at government expense. Dope has gotten better (it?s an evolution process) to the point where a segment of society will choose that lifestyle if it is offered (forget the old 9 to 5, go to San Francisco, be stoned until ya die.) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 16:44:50 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 10:44:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Small clumps of Dark Matter (Apparently) Message-ID: <3713578C-6F1C-4AE6-B6FB-005AF579C9F1@gmail.com> Cosmic Magnifying Glasses Find Dark Matter in Small Clumps https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2020-005&rn=news.xml&rst=7572 Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and a new observing technique, astronomers have found that dark matter forms much smaller clumps than previously known. This result confirms one of the fundamental predictions of the widely accepted "cold dark matter" theory. The Hubble observation yields new insights into the nature of dark matter and how it behaves. "We made a very compelling observational test for the cold dark matter model and it passes with flying colors," said Tommaso Treu of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a member of the observing team. The team targeted eight powerful and distant cosmic "streetlights," called quasars (regions around active black holes that emit enormous amounts of light). The astronomers measured how the light emitted by oxygen and neon gas orbiting each of the quasars' black holes is warped by the gravity of a massive foreground galaxy, which acts as a magnifying lens. Using this method, the team uncovered dark matter clumps along the telescope's line of sight to the quasars, as well as in and around the intervening lensing galaxies. The dark matter concentrations detected by Hubble are 1/10,000th to 1/100,000th times the mass of the Milky Way's dark matter halo. Many of these tiny groupings most likely do not contain even small galaxies, and therefore would have been impossible to detect by the traditional method of looking for embedded stars. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 9 17:03:51 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 09:03:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Small clumps of Dark Matter (Apparently) In-Reply-To: <3713578C-6F1C-4AE6-B6FB-005AF579C9F1@gmail.com> References: <3713578C-6F1C-4AE6-B6FB-005AF579C9F1@gmail.com> Message-ID: <010201d5c70e$c4e6b060$4eb41120$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Small clumps of Dark Matter (Apparently) Cosmic Magnifying Glasses Find Dark Matter in Small Clumps https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2020-005 &rn=news.xml&rst=7572 >?Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and a new observing technique, astronomers have found that dark matter forms much smaller clumps than previously known. This result confirms one of the fundamental predictions of the widely accepted "cold dark matter" theory. >?The Hubble observation yields new insights into the nature of dark matter and how it behaves. "We made a very compelling observational test for the cold dark matter model and it passes with flying colors," said Tommaso Treu of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a member of the observing team? Thanks SR. A bunch of us have long thought these dark matter clumps had to be there somewhere. It?s one of the things that makes me such a strong believer in space-based astronomy: these kinds of observations don?t rely so much on total light-gathering capability but really need to be above the distortion to get good measurements. The cold dark matter theory has long been a notion that makes sense to me. I know it is a bad idea to be a cheerleader for a theory, but if it is true, it explains a lotta lotta. Hubble is a champion, but it will not live forever. May we get the Webb up there soon. Let?s see a bunch of reprehensible lawless protestors stop THAT! The Webb will be great for finding CDM clumps. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 17:17:46 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 12:17:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 11:06 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > This is true, but we can save some from dangers and stupidity we know are > unsafe, long enough to give them a chance of growing into responsible > adults. > I don't think any scenario where sale of drugs to anyone under 21 is legal is likely. We can lead the horses to adulthood, but assuming responsibility is something they have to do. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 17:30:43 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 09:30:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9493BE74-96B6-4361-A06E-49276A6AADA1@gmail.com> Please be careful when quoting others... because the way this particular post looks, it might seem like you?re quoting me and not Rafal. In fact, my position is diametrically opposed to his on this issue. In fact, I support police abolition and certainly don?t advocate secret police. Also, it seems like he believes everyone lives in a war zone rather than what history and statistics show: ever decreasing levels of violence and (private) property crime. As for your particular differences with him, you must not read the news or look at the data on how the police in the US have very few restraints on their power and, in fact, do kick in doors and shoot unarmed people and their dogs. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 9, 2020, at 6:35 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? >> ### Every day when you wake up and notice that your house has not been burglarized and your throat has not been slit by bandits, say thanks to the thin blue line that stands between us and chaotic evil. >> >> I am very thankful to local police, fire departments, etc. To the Army etc. Those things are a very long way from secret police investigating rumors supplied by neighbors by kicking in doorways and terrorizing citizens. We don't have that now because we have a Constitution and other laws. bill w > >> On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:32 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >>> On Jan 8, 2020, at 7:04 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:23 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> I have been in this group for quite some time, but I have not read anything as scary as 'paid killers' and 'secret police'. Just why do we need those? Rafal? >>> >>> ### Every day when you wake up and notice that your house has not been burglarized and your throat has not been slit by bandits, say thanks to the thin blue line that stands between us and chaotic evil. >> >> You must live in a different universe because statistics seem to show the folks in blue tend to take more, reduce overall freedom, and even have a strong tendency to shoot unarmed people and their dogs. >> >> As for a secret police, that?s another kettle of fish. Any libertarian who supports secret police seems have misunderstood the whole point of libertarianism: it?s about a just and free society not a prison camp. >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 17:40:00 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 09:40:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <4A85FC65-D6AB-428B-A46E-63C094FD09D9@gmail.com> On Jan 8, 2020, at 9:28 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Sent: Wednesday, January 8, 2020 7:52 PM > To: ExI chat list > Cc: Keith Henson > Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology > > wrote: > > snip > >> I am AGIN it, I tells ya! All of it, all forms of dope, everything, AGIN > it! Bad medicine it is. Poison. Toxic to mind, body and spirit. > > That's rather inconsistent with libertarianism. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > > > On the contrary sir. I didn't say anything about law, or prohibiting anyone > from these things. I unapologetically state my suggestion to leave it all > alone. > > I know there are those who have success with various things, but I also have > lived long enough to know plenty who do not, plenty who have wrecked lives. > I went to my 30th high school reunion, I noted who had passed on. We all > knew who was the doper crowd back in the day, and who was not. I could find > enough representatives of each group to get a statistically significant > result by comparing the groups. In general, the non-dopers do better. > > This is perfectly compatible with libertarianism, which recognizes that > prohibition is a failure. The libertarian case against prohibition is not about whether prohibition doesn?t work ? as in reduce use of what?s prohibited ? but about the freedom to use, possess, manufacture, and trade in prohibited substances. In other words, it?s about freedom rather than about policy failure. That said, yes, libertarians can use so called policy failure arguments (as they do againsr zoning laws, tariffs, sex work laws, etc.), but these are not really libertarian argument, but simply appealing to non-libertarians who won?t be persuaded by appeals to freedom and justice. (Which isn?t to say such arguments are wrong or invalid, but just that they are not derived from libertarianism as such.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 07:02:45 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 01:02:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Designer Baby App Message-ID: <55D58D63-25C2-4368-9D2B-9DF4FAE421ED@gmail.com> There?s a ?designer baby? App https://www.zetafertility.com/ ?Zeta Fertility Network was created to connect prospective parents with egg donors, sperm donors, surrogate mothers, and the clinics and fertility professionals needed to help start families. ? We were founded with the mission of making alternative fertility methods such as in vitro fertilization and genetic screening accessible to everyone.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Jan 10 09:42:30 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 09:42:30 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Brent Allsop wrote: >If you surgically remove your eyes, and are put into a room with no light, then stimulate the optic nerve, identical to the way it would be when looking at a strawberry.?? You would have identical knowledge of the strawberry.? What is that knowledge, and what is it that has the redness quality you experience?? This can?t be ?perception? as that requires eyes.? It is simply conscious knowledge, the result of perception. You are making a meaningless distinction. I would see a strawberry (there's no need to say "have knowledge of", that's just an unnecessarily complicated way of saying the same thing). My eyes would be whatever provides the pattern of signals to my brain, instead of my original biological eyes. Even if that was a stored pattern in a computer, the pattern would be my eyes. Rather limited eyes, but by definition, whatever provides sensory signals to my visual cortex (or optic nerves, or any point along that pathway) is my eyes. "What is that knowledge", I can only interpret as "what do you see?", so the answer is "A strawberry". "What is it that has the redness quality?" = "What is? red?". Um, The strawberry! And if you're going to say "but the strawberry doesn't exist!", all I can say is yes, it does, in two different ways. A 'real' strawberry must have been used to create the stored pattern (or perhaps a composite of several strawberries), and a representation of a strawberry exists in my brain, exactly the same as when I used to see strawberries with my biological eyes. In the virtual reality that my brain creates all the time, it's this representation that's the important thing. In a sense, this is more 'real' than the physical object that presumably exists, or has existed, in the outside world. We can, after all, perceive and act upon things that have no existence in the outside world. Beauty, for example, or jealousy. Or the ghost I saw in the middle of my bedroom the other night (which turned out to be the silhouette of my cats head about two inches from my face). What constitutes the representation of a strawberry in my brain? Exactly the same pattern of neural activity as before, when I looked at a strawberry with my biological eyes. Perception does not require eyes, or any other /specific/ sensory organ (I'm sure you're not claiming that I don't perceive music because my eyes are not involved, or that there's no such thing as the perception of cool wet grass because it involves several different sensory channels). Perception requires a *brain*. The sensory organs just provide input to the sensory processes. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Jan 10 10:49:34 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 10:49:34 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46615b86-c0d9-2f73-00a3-a901e79eab55@zaiboc.net> Brent: I think I have a way to disprove your idea about physical substances in the brain producing qualia, but first need to make sure I'm not wasting time demolishing a straw man, so I wanted to clarify what your position is, because I'm finding your language very opaque, and aren't quite sure that I do understand what you're saying. Is your position that specific types of molecule in the brain (e.g. the infamous glutamate) are what produce specific qualia (e.g. the infamous 'red'), and that this mapping is one-to-one (eg. glutamate and only glutamate produces the 'red' quale and only that)? The consequence of this would be that if you removed glutamate from someone's brain (without killing them somehow), that person would be incapable of experiencing 'red'. I do realise that you're not claiming that glutamate DOES produce the 'red' quale, but that this is just an example of the kind of thing you mean. Can you confirm that this is correct? -- Ben Zaiboc From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 13:24:38 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 08:24:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 9:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Scare tactics don't work. Well... there is such a thing as evolution in action, and if "they would be dying by the millions with free access to prescription drugs and illegal drugs" that might cause even the most obtuse to reexamine the wisdom of their behavior. Besides, as a practical matter they already have free access to drugs, in 2017 in the USA alone 10,000 died from crystal meth, 14,000 died from cocaine, 15,000 died from heroin, 70,00 died from overuse of prescription drugs, 88,000 died from overuse of alcohol, and 480,000 died from cigarettes. Regardless of if the law says a drug is legal or not it's clear that nobody fails to become a drug addict because they don't have access to drugs with one important exception, people who are physically unable to go into the street looking for drugs, people who SHOULD become drug addicts, people like terminal cancer patients. The war on drugs has done nothing but provide employment for DEA agents, foster corruption in the USA, destabilize countries in Central and South America and produce a multitude of refugees heading north, and cause millions of people to needlessly die in agony from cancer. > Maybe you and I could handle just about anything, but most (?) people > can't If in my last days I'm screaming in pain it would be of little consolation to be told my suffering is necessary to protect weaklings from themselves. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nuala.t at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 14:07:17 2020 From: nuala.t at gmail.com (Nuala Thomson) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 00:07:17 +1000 Subject: [ExI] proven nootropics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Delayed response. Went on a research whirlpool. I'm particularly interested in SAMe and 5HTP (together) in the treatment of depression and bipolar, however I have issues finding reputable sources of information. Can anyone provide suggestions or links? Thanks and hugs. On Sat., Jan. 4, 2020, 09:30 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat, < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experience-engineering/202001/5-science-backed-nootropics-improving-mood > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Fri Jan 10 17:13:07 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 12:13:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <48B17773-3FBA-4287-9C1D-D0F53B20CD1D@gmail.com> References: <48B17773-3FBA-4287-9C1D-D0F53B20CD1D@gmail.com> Message-ID: <55A770C6-2B08-435B-934D-E6899ECA60BA@alumni.virginia.edu> Got sent prematurely ugh. I?ll continue.. > It?s good to remember or recognize that most people who use neurochemicals that happen to be illegal where they live do not develop problems related to their use. This is prevalence data I?m taking about. > > For example, a 2008 publication citing 2005 national use data (USA) found among those who used these substances in the past year, the percent who met criteria for substance dependence aka addiction was... > Heroin 45.4% > Cocaine 35.3% > Cannabis 9.7% > Alcohol 4.9% > > This means 54.6% of heroin users aren?t addicts with significant impairment or distress related to their use of that substance. That data blows most people?s minds and doesn?t fit the propaganda they?ve been fed. Let?s not over-blow the risks of these substances. In many cases, the problems caused by them being illegal are far worse than any harm cause by the substances. -Henry > >>> On Jan 10, 2020, at 8:25 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >> ? >>> On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 9:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> > Scare tactics don't work. >> >> Well... there is such a thing as evolution in action, and if "they would be dying by the millions with free access to prescription drugs and illegal drugs" that might cause even the most obtuse to reexamine the wisdom of their behavior. Besides, as a practical matter they already have free access to drugs, in 2017 in the USA alone 10,000 died from crystal meth, 14,000 died from cocaine, 15,000 died from heroin, 70,00 died from overuse of prescription drugs, 88,000 died from overuse of alcohol, and 480,000 died from cigarettes. Regardless of if the law says a drug is legal or not it's clear that nobody fails to become a drug addict because they don't have access to drugs with one important exception, people who are physically unable to go into the street looking for drugs, people who SHOULD become drug addicts, people like terminal cancer patients. >> >> The war on drugs has done nothing but provide employment for DEA agents, foster corruption in the USA, destabilize countries in Central and South America and produce a multitude of refugees heading north, and cause millions of people to needlessly die in agony from cancer. >> >>> > Maybe you and I could handle just about anything, but most (?) people can't >> >> If in my last days I'm screaming in pain it would be of little consolation to be told my suffering is necessary to protect weaklings from themselves. >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 17:24:51 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 11:24:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <55A770C6-2B08-435B-934D-E6899ECA60BA@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <48B17773-3FBA-4287-9C1D-D0F53B20CD1D@gmail.com> <55A770C6-2B08-435B-934D-E6899ECA60BA@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 11:15 AM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > It?s good to remember or recognize that most people who use neurochemicals > that happen to be illegal where they live do not develop problems related > to their use. This is prevalence data I?m taking about. > > For example, a 2008 publication citing 2005 national use data (USA) found > among those who used these substances in the past year, the percent who met > criteria for substance dependence aka addiction was... > Heroin 45.4% > Cocaine 35.3% > Cannabis 9.7% > Alcohol 4.9% > > This means 54.6% of heroin users aren?t addicts with significant > impairment > > It all depends on who gets to define addiction, which can range VERY widely, and there is usually, as here, no separation of those physiologically addicted from those who are psychologically addicted. Those are two very different animals. No one to my knowledge has presented evidence that there is any physiological addiction to cannabis. And cocaine is iffy bill w > or distress related to their use of that substance. That data blows most > people?s minds and doesn?t fit the propaganda they?ve been fed. Let?s not > over-blow the risks of these substances. In many cases, the problems caused > by them being illegal are far worse than any harm cause by the substances. > -Henry > > > On Jan 10, 2020, at 8:25 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 9:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Scare tactics don't work. > > > Well... there is such a thing as evolution in action, and if "they would > be dying by the millions with free access to prescription drugs and illegal > drugs" that might cause even the most obtuse to reexamine the wisdom of > their behavior. Besides, as a practical matter they already have free > access to drugs, in 2017 in the USA alone 10,000 died from crystal meth, > 14,000 died from cocaine, 15,000 died from heroin, 70,00 died from overuse > of prescription drugs, 88,000 died from overuse of alcohol, and 480,000 > died from cigarettes. Regardless of if the law says a drug is legal or not > it's clear that nobody fails to become a drug addict because they don't > have access to drugs with one important exception, people who are > physically unable to go into the street looking for drugs, people who > SHOULD become drug addicts, people like terminal cancer patients. > > The war on drugs has done nothing but provide employment for DEA agents, > foster corruption in the USA, destabilize countries in Central and South > America and produce a multitude of refugees heading north, and cause > millions of people to needlessly die in agony from cancer. > > > Maybe you and I could handle just about anything, but most (?) people >> can't > > > If in my last days I'm screaming in pain it would be of little consolation > to be told my suffering is necessary to protect weaklings from themselves. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 18:04:23 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 13:04:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <48B17773-3FBA-4287-9C1D-D0F53B20CD1D@gmail.com> <55A770C6-2B08-435B-934D-E6899ECA60BA@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:33 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It all depends on who gets to define addiction I think a good definition of addiction is wanting to stop doing something but being unable to force yourself to do so, by that definition cigarettes smoking is about as addictive as Heroin. 74% of smokers want to stop but each year only 6% actually manage to do so, do so and live that is, I'm not counting those who stopped smoking because they died. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 18:34:00 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 11:34:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <46615b86-c0d9-2f73-00a3-a901e79eab55@zaiboc.net> References: <46615b86-c0d9-2f73-00a3-a901e79eab55@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Ben, On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:50 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Brent: > I think I have a way to disprove your idea about physical substances in > the brain producing qualia, Wonderful!! Falsifying theories, forcing a scientific consensus, and rigorously tracking this progress when people abandon falsified camps, is what canonizer is all about. And thanks for asking for clarification on my poor English. > Is your position that specific types of molecule in the brain (e.g. the > infamous glutamate) are what produce specific qualia (e.g. the infamous > 'red'), and that this mapping is one-to-one (eg. glutamate and only > glutamate produces the 'red' quale and only that)? > Yes, but you are being qualia blind when you only say 'red', as I understand 'red' as being anything that reflects or emits red light. But it sounds like you are instead talking about the very different physical quality, redness. My redness could be like your grenness, both of which we label as red. The only claim the consensus supporters of representational qualia are making is that conscious information is represented by some type of qualia, and that today, most everyone uses qualia blind (one word) models and language. The lack of consensus is just around the nature of qualia. Some predicting qualia are functional , other that qualia are different than physics , others that they are down at the quantum level ?. We only use a simplified version of the easiest theory to falsify, "elemental qualia are molecular material qualities ," is to better help people understand what it means to be qualia blind. Once people understand how not to be qualia blind with the simplest theory, and they can easily falsify (or verify) that glutamate = redness, they can then do the same for all other more capable theories. Not being qualia blind is what is required before experimentalists can start to falsify all these competing theories predicting the nature of qualia. Any theory is justified for being used as a working hypothesis, till it is falsified. So we need to close this last remaining gap full of crap by falsifying all the crap. The consequence of this would be that if you removed glutamate from > someone's brain (without killing them somehow), that person would be > incapable of experiencing 'red'. > Exactly, this is how you falsify the prediction that redness = glutamate. This kind of falsifiability is the whole point. If this is achieved, you just select another theory that has not yet been falsified as your new working hypothesis. You then do a global replace of the word 'glutamate' in everything I have been saying, with another "working hypothesis of what is redness, until you have found the necessary and sufficient set of stuff that has a redness quality. Then we will have eliminated all the crap, knowing which theory is THE ONE, and only then we will finally know what color things are. Brent -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 18:57:05 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 10:57:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology Message-ID: <6AD0B489-3BDC-40B8-A09F-105767598F6D@gmail.com> I'm no expert on addiction, but that sounds like a good working definition. I wonder if Bill W, having a background in psychology, might give a brief run down on other definitions. (I would Google up on it, but want to get through other stuff this morning.) Now one problem I find with this definition is that people do seem to have conflicting desires. So, one can easily imagine a person wanting to get off X yet still wanting to be on X. This is a folk psychological account, of course. Worse, it's my folk psychological account, so YMMV. In economics, there's the notion of revealed preference. This is basically that it's not what a person reports but what they actually do that tells us their wants. It's kind of a "talk is cheap" approach to human action. Of course, revealed preference must exist in a context where a choice between actions (or goals) is possible. So, an actual addiction would not be an example. The problem is drawing the line here. It seems the person who actually quits smoking has revealed their preference, but of the people who try and fail it seems like it'd be hard to tell whether they?re revealing a preference or not. Revealed preference is not without its critics, but that's a longer discussion. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst ? > On Friday, January 10, 2020, 10:12:52 AM PST, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:33 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > > It all depends on who gets to define addiction > > I think a good definition of addiction is wanting to stop doing something but being unable to force yourself to do so, by that definition cigarettes smoking is about as addictive as Heroin. 74% of smokers want to stop but each year only 6% actually manage to do so, do so and live that is, I'm not counting those who stopped smoking because they died. > > John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 19:42:48 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 13:42:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <48B17773-3FBA-4287-9C1D-D0F53B20CD1D@gmail.com> <55A770C6-2B08-435B-934D-E6899ECA60BA@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: Here is me two packs a day of Salems, probably a strong cigarette. I did quit them cold turkey, after years of wanting to, but I'll bet you could have measured some physiological changes in me during the days after I quit. In other words, I did have a physical addiction. I continued to want cigarettes for a few weeks but did not relapse at all. It is arguable to my drinking a lot of coffee replaced the nicotine and so I had my dose of stimulants. No, I did not turn into a coffee addict, though I do support the idea that there is such a thing. Three cups at breakfast and no more. Good for you they now say. I took a big draw and inhaled a Salem ten years after I quit. My thought? "I could go back to two packs a day in a nanosecond." Loved it. But just too deadly. Did not want to die that way. I suppose some idea of being weak entered my mind and did not want to be thought of as weak by my friends and family. Ditto for alcohol. So by John's measure, want to quit but can't, I wasn't an addict. I think I was, and had some withdrawal to prove it. I cannot say what enabled me to quit. Many will say 'willpower', but that's an elusive concept if there ever was one. It's circular- you must have had enough willpower or you would not have been able to quit. If you can't, it's not enough will power. Nobody ever said how to get more. Self-control is a better concept, like the Mischel study I posted the other day. Some would say that if you haven't mastered self-control you are not yet an adult. I wonder what percentage that would be. Cigarette smoking is probably stronger than heroin or at least as strong. Meth too, probably more so though I have not looked at that data. Re: revealed preference. I am glad to read the economics is finally getting on the band wagon: relying first and foremost on behavior. People will say anything, especially to a health professional. Kahneman helped that too in economics bill w On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:07 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:33 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > It all depends on who gets to define addiction > > > I think a good definition of addiction is wanting to stop doing something > but being unable to force yourself to do so, by that definition cigarettes > smoking is about as addictive as Heroin. 74% of smokers want to stop but > each year only 6% actually manage to do so, do so and live that is, I'm not > counting those who stopped smoking because they died. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 19:46:36 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 11:46:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology Message-ID: wrote: wrote: snip > I am AGIN it, I tells ya! All of it, all forms of dope, everything, AGIN it! Bad medicine it is. Poison. Toxic to mind, body and spirit. [Keith] >> That's rather inconsistent with libertarianism. > On the contrary sir. I didn't say anything about law, or prohibiting anyone from these things. I unapologetically state my suggestion to leave it all alone. I think your attitude is still not a libertarian one. To a large extent, I agree about "toxic." But drugs (such as alcohol) have been with us for 10,000 years or more. Alcohol may even have been a major element motivating people to farm. We have made various genetic accommodations to alcohol, which you can see in how badly alcohol affects the population. The places on the edge of the agricultural expansion (which have had the least time for genetic selection) have the most serious problems with alcohol, and unexposed peoples (such as Greenland natives) have almost no resistance. Native Americans were massively affected. The French are almost immune to the effects despite consuming a frightening amount of wine. I can't find it now, but at one point someone did an analysis of countries with drug problems. Turkey, which has been growing opium for 5,000 years or more, did not have much of a problem. Why? The genes that contribute to addiction had been weeded out over thousands of years. > I know there are those who have success with various things, but I also have lived long enough to know plenty who do not, plenty who have wrecked lives. Evolution in action. A few thousand years of selection (or one generation of designer babies) and the wrecked lives from drugs problem goes away. >From experience, I am close to immune to addiction to opiates. It's just luck of the genetic draw, not virtue or will power. Only something like 5-10% of the population have the metabolism to become addicts. Libertarianism (or libertarianism) in the context of evolution is a harsh political stand to take. snip > Living near San Francisco, I also recognize that removing all restrictions on dope is also a failure. I was not aware that SF had removed restrictions. Keith From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Fri Jan 10 20:20:10 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 15:20:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <741CBA66-ACF4-4ADF-8B29-14EEB34D1837@alumni.virginia.edu> The simplest globally accepted medical definition of addiction is the inability to control use resulting in significant impairment or distress. The study I referenced used the DSM-IV-TR definition of Substance Dependence which one can look up online. The current equivalent in the USA would be Substance Use Disorder, Severe in DSM 5 which one can also look up online. There is acceptance now of withdrawal from heavy cannabis use, but the symptoms are relatively mild and consist of disturbed sleep and irritability at worst. It?s rarely seen clinically in my experience. That is, people rarely feel compelled to seek professional help from this. However, meeting the criteria for Dependence in the study I referenced would not require withdrawal. Just evidence of use of or acquiring the drug getting in the way of their functioning significantly. Things that would trigger normal people to say for example, ?Hey, wait a minute.. what are my priorities here. This isn?t worth losing my job or relationship over. I better cut back or stop.? The Dependent person here would not be able to change their behaviors despite the negative impact in functioning. I am a clinical psychologist if you?re wondering, am a subject matter expert in substance use disorders and mind altering drugs, and have managed 2 substance use disorder treatment programs in my career. Currently I oversee an outpatient Mental Health Clinic, a Primary Care-Mental Health Integration Clinic, a Mental Health Walk-in and Inpatient Admissions Clinic, a disability determination clinic, and a Substance Use Disorders Clinic. -Henry > On Jan 10, 2020, at 2:43 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > Here is me two packs a day of Salems, probably a strong cigarette. I did quit them cold turkey, after years of wanting to, but I'll bet you could have measured some physiological changes in me during the days after I quit. In other words, I did have a physical addiction. I continued to want cigarettes for a few weeks but did not relapse at all. It is arguable to my drinking a lot of coffee replaced the nicotine and so I had my dose of stimulants. No, I did not turn into a coffee addict, though I do support the idea that there is such a thing. Three cups at breakfast and no more. Good for you they now say. > > I took a big draw and inhaled a Salem ten years after I quit. My thought? "I could go back to two packs a day in a nanosecond." Loved it. But just too deadly. Did not want to die that way. I suppose some idea of being weak entered my mind and did not want to be thought of as weak by my friends and family. Ditto for alcohol. > > So by John's measure, want to quit but can't, I wasn't an addict. I think I was, and had some withdrawal to prove it. I cannot say what enabled me to quit. Many will say 'willpower', but that's an elusive concept if there ever was one. It's circular- you must have had enough willpower or you would not have been able to quit. If you can't, it's not enough will power. Nobody ever said how to get more. Self-control is a better concept, like the Mischel study I posted the other day. Some would say that if you haven't mastered self-control you are not yet an adult. I wonder what percentage that would be. > > Cigarette smoking is probably stronger than heroin or at least as strong. Meth too, probably more so though I have not looked at that data. > > Re: revealed preference. I am glad to read the economics is finally getting on the band wagon: relying first and foremost on behavior. People will say anything, especially to a health professional. Kahneman helped that too in economics > > bill w > >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:07 PM John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >>> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:33 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> > It all depends on who gets to define addiction >> >> I think a good definition of addiction is wanting to stop doing something but being unable to force yourself to do so, by that definition cigarettes smoking is about as addictive as Heroin. 74% of smokers want to stop but each year only 6% actually manage to do so, do so and live that is, I'm not counting those who stopped smoking because they died. >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 20:22:33 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 14:22:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. Message-ID: There is no one definition of any kind of addiction. If there were, there would be no fights over whether you can be addicted to sex, gambling, shopping, video games, and so on. Certainly some of the those people, maybe all of them, need some form of therapy, but to call it addiction is another thing. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 20:30:15 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 14:30:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <741CBA66-ACF4-4ADF-8B29-14EEB34D1837@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <741CBA66-ACF4-4ADF-8B29-14EEB34D1837@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:22 PM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The simplest globally accepted medical definition of addiction is the > inability to control use resulting in significant impairment or distress. > Just sent off another post on addiction before I saw this from Henry. If we accept the definition above,then at one point I was addicted to both cigarettes and alcohol, but after I quit both, I wasn't, since I had showed the ability to control usage. That really seems odd, doesn't it? But it's mental health, and definitions are fought over ever year at conventions, so I suppose that finding out how to treat people who ask for help is more important than putting a label on them. People who don't ask are impossible, eh Henry? One more thing: I was not significantly impaired in any way as a result of smoking and drinking, so where does that fit in? I kept wanting to quit - that was the only real symptom I had. I taught my classes as well as I could and never let any drug interfere with that - I loved it too much to go in drunk. bill w bill w bill w > > The study I referenced used the DSM-IV-TR definition of Substance > Dependence which one can look up online. The current equivalent in the USA > would be Substance Use Disorder, Severe in DSM 5 which one can also look up > online. > > There is acceptance now of withdrawal from heavy cannabis use, but the > symptoms are relatively mild and consist of disturbed sleep and > irritability at worst. It?s rarely seen clinically in my experience. That > is, people rarely feel compelled to seek professional help from this. > However, meeting the criteria for Dependence in the study I referenced > would not require withdrawal. Just evidence of use of or acquiring the drug > getting in the way of their functioning significantly. Things that would > trigger normal people to say for example, ?Hey, wait a minute.. what are my > priorities here. This isn?t worth losing my job or relationship over. I > better cut back or stop.? The Dependent person here would not be able to > change their behaviors despite the negative impact in functioning. > > I am a clinical psychologist if you?re wondering, am a subject matter > expert in substance use disorders and mind altering drugs, and have managed > 2 substance use disorder treatment programs in my career. Currently I > oversee an outpatient Mental Health Clinic, a Primary Care-Mental Health > Integration Clinic, a Mental Health Walk-in and Inpatient Admissions > Clinic, a disability determination clinic, and a Substance Use Disorders > Clinic. > -Henry > > On Jan 10, 2020, at 2:43 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > Here is me two packs a day of Salems, probably a strong cigarette. I did > quit them cold turkey, after years of wanting to, but I'll bet you could > have measured some physiological changes in me during the days after I > quit. In other words, I did have a physical addiction. I continued to want > cigarettes for a few weeks but did not relapse at all. It is arguable to > my drinking a lot of coffee replaced the nicotine and so I had my dose of > stimulants. No, I did not turn into a coffee addict, though I do support > the idea that there is such a thing. Three cups at breakfast and no more. > Good for you they now say. > > I took a big draw and inhaled a Salem ten years after I quit. My > thought? "I could go back to two packs a day in a nanosecond." Loved it. > But just too deadly. Did not want to die that way. I suppose some idea of > being weak entered my mind and did not want to be thought of as weak by my > friends and family. Ditto for alcohol. > > So by John's measure, want to quit but can't, I wasn't an addict. I think > I was, and had some withdrawal to prove it. I cannot say what enabled me > to quit. Many will say 'willpower', but that's an elusive concept if there > ever was one. It's circular- you must have had enough willpower or you > would not have been able to quit. If you can't, it's not enough will > power. Nobody ever said how to get more. Self-control is a better > concept, like the Mischel study I posted the other day. Some would say > that if you haven't mastered self-control you are not yet an adult. I > wonder what percentage that would be. > > Cigarette smoking is probably stronger than heroin or at least as strong. > Meth too, probably more so though I have not looked at that data. > > Re: revealed preference. I am glad to read the economics is finally > getting on the band wagon: relying first and foremost on behavior. People > will say anything, especially to a health professional. Kahneman helped > that too in economics > > bill w > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:07 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:33 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> > It all depends on who gets to define addiction >> >> >> I think a good definition of addiction is wanting to stop doing something >> but being unable to force yourself to do so, by that definition cigarettes >> smoking is about as addictive as Heroin. 74% of smokers want to stop but >> each year only 6% actually manage to do so, do so and live that is, I'm not >> counting those who stopped smoking because they died. >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 20:48:41 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 12:48:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Your first comment misunderstands the concept of rights. Rights are a normative concept, so their violation doesn't invalidate them. Nor does being a normative concept necessarily imply said concept is subjective. (Health is another normative concept. That doesn?t mean health must needs be subjective much less that the concept of health is refuted because it?s an ?objective fact? that there are sick people.;) The questions about a right to rule and a duty to obey are different from the overall question of what to do or what's best for a given outcome. I mean here one might say one wants civilization not to collapse but still admit no one has a right to rule or a duty to obey anyone else. And the issue I was raising was not "what's the outcome of libertarianism," but "what does it mean to be a libertarian." For me, for the libertarian, it should be clear as crystal that one has a right to rule or a duty to obey. That in itself doesn't mean one must be a libertarian. Let me try an analogy with you. To be a Christian means accepting Jesus Christ as your savior, right? Usually, it means a few other things too, but let's leave them aside. If you agree with this definition and someone tells you that they're a Christian who doesn't believe Jesus is real or can save anyone, then they're really not a Christian. They might share some other views with Christian, but they either don't understand what it mean to be a Christian, are lying, or aren't simply irrational to state they're a Christian if they lack that core belief. Now I don't think Christianity is true, but I can accept the formal view that being a Christian entails holding a certain set of beliefs and not holding those puts one outside the pale of Christianity. In the same way, whatever the fuck you believe about rights or things being subjective doesn't mean anything about who is or isn't a libertarian or what being a libertarian entails. Now, a few other points. Libertarians have discussed for decades now something like a basic income guarantee. Think of Milton Friedman (he's been dead for a long time) and his negative income tax proposal. You act as if this is all new. There are discussions amongst libertarians both about whether to do this and how (for instance, via voluntary funding) and also as a replacement for the welfare state (replacing a huge bureaucracy and set of regulations with a flat payout, which even if it still leaves some coercion in place might be the path to a less coercive society). Finland does not currently have a basic income guarantee. They did a test program with 2,000 unemployed people for two years, 02017 through the end of 02018. The results were mixed. But they don't have a national program now in place. There's much debate on this and it's only one test. I know the result they wanted -- people getting back to work -- didn't occur. (Of course, this isn't what advocates of basic income guarantees I've read or talked to see as the goal: the goal isn't getting people to work, but simply giving people a minimum level of funding to live a decent life. That could go on for as long as they live. Certainly, I know many people who, if you pay them enough, would never work again. I'm not judging them as bad people. I'm sure they'd find meaningful activities to fill their time. I know I would.:) As a start, right now, what you should be for is removing all the crap that poor folks have to put up with so that they can live their lives as best as possible with the resources they have. I mean get rid of their barriers to entry into markets and places. Get rid of tariffs and other trade controls which tend to decrease overall productivity and make it hard for the poorer members of society to afford things. Get rid of the overbearing police state in the US and other nations that tends to fall much more heavily on the poor in two ways -- brutalizing them when the the police come down on the poor and neglecting them otherwise. Finally, on rights that don't involve money, you've got to be kidding, right? In the real world now and likely for the foreseeable future, things like publishing and obtaining recreational drugs involves money transactions or some form of property exchange or exchange of favors. These things currently don't fall from the sky. Even publishing online means someone is paying -- for instance, for an Internet connection, a computer (or equivalent device), and usually involves investments of time and effort by someone. It's a wacky (and conservative) notion that rights are somehow divide between sort of economic ones and all else. Rights involve freedom of action (or constraints on someone interfering with someone else's actions), so they naturally link up with economics. Oh, one more thing: small-l-libertarianism used to mean not whatever any idiot believes libertarianism is, but pure libertarian as opposed to large-L-libertarian which mean a Libertarian party member. This is like the difference between a democrat -- someone who believe in democratic government -- and a Democrat -- a member/supporter of the Democratic Party. The term lost meaning long before now mainly because as any term spreads people who don't know what it means start using it to mean whatever they think it means. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 7, 2020, at 5:24 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? >> On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:15 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> > Does anyone have a right to rule you or anyone else isn?t a question about rules but about rulers. And it?s about a right to rule > > It's a objective fact that some people do in fact rule over other people and have done so for all of written history, so the question of "rights" must live in the subjective world. And in my subjective opinion rights should be consistent with civilization not collapsing into chaos and bloody violence. That's why, in light of the AI revolution and the turmoil it will certainly produce, I've felt the need to moderate my former rather extreme libertarian views and support things I never would have just a few years ago, such as universal basic income (like Finland already has) and healthcare for all citizens (as every technologically advanced country in the world already has EXCEPT for the USA). > > As for rights that don't involve money (such as freedom of the press and the right to put any drug I want into my body) my former libertarian (small l) philosophy has needed far less radical change. By the way, I don't drink and don't take happy pills and have never even smoked a marijuana cigarette, but that's just my choice and in my subjective view you should be free to do what you want. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Fri Jan 10 20:54:14 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 15:54:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You hit upon a good point here that cigarettes don?t fit the mold with respect to the criteria. Studies have found the DSM-IV criteria have relative low predictive validity with respect to tobacco dependence. The impact on functioning examples DSM provides with respect to tobacco are respiratory infections, reduced cardiovascular capacity, impaired sense of smell and taste, offensive odor (of smoke), chronic cough. Mostly, people who get a tobacco use disorder diagnosis are distressed by their inability to quit successfully. If one is not impaired or distressed, they may be physiologically addicted such that they?d experience withdrawal if they stopped abruptly but they wouldn?t have a substance use disorder per se. As Bill noted, definitions are fought over and rarely perfect. There are plenty of examples of functional addicts as well. Addiction is a term that doesn?t have uniform agreement and is used inconsistently. > On Jan 10, 2020, at 3:36 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > > >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:22 PM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat wrote: >> The simplest globally accepted medical definition of addiction is the inability to control use resulting in significant impairment or distress. > > Just sent off another post on addiction before I saw this from Henry. If we accept the definition above,then at one point I was addicted to both cigarettes and alcohol, but after I quit both, I wasn't, since I had showed the ability to control usage. That really seems odd, doesn't it? But it's mental health, and definitions are fought over ever year at conventions, so I suppose that finding out how to treat people who ask for help is more important than putting a label on them. People who don't ask are impossible, eh Henry? > > One more thing: I was not significantly impaired in any way as a result of smoking and drinking, so where does that fit in? I kept wanting to quit - that was the only real symptom I had. I taught my classes as well as I could and never let any drug interfere with that - I loved it too much to go in drunk. > > bill w > > bill w > > bill w >> >> The study I referenced used the DSM-IV-TR definition of Substance Dependence which one can look up online. The current equivalent in the USA would be Substance Use Disorder, Severe in DSM 5 which one can also look up online. >> >> There is acceptance now of withdrawal from heavy cannabis use, but the symptoms are relatively mild and consist of disturbed sleep and irritability at worst. It?s rarely seen clinically in my experience. That is, people rarely feel compelled to seek professional help from this. However, meeting the criteria for Dependence in the study I referenced would not require withdrawal. Just evidence of use of or acquiring the drug getting in the way of their functioning significantly. Things that would trigger normal people to say for example, ?Hey, wait a minute.. what are my priorities here. This isn?t worth losing my job or relationship over. I better cut back or stop.? The Dependent person here would not be able to change their behaviors despite the negative impact in functioning. >> >> I am a clinical psychologist if you?re wondering, am a subject matter expert in substance use disorders and mind altering drugs, and have managed 2 substance use disorder treatment programs in my career. Currently I oversee an outpatient Mental Health Clinic, a Primary Care-Mental Health Integration Clinic, a Mental Health Walk-in and Inpatient Admissions Clinic, a disability determination clinic, and a Substance Use Disorders Clinic. >> -Henry >> >>>> On Jan 10, 2020, at 2:43 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> >>> ? >>> Here is me two packs a day of Salems, probably a strong cigarette. I did quit them cold turkey, after years of wanting to, but I'll bet you could have measured some physiological changes in me during the days after I quit. In other words, I did have a physical addiction. I continued to want cigarettes for a few weeks but did not relapse at all. It is arguable to my drinking a lot of coffee replaced the nicotine and so I had my dose of stimulants. No, I did not turn into a coffee addict, though I do support the idea that there is such a thing. Three cups at breakfast and no more. Good for you they now say. >>> >>> I took a big draw and inhaled a Salem ten years after I quit. My thought? "I could go back to two packs a day in a nanosecond." Loved it. But just too deadly. Did not want to die that way. I suppose some idea of being weak entered my mind and did not want to be thought of as weak by my friends and family. Ditto for alcohol. >>> >>> So by John's measure, want to quit but can't, I wasn't an addict. I think I was, and had some withdrawal to prove it. I cannot say what enabled me to quit. Many will say 'willpower', but that's an elusive concept if there ever was one. It's circular- you must have had enough willpower or you would not have been able to quit. If you can't, it's not enough will power. Nobody ever said how to get more. Self-control is a better concept, like the Mischel study I posted the other day. Some would say that if you haven't mastered self-control you are not yet an adult. I wonder what percentage that would be. >>> >>> Cigarette smoking is probably stronger than heroin or at least as strong. Meth too, probably more so though I have not looked at that data. >>> >>> Re: revealed preference. I am glad to read the economics is finally getting on the band wagon: relying first and foremost on behavior. People will say anything, especially to a health professional. Kahneman helped that too in economics >>> >>> bill w >>> >>>> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:07 PM John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:33 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> >>>>> > It all depends on who gets to define addiction >>>> >>>> I think a good definition of addiction is wanting to stop doing something but being unable to force yourself to do so, by that definition cigarettes smoking is about as addictive as Heroin. 74% of smokers want to stop but each year only 6% actually manage to do so, do so and live that is, I'm not counting those who stopped smoking because they died. >>>> >>>> John K Clark >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 20:54:55 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 12:54:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I?m not sure that?s so. That there?s contention over an idea doesn?t mean one can?t offer up a working definition or even stipulate one. I hardly think there?s any field where this isn?t some disagreement about concepts, including basic ones. Further, I imagine the bigger problems here arise because ?addiction? has policy implications and matters in public debates. And the term has entered common everyday use, which further complicates things. (The definition of esoteric subject matter can be contentious, but most times those debates stay within small circles of interested folks.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 10, 2020, at 12:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > There is no one definition of any kind of addiction. If there were, there would be no fights over whether you can be addicted to sex, gambling, shopping, video games, and so on. > > Certainly some of the those people, maybe all of them, need some form of therapy, but to call it addiction is another thing. > > bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 20:59:34 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 12:59:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To me, the main dangers are dealing with law enforcement and the lesser level of quality control because such substances are illegal. In other words, dangers arising from drug prohibition and not from the substances themselves. Imagine history were a little different and the Puritanical anti-recreational drug culture never arose or lacked legal enforcement of its whims. Then by now, there'd probably be much more progress in developing better recreational and psychoactive drugs. We might be talking about advances that happened before some of us (me, for instance) were born instead of losing decades of research because of prohibition. I?m not disagreeing with you here ? just trying to emphasize wherein the big dangers are. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 8, 2020, at 6:13 PM, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > > >>> On Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 20:26 spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Sounds like a dangerous way to have fun to me. >>> > > Dangerous how? Cannabis and LSD have extremely low toxicity, several levels of magnitude below e.g. alcohol. MDMA can definitely be dangerous especially because of cuts and uninformed use, but it tends to be fairly safe as well if pure and used in low doses. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 21:08:49 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 13:08:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology Message-ID: Henry Rivera wrote: snip > This means 54.6% of heroin users aren?t addicts with significant impairment or distress related to their use of that substance. I don't know what it is called now, but at one point in the past, it was called "chipping," not using enough or often enough to build up tolerance and addiction. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 21:49:07 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 15:49:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am quite sure that government agencies, for one, have definitions of addiction they are forced to use. In medical areas one must have a diagnosis before you can assign a treatment. That doesn't make any of them the only one, the best one, and so on. You could probably accurately say this about any mental health diagnosis - they change over time. Not only that, but the words used are changed, like from 'mental retardation' (which itself was a change from 'idiot, imbecile, moron') to 'developmental dysfunction' or something like that. bill On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:12 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I?m not sure that?s so. That there?s contention over an idea doesn?t mean > one can?t offer up a working definition or even stipulate one. I hardly > think there?s any field where this isn?t some disagreement about concepts, > including basic ones. Further, I imagine the bigger problems here arise > because ?addiction? has policy implications and matters in public debates. > And the term has entered common everyday use, which further complicates > things. (The definition of esoteric subject matter can be contentious, but > most times those debates stay within small circles of interested folks.) > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Jan 10, 2020, at 12:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > There is no one definition of any kind of addiction. If there were, there > would be no fights over whether you can be addicted to sex, gambling, > shopping, video games, and so on. > > Certainly some of the those people, maybe all of them, need some form of > therapy, but to call it addiction is another thing. > > bill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 22:22:30 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 17:22:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <6AD0B489-3BDC-40B8-A09F-105767598F6D@gmail.com> References: <6AD0B489-3BDC-40B8-A09F-105767598F6D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 1:59 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> wanting to stop doing something but being unable to force yourself to do >> so > > > *> Now one problem I find with this definition is that people do seem to > have conflicting desires. So, one can easily imagine a person wanting to > get off X yet still wanting to be on X.* > Perhaps a better definition of addiction would be not wanting to stop but wanting to want to stop. And it's odd, politicians talk about the drug epidemic as if it's something new but tobacco is very old and it kills far more people than every other drug, legal and illegal, combined. And that remains true even if you include the second most dangerous drug alcohol which for some strange reason most parents don't even consider a drug.... "*thank goodness, little Jimmy was't on drugs, he was just drunk*". John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 23:09:48 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 18:09:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:16 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> Recently we saw a fulfilment of a dream. We saw persistent conflict > between two nations. The more advanced nation fired one missile and took > out one military leader and his staff. The enraged victim nation very > carefully fired back 15 missiles but hit nothing. Intense but very > localized destruction, low loss of life, few of the traditional well-known > horrors of war.* Good point. That's why I don't understand those who say it's immoral to work on killer robots that use AI like the recent Google employee who resigned in protest: Google worker fears 'killer robots' could cause mass atrocities Does anyone seriously think it would be better to go back to carpet bombing like we had during World War 2? Judging from the above article apparently so, but the non-nuclear firebombing of Tokyo on March 9 1945 with non-AI bombs killed at least 125,000 people and was almost certainly the bloodiest 6 hours in human history. I think a good case could be made that it's immoral to work on dumb bombs not smart ones. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 23:37:24 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 17:37:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I think a good case could be made that it's immoral to work on dumb bombs not smart ones. John K Clark Whatever happened to just zapping them with a laser from orbit? Because it would open a whole different can of worms? bill w On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 5:12 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:16 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *> Recently we saw a fulfilment of a dream. We saw persistent conflict >> between two nations. The more advanced nation fired one missile and took >> out one military leader and his staff. The enraged victim nation very >> carefully fired back 15 missiles but hit nothing. Intense but very >> localized destruction, low loss of life, few of the traditional well-known >> horrors of war.* > > > Good point. That's why I don't understand those who say it's immoral to > work on killer robots that use AI like the recent Google employee who > resigned in protest: > > Google worker fears 'killer robots' could cause mass atrocities > > > Does anyone seriously think it would be better to go back to carpet > bombing like we had during World War 2? Judging from the above article > apparently so, but the non-nuclear firebombing of Tokyo on March 9 1945 > with non-AI bombs killed at least 125,000 people and was almost certainly > the bloodiest 6 hours in human history. I think a good case could be made > that it's immoral to work on dumb bombs not smart ones. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 23:43:58 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 17:43:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] single neurons think? Message-ID: Basically, the researchers figured out that the human brain can modulate the amplitude of electrical activity in order increase the longevity and efficacy of its signals. This, apparently, allows individual neurons to do more than just figure out if something is one thing or another, it allows them to perform an XOR calculation , something previously thought impossible for a single neuron in the human brain. Here's the whole article: https://thenextweb.com/insights/2020/01/08/scientists-may-have-found-the-missing-link-between-brain-matter-and-consciousness/ bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Sat Jan 11 00:29:16 2020 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 16:29:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00B8BC51-3819-4B88-A3B3-18B0F7B1C1AA@yahoo.com> My point remains though: there?s nothing special about disagreement in this area save its impact on policy and public attitudes. I mean there are disagreements over what a concept is, what a word is, what matter is, etc. I agree there?s another problem with behavioral and mental health issues in that social appropriateness and ideology often impinge much more heavily than, say, on things like defining what a concept or what a planet is. But that goes for more concepts than just addiction ? as you note. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 10, 2020, at 1:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > I am quite sure that government agencies, for one, have definitions of addiction they are forced to use. In medical areas one must have a diagnosis before you can assign a treatment. That doesn't make any of them the only one, the best one, and so on. You could probably accurately say this about any mental health diagnosis - they change over time. Not only that, but the words used are changed, like from 'mental retardation' (which itself was a change from 'idiot, imbecile, moron') to 'developmental dysfunction' or something like that. bill > >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:12 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> I?m not sure that?s so. That there?s contention over an idea doesn?t mean one can?t offer up a working definition or even stipulate one. I hardly think there?s any field where this isn?t some disagreement about concepts, including basic ones. Further, I imagine the bigger problems here arise because ?addiction? has policy implications and matters in public debates. And the term has entered common everyday use, which further complicates things. (The definition of esoteric subject matter can be contentious, but most times those debates stay within small circles of interested folks.) >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan >> Sample my Kindle books at: >> http://author.to/DanUst >> >>>> On Jan 10, 2020, at 12:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> >>> ? >>> There is no one definition of any kind of addiction. If there were, there would be no fights over whether you can be addicted to sex, gambling, shopping, video games, and so on. >>> >>> Certainly some of the those people, maybe all of them, need some form of therapy, but to call it addiction is another thing. >>> >>> bill w >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 00:39:45 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 18:39:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: <00B8BC51-3819-4B88-A3B3-18B0F7B1C1AA@yahoo.com> References: <00B8BC51-3819-4B88-A3B3-18B0F7B1C1AA@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No, nothing special about disagreement about a concept, except for the people who need help and may not be getting it because of how a concept is or is not applied to them. bill w On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 6:31 PM Dan Ust via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > My point remains though: there?s nothing special about disagreement in > this area save its impact on policy and public attitudes. I mean there are > disagreements over what a concept is, what a word is, what matter is, etc. > > I agree there?s another problem with behavioral and mental health issues > in that social appropriateness and ideology often impinge much more heavily > than, say, on things like defining what a concept or what a planet is. But > that goes for more concepts than just addiction ? as you note. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Jan 10, 2020, at 1:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > I am quite sure that government agencies, for one, have definitions of > addiction they are forced to use. In medical areas one must have a > diagnosis before you can assign a treatment. That doesn't make any of them > the only one, the best one, and so on. You could probably accurately say > this about any mental health diagnosis - they change over time. Not only > that, but the words used are changed, like from 'mental retardation' (which > itself was a change from 'idiot, imbecile, moron') to 'developmental > dysfunction' or something like that. bill > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:12 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I?m not sure that?s so. That there?s contention over an idea doesn?t mean >> one can?t offer up a working definition or even stipulate one. I hardly >> think there?s any field where this isn?t some disagreement about concepts, >> including basic ones. Further, I imagine the bigger problems here arise >> because ?addiction? has policy implications and matters in public debates. >> And the term has entered common everyday use, which further complicates >> things. (The definition of esoteric subject matter can be contentious, but >> most times those debates stay within small circles of interested folks.) >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan >> Sample my Kindle books at: >> >> http://author.to/DanUst >> >> On Jan 10, 2020, at 12:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> ? >> There is no one definition of any kind of addiction. If there were, >> there would be no fights over whether you can be addicted to sex, gambling, >> shopping, video games, and so on. >> >> Certainly some of the those people, maybe all of them, need some form of >> therapy, but to call it addiction is another thing. >> >> bill w >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 01:23:12 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 17:23:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don?t disagree, but remember I am not the one pining for ever coercive intrusion into folks? lives here. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 10, 2020, at 4:48 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > No, nothing special about disagreement about a concept, except for the people who need help and may not be getting it because of how a concept is or is not applied to them. bill w > >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 6:31 PM Dan Ust via extropy-chat wrote: >> My point remains though: there?s nothing special about disagreement in this area save its impact on policy and public attitudes. I mean there are disagreements over what a concept is, what a word is, what matter is, etc. >> >> I agree there?s another problem with behavioral and mental health issues in that social appropriateness and ideology often impinge much more heavily than, say, on things like defining what a concept or what a planet is. But that goes for more concepts than just addiction ? as you note. >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan >> Sample my Kindle books at: >> http://author.to/DanUst >> >>>> On Jan 10, 2020, at 1:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> >>> ? >>> I am quite sure that government agencies, for one, have definitions of addiction they are forced to use. In medical areas one must have a diagnosis before you can assign a treatment. That doesn't make any of them the only one, the best one, and so on. You could probably accurately say this about any mental health diagnosis - they change over time. Not only that, but the words used are changed, like from 'mental retardation' (which itself was a change from 'idiot, imbecile, moron') to 'developmental dysfunction' or something like that. bill >>> >>>> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:12 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> I?m not sure that?s so. That there?s contention over an idea doesn?t mean one can?t offer up a working definition or even stipulate one. I hardly think there?s any field where this isn?t some disagreement about concepts, including basic ones. Further, I imagine the bigger problems here arise because ?addiction? has policy implications and matters in public debates. And the term has entered common everyday use, which further complicates things. (The definition of esoteric subject matter can be contentious, but most times those debates stay within small circles of interested folks.) >>>> >>>> Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 01:31:49 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 19:31:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Do you think 'libertarianism' and 'society' are incompatible? bill w On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 7:25 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I don?t disagree, but remember I am not the one pining for ever coercive > intrusion into folks? lives here. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Jan 10, 2020, at 4:48 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > No, nothing special about disagreement about a concept, except for the > people who need help and may not be getting it because of how a concept is > or is not applied to them. bill w > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 6:31 PM Dan Ust via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> My point remains though: there?s nothing special about disagreement in >> this area save its impact on policy and public attitudes. I mean there are >> disagreements over what a concept is, what a word is, what matter is, etc. >> >> I agree there?s another problem with behavioral and mental health issues >> in that social appropriateness and ideology often impinge much more heavily >> than, say, on things like defining what a concept or what a planet is. But >> that goes for more concepts than just addiction ? as you note. >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan >> Sample my Kindle books at: >> >> http://author.to/DanUst >> >> On Jan 10, 2020, at 1:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> ? >> I am quite sure that government agencies, for one, have definitions of >> addiction they are forced to use. In medical areas one must have a >> diagnosis before you can assign a treatment. That doesn't make any of them >> the only one, the best one, and so on. You could probably accurately say >> this about any mental health diagnosis - they change over time. Not only >> that, but the words used are changed, like from 'mental retardation' (which >> itself was a change from 'idiot, imbecile, moron') to 'developmental >> dysfunction' or something like that. bill >> >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:12 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I?m not sure that?s so. That there?s contention over an idea doesn?t >>> mean one can?t offer up a working definition or even stipulate one. I >>> hardly think there?s any field where this isn?t some disagreement about >>> concepts, including basic ones. Further, I imagine the bigger problems here >>> arise because ?addiction? has policy implications and matters in public >>> debates. And the term has entered common everyday use, which further >>> complicates things. (The definition of esoteric subject matter can be >>> contentious, but most times those debates stay within small circles of >>> interested folks.) >>> >>> Regards, >>> >> > Dan > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 02:29:38 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 18:29:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: That would seem to be your view ? not mine. I believe libertarianism is the best way to live in society. That?s why I advocate it. (Before anyone here gets the wrong idea, I wrote that I ?believe [it?s] the best? not that it?s the only way. I bet without this parenthetic comment someone would respond with ?people have lived for thousands of years in societies ? heck even back to the origin of humanity if one defines society broadly enough ? and they weren?t practicing libertarianism.?) Why would think I believed they (libertarianism and society) were incompatible? It seems to me you presume that the only way to live in society is under some form of systematic oppression like a state and its attendant hierarchies. If that?s an accurate rendering of your view, then it?s you who believes they incompatible. (Elsewhere, someone called this the Robinson Crusoe fallacy: that one must choose between freedom and society. That fallacy seems quite widespread. To me, it?s similar to how many people believed being lorded over by aristocrats was the price to be paid for living in society. Don?t fall for that line.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 10, 2020, at 5:33 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > Do you think 'libertarianism' and 'society' are incompatible? bill w > >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 7:25 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> I don?t disagree, but remember I am not the one pining for ever coercive intrusion into folks? lives here. >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan >> Sample my Kindle books at: >> http://author.to/DanUst >> >>>> On Jan 10, 2020, at 4:48 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> >>> ? >>> No, nothing special about disagreement about a concept, except for the people who need help and may not be getting it because of how a concept is or is not applied to them. bill w >>> >>>> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 6:31 PM Dan Ust via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> My point remains though: there?s nothing special about disagreement in this area save its impact on policy and public attitudes. I mean there are disagreements over what a concept is, what a word is, what matter is, etc. >>>> >>>> I agree there?s another problem with behavioral and mental health issues in that social appropriateness and ideology often impinge much more heavily than, say, on things like defining what a concept or what a planet is. But that goes for more concepts than just addiction ? as you note. >>>> >>>> Regards, >>>> >>>> Dan >>>> Sample my Kindle books at: >>>> http://author.to/DanUst >>>> >>>>>> On Jan 10, 2020, at 1:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>> >>>>> ? >>>>> I am quite sure that government agencies, for one, have definitions of addiction they are forced to use. In medical areas one must have a diagnosis before you can assign a treatment. That doesn't make any of them the only one, the best one, and so on. You could probably accurately say this about any mental health diagnosis - they change over time. Not only that, but the words used are changed, like from 'mental retardation' (which itself was a change from 'idiot, imbecile, moron') to 'developmental dysfunction' or something like that. bill -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 02:35:39 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 19:35:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] single neurons think? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yes, this is another article reporting on the same work I posted here on the morning of Jan 6. ?Scientists Uncover a Never-Before-Seen Type of Signal Occurring in The Human Brain ? As I was saying on the 6th, ?It looks to me like this new discovery could be exactly describing neural logic with multiple inputs that could react differently, based on the diverse physical qualities of the many inputs, in the outer most layer of the cortex.? I wouldn?t say that it ?thinks?, but it certainly could be an important part of computational binding of multiple different physical pixel representations, and stuff. Saying a single neuron can ?think? would be like a panpsychist saying that physical elements are ?proto-conscious?. My question to such would be, does a ?proto consciousness? have the same visual resolution and color depth as a full consciousness? On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 4:47 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Basically, the researchers figured out that the human brain can modulate > the amplitude of electrical activity in order increase the longevity and > efficacy of its signals. This, apparently, allows individual neurons to do > more than just figure out if something is one thing or another, it allows > them to perform an XOR calculation > , > something previously thought impossible for a single neuron in the human > brain. > > Here's the whole article: > > https://thenextweb.com/insights/2020/01/08/scientists-may-have-found-the-missing-link-between-brain-matter-and-consciousness/ > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 02:59:49 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 21:59:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: How about the state of addiction *as* conflict technology? Britain gave China the opium wars. Now China is flooding the west with fentanyl. I suspect this is condoned at high levels. An army friend of mine told me that a lot of the opium from the golden crescent is processed into heroin in Iran, and that they have a huge heroin problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 06:28:01 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 22:28:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <6AD0B489-3BDC-40B8-A09F-105767598F6D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:24 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > And it's odd, politicians talk about the drug epidemic as if it's > something new but tobacco is very old and it kills far more people than > every other drug, legal and illegal, combined. And that remains true even > if you include the second most dangerous drug alcohol which for some > strange reason most parents don't even consider a drug.... "*thank > goodness, little Jimmy was't on drugs, he was just drunk*". > How is this odd? Alcohol and tobacco were grandfathered in. If there weren't big industries making them and addicting enough people to vote out of office anyone who'd seriously threaten their industries... Another way to look at it: if they were new today, they'd have to be FDA-regulated, and would likely wind up banned or mostly so. See what's happened to e-cigarettes, for good reason: they're a not-well-established thing that makes people feel good for putting smoke in their lungs. There's no way the FDA can say that putting smoke in one's lungs is anywhere near healthy, and the reports keep coming out that it's unhealthy. Politicians and regulators can slowly work in limitations as public opinion slowly turns against these drugs, but the key is to get public opinion to change - and that is one massive mountain to chisel away, with centuries (tobacco, at least in Western culture) or millennia (alcohol) of precedent and tradition to overturn. I believe tobacco is easier, as I am informed the first time experience is always foul, so new users have to be peer pressured in - and that can be fought. (Does anyone start smoking, at least these days, for any reason other than "the 'cool' kids (aka those trying hardest to be accepted by others, and succeeding) are doing it"?) Alcohol has less of a barrier to starting use. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 06:56:37 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 01:56:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Designer Baby App In-Reply-To: <55D58D63-25C2-4368-9D2B-9DF4FAE421ED@gmail.com> References: <55D58D63-25C2-4368-9D2B-9DF4FAE421ED@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:05 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > There?s a ?designer baby? App > > https://www.zetafertility.com/ > > ?Zeta Fertility Network was created to connect prospective parents with > egg donors, sperm donors, surrogate mothers, and the clinics and fertility > professionals needed to help start families. > > We were founded with the mission of making alternative fertility methods > such as in vitro fertilization and genetic screening accessible to > everyone.? > ### Wow! Somebody is fighting the good fight, even going as far as providing information about eye and hair color. I wonder though if they will be bold enough to provide information about height and IQ - that's the information that our testing company chickened out on. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 07:13:33 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 02:13:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <009f01d5c707$3d647570$b82d6050$@rainier66.com> References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> <009f01d5c707$3d647570$b82d6050$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 11:41 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Eh, there seems to be no good solution to this. Real libertarianism true > to principle would allow anyone to do anything they wanted, but as soon as > they camped on the sidewalk, that is someone else?s property, so they put > them on a bus and haul them out to the central valley, adios amigo, good > luck, here?s yer tent. > ### Well, yes - real libertarianism is "live and let live", and this also implies "live and let die". I am not my brother's keeper. Removal of legal sanctions for using and selling dangerous drugs would certainly facilitate infliction of self-harm, and some people who are too timid to use drugs now might become victims of their own stupidity - well, so what? We may offer good advice in the spirit of the good Samaritan but if this advice is not heeded, I do not feel guilty for whatever happens. The only situation where this does not apply is of course children and other wards but that's a different story. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 07:28:16 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 02:28:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 8:27 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Regardless of if the law says a drug is legal or not it's clear that > nobody fails to become a drug addict because they don't have access to > drugs with one important exception, people who are physically unable to go > into the street looking for drugs, people who SHOULD become drug addicts, > people like terminal cancer patients. > ### Overall I agree with you but there is one important way in which drug laws protect some vulnerable people from harming themselves - drug laws stigmatize drug use, and thus act to deter their use by people concerned about their social status. Striving lemmings or fearful lemmings pay attention to what other lemmings do, and no doubt many who could go easily buy some bath salts actually never do it, because of "what other people would think if I get caught". This said, stigma can be generated without using the blood-slicked axe that is law. Smoking is perfectly legal and incredibly addictive but nevertheless rapidly becoming less common, in part because of disapproval at work that forces smokers to huddle outside the building rather than blissfully inhaling during a business meeting. It's the social aspect of smoking that made it an epidemic, when smoking was cool, and it's manipulating the social aspect that made it into a lower-class vice of little consequence. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 07:31:09 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 02:31:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <46615b86-c0d9-2f73-00a3-a901e79eab55@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 1:36 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hi Ben, > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:50 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Brent: >> I think I have a way to disprove your idea about physical substances in >> the brain producing qualia, > > > Wonderful!! Falsifying theories, forcing a scientific consensus, and > rigorously tracking this progress when people abandon falsified camps, is > what canonizer is all about. And thanks for asking for clarification on my > poor English. > > >> Is your position that specific types of molecule in the brain (e.g. the >> infamous glutamate) are what produce specific qualia (e.g. the infamous >> 'red'), and that this mapping is one-to-one (eg. glutamate and only >> glutamate produces the 'red' quale and only that)? >> > > Yes, but you are being qualia blind when you only say 'red', as I > understand 'red' as being anything that reflects or emits red light. But > it sounds like you are instead talking about the very different physical > quality, redness. My redness could be like your grenness, both of which we > label as red. > > The only claim the consensus supporters of representational qualia are > making is that conscious information is represented by some type of qualia, > and that today, most everyone uses qualia blind (one word) models and > language. The lack of consensus is just around the nature of qualia. Some > predicting qualia are functional > , other > that qualia are different than physics > , others that they > are down at the quantum level > ?. We only use a simplified version of the easiest theory to falsify, "elemental > qualia are molecular material qualities > ," is to better > help people understand what it means to be qualia blind. Once people > understand how not to be qualia blind with the simplest theory, and they > can easily falsify (or verify) that glutamate = redness, they can then do > the same for all other more capable theories. Not being qualia blind is > what is required before experimentalists can start to falsify all these > competing theories predicting the nature of qualia. Any theory is > justified for being used as a working hypothesis, till it is falsified. > So we need to close this last remaining gap full of crap by falsifying > all the crap. > > The consequence of this would be that if you removed glutamate from >> someone's brain (without killing them somehow), that person would be >> incapable of experiencing 'red'. >> > > Exactly, this is how you falsify the prediction that redness = glutamate. > This kind of falsifiability is the whole point. If this is achieved, you > just select another theory that has not yet been falsified as your new > working hypothesis. You then do a global replace of the word 'glutamate' > in everything I have been saying, with another "working hypothesis of > what is redness, until you have found the necessary and sufficient set of > stuff that has a redness quality. Then we will have eliminated all the > crap, knowing which theory is THE ONE, and only then we will finally know > what color things are. > > > Brent > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 07:40:00 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 02:40:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <46615b86-c0d9-2f73-00a3-a901e79eab55@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 1:36 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: We only use a simplified version of the easiest theory to falsify, "elemental > qualia are molecular material qualities > ," is to better > help people understand what it means to be qualia blind. Once people > understand how not to be qualia blind with the simplest theory, and they > can easily falsify (or verify) that glutamate = redness, they can then do > the same for all other more capable theories. Not being qualia blind is > what is required before experimentalists can start to falsify all these > competing theories predicting the nature of qualia. Any theory is > justified for being used as a working hypothesis, till it is falsified. > ### But really, nobody cares! The hypothesis of qualia being "molecular properties" is so bad that nobody with even a glimmer of knowledge would consider it as a legitimate hypothesis. You might want to read some of Eliezer's writings on the generation of hypotheses - for a hypothesis to be worth considering, it must already have a lot of evidence in favor of it. There is an infinity of hypotheses that can be randomly generated but their mere generation is not enough to devote computational resources to them. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 07:52:20 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 02:52:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:54 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Libertarianism (or libertarianism) in the context of evolution is a > harsh political stand to take. ### Harsh but fair, maybe? I'd rather say that acknowledging evolutionary forces acting on the society, and deftly working with them is the mellow option, compared to mulishly going against the tide. Low fitness should lead to elimination of the responsible alleles. Keeping deleterious alleles artificially protected from extinction only adds to misery. Deleterious alleles have a cost to the filial generation and a cost to non-carriers, a cost paid in perpetuity when evolution is thwarted. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 07:57:52 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 02:57:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <8E4C86FC-7B08-422D-B3F4-1D465802F84B@gmail.com> References: <8E4C86FC-7B08-422D-B3F4-1D465802F84B@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 11:31 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 8, 2020, at 7:04 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:23 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I have been in this group for quite some time, but I have not read >> anything as scary as 'paid killers' and 'secret police'. Just why do we >> need those? Rafal? >> > > ### Every day when you wake up and notice that your house has not been > burglarized and your throat has not been slit by bandits, say thanks to the > thin blue line that stands between us and chaotic evil. > > > You must live in a different universe because statistics seem to show the > folks in blue tend to take more, reduce overall freedom, and even have a > strong tendency to shoot unarmed people and their dogs. > ### Bwahahah! You really think this is true? That the net effect of policing crime is negative? As shown by *statistics*? Really? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 08:10:51 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 03:10:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: <8E4C86FC-7B08-422D-B3F4-1D465802F84B@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 9:35 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > ### Every day when you wake up and notice that your house has not been > burglarized and your throat has not been slit by bandits, say thanks to the > thin blue line that stands between us and chaotic evil. > > I am very thankful to local police, fire departments, etc. To the Army > etc. Those things are a very long way from secret police investigating > rumors supplied by neighbors by kicking in doorways and terrorizing > citizens. We don't have that now because we have a Constitution and other > laws. > > ### OK, so you agree with the first part of what I wrote about paid killers being a much needed part of most societies. Good. Kicking in doorways and terrorizing citizens is not secret police work - it's open-face thuggery, irrelevant to what I wrote about secret police. Now about secret investigators - what's wrong with planting an informant among the Krips or the jihadis? Sigint is great but humint has its uses. Of course, you don't want to have an organization so secret as to enable it to hide its failures and corruption - but that's a question of oversight, not whether secret activities are to be supported in the first place. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 08:20:21 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 03:20:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <9493BE74-96B6-4361-A06E-49276A6AADA1@gmail.com> References: <9493BE74-96B6-4361-A06E-49276A6AADA1@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 12:32 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I support police abolition and certainly don?t advocate secret police. > ### When the bandits come to your house, you want to rely on .... what? ----------------------- > Also, it seems like he believes everyone lives in a war zone rather than > what history and statistics show: ever decreasing levels of violence and > (private) property crime. > ### Only in places with functioning police, of one or another kind. The world is a war zone until you eliminate or intimidate your enemies, and you would be naive if you thought you don't have enemies. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 08:36:08 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 03:36:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:54 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The term lost meaning long before now mainly because as any term spreads > people who don't know what it means start using it to mean whatever they > think it means. > ### I just looked up the definition of libertarianism on Wikipedia and I found ridiculous crap about libertarianism being a left-wing ideology advocating the abolition of capitalism, only for the term to be "co-opted" by right wingers to mean the opposite. Is there a fount of wisdom not yet poisoned by leftist trolls, anywhere? As I said in the beginning, I see libertarianism as "live and let live", plus the scientific method. You tell me how these two premises fail to entail the need for police, and I'll admit I am not libertarian. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 08:41:26 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 03:41:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 3:02 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On the issue of libertarianism: Does anyone have a right to rule over > anyone else? Does anyone have a duty to obey anyone else? > > ### Strictly as a libertarian - of course, yes to both, for many values of "rule" and "obey". Enemies who refuse to let you live - they may need to be ruled, and they certainly must obey. Follows neatly from the notions of personal autonomy that are the bedrock of libertarianism. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 09:15:35 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 04:15:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <1B61F137-64B9-4713-B0C2-3137DF6A51C2@gmail.com> References: <1B61F137-64B9-4713-B0C2-3137DF6A51C2@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:14 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Similarly, a duty to obey means you (or whoever has such a duty) must > obey. Again, this isn?t about doing whatever you want ? if you have no duty > to obey a person or a group. You?d still be bound by other just claims. > > ### Wait, you have no duty but you are bound? Libertarianism is not a silly word game about the meaning "duty" and "right to rule". Libertarianism is based on acknowledging the value of individual desires as the primary or only basis for building a society, and thus generally refusing to recognize any societal values independent of individual desires. Various communitarian, religious and authoritarian philosophies claim there are values independent of individuals, that justify suppression of individual desires to achieve diverse self-transcendent goals - e.g. religious salvation despite lack of belief, dominance, complete equality of outcomes despite diversity of abilities and desires, protection of the environment despite individual wishes, etc. We libertarians refuse such transcendent claims. We know that self-transcendent value claims are usually power- or prestige-grabs used by various striving sociopaths to elevate their social ranks. We (or at least the reasonable ones among us) apply rational methodologies to find out the specific strategies that are most likely to help us achieve our desires, in a complex system of interactions between multiple individuals. This is a process of discovery, not a simple derivation of rules from axioms, and therefore the outcomes may be occasionally surprising and are always contingent. In some places a ruthless, overbearing state is desirable, in other places a pleasant anarcho-capitalist governance might be possible. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 09:32:55 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 04:32:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <00fa01d5c636$2bab2df0$830189d0$@rainier66.com> <004201d5c656$d4f809d0$7ee81d70$@rainier66.com> <003301d5c68a$fdf228f0$f9d67ad0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 8:53 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Crazy though, lying to your doctor. > > ### Happens all the time. I am a neurologist covering a large ER (or ED) and there is a never-ending stream of bizarre folks with various manifestations of conversion disorder, lying with their bodies, usually in order to make their families give them the love they feel they deserve. But it's difficult to lie convincingly with your body. There was this guy a week ago having seizures for 25 minutes, nurses and doctors all very concerned, rushing to help, save a life, ready to intubate him again. I get consulted and saunter in, at first I think, hmm, this could be real, then the guy very briefly, just for a fraction of a second, looks over to me, trying to read my badge probably, and then immediately resumes blankly staring ahead, as if dazed after a seizure. What a loser, 25 minutes of good-quality fakery and he blew it with one furtive look. Don't lie to your neurologist, it might not work out for you. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 09:48:13 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 04:48:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <6AD0B489-3BDC-40B8-A09F-105767598F6D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 1:30 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: Another way to look at it: if they were new today, they'd have to be > FDA-regulated, and would likely wind up banned or mostly so. See what's > happened to e-cigarettes, for good reason: they're a not-well-established > thing that makes people feel good for putting smoke in their lungs. > There's no way the FDA can say that putting smoke in one's lungs is > anywhere near healthy, and the reports keep coming out that it's unhealthy. > ### Now this is just wrong. Vapes are the best technology for quitting tobacco in many years, and have saved probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives already. Trump screwed up something huge when he got on the anti-vape wagon. Vapes don't put smoke in your lungs, there is a reason they are called "vapes" and not "smokes". The FDA as usual attacked the wrong target, and harmed countless people who stopped vaping and resumed smoking as a result of their campaign. All vaping-related deaths were caused by illegal THC and other drug vapes adulterated with tocopherol acetate, not by nicotine vapes. I never smoked myself but I get to lecture stroke patients about quitting all the time, so the subject is close to my heart. I always tell them to try vaping to quit, and never believe the hysterical bullshit on TV. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 11 12:05:27 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 04:05:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> <009f01d5c707$3d647570$b82d6050$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008a01d5c877$69e16420$3da42c60$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Sent: Friday, January 10, 2020 11:14 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Rafal Smigrodzki Subject: Re: [ExI] state of conflict technology On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 11:41 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Eh, there seems to be no good solution to this. Real libertarianism true to principle would allow anyone to do anything they wanted, but as soon as they camped on the sidewalk, that is someone else?s property, so they put them on a bus and haul them out to the central valley, adios amigo, good luck, here?s yer tent. ### Well, yes - real libertarianism is "live and let live", and this also implies "live and let die". I am not my brother's keeper. Removal of legal sanctions for using and selling dangerous drugs would certainly facilitate infliction of self-harm, and some people who are too timid to use drugs now might become victims of their own stupidity - well, so what? We may offer good advice in the spirit of the good Samaritan but if this advice is not heeded, I do not feel guilty for whatever happens. The only situation where this does not apply is of course children and other wards but that's a different story? That is one way to look at it, however a compelling reason to discourage self-harm is that in too many cases it turns into us-harm, as the self-harmers become needy and destitute. In California, theft of items of value less than 950 bucks is no longer a felony, so the constables won?t bother, well think about the consequences of that for minute. We have a local sporting goods store which will likely hafta close the doors soon, because homeless people can stroll in there, pick out any tent they want, stroll out with it. Company policy (and good sense) dictate to not chase them (they have nothing to lose) so? off they go, and soon the bricks and mortar stores cannot compete with online sales, however? stealing packages off of porches is also fair game, and plenty of homeless are doing that for a living. The one thing that gets so much press is homeless people shitting in the park, and ja that is revolting, but after a while it occurs to them to go where there is TP, so they go into the local grocery store to that isle, dump a load, use the TP, stroll out, no functional penalty or good way to stop it. Live and let live becomes live and let die, but that soon evolves into live and let kill. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 11 12:50:20 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 12:50:20 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:50 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: Brent: I think I have a way to disprove your idea about physical substances in the brain producing qualia, Is your position that specific types of molecule in the brain (e.g. the infamous glutamate) are what produce specific qualia (e.g. the infamous 'red'), and that this mapping is one-to-one (e.g. glutamate and only glutamate produces the 'red' quale and only that)? >Yes The consequence of this would be that if you removed glutamate from someone's brain (without killing them somehow), that person would be incapable of experiencing 'red'. >Exactly OK, good. My original idea turned out to be more difficult to verify than I expected, but it also gave me two other ideas, that are better, and easier. Only one is necessary, so I'll talk about the easiest one to explain and understand, and just mention the other one I'm going to call this the 'availability argument'. If a specific type of molecule produces a specific quale as you claim, then that type of molecule must be deployed or activated somehow, for the quale to become active. The example you always give, of glutamate, is a neurotransmitter, that's released at the pre-synaptic membrane, which is when it does its job of transmitting data from one neuron to another. If this is also when it somehow causes the 'red' quale to become active, we have an impossible situation. That's because of the very large number of qualia that can exist. We know that humans are capable of distinguishing several million different colours, and that's only a tiny fraction of all the qualia that can be experienced. There are probably at least hundreds of millions of qualia that are possible. By your own claim, each of them must be produced by a different type of molecule. This means we must have hundreds of millions of distinct types of molecule at the ready to be activated when needed. If we assume that most of these molecules are proteins (because there aren't enough varieties of any other kind of molecule, and and other type would have to be made by proteins anyway), theoretically there is no problem in creating them, we know that given enough amino acids, an arbitrarily large number of different proteins can be created. The problem is in having them available to be deployed when they are needed. Neurotransmitters are created in the neuronal cell body and transported down the axon, then stored in vesicles just inside the pre-synaptic membrane. Generally, one neuron uses one neurotransmitter (although that is being called into question now, it doesn't really matter for this argument, because the number of different neurotransmitters any one neuron uses is certainly low). When needed (when an action potential depolarises the synaptic membrane), a set of molecules on the inner surface of the membrane links the vesicles to the membrane, fusing them and releasing the contents of the vesicles into the synaptic cleft. We have identified somewhere between one hundred and two hundred different signalling molecules that can be used as neurotransmitters. Let's be generous and say a thousand exist. That's far short of the number of 'quale-producing' molecules we need, so it's obvious that it can't just be neurotransmitters that are involved. Let's assume, then, that some other, currently unknown system is responsible for the production of qualia, via these hundreds of millions of different types of molecule. The core of my argument is that these molecules can't possibly be pre-existing, ready to be deployed within a fraction of a second in the way that neurotransmitters are, because we would see them. We would know about the ridiculously huge numbers of different molecules just hanging around in our nervous system waiting for an appropriate signal to release them, or activate them, or whatever. We don't see this, we see a comparatively small number of signalling molecules instead. If they can't be stored ready for use, maybe they can be created when needed? That doesn't work either. Protein synthesis is not quick. it takes a few seconds to translate each amino acid, so a large protein (necessary, if we are to have hundreds of millions of distinct ones) will take minutes to produce at least. Then there's the transport of the proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum where they're made to the site/s where they are needed. For neurotransmitters, this means a trip down an axon, which is even slower. So on-demand synthesis is not an option either. There's also a parsimony issue. Why would our brains make and keep ready a vast set of molecules for qualia that we may never use? A native of a tropical forest is very unlikely to ever experience snow. Why keep all the molecules needed for this in his brain ready for use? We know that if such a native is exposed to snow, he will instantly experience a new set of qualia, without having to wait for a set of new molecules to be produced. With all the overhead involved in creating and maintaining a very large number of unused molecules, I'm sure evolution would have weeded out any such profligacy a long time ago. The upshot of all this is that there is an availability problem. Hundreds of millions of different types of molecule simply can't be made available for the production of qualia on the milliseconds timescale that we need. So the production of qualia can't be something that relies on a one-to-one correspondence with specific types of molecule. Another argument involves possible mechanisms for activating or deploying these molecules (assuming it was possible for them to be ready and waiting), and how any individual neuron or collection of neurons could know just which molecule to pick. I'm not going to unravel this argument here, but essentially it leads right back to what we currently know about how our nervous system works, and makes an enormous set of specific types of molecule redundant. If you, or anyone else, can see any flaws in the 'availability argument' above, please let me know. Oh, and PS: /Please stop Cc'ing my email address in your replies to the list/. I don't want to have to create a filter to automatically delete any emails from you. Thanks. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 13:18:54 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 06:18:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Designer Baby App In-Reply-To: References: <55D58D63-25C2-4368-9D2B-9DF4FAE421ED@gmail.com> Message-ID: Way cool! On Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 11:57 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:05 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> There?s a ?designer baby? App >> >> https://www.zetafertility.com/ >> >> ?Zeta Fertility Network was created to connect prospective parents with >> egg donors, sperm donors, surrogate mothers, and the clinics and fertility >> professionals needed to help start families. >> >> We were founded with the mission of making alternative fertility methods >> such as in vitro fertilization and genetic screening accessible to >> everyone.? >> > > ### Wow! Somebody is fighting the good fight, even going as far as > providing information about eye and hair color. I wonder though if they > will be bold enough to provide information about height and IQ - that's the > information that our testing company chickened out on. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 11 13:53:49 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 05:53:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00b701d5c886$8d800d50$a88027f0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:54 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat > wrote: Libertarianism (or libertarianism) in the context of evolution is a harsh political stand to take. ### Harsh but fair, maybe? I'd rather say that acknowledging evolutionary forces acting on the society, and deftly working with them is the mellow option, compared to mulishly going against the tide. Low fitness should lead to elimination of the responsible alleles. ?Rafal Ja there is that, but consider the dope situation with respect to something we have gone on about here at length: society?s transition from the economies of scarcity to abundance. Now we have everything we really need, if you think about it: sure the luxury stuff is still pricey, the granite countertops and Teslas and things, but it is easy to see that life?s bare necessities are cheaper than ever, and a lot of it is free. When many of us were misspending our youth, an old beater car still cost enough that a teen needed a job to get one and maintain it. But now? not really. There are pleeeenty of old beater cars and trucks, cosmetically distressed, maybe a sideswipe or a fender munch or oxidized paint, lotta miles on it, such that its resale value is severely compromised, but there is nothing wrong with it mechanically. Those can be had for nearly nothing: most anyone who can afford insurance can afford to drive something a bit more dignified. So? plenty of old cars a kid can talk the owner out of it nearly free. OK then, the same holds for old delivery vehicles and work vans. After a van gets old and distressed, you don?t want your business hanging its sign on that, you don?t want that representing your plumbing or repair biz, so? away with it, get a new van, but there is little or nothing mechanically wrong with the old one, so it has a salvage value of a few hundred bucks, but you can donate that to the local charity and write it off, so plenty of businesses do. Result: lots of operational old work vans still rolling around with? people living in them. The economy of abundance has opened the door for a lifestyle, urban stealth. A person can live in a van, shower at the local health club, or public facility plenty of cities have, use public laundry, get susenance at the local food bank free, internet at the public library wifi, free. Theoretically health insurance is free for the destitute. The urban stealther can live free or almost, dispense with wake up every morning to the alarm clock warning, take the eight fifteen into the city? Never mind all that, not necessary, if one will accept the rigors of living on the road, which plenty of young people do. If you don?t have a job and everything is free, there isn?t much reason to eschew dope. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 14:27:41 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 14:27:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? Message-ID: On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 at 07:16, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > ### Well, yes - real libertarianism is "live and let live", and this also implies "live and let die". > I am not my brother's keeper. Removal of legal sanctions for using and selling dangerous drugs > would certainly facilitate infliction of self-harm, and some people who are too timid to use drugs > now might become victims of their own stupidity - well, so what? We may offer good advice in > the spirit of the good Samaritan but if this advice is not heeded, I do not feel guilty for whatever > happens. The only situation where this does not apply is of course children and other wards > but that's a different story. > _______________________________________________ This interpretation is based on the now discredited Social Darwinism belief system. Quotes: Social Darwinists believe in ?survival of the fittest??the idea that certain people become powerful in society because they are innately better. Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century and a half. ---------- Darwin rarely commented on the social implications of his theories. But to those who followed Spencer and Malthus, Darwin?s theory appeared to be confirming with science what they already believed to be true about human society?that the fit inherited qualities such as industriousness and the ability to accumulate wealth, while the unfit were innately lazy and stupid. Unlike Darwin, Spencer believed that people could genetically pass learned qualities, such as frugality and morality, on to their children. Spencer opposed any laws that helped workers, the poor, and those he deemed genetically weak. Such laws, he argued, would go against the evolution of civilization by delaying the extinction of the ?unfit.? ---------- Eugenics became a popular social movement in the United States that peaked in the 1920s and 1930s. Books and films promoted eugenics, while local fairs and exhibitions held ?fitter family? and ?better baby? competitions around the country. The eugenics movement in the United States focused on eliminating undesirable traits from the population. Proponents of the eugenics movement reasoned the best way to do this was by preventing ?unfit? individuals from having children. During the first part of the twentieth century, 32 U.S. states passed laws that resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 64,000 Americans including immigrants, people of color, unmarried mothers and the mentally ill. ---------------------------------------- On the other hand, many great human projects involved large numbers of humans working together, assisting each other in tasks which required many different levels of ability and experience. BillK From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 14:38:55 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 08:38:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> I?m sorry, but some people are genetically unfit to have children. For example: Fatal familial insomnia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_insomnia Unless/until their are treatments, knowingly dooming your children to die as you have died, miserably, is very cruel. SR Ballard > On Jan 11, 2020, at 8:27 AM, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 at 07:16, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > wrote: >> ### Well, yes - real libertarianism is "live and let live", and this also implies "live and let die". >> I am not my brother's keeper. Removal of legal sanctions for using and selling dangerous drugs >> would certainly facilitate infliction of self-harm, and some people who are too timid to use drugs >> now might become victims of their own stupidity - well, so what? We may offer good advice in >> the spirit of the good Samaritan but if this advice is not heeded, I do not feel guilty for whatever >> happens. The only situation where this does not apply is of course children and other wards >> but that's a different story. >> _______________________________________________ > > This interpretation is based on the now discredited Social Darwinism > belief system. > > > > Quotes: > Social Darwinists believe in ?survival of the fittest??the idea that > certain people become powerful in society because they are innately > better. Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, > eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century > and a half. > ---------- > Darwin rarely commented on the social implications of his theories. > But to those who followed Spencer and Malthus, Darwin?s theory > appeared to be confirming with science what they already believed to > be true about human society?that the fit inherited qualities such as > industriousness and the ability to accumulate wealth, while the unfit > were innately lazy and stupid. > > Unlike Darwin, Spencer believed that people could genetically pass > learned qualities, such as frugality and morality, on to their > children. > Spencer opposed any laws that helped workers, the poor, and those he > deemed genetically weak. Such laws, he argued, would go against the > evolution of civilization by delaying the extinction of the ?unfit.? > ---------- > Eugenics became a popular social movement in the United States that > peaked in the 1920s and 1930s. Books and films promoted eugenics, > while local fairs and exhibitions held ?fitter family? and ?better > baby? competitions around the country. > The eugenics movement in the United States focused on eliminating > undesirable traits from the population. Proponents of the eugenics > movement reasoned the best way to do this was by preventing ?unfit? > individuals from having children. > During the first part of the twentieth century, 32 U.S. states passed > laws that resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 64,000 > Americans including immigrants, people of color, unmarried mothers and > the mentally ill. > ---------------------------------------- > > On the other hand, many great human projects involved large numbers of > humans working together, assisting each other in tasks which required > many different levels of ability and experience. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 16:56:55 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 08:56:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology Message-ID: Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:54 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> Libertarianism (or libertarianism) in the context of evolution is a >> harsh political stand to take. > ### Harsh but fair, maybe? Maybe, but I can't see "fair" applying. You get the genes you have from previous generations without the slightest influence over the process. If a gene from this process causes a debilitating condition, such as cystic fibrosis, you are stuck with it and a lifetime (sometimes short) of problems. > I'd rather say that acknowledging evolutionary forces acting on the society, and deftly working with them is the mellow option, compared to mulishly going against the tide. I have talked about Gregory Clark's work for years. The population of the UK was subject to intense selection (for gaining wealth) over a least 1250 to 1800. After about 1800, the reproductive advantage shifted to the poor as the wealthy figured out birth control. But I don't think there has been a society that succeeded in improving their gene pool intentionally. The ones that tried eugenics failed. > Low fitness should lead to elimination of the responsible alleles. Keeping deleterious alleles artificially protected from extinction only adds to misery. Deleterious alleles have a cost to the filial generation and a cost to non-carriers, a cost paid in perpetuity when evolution is thwarted. What you say is true. It's also a really bad path to take. Fortunately, we stand on the edge of taking control of our DNA. It will be possible to eliminate the deleterious alleles in one generation, a huge improvement over discovering that the kid you raised at great effort and cost has serious genetic problems and should not have children. Incidentally, humans are still domesticating themselves. Something like one in a hundred of each generation have psychological traits so intolerable that they are usually killed. I should write up the saga of Debbie French, a woman who was so rough on the "peace and love" hippy community in Tucson that they took up a collection and had her killed. Keith From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 11 17:13:29 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 09:13:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d5c8a2$7221e9e0$5665bda0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat >...I have talked about Gregory Clark's work for years. The population of the UK was subject to intense selection (for gaining wealth) over a least 1250 to 1800. ...Keith _______________________________________________ Ja! Dr. Stock was out here a few years ago doing a lecture and Stanford. We went to lunch together, he and I instantly got along. I didn't even know about his writings on the UK and intentional selection. I did the AncestryDNA kit and found that I have mostly English ancestry, and all of them had gotten out before 1800 when that shift took place, so I have all those selected-breeding genes for wealth building. I was bred for it, like a greyhound, born to run or a husky, born to pull a sled. Oh man, there just hasta be some way I can make a buttload of money from this. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 18:56:37 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 12:56:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> Message-ID: SR Ballard> wrote: > I?m sorry, but some people are genetically unfit to have children. > Yeah? Agreed. So what do you want to do about it? Give governments a say in who is born? bill w > For example: Fatal familial insomnia. > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_insomnia > > Unless/until their are treatments, knowingly dooming your children to die > as you have died, miserably, is very cruel. > > SR Ballard > > On Jan 11, 2020, at 8:27 AM, BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 at 07:16, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > wrote: > > ### Well, yes - real libertarianism is "live and let live", and this also > implies "live and let die". > > I am not my brother's keeper. Removal of legal sanctions for using and > selling dangerous drugs > > would certainly facilitate infliction of self-harm, and some people who > are too timid to use drugs > > now might become victims of their own stupidity - well, so what? We may > offer good advice in > > the spirit of the good Samaritan but if this advice is not heeded, I do > not feel guilty for whatever > > happens. The only situation where this does not apply is of course > children and other wards > > but that's a different story. > > _______________________________________________ > > > This interpretation is based on the now discredited Social Darwinism > belief system. > > > > Quotes: > Social Darwinists believe in ?survival of the fittest??the idea that > certain people become powerful in society because they are innately > better. Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, > eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century > and a half. > ---------- > Darwin rarely commented on the social implications of his theories. > But to those who followed Spencer and Malthus, Darwin?s theory > appeared to be confirming with science what they already believed to > be true about human society?that the fit inherited qualities such as > industriousness and the ability to accumulate wealth, while the unfit > were innately lazy and stupid. > > Unlike Darwin, Spencer believed that people could genetically pass > learned qualities, such as frugality and morality, on to their > children. > Spencer opposed any laws that helped workers, the poor, and those he > deemed genetically weak. Such laws, he argued, would go against the > evolution of civilization by delaying the extinction of the ?unfit.? > ---------- > Eugenics became a popular social movement in the United States that > peaked in the 1920s and 1930s. Books and films promoted eugenics, > while local fairs and exhibitions held ?fitter family? and ?better > baby? competitions around the country. > The eugenics movement in the United States focused on eliminating > undesirable traits from the population. Proponents of the eugenics > movement reasoned the best way to do this was by preventing ?unfit? > individuals from having children. > During the first part of the twentieth century, 32 U.S. states passed > laws that resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 64,000 > Americans including immigrants, people of color, unmarried mothers and > the mentally ill. > ---------------------------------------- > > On the other hand, many great human projects involved large numbers of > humans working together, assisting each other in tasks which required > many different levels of ability and experience. > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 19:06:13 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 13:06:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] took a nap Message-ID: And missed a lot that I am not going to wade through. I do remember Rafal writing that I agreed with him about paid killers. Don't think I did that, but: A friend who recently died had this idea: let's find some really horrible cases of people who did things that were just beyond the pale, but got off on technicalities: killed his wife, cut her up and stored her in the freezer. Actually, I like the idea of forming an elderly hit squad and just taking these people off the planet. People who did that would get my sympathy. I'll have to give it a pass. Also, the idea that we can get along with police of all sorts is hilarious! Come and live in central Mississippi for a month of so and see if you still agree with that. It also implies that we should have no prisons. I can not even begin to imagine the carnage that would follow from releasing all those in prison and never putting anyone there again. Someone is living in LaLa Land in their head. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 19:20:06 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 13:20:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: OK, I'll bite: give me an example of a libertarian society that lives up to your criteria, or at least describe one bill w On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 8:32 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > That would seem to be your view ? not mine. I believe libertarianism is > the best way to live in society. That?s why I advocate it. (Before anyone > here gets the wrong idea, I wrote that I ?believe [it?s] the best? not that > it?s the only way. I bet without this parenthetic comment someone would > respond with ?people have lived for thousands of years in societies ? heck > even back to the origin of humanity if one defines society broadly enough ? > and they weren?t practicing libertarianism.?) > > Why would think I believed they (libertarianism and society) were > incompatible? It seems to me you presume that the only way to live in > society is under some form of systematic oppression like a state and its > attendant hierarchies. If that?s an accurate rendering of your view, then > it?s you who believes they incompatible. (Elsewhere, someone called this > the Robinson Crusoe fallacy: that one must choose between freedom and > society. That fallacy seems quite widespread. To me, it?s similar to how > many people believed being lorded over by aristocrats was the price to be > paid for living in society. Don?t fall for that line.) > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Jan 10, 2020, at 5:33 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > Do you think 'libertarianism' and 'society' are incompatible? bill w > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 7:25 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I don?t disagree, but remember I am not the one pining for ever coercive >> intrusion into folks? lives here. >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan >> Sample my Kindle books at: >> >> http://author.to/DanUst >> >> On Jan 10, 2020, at 4:48 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> ? >> No, nothing special about disagreement about a concept, except for the >> people who need help and may not be getting it because of how a concept is >> or is not applied to them. bill w >> >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 6:31 PM Dan Ust via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> My point remains though: there?s nothing special about disagreement in >>> this area save its impact on policy and public attitudes. I mean there are >>> disagreements over what a concept is, what a word is, what matter is, etc. >>> >>> I agree there?s another problem with behavioral and mental health issues >>> in that social appropriateness and ideology often impinge much more heavily >>> than, say, on things like defining what a concept or what a planet is. But >>> that goes for more concepts than just addiction ? as you note. >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Dan >>> Sample my Kindle books at: >>> >>> http://author.to/DanUst >>> >>> On Jan 10, 2020, at 1:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> ? >>> I am quite sure that government agencies, for one, have definitions of >>> addiction they are forced to use. In medical areas one must have a >>> diagnosis before you can assign a treatment. That doesn't make any of them >>> the only one, the best one, and so on. You could probably accurately say >>> this about any mental health diagnosis - they change over time. Not only >>> that, but the words used are changed, like from 'mental retardation' (which >>> itself was a change from 'idiot, imbecile, moron') to 'developmental >>> dysfunction' or something like that. bill >>> >>> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 22:24:39 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 16:24:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> Do I want to participate in a eugenics program? No thanks. They?d just target people who are socially undesirable (poor, wrong religion, wrong ethnicity) rather than those who are genetically undesirable. Rather than that, better access to genetic testing, sex education in schools, and ease of achieving sterilization (very difficult for women). Encouraging doctors to explain that a certain condition will likely be inherited by children. SR Ballard > On Jan 11, 2020, at 12:56 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > > SR Ballard> wrote: >> I?m sorry, but some people are genetically unfit to have children. > > Yeah? Agreed. So what do you want to do about it? Give governments a say in who is born? > > bill w > > > > > >> For example: Fatal familial insomnia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_insomnia >> >> Unless/until their are treatments, knowingly dooming your children to die as you have died, miserably, is very cruel. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jan 11, 2020, at 8:27 AM, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 at 07:16, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat >>> wrote: >>>> ### Well, yes - real libertarianism is "live and let live", and this also implies "live and let die". >>>> I am not my brother's keeper. Removal of legal sanctions for using and selling dangerous drugs >>>> would certainly facilitate infliction of self-harm, and some people who are too timid to use drugs >>>> now might become victims of their own stupidity - well, so what? We may offer good advice in >>>> the spirit of the good Samaritan but if this advice is not heeded, I do not feel guilty for whatever >>>> happens. The only situation where this does not apply is of course children and other wards >>>> but that's a different story. >>>> _______________________________________________ >>> >>> This interpretation is based on the now discredited Social Darwinism >>> belief system. >>> >>> >>> >>> Quotes: >>> Social Darwinists believe in ?survival of the fittest??the idea that >>> certain people become powerful in society because they are innately >>> better. Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, >>> eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century >>> and a half. >>> ---------- >>> Darwin rarely commented on the social implications of his theories. >>> But to those who followed Spencer and Malthus, Darwin?s theory >>> appeared to be confirming with science what they already believed to >>> be true about human society?that the fit inherited qualities such as >>> industriousness and the ability to accumulate wealth, while the unfit >>> were innately lazy and stupid. >>> >>> Unlike Darwin, Spencer believed that people could genetically pass >>> learned qualities, such as frugality and morality, on to their >>> children. >>> Spencer opposed any laws that helped workers, the poor, and those he >>> deemed genetically weak. Such laws, he argued, would go against the >>> evolution of civilization by delaying the extinction of the ?unfit.? >>> ---------- >>> Eugenics became a popular social movement in the United States that >>> peaked in the 1920s and 1930s. Books and films promoted eugenics, >>> while local fairs and exhibitions held ?fitter family? and ?better >>> baby? competitions around the country. >>> The eugenics movement in the United States focused on eliminating >>> undesirable traits from the population. Proponents of the eugenics >>> movement reasoned the best way to do this was by preventing ?unfit? >>> individuals from having children. >>> During the first part of the twentieth century, 32 U.S. states passed >>> laws that resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 64,000 >>> Americans including immigrants, people of color, unmarried mothers and >>> the mentally ill. >>> ---------------------------------------- >>> >>> On the other hand, many great human projects involved large numbers of >>> humans working together, assisting each other in tasks which required >>> many different levels of ability and experience. >>> >>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 22:56:33 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 17:56:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 5:27 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> Do I want to participate in a eugenics program? No thanks.* I agree, and not just for moral reasons, for practical reasons too. Not only would it produce social chaos selective breeding is an anachronism, it's much too slow; AI will leave breeding in the dust long before it produces anything significant. Now that CRISPR has supercharged Genetic Engineering if you want to improve the human race the obvious way would be to use that, although you're still not going to be able to beat electronics. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 00:02:39 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 18:02:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> Message-ID: Do physicians make it difficult to get tubes tied? In any case, there is an easy answer to avoiding getting pregnant: aspirin. You hold it between your knees. Thumbs up for sex ed at every level as a part of a biology course and later as a part of a morals course. I would certainly not like to see the government have anything to do with improving genes, treating people and so on. Private enterprise, I think. Of course there will have to be some laws. Why have doctors give the advice? Put knowledge on the web free for all to learn. Cheap DNA tests, Exhaustive list of genetic conditions and how to avoid certain ones. Insurance companies should be into this: fixing genetics in a fertilized egg or fetus will save them many millions in paying for bad genetic conditions. John - we need some people to understand the AIs we will create. I know you are not opposed to improving intelligence! bill w On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:27 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Do I want to participate in a eugenics program? No thanks. They?d just > target people who are socially undesirable (poor, wrong religion, wrong > ethnicity) rather than those who are genetically undesirable. > > Rather than that, better access to genetic testing, sex education in > schools, and ease of achieving sterilization (very difficult for women). > Encouraging doctors to explain that a certain condition will likely be > inherited by children. > > SR Ballard > > On Jan 11, 2020, at 12:56 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > SR Ballard> wrote: > >> I?m sorry, but some people are genetically unfit to have children. >> > > Yeah? Agreed. So what do you want to do about it? Give governments a > say in who is born? > > bill w > > > > > > >> For example: Fatal familial insomnia. >> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_insomnia >> >> Unless/until their are treatments, knowingly dooming your children to die >> as you have died, miserably, is very cruel. >> >> SR Ballard >> >> On Jan 11, 2020, at 8:27 AM, BillK via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 at 07:16, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat >> wrote: >> >> ### Well, yes - real libertarianism is "live and let live", and this also >> implies "live and let die". >> >> I am not my brother's keeper. Removal of legal sanctions for using and >> selling dangerous drugs >> >> would certainly facilitate infliction of self-harm, and some people who >> are too timid to use drugs >> >> now might become victims of their own stupidity - well, so what? We may >> offer good advice in >> >> the spirit of the good Samaritan but if this advice is not heeded, I do >> not feel guilty for whatever >> >> happens. The only situation where this does not apply is of course >> children and other wards >> >> but that's a different story. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> >> This interpretation is based on the now discredited Social Darwinism >> belief system. >> >> >> >> Quotes: >> Social Darwinists believe in ?survival of the fittest??the idea that >> certain people become powerful in society because they are innately >> better. Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, >> eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century >> and a half. >> ---------- >> Darwin rarely commented on the social implications of his theories. >> But to those who followed Spencer and Malthus, Darwin?s theory >> appeared to be confirming with science what they already believed to >> be true about human society?that the fit inherited qualities such as >> industriousness and the ability to accumulate wealth, while the unfit >> were innately lazy and stupid. >> >> Unlike Darwin, Spencer believed that people could genetically pass >> learned qualities, such as frugality and morality, on to their >> children. >> Spencer opposed any laws that helped workers, the poor, and those he >> deemed genetically weak. Such laws, he argued, would go against the >> evolution of civilization by delaying the extinction of the ?unfit.? >> ---------- >> Eugenics became a popular social movement in the United States that >> peaked in the 1920s and 1930s. Books and films promoted eugenics, >> while local fairs and exhibitions held ?fitter family? and ?better >> baby? competitions around the country. >> The eugenics movement in the United States focused on eliminating >> undesirable traits from the population. Proponents of the eugenics >> movement reasoned the best way to do this was by preventing ?unfit? >> individuals from having children. >> During the first part of the twentieth century, 32 U.S. states passed >> laws that resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 64,000 >> Americans including immigrants, people of color, unmarried mothers and >> the mentally ill. >> ---------------------------------------- >> >> On the other hand, many great human projects involved large numbers of >> humans working together, assisting each other in tasks which required >> many different levels of ability and experience. >> >> 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 > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 00:16:09 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 16:16:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:04 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Do physicians make it difficult to get tubes tied? In any case, there is > an easy answer to avoiding getting pregnant: aspirin. You hold it between > your knees. > That makes walking and going to the bathroom difficult (unless someone misunderstands and simply tapes the aspirin to one knee, keeping its position between the knees). Also, it is entirely possible for a woman to have vaginal sex, leading to pregnancy, while keeping her knees together. > Why have doctors give the advice? Put knowledge on the web free for all to > learn. > There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 00:24:36 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 18:24:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> Message-ID: There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? And just how is that different from now, like in the area of nutrition? Would you keep genetic knowledge secret? Aspirin - are there genes for humor, spoilsport? bill w On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 6:18 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:04 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Do physicians make it difficult to get tubes tied? In any case, there is >> an easy answer to avoiding getting pregnant: aspirin. You hold it between >> your knees. >> > > That makes walking and going to the bathroom difficult (unless someone > misunderstands and simply tapes the aspirin to one knee, keeping its > position between the knees). Also, it is entirely possible for a woman to > have vaginal sex, leading to pregnancy, while keeping her knees together. > > >> Why have doctors give the advice? Put knowledge on the web free for all >> to learn. >> > > There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much > enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious > intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 00:33:32 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 16:33:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:26 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much > enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious > intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? > > And just how is that different from now, like in the area of nutrition? > Would you keep genetic knowledge secret? > Not what I was talking about. You suggested just posting stuff without need for doctors; I pointed out the need for some sort of certification the public can trust (such as some accredited institution saying "this person is a doctor"). > Aspirin - are there genes for humor, spoilsport? > Poe's Law. I couldn't tell if you were being serious; I have seen people post suggestions that naive and be completely serious about them. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 00:38:05 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 19:38:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <008a01d5c877$69e16420$3da42c60$@rainier66.com> References: <007b01d5c6ad$3d0a3a60$b71eaf20$@rainier66.com> <009f01d5c707$3d647570$b82d6050$@rainier66.com> <008a01d5c877$69e16420$3da42c60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 7:05 AM wrote: That is one way to look at it, however a compelling reason to discourage > self-harm is that in too many cases it turns into us-harm, as the > self-harmers become needy and destitute. In California, theft of items of > value less than 950 bucks is no longer a felony, so the constables won?t > bother, well think about the consequences of that for minute. > > > > We have a local sporting goods store which will likely hafta close the > doors soon, because homeless people can stroll in there, pick out any tent > they want, stroll out with it. Company policy (and good sense) dictate to > not chase them (they have nothing to lose) so? off they go, and soon the > bricks and mortar stores cannot compete with online sales, however? > stealing packages off of porches is also fair game, and plenty of homeless > are doing that for a living. > > > > The one thing that gets so much press is homeless people shitting in the > park, and ja that is revolting, but after a while it occurs to them to go > where there is TP, so they go into the local grocery store to that isle, > dump a load, use the TP, stroll out, no functional penalty or good way to > stop it. > > > > Live and let live becomes live and let die, but that soon evolves into > live and let kill. > > > ### These examples are just showing what happens when good people are disarmed and are prevented from defending themselves against aggressors. In a sane society, like in a Heinlein book, the store owners would have the option of mounting the heads of shoplifters on pikes outside the store, in addition to a panoply of less decisive sanctions. In a sane society there would be hardly any shoplifters, and their careers would be brief, no matter how little would be spent on the needy and the destitute. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 00:49:14 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 19:49:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <00b701d5c886$8d800d50$a88027f0$@rainier66.com> References: <00b701d5c886$8d800d50$a88027f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 8:53 AM wrote: > > If you don?t have a job and everything is free, there isn?t much reason to > eschew dope. > > > ### Useless drifters are indeed more likely to get hooked on drugs than the rest of us, and having easy sustenance and easy access will make it even easier. Again, so what? Those who choose not to make themselves useful to the rest of us through remunerative employment are, indeed, useless. But who am I to judge? As I said, live and let live. If somebody wants to live frugally off scraps and find fulfilment in dope, gaming and porn, who am I to judge? Is he, or some other volunteer, paying his bills? Is he trespassing on the lives of others? If yes to the former and no to the latter, I have no problem with a drifter. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 01:17:53 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 09:17:53 +0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?A_New_Anti-Aging_Therapy_Is_Starting_Its_First_H?= =?utf-8?q?uman_Trial=E2=80=94and_It_Costs_=241_Million?= Message-ID: "We also need to have a more in-depth conversation about what these longevity therapies mean for society. Assuming this new trial is effective, what does it mean if only those with $1m to spare get to extend their lives? If treating aging becomes trivial, how is that going to change the nature of our communities? These are questions that may become increasingly relevant in the coming decades." https://singularityhub.com/2019/12/16/a-new-anti-aging-therapy-is-starting-its-first-human-trial-and-it-costs-1-million/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 01:17:52 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 20:17:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 11:59 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > Low fitness should lead to elimination of > the responsible alleles. Keeping deleterious alleles artificially protected > from extinction only adds to misery. Deleterious alleles have a cost to the > filial generation and a cost to non-carriers, a cost paid in > perpetuity when evolution is thwarted. > > > What you say is true. It's also a really bad path to take. > ### Why? > Fortunately, we stand on the edge of taking control of our DNA. It > will be possible to eliminate the deleterious alleles in one > generation, a huge improvement over discovering that the kid you > raised at great effort and cost has serious genetic problems and > should not have children. > ### Yes, absolutely! But please note, to eliminate the deleterious alleles by genetic engineering there has to be a force, an influence of some sort, that would incentivise parents/society/government/everybody to actually implement the process. How is that going to happen unless the social cost of deleterious alleles is somehow allowed to influence behavior? Without incentives hardly anything happens. Somebody needs to feel the sting of making the wrong decision, like giving your child deleterious genes through negligence or intent, to be persuaded to make the right decision. In terms of incentives this is not that much different from what I suggested above, to allow low fitness alleles to be eliminated by natural selection. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 01:21:47 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 09:21:47 +0800 Subject: [ExI] What Needs to Happen to Get to the Flying Car Future Message-ID: "At this year?s Consumer Electronics Show, one of the world?s largest helicopter manufacturers will showcase what a city might look like with high-volume aerial transit options. Bell is showing off a connected city concept with miniature versions of its Nexus air taxi and APT cargo drone flying from building to building, as three layers of software and detect-and-avoid systems ensure their safe arrival" "In a few short years, the moonshot concept of flying taxis as an integral part of future cityscapes has become a sober, earnest pursuit attracting billions of dollars in investment from companies across the mobility and transportation space. A futuristic industry once thought to be gated behind decades of steady technological advancement?or written off entirely?is now concerned regulators, city planners, and the public won?t be able to keep up." https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/06/what-needs-to-happen-to-get-to-the-flying-car-future/?utm_medium=email&utm_content=what-needs-to-happen-to-get-to-the-flying-car-future -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 01:30:15 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 20:30:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 7:25 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> but remember I am not the one pining for ever coercive intrusion into >>> folks? lives here. >>> >> ### You wrote elsewhere you are in favor of abolishing the police. How do you make people abolish their police forces if not by a coercive intrusion? Now, if you really honestly don't want to coercively intrude into folks' lives, my hat's off to you, even though (or maybe because) you are unlikely to succeed in influencing the world. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 01:44:27 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 09:44:27 +0800 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen Message-ID: "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the showrunner of *The Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied physics." Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 01:48:16 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 19:48:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> Why in our day and age would we need to resort to the aspirin method. Surely straight men enjoy sex, why prevent straight women from enjoying sex too. And besides, if they don?t have sex until they die, so they can avoid pregnancy, I think that will make a lot of women unhappy. Sex provides intimacy, and we should take that away because why? Because we don?t want to let women tie their tubes. And yes, having tubes tied is very difficult. They expect you to have two children, be married, and have your husband?s written consent in some places. Even in cases where accidentally getting pregnant might kill a woman. As people who want to upload and/or augment our physical bodies, why is tubal ligation any big deal? SR Ballard > On Jan 11, 2020, at 6:33 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:26 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > >> There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? >> >> And just how is that different from now, like in the area of nutrition? Would you keep genetic knowledge secret? > > Not what I was talking about. You suggested just posting stuff without need for doctors; I pointed out the need for some sort of certification the public can trust (such as some accredited institution saying "this person is a doctor"). > >> Aspirin - are there genes for humor, spoilsport? > > Poe's Law. I couldn't tell if you were being serious; I have seen people post suggestions that naive and be completely serious about them. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 01:48:28 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 09:48:28 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Hugo award winning author and editor Mike Resnick, 1942-2020 Message-ID: "Prolific science fiction author and editor Mike Resnick has died, according to his family. Known for his genre-spanning work and impressive streak of award nominations and wins , he passed on January 9, 2020, after being hospitalized for much of last year. He was 77." https://www.tor.com/2020/01/09/hugo-award-winning-author-and-editor-michael-resnick-1942-2020/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 02:17:20 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 10:17:20 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Traveller: A Classic Science Fiction Simulator Message-ID: *Todd:* *Traveller* was the first major science fiction RPG, and it?s certainly the most influential. It was released in 1977, just three years after *Dungeons & Dragons*, by the tiny Illinois game company Game Designers Workshop (GDW). The success of that first boxed set, which we call *Classic Traveller* these days, helped propel GDW to the forefront of adventure gaming in the ?80s and ?90s. The first edition was designed by Marc Miller, with help from his fellow GDW co-founders Frank Chadwick and Loren Wiseman, and Dr. John Harshman. *Howard:* Character generation basically simulated your military career, where you picked up all kinds of interesting things like engineering, gambling, bribery, computers, administration, piloting, and gunnery. If you were dissatisfied with your skill set you could do another tour of duty before mustering out. Of course, another tour made your character older. *Todd:* And possibly dead. *Howard:* Yeah, there was a chance every tour of duty would kill you, which was a bitter twist when you were finally rounding out that hot shot space pilot. *Traveller* never sold quite as well as *D&D*? *Todd:* Probably because that game didn?t *kill you* *during character creation*. My personal favorite, among the early science fiction tabletop roleplaying games, was "Space Opera." But Traveler, was quite popular, and never really died out... I remember working on creating a character for the game, and twice in row, they died on me! Lol https://www.tor.com/2020/01/10/traveller-a-classic-science-fiction-simulator/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 02:25:29 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 20:25:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> Message-ID: Enlighten me. Just who is preventing women from tubal ligations? Fifty years ago my wife had to sign a form for me to get a vasectomy. So I thought women had the same options - guess not. bill w On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 8:07 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Why in our day and age would we need to resort to the aspirin method. > Surely straight men enjoy sex, why prevent straight women from enjoying sex > too. And besides, if they don?t have sex until they die, so they can avoid > pregnancy, I think that will make a lot of women unhappy. Sex provides > intimacy, and we should take that away because why? Because we don?t want > to let women tie their tubes. > > And yes, having tubes tied is very difficult. They expect you to have two > children, be married, and have your husband?s written consent in some > places. Even in cases where accidentally getting pregnant might kill a > woman. > > As people who want to upload and/or augment our physical bodies, why is > tubal ligation any big deal? > > SR Ballard > > On Jan 11, 2020, at 6:33 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:26 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much >> enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious >> intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? >> >> And just how is that different from now, like in the area of nutrition? >> Would you keep genetic knowledge secret? >> > > Not what I was talking about. You suggested just posting stuff without > need for doctors; I pointed out the need for some sort of certification the > public can trust (such as some accredited institution saying "this person > is a doctor"). > > >> Aspirin - are there genes for humor, spoilsport? >> > > Poe's Law. I couldn't tell if you were being serious; I have seen people > post suggestions that naive and be completely serious about them. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 02:51:49 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 18:51:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Traveller: A Classic Science Fiction Simulator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: After many revisions, Traveller is starting to sell much better under its current publisher, Mongoose Publishing. Death during character generation is optional (if you would have died, by default you pile up medical debt instead), and then only if you roll really poorly (much moreso than earlier versions). I've written a little bit of the current edition - just some supplemental stuff. The bit I'm proudest of is the writeup of ship's cats - genetically engineered felines that are safe to have on a spaceship (won't beg to go into vacuum, inherently housebroken, et cetera) - which specifies in its mechanics that, should you be using the optional Sanity rules (which can get a bit Call of Cthulhu like), a ship's cat can help restore Sanity, which was left a bit vague before. Even the most grimdark, rules-as-written campaign using this system now has a way to make minds whole again. Should anyone be interested in playing Traveller, I have (just today) finished the (non-Traveller) campaign I've been running since June 2016, and am now considering what to run next. I suspect it won't start until February or March, will be run by text chat (no voice) over Discord, and will probably run 11 AM to 2 PM Pacific most Saturdays. I have two ideas, both in the Traveller 'verse: https://pastebin.com/FD7Fxis5 and https://pastebin.com/k2B2APZ6 . If interested, please contact me offlist and state which idea appeals more or if both appeal. On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 6:22 PM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *Todd:* *Traveller* was the first major science fiction RPG, and it?s > certainly the most influential. It was released in 1977, just three years > after *Dungeons & Dragons*, by the tiny Illinois game company Game > Designers Workshop (GDW). The success of that first boxed set, which we > call *Classic Traveller* these days, helped propel GDW to the forefront > of adventure gaming in the ?80s and ?90s. The first edition was designed by > Marc Miller, with help from his fellow GDW co-founders Frank Chadwick and > Loren Wiseman, and Dr. John Harshman. > > *Howard:* Character generation basically simulated your military career, > where you picked up all kinds of interesting things like engineering, > gambling, bribery, computers, administration, piloting, and gunnery. If you > were dissatisfied with your skill set you could do another tour of duty > before mustering out. Of course, another tour made your character older. > > *Todd:* And possibly dead. > > *Howard:* Yeah, there was a chance every tour of duty would kill you, > which was a bitter twist when you were finally rounding out that hot shot > space pilot. *Traveller* never sold quite as well as *D&D*? > > *Todd:* Probably because that game didn?t *kill you* *during character > creation*. > My personal favorite, among the early science fiction tabletop roleplaying > games, was "Space Opera." But Traveler, was quite popular, and never really > died out... I remember working on creating a character for the game, and > twice in row, they died on me! Lol > > > https://www.tor.com/2020/01/10/traveller-a-classic-science-fiction-simulator/ > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 02:53:09 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 18:53:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've been considering watching it - in my spare time, once other series I'm in the middle of have been watched. On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 5:59 PM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. > There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey > aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, > it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the showrunner of *The > Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied > physics." > > Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) > > https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 03:57:45 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 21:57:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> Message-ID: <55832B3E-FA91-41B4-9A10-C80473A1A13A@gmail.com> Doctors like to refuse tubal litigations. I suppose they worry that a woman will change her mind. I personally know 3 people who struggled to get one. One can find many stories similar to theirs, jumping through many hoops, waiting long periods, having to ?shop? doctors. Why? Condoms break. IUDs are uncomfortable to put in and can accidentally move into places they shouldn?t be. Hormonal birth control messes with your hormones (duh). The pill must be taken every day at the same time. The current trend of activated charcoal foods will mess up the pill. Antibiotics can mess up the pill. The pill can give you deadly blood clots. The pill may not be effective if you are above a certain weight. (The ?morning after? pill also may not work for women over 175 lbs) It?s just bodily autonomy. If you don?t want to have kids, why not get your tubes tied. ?Set and forget?, I suppose. Who is better to make that choice? When you got a vasectomy, your wife had to sign. Why? You are over 21. It?s inappropriate. SR Ballard > On Jan 11, 2020, at 8:25 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Enlighten me. Just who is preventing women from tubal ligations? Fifty years ago my wife had to sign a form for me to get a vasectomy. So I thought women had the same options - guess not. bill w > >> On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 8:07 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> Why in our day and age would we need to resort to the aspirin method. Surely straight men enjoy sex, why prevent straight women from enjoying sex too. And besides, if they don?t have sex until they die, so they can avoid pregnancy, I think that will make a lot of women unhappy. Sex provides intimacy, and we should take that away because why? Because we don?t want to let women tie their tubes. >> >> And yes, having tubes tied is very difficult. They expect you to have two children, be married, and have your husband?s written consent in some places. Even in cases where accidentally getting pregnant might kill a woman. >> >> As people who want to upload and/or augment our physical bodies, why is tubal ligation any big deal? >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jan 11, 2020, at 6:33 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>>> On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:26 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>>> There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? >>>> >>>> And just how is that different from now, like in the area of nutrition? Would you keep genetic knowledge secret? >>> >>> Not what I was talking about. You suggested just posting stuff without need for doctors; I pointed out the need for some sort of certification the public can trust (such as some accredited institution saying "this person is a doctor"). >>> >>>> Aspirin - are there genes for humor, spoilsport? >>> >>> Poe's Law. I couldn't tell if you were being serious; I have seen people post suggestions that naive and be completely serious about them. >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 04:01:07 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 22:01:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Can?t you abolish the (current form of) police by just... cutting the funding, and legalizing a lot of petty things? SR Ballard > On Jan 11, 2020, at 7:30 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > > >>>> >>>>> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 7:25 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> but remember I am not the one pining for ever coercive intrusion into folks? lives here. > > ### You wrote elsewhere you are in favor of abolishing the police. How do you make people abolish their police forces if not by a coercive intrusion? Now, if you really honestly don't want to coercively intrude into folks' lives, my hat's off to you, even though (or maybe because) you are unlikely to succeed in influencing the world. > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 04:48:30 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 20:48:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3B8931D3-4490-43E7-B2D7-584394209CFB@gmail.com> I?m a fan. I?ve seen the first three seasons. It?s good, though I?d quibble that so far into the future that even if a singularity doesn?t occur it?s rather a bit like now with cooler smartphones and spaceships. (Some would dismiss it as Space Opera, and that?s kind of what it is. But the New Space Opera isn?t awful. It?s just what it is.) I haven?t read the link. Busy weekend doing final processing. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 11, 2020, at 5:59 PM, John Grigg via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the showrunner of The Expanse, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied physics." > > Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) > > https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ > __ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 05:25:09 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 13:25:09 +0800 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: <3B8931D3-4490-43E7-B2D7-584394209CFB@gmail.com> References: <3B8931D3-4490-43E7-B2D7-584394209CFB@gmail.com> Message-ID: What I would love to see one day, is a television series based on the Steve Jackson rpg, Transhuman Space. I would say it is a more "cyberpunk/biopunk" take on a universe like The Expanse (and probably more realistic as to what the future will be like). I recall Anders being a fan of it... http://www.sjgames.com/transhumanspace/ On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 12:51 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I?m a fan. I?ve seen the first three seasons. It?s good, though I?d > quibble that so far into the future that even if a singularity doesn?t > occur it?s rather a bit like now with cooler smartphones and spaceships. > (Some would dismiss it as Space Opera, and that?s kind of what it is. But > the New Space Opera isn?t awful. It?s just what it is.) > > I haven?t read the link. Busy weekend doing final processing. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Jan 11, 2020, at 5:59 PM, John Grigg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. > There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey > aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, > it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the showrunner of *The > Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied > physics." > > Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) > > https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ > __ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 07:45:51 2020 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 08:45:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I LOVE The Expanse! I am watching the show and reading the books in parallel. Of course the books are better than the show, but the show is reasonably close (and much closer than usual) to the books. This is the first science fiction show that I really like. On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 2:59 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. > There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey > aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, > it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the showrunner of *The > Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied > physics." > > Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) > > https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 12:44:48 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 05:44:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In the Expanse, do they have any uploading, computational binding neural ponytails, bodies and avatars that don't need spacesuits of any kind, and can be easily replaced and re-uploaded when destroyed.... I hate it when they do lots of hard things, like faster than light travel, or any significant space travel into the "expanse", whole body teleportation, and on and on, yet they can't yet do easy, higher priority things like overcoming plain old dumb animal bodies that age and die at the drop of a hat. Or nobody interested in recovering dead ancestors and memories I.e. history. On Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 12:47 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I LOVE The Expanse! I am watching the show and reading the books in > parallel. Of course the books are better than the show, but the show is > reasonably close (and much closer than usual) to the books. This is the > first science fiction show that I really like. > > On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 2:59 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. >> There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey >> aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, >> it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the showrunner of *The >> Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied >> physics." >> >> Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) >> >> https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 12 14:32:23 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 06:32:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] fly me to the moon Message-ID: <002a01d5c955$1b4e3110$51ea9330$@rainier66.com> Yet another reason why it is better if space launch capabilities are in private hands rather than governments: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-billionaire-maezawa-idUSKBN1ZB07Q Governments just do dumb boring stuff with rockets, like haul proles to a space station or nuclear bombs to each others? cities. Elon Musk creates a new royalty, which does more fun silliness than the traditional royalty. I can suggest a great theme song for Maezawa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEcqHA7dbwM As he is doing that, his billions filter back into the economy, giving jobs to thousands, gives all those young women a dream, ah such a deal. Well done, Mr. Musk. Good luck Mr. Maezawa. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 15:31:18 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 09:31:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: <55832B3E-FA91-41B4-9A10-C80473A1A13A@gmail.com> References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> <55832B3E-FA91-41B4-9A10-C80473A1A13A@gmail.com> Message-ID: Well, doesn't Planned Parenthood have programs or something to help with sterilization? It was 1972 when I had the vasectomy and it was the doctor's choice to have me sign something. bill w On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 10:00 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Doctors like to refuse tubal litigations. I suppose they worry that a > woman will change her mind. > > I personally know 3 people who struggled to get one. One can find many > stories similar to theirs, jumping through many hoops, waiting long > periods, having to ?shop? doctors. Why? > > Condoms break. > > IUDs are uncomfortable to put in and can accidentally move into places > they shouldn?t be. > > Hormonal birth control messes with your hormones (duh). The pill must be > taken every day at the same time. The current trend of activated charcoal > foods will mess up the pill. Antibiotics can mess up the pill. The pill can > give you deadly blood clots. The pill may not be effective if you are above > a certain weight. > > (The ?morning after? pill also may not work for women over 175 lbs) > > It?s just bodily autonomy. If you don?t want to have kids, why not get > your tubes tied. ?Set and forget?, I suppose. Who is better to make that > choice? > > When you got a vasectomy, your wife had to sign. Why? You are over 21. > It?s inappropriate. > > SR Ballard > > On Jan 11, 2020, at 8:25 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Enlighten me. Just who is preventing women from tubal ligations? Fifty > years ago my wife had to sign a form for me to get a vasectomy. So I > thought women had the same options - guess not. bill w > > On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 8:07 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Why in our day and age would we need to resort to the aspirin method. >> Surely straight men enjoy sex, why prevent straight women from enjoying sex >> too. And besides, if they don?t have sex until they die, so they can avoid >> pregnancy, I think that will make a lot of women unhappy. Sex provides >> intimacy, and we should take that away because why? Because we don?t want >> to let women tie their tubes. >> >> And yes, having tubes tied is very difficult. They expect you to have two >> children, be married, and have your husband?s written consent in some >> places. Even in cases where accidentally getting pregnant might kill a >> woman. >> >> As people who want to upload and/or augment our physical bodies, why is >> tubal ligation any big deal? >> >> SR Ballard >> >> On Jan 11, 2020, at 6:33 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:26 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much >>> enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious >>> intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? >>> >>> And just how is that different from now, like in the area of nutrition? >>> Would you keep genetic knowledge secret? >>> >> >> Not what I was talking about. You suggested just posting stuff without >> need for doctors; I pointed out the need for some sort of certification the >> public can trust (such as some accredited institution saying "this person >> is a doctor"). >> >> >>> Aspirin - are there genes for humor, spoilsport? >>> >> >> Poe's Law. I couldn't tell if you were being serious; I have seen people >> post suggestions that naive and be completely serious about them. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 15:40:12 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 09:40:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Since I only watch golf and tennis on TV I was interested to learn that the books I have been reading, Corey, are now TV shows. So I went to my TV and searched and it showed no episodes available. So how to I watch it? If I can, can I watch it from the beginning? bill w On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 6:47 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > In the Expanse, do they have any uploading, computational binding neural > ponytails, bodies and avatars that don't need spacesuits of any kind, and > can be easily replaced and re-uploaded when destroyed.... > I hate it when they do lots of hard things, like faster than light travel, > or any significant space travel into the "expanse", whole body > teleportation, and on and on, yet they can't yet do easy, higher priority > things like overcoming plain old dumb animal bodies that age and die at the > drop of a hat. Or nobody interested in recovering dead ancestors and > memories I.e. history. > > On Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 12:47 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I LOVE The Expanse! I am watching the show and reading the books in >> parallel. Of course the books are better than the show, but the show is >> reasonably close (and much closer than usual) to the books. This is the >> first science fiction show that I really like. >> >> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 2:59 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. >>> There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey >>> aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, >>> it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the showrunner of *The >>> Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied >>> physics." >>> >>> Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) >>> >>> https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 15:50:15 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 07:50:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It?s on Amazon for download. If you have Prime, it?s included. I haven?t read the books. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 12, 2020, at 7:42 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > Since I only watch golf and tennis on TV I was interested to learn that the books I have been reading, Corey, are now TV shows. So I went to my TV and searched and it showed no episodes available. So how to I watch it? If I can, can I watch it from the beginning? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 15:51:06 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 09:51:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> <55832B3E-FA91-41B4-9A10-C80473A1A13A@gmail.com> Message-ID: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/sterilization/how-do-i-get-tubal-ligation-procedure ?Depending on where you live, there may be age restrictions or waiting periods to get a tubal ligation.? ?Vasectomies (aka male sterilization) are usually a lot cheaper than female sterilization.? ?Many ... Planned Parenthood health centers do tubal ligation.? Not all. I don?t understand why you think it should be difficult? SR Ballard > On Jan 12, 2020, at 9:31 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Well, doesn't Planned Parenthood have programs or something to help with sterilization? > > It was 1972 when I had the vasectomy and it was the doctor's choice to have me sign something. > > bill w > >> On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 10:00 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> Doctors like to refuse tubal litigations. I suppose they worry that a woman will change her mind. >> >> I personally know 3 people who struggled to get one. One can find many stories similar to theirs, jumping through many hoops, waiting long periods, having to ?shop? doctors. Why? >> >> Condoms break. >> >> IUDs are uncomfortable to put in and can accidentally move into places they shouldn?t be. >> >> Hormonal birth control messes with your hormones (duh). The pill must be taken every day at the same time. The current trend of activated charcoal foods will mess up the pill. Antibiotics can mess up the pill. The pill can give you deadly blood clots. The pill may not be effective if you are above a certain weight. >> >> (The ?morning after? pill also may not work for women over 175 lbs) >> >> It?s just bodily autonomy. If you don?t want to have kids, why not get your tubes tied. ?Set and forget?, I suppose. Who is better to make that choice? >> >> When you got a vasectomy, your wife had to sign. Why? You are over 21. It?s inappropriate. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jan 11, 2020, at 8:25 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> Enlighten me. Just who is preventing women from tubal ligations? Fifty years ago my wife had to sign a form for me to get a vasectomy. So I thought women had the same options - guess not. bill w >>> >>>> On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 8:07 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> Why in our day and age would we need to resort to the aspirin method. Surely straight men enjoy sex, why prevent straight women from enjoying sex too. And besides, if they don?t have sex until they die, so they can avoid pregnancy, I think that will make a lot of women unhappy. Sex provides intimacy, and we should take that away because why? Because we don?t want to let women tie their tubes. >>>> >>>> And yes, having tubes tied is very difficult. They expect you to have two children, be married, and have your husband?s written consent in some places. Even in cases where accidentally getting pregnant might kill a woman. >>>> >>>> As people who want to upload and/or augment our physical bodies, why is tubal ligation any big deal? >>>> >>>> SR Ballard >>>> >>>>> On Jan 11, 2020, at 6:33 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:26 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? >>>>>> >>>>>> And just how is that different from now, like in the area of nutrition? Would you keep genetic knowledge secret? >>>>> >>>>> Not what I was talking about. You suggested just posting stuff without need for doctors; I pointed out the need for some sort of certification the public can trust (such as some accredited institution saying "this person is a doctor"). >>>>> >>>>>> Aspirin - are there genes for humor, spoilsport? >>>>> >>>>> Poe's Law. I couldn't tell if you were being serious; I have seen people post suggestions that naive and be completely serious about them. >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> 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 >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 16:27:47 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 10:27:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> <55832B3E-FA91-41B4-9A10-C80473A1A13A@gmail.com> Message-ID: I never said it should be difficult. I think a person owns his own body, if nothing else, and nobody should be able to stop them from doing anything they want IF they are adults. You might also want to check with abortion clinics. Some provide gynecological services other than abortion. bill w On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 9:52 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/sterilization/how-do-i-get-tubal-ligation-procedure > > ?Depending on where you live, there may be age restrictions or waiting > periods to get a tubal ligation.? > > ?Vasectomies > (aka > male sterilization) are usually a lot cheaper than female sterilization.? > > ?Many ... Planned Parenthood health centers do tubal ligation.? Not all. > > I don?t understand why you think it should be difficult? > > SR Ballard > > On Jan 12, 2020, at 9:31 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Well, doesn't Planned Parenthood have programs or something to help with > sterilization? > > It was 1972 when I had the vasectomy and it was the doctor's choice to > have me sign something. > > bill w > > On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 10:00 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Doctors like to refuse tubal litigations. I suppose they worry that a >> woman will change her mind. >> >> I personally know 3 people who struggled to get one. One can find many >> stories similar to theirs, jumping through many hoops, waiting long >> periods, having to ?shop? doctors. Why? >> >> Condoms break. >> >> IUDs are uncomfortable to put in and can accidentally move into places >> they shouldn?t be. >> >> Hormonal birth control messes with your hormones (duh). The pill must be >> taken every day at the same time. The current trend of activated charcoal >> foods will mess up the pill. Antibiotics can mess up the pill. The pill can >> give you deadly blood clots. The pill may not be effective if you are above >> a certain weight. >> >> (The ?morning after? pill also may not work for women over 175 lbs) >> >> It?s just bodily autonomy. If you don?t want to have kids, why not get >> your tubes tied. ?Set and forget?, I suppose. Who is better to make that >> choice? >> >> When you got a vasectomy, your wife had to sign. Why? You are over 21. >> It?s inappropriate. >> >> SR Ballard >> >> On Jan 11, 2020, at 8:25 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> Enlighten me. Just who is preventing women from tubal ligations? Fifty >> years ago my wife had to sign a form for me to get a vasectomy. So I >> thought women had the same options - guess not. bill w >> >> On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 8:07 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Why in our day and age would we need to resort to the aspirin method. >>> Surely straight men enjoy sex, why prevent straight women from enjoying sex >>> too. And besides, if they don?t have sex until they die, so they can avoid >>> pregnancy, I think that will make a lot of women unhappy. Sex provides >>> intimacy, and we should take that away because why? Because we don?t want >>> to let women tie their tubes. >>> >>> And yes, having tubes tied is very difficult. They expect you to have >>> two children, be married, and have your husband?s written consent in some >>> places. Even in cases where accidentally getting pregnant might kill a >>> woman. >>> >>> As people who want to upload and/or augment our physical bodies, why is >>> tubal ligation any big deal? >>> >>> SR Ballard >>> >>> On Jan 11, 2020, at 6:33 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 4:26 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> There are those who put up convincing lies on the Web, with much >>>> enthusiasm - and a fair number with what can be accurately termed malicious >>>> intent. How would the public know which advice to trust? >>>> >>>> And just how is that different from now, like in the area of >>>> nutrition? Would you keep genetic knowledge secret? >>>> >>> >>> Not what I was talking about. You suggested just posting stuff without >>> need for doctors; I pointed out the need for some sort of certification the >>> public can trust (such as some accredited institution saying "this person >>> is a doctor"). >>> >>> >>>> Aspirin - are there genes for humor, spoilsport? >>>> >>> >>> Poe's Law. I couldn't tell if you were being serious; I have seen >>> people post suggestions that naive and be completely serious about them. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 12 16:37:32 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 08:37:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> <55832B3E-FA91-41B4-9A10-C80473A1A13A@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00b001d5c966$96b243d0$c416cb70$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? >?I never said it should be difficult. I think a person owns his own body, if nothing else, and nobody should be able to stop them from doing anything they want IF they are adults? The thing doctors always need to watch: lawsuits. Eeeeevery yahoo wants to sue the medic if something goes wrong. If a patient changes her mind about the procedure, she might sue on the basis she was stoned or depressed or some damn thing and the doctor shouldn?t have done the procedure even if she requested it. Crazier lawsuits have paid off. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 16:38:18 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 10:38:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: to allow low fitness alleles to be eliminated by natural selection. rafal But as you know more than most, we have thousands of diseases or conditions with some genetic links that we have had for many millennia and they are still around. Just waiting for natural selection seems a poor choice. I can see a future where everyone will get genetic testing, paid for in part by the government, since health conditions of children drain a lot of public funds. Prevention is always better. Of course there will be those who resist such testing and they will be shown that they are paying the price by the poorer health of their children compared to those tested. bill w On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 7:28 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 11:59 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> > > Low fitness should lead to elimination of >> the responsible alleles. Keeping deleterious alleles artificially >> protected >> from extinction only adds to misery. Deleterious alleles have a cost to >> the >> filial generation and a cost to non-carriers, a cost paid in >> perpetuity when evolution is thwarted. >> >> > >> What you say is true. It's also a really bad path to take. >> > > ### Why? > > >> Fortunately, we stand on the edge of taking control of our DNA. It >> will be possible to eliminate the deleterious alleles in one >> generation, a huge improvement over discovering that the kid you >> raised at great effort and cost has serious genetic problems and >> should not have children. >> > > ### Yes, absolutely! But please note, to eliminate the deleterious alleles > by genetic engineering there has to be a force, an influence of some sort, > that would incentivise parents/society/government/everybody to actually > implement the process. How is that going to happen unless the social cost > of deleterious alleles is somehow allowed to influence behavior? Without > incentives hardly anything happens. Somebody needs to feel the sting of > making the wrong decision, like giving your child deleterious genes through > negligence or intent, to be persuaded to make the right decision. In terms > of incentives this is not that much different from what I suggested above, > to allow low fitness alleles to be eliminated by natural selection. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 16:42:39 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:42:39 +0800 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Brent Allsop wrote: "In the Expanse, do they have any uploading, computational binding neural ponytails, bodies and avatars that don't need spacesuits of any kind, and can be easily replaced and re-uploaded when destroyed...." For that, you should definitely check out the television series, "Altered Carbon." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon_(TV_series) On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 11:59 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It?s on Amazon for download. If you have Prime, it?s included. > > I haven?t read the books. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Jan 12, 2020, at 7:42 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > Since I only watch golf and tennis on TV I was interested to learn that > the books I have been reading, Corey, are now TV shows. So I went to my TV > and searched and it showed no episodes available. So how to I watch it? > If I can, can I watch it from the beginning? bill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 16:54:55 2020 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 17:54:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Easy to find on the torrent nets. On 2020. Jan 12., Sun at 16:41, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Since I only watch golf and tennis on TV I was interested to learn that > the books I have been reading, Corey, are now TV shows. So I went to my TV > and searched and it showed no episodes available. So how to I watch it? > If I can, can I watch it from the beginning? bill w > > On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 6:47 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> In the Expanse, do they have any uploading, computational binding neural >> ponytails, bodies and avatars that don't need spacesuits of any kind, and >> can be easily replaced and re-uploaded when destroyed.... >> I hate it when they do lots of hard things, like faster than light >> travel, or any significant space travel into the "expanse", whole body >> teleportation, and on and on, yet they can't yet do easy, higher priority >> things like overcoming plain old dumb animal bodies that age and die at the >> drop of a hat. Or nobody interested in recovering dead ancestors and >> memories I.e. history. >> >> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 12:47 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I LOVE The Expanse! I am watching the show and reading the books in >>> parallel. Of course the books are better than the show, but the show is >>> reasonably close (and much closer than usual) to the books. This is the >>> first science fiction show that I really like. >>> >>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 2:59 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. >>>> There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey >>>> aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, >>>> it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the showrunner of *The >>>> Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied >>>> physics." >>>> >>>> Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) >>>> >>>> >>>> https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Jan 12 18:05:15 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 10:05:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20200112100515.Horde.AyQrQGxQ389EnWSrehnHhVR@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org: > "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. > There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey > aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, > it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the > showrunner of *The > Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied > physics." > > Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) Does binge watching 3 seasons of the show in a week and then waiting expectantly for season 4 count? I am a pretty big fan of the show actually. The realism and attention to detail on the show is amazing and somewhat humbling. (Like when the protagonists almost die while strapped to their chairs because one of them failed to lock up their tools before the pilot started performing evasive maneuvers in zero G.) And while the show still paints a dystopian view of the future, it is a tolerable and sustainable dystopia, thanks to the fusion power which drives their rockets and gives people with sufficient resources the ability to choose between three distinct governments and cultures to live under: the United Nations, the Constitutional Republic of Mars, or the Outer Planets Alliance. The show is like if the love child of Arthur C. Clarke and Tom Clancy wrote space opera. Stuart LaForge From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 20:05:38 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 14:05:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: <20200112100515.Horde.AyQrQGxQ389EnWSrehnHhVR@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200112100515.Horde.AyQrQGxQ389EnWSrehnHhVR@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: I have not gotten the view from the books that it is dystopian at all. There's plenty of bad guys, of course, but opening to a completely new universe, almost none of it explored as of the last book, is hardly a downer. My complaint is that the books are coming too slowly. One of the writers, BTW, is an associate of George R R Martin James Corey is two people just in case you did not know. (or have I inadvertently done a spoiler here?) bill w On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 1:31 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Quoting extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org: > > > "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. > > There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey > > aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. > Honestly, > > it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the > > showrunner of *The > > Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied > > physics." > > > > Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) > > Does binge watching 3 seasons of the show in a week and then waiting > expectantly for season 4 count? I am a pretty big fan of the show > actually. The realism and attention to detail on the show is amazing > and somewhat humbling. (Like when the protagonists almost die while > strapped to their chairs because one of them failed to lock up their > tools before the pilot started performing evasive maneuvers in zero G.) > > And while the show still paints a dystopian view of the future, it is > a tolerable and sustainable dystopia, thanks to the fusion power which > drives their rockets and gives people with sufficient resources the > ability to choose between three distinct governments and cultures to > live under: the United Nations, the Constitutional Republic of Mars, > or the Outer Planets Alliance. > > The show is like if the love child of Arthur C. Clarke and Tom Clancy > wrote space opera. > > Stuart LaForge > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 20:29:39 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 13:29:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Giulio, Thanks. Yes, I do like altered carbon, but it has been a while. I should get caught up. On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 10:08 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Easy to find on the torrent nets. > > On 2020. Jan 12., Sun at 16:41, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Since I only watch golf and tennis on TV I was interested to learn that >> the books I have been reading, Corey, are now TV shows. So I went to my TV >> and searched and it showed no episodes available. So how to I watch it? >> If I can, can I watch it from the beginning? bill w >> >> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 6:47 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> In the Expanse, do they have any uploading, computational binding neural >>> ponytails, bodies and avatars that don't need spacesuits of any kind, and >>> can be easily replaced and re-uploaded when destroyed.... >>> I hate it when they do lots of hard things, like faster than light >>> travel, or any significant space travel into the "expanse", whole body >>> teleportation, and on and on, yet they can't yet do easy, higher priority >>> things like overcoming plain old dumb animal bodies that age and die at the >>> drop of a hat. Or nobody interested in recovering dead ancestors and >>> memories I.e. history. >>> >>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 12:47 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> I LOVE The Expanse! I am watching the show and reading the books in >>>> parallel. Of course the books are better than the show, but the show is >>>> reasonably close (and much closer than usual) to the books. This is the >>>> first science fiction show that I really like. >>>> >>>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 2:59 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science fiction. >>>>> There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity or dopey >>>>> aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. Honestly, >>>>> it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the showrunner of *The >>>>> Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, has a PhD in applied >>>>> physics." >>>>> >>>>> Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> 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 >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Jan 12 20:46:31 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 12:46:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? Message-ID: <20200112124631.Horde.s047d6NRSrOKVLe3CiXrev3@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: > Except that Black Holes are the most massive thing in the universe but also > the simplest, they can be completely described by just 3 numbers, mass, > spin, and electrical charge; 2 really because electrical charge would > always be zero or close to it. The black hole information paradox that results from Wheeler's "No Hair" theorem is very mysterious. The contradictory predictions made by general relativity and quantum mechanics as to what happens at the event horizon of a black hole suggest that one or the other must fold. Landau's law requires that any destruction or erasure of information (quantum or classical) costs energy and releases heat and entropy into the environment. Thus the event horizon should be seething with fire. But the equivalence principle from GR says that an astronaut should not notice anything unusual when he passes the event horizon of large enough black hole until he starts to near the singularity and tidal forces extrude him. So is our astronaut crushed by tidal forces, disintegrated by heat, or in a quantum superposition of both? https://www.nature.com/news/astrophysics-fire-in-the-hole-1.12726 Interestingly enough Einstein-Cartan theory solves the problem by essentially saying that the astronaut's information bounces off a discontinuity, instead of a singularity, and forms a new avatar in a different expanding universe on the other side of an Einstein-Rosenberg wormhole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%E2%80%93Cartan_theory In the context of a simulation, I suppose Einstein-Cartan theory would give black holes a role analogous to TCP-IP ports. > The Earth was made with far fewer particles > than a Black Hole but it's vastly more complex, you'd need a hell of a lot > more than 2 numbers or even 3 to describe it. Yes, although depending on how big and precise the numbers are, a single number can be more complex than a set of multiple numbers. For example, a single 20-digit number is more complex than four 2-digit numbers. >> * > For example, think about the slowdown of video games at the more >> advanced levels when there are too many sprites moving around the screen >> at one time.* > > If they're running out of processing power but the simulators still want to > fool us then the solution would be simple, just slow down the simulation of > the people you're trying to fool, then to us it would look like the super > complex processing hogging thing had sped up. But observers in gravity wells ARE slowed down such that they don't notice their own clocks running slow. And if we are in a simulation, as Henrick pointed out, then why would the simulators try to fool us? They could have done so without the extravagance of countless galaxies of billions of stars each separated by eons. And if the simulators are like psych grad students trying to fool us as a test of some sort, then that would mean we really are the central purpose of the entire universe. And that smacks of hubris. The universe is complex enough to process information just fine without being a simulation programmed by simulators. Thus I am satisfied with an infinite universe or multiverse that is simply the base reality. Infinity makes God superfluous. Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 22:34:01 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 17:34:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life? In-Reply-To: <20200112124631.Horde.s047d6NRSrOKVLe3CiXrev3@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200112124631.Horde.s047d6NRSrOKVLe3CiXrev3@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 3:49 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> The Earth was made with far fewer particles than a Black Hole but it's >> vastly more complex, you'd need a hell of a lot more than 2 numbers or >> even 3 to describe it. > > > > * > Yes, although depending on how big and precise the numbers are, a > single number can be more complex than a set of multiple numbers. For > example, a single 20-digit number is more complex than four 2-digit > numbers.* > There are a lot of things you'd need to know to have even a rough understanding of how the Earth works, and one number, no matter how precise, can only describe one thing. Four numbers can describe four things, still far to few for even an approximation but at least you're heading in the right direction. And for some things 2 digits or even one would be sufficient; for describing the number of spacial dimensions the Earth has for example, or its net electrical charge. > > If they're running out of processing power but the simulators still want >> to fool us then the solution would be simple, just slow down the >> simulation of the people you're trying to fool, then to us it would look >> like the super complex processing hogging thing had sped up. > > > > * > But observers in gravity wells ARE slowed down such that they don't > notice their own clocks running slow.* If the clocks are running slow it's because that's the way the program was written, and they DO notice when their clocks are running slow because when they look at clocks outside their gravity well they see clocks running faster than their own, it is after all how we figured out that gravity can effect time. > *> And if we are in a simulation, as Henrick pointed out, then why would > the simulators try to fool us? * If we're a simulation then there must be something non-simulated that is being simulated, and somebody is doing that to figure out how the non-simulated things behave. The non-simulated things don't believe they are simulated so to be accurate we, the simulated things, shouldn't either. So they've got to fool us, and if they were doing their job properly we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now because neither of us would have even thought of the idea that we live in a simulation. > *They could have done so without the extravagance of countless > galaxies of billions of stars each separated by eons.* Yes, it does seem like a, quite literal, astronomical waste of resources. And that is a pretty good reason to think that we are probably not living in a simulation. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 22:49:22 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 17:49:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? Message-ID: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 00:20:48 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 18:20:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Answer - we certainly hope so. Inattention to the material, inattention to the test questions, should add up to a low grade. The real question here: are the teachers biased against these students? If so they may be getting lower grades than they deserve - teacher biased when reading the test. Know who it is, knows he doesn't care, so just rush on through his test to get to the good ones. All tests should be anonymous. bill w On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 4:51 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? > > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 02:43:09 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:43:09 +0800 Subject: [ExI] 20 Technology Metatrends That Will Define the Next Decade Message-ID: "In the decade ahead, waves of exponential technological advancements are stacking atop one another, eclipsing decades of breakthroughs in scale and impact. Emerging from these waves are 20 ?metatrends? likely to revolutionize entire industries (old and new), redefine tomorrow?s generation of businesses and contemporary challenges, and transform our livelihoods from the bottom up. Among these metatrends are augmented human longevity, the surging smart economy, AI-human collaboration, urbanized cellular agriculture, and high-bandwidth brain-computer interfaces, just to name a few. It is here that master entrepreneurs and their teams must see beyond the immediate implications of a given technology, capturing second-order, Google-sized business opportunities on the horizon. Welcome to a new decade of runaway technological booms, historic watershed moments, and extraordinary abundance." https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/10/20-tech-metatrends-to-look-out-for-in-the-2020s/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 03:19:42 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 20:19:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 20 Technology Metatrends That Will Define the Next Decade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Increasing "healthspan". yea, that's the term to use. Every time I say Increasing lifespan, everyone thinks you are only talking about getting ever older and more decrepit. On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 7:44 PM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > "In the decade ahead, waves of exponential technological advancements are > stacking atop one another, eclipsing decades of breakthroughs in scale and > impact. > > Emerging from these waves are 20 ?metatrends? likely to revolutionize > entire industries (old and new), redefine tomorrow?s generation of > businesses and contemporary challenges, and transform our livelihoods from > the bottom up. > > Among these metatrends are augmented human longevity, the surging smart > economy, AI-human collaboration, urbanized cellular agriculture, and > high-bandwidth brain-computer interfaces, just to name a few. > > It is here that master entrepreneurs and their teams must see beyond the > immediate implications of a given technology, capturing second-order, > Google-sized business opportunities on the horizon. > > Welcome to a new decade of runaway technological booms, historic watershed > moments, and extraordinary abundance." > > > > https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/10/20-tech-metatrends-to-look-out-for-in-the-2020s/ > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 04:55:50 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 20:55:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 7:28 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: snip > ### Yes, absolutely! But please note, to eliminate the deleterious alleles > by genetic engineering there has to be a force, an influence of some sort, > that would incentivise parents/society/government/everybody to actually > implement the process. Don't worry about it. Parents want the best children they can get. If genetic engineering were available, there would be a huge market for "designer babies." Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 05:13:26 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 21:13:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: <000401d5c8a2$7221e9e0$5665bda0$@rainier66.com> References: <000401d5c8a2$7221e9e0$5665bda0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 9:13 AM wrote: > > Ja! Dr. Stock was out here a few years ago doing a lecture and Stanford. > We went to lunch together, he and I instantly got along. I didn't even know > about his writings on the UK and intentional selection. Got a pointer? > I did the AncestryDNA kit and found that I have mostly English ancestry, and > all of them had gotten out before 1800 when that shift took place, so I have > all those selected-breeding genes for wealth building. I was bred for it, > like a greyhound, born to run or a husky, born to pull a sled. If you are not being obtuse for humor, then you have a serious misunderstanding of population selection. It would take an equal amount of time with serious selection pressure to return the UK population to something close to the pre-selected state. > Oh man, there just hasta be some way I can make a buttload of money from > this. You did. Keith From giulio at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 11:24:37 2020 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 12:24:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I didn?t like the Altered Carbon show. They transformed a great science fiction book into third rate TV ?science fiction.? This happens very often, and I like The Expanse show also because it is reasonably close to the books (which are very good). On 2020. Jan 12., Sun at 21:29, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Giulio, > Thanks. Yes, I do like altered carbon, but it has been a while. > I should get caught up. > > > On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 10:08 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Easy to find on the torrent nets. >> >> On 2020. Jan 12., Sun at 16:41, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Since I only watch golf and tennis on TV I was interested to learn that >>> the books I have been reading, Corey, are now TV shows. So I went to my TV >>> and searched and it showed no episodes available. So how to I watch it? >>> If I can, can I watch it from the beginning? bill w >>> >>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 6:47 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> In the Expanse, do they have any uploading, computational binding >>>> neural ponytails, bodies and avatars that don't need spacesuits of any >>>> kind, and can be easily replaced and re-uploaded when destroyed.... >>>> I hate it when they do lots of hard things, like faster than light >>>> travel, or any significant space travel into the "expanse", whole body >>>> teleportation, and on and on, yet they can't yet do easy, higher priority >>>> things like overcoming plain old dumb animal bodies that age and die at the >>>> drop of a hat. Or nobody interested in recovering dead ancestors and >>>> memories I.e. history. >>>> >>>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 12:47 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I LOVE The Expanse! I am watching the show and reading the books in >>>>> parallel. Of course the books are better than the show, but the show is >>>>> reasonably close (and much closer than usual) to the books. This is the >>>>> first science fiction show that I really like. >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 2:59 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < >>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> "What I love about this show is that it's ?realistic? science >>>>>> fiction. There's no faster-than-light travel, no crazy artificial gravity >>>>>> or dopey aliens. It's just people like us, in an actually possible world. >>>>>> Honestly, it's great. So I was excited to get a chance to talk to the >>>>>> showrunner of *The Expanse*, Naren Shankar?who, I have to mention, >>>>>> has a PhD in applied physics." >>>>>> >>>>>> Any big Expanse fans on the list? : ) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> https://www.wired.com/story/the-expanse-is-sci-fi-like-tv-has-never-seen/ >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> 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 >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 14:20:35 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 09:20:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 11:52 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > But as you know more than most, we have thousands of diseases or > conditions with some genetic links that we have had for many millennia and > they are still around. Just waiting for natural selection seems a poor > choice. I can see a future where everyone will get genetic testing, paid > for in part by the government, since health conditions of children drain a > lot of public funds. Prevention is always better. Of course there will be > those who resist such testing and they will be shown that they are paying > the price by the poorer health of their children compared to those tested. > No doubt there are some obvious fixes we could apply, but don't pooh-pooh natural selection: it's done us right so far. There's more we don't know about genetics and epigenetics than we do know, and our "fixes" may turn out to be naive or have unintended consequences. Genetic diversity is good for the species--we never know when a mutation will turn out to be beneficial for some new disease or condition. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 13 15:11:35 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 07:11:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: <000401d5c8a2$7221e9e0$5665bda0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007701d5ca23$bfa84600$3ef8d200$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2020 9:13 PM Cc: Keith Henson ; ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 9:13 AM wrote: > > Ja! Dr. Stock was out here a few years ago doing a lecture and Stanford. > We went to lunch together, he and I instantly got along. I didn't > even know about his writings on the UK and intentional selection. >...Got a pointer? Do you mean for the event? I wrote in my log that it happened on 23 March 2013, but I remember what I was doing right then and I was up to my eyeballs in other concerns, so I didn't say much about it in my records. It was a transhumanist event up at Stanford. Natasha was there: she and Max stayed at my place, but we didn't have a local transhumanist party because they only had the short time to stay and I was busy as all hell right then. > I did the AncestryDNA kit and found that I have mostly English > ancestry, and all of them had gotten out before 1800 when that shift > took place, so I have all those selected-breeding genes for wealth > building. I was bred for it, like a greyhound, born to run or a husky, born to pull a sled. >...If you are not being obtuse for humor, then you have a serious misunderstanding of population selection. It would take an equal amount of time with serious selection pressure to return the UK population to something close to the pre-selected state... Keith you hit upon something important. The limeys set us up for greatness: they got the industrial revolution going in England with the coal power and the this and the that, but there isn't much land on those islands out there west of Europe, so a bunch of us bred-for-wealth-building English lads came over to the colonies in about the 1700s where there was this big old pristine continent in desperate need of industrialization and young men seeking to make buttloads of money, these including all of my direct ancestors, and I would just be letting them down if I failed to carry on the tradish, ja? >> Oh man, there just hasta be some way I can make a buttload of money > from this. >...You did. Keith _______________________________________________ Well, OK sure there is that, but your idea really has my wheels spinning. I think you are onto something important, something which has a lotta explanatory power. For instance, let me just offer a vague outline. The notion of collecting a pile of assets is universal but there are different mindsets that appear to be cultural. Consider the extremes: the understated style of the young wealth-building English-ancestor guy. You and I met at least one at a cryonics event (I think you were there) over at the Tied House in Palo Alto about 15 yrs ago and I don't even remember his name, but he was one of the local billllionehs. He was looking for viable investments and had a passing interest in cryonics, but the point was he looked and acted just like everyone else. He and I met and visited just like he was nobody. I didn't even know he was a software skerjillionaire until someone else told me after the fact. Contrast that with the rap culture hip-hop star millionaire, the style: jewelry, outrageous cars and so on. Right up the hill in sight of my house is an enormous estate built by one of them, MC Hammer. He went broke because he overdid everything, and doesn't live there now, but everything there is so overstated, it is practically a museum. Hey, that gives me an idea: get a bunch of investors together, buy the Hammer estate, put a whole bunch of rap crap in there, make it a hip hop museum analogous to the excellent Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland Ohio, hire someone else to actually run the joint because I can't stand rap, make a ton of money. It isn't clear if that observation goes anywhere near Stock's theory, but I have some thinking to do on that. spike From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 17:52:23 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:52:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <46615b86-c0d9-2f73-00a3-a901e79eab55@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Rafal, You are missing the point. The point is to illustrate that we don't know what color anything is. Everyone thinks there is a "hard mind body problem" but there isn't, there is only a color problem, Physicists can't tell us what color anything is. Sure, they can map color to light, but as is shown in this video , that has nothing to do with something like redness and grenness physical qualities. If you don't like glutamate, (an overly simplified version of Molecular Materialism ) then substitute glutamate with any example in any of the other sub camps to "Representational Qualia Theory " of what a computationally bound pixel of elemental redness could be. Again, if you falsify this (which you believe you have done) then replace glutamate with the your next best working hypothesis of what redness is. Keep doing this till you know what it is, that has the redness quality we can directly experience, then see if others use this same physical stuff to represent redness with, or do they use something that has your grennes quality. The point is to describe how to bridge the explanatory gap, eff the ineffable, and find out what color physical things are in any possible world, no matter how simple and trivial, in a falsifiable or verifiable way. Of all the descriptions of stuff in the brain, nobody can tell us the physical color those abstract descriptions are describing. Something in the brain must have the redness quality we can experience. If you don't like descriptions of glutamate as it reacts in a synapse, then provide any other description of something in the brain that could be a description of something we directly experience as a physical redness quality. Every time a talk about glutamate, think about that, instead. Then since we are describing the experimental method of not being qualia blind, it is now up to the experimentalists to find out if it is glutamate, or something you think might be a better candidate, or something else, different entirely. As all the experts are saying in "Representational Qualia Theory", consciousness is "Computationally bound elemental physical qualities in the brain like redness and grenness." So, the question is, what are qualia (what is the color of physical stuff) and how are these computationally bound? Brent Brent On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 12:46 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 1:36 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > We only use a simplified version of the easiest theory to falsify, "elemental >> qualia are molecular material qualities >> ," is to better >> help people understand what it means to be qualia blind. Once people >> understand how not to be qualia blind with the simplest theory, and they >> can easily falsify (or verify) that glutamate = redness, they can then >> do the same for all other more capable theories. Not being qualia blind is >> what is required before experimentalists can start to falsify all these >> competing theories predicting the nature of qualia. Any theory is >> justified for being used as a working hypothesis, till it is falsified. >> > > ### But really, nobody cares! The hypothesis of qualia being "molecular > properties" is so bad that nobody with even a glimmer of knowledge would > consider it as a legitimate hypothesis. > > You might want to read some of Eliezer's writings on the generation of > hypotheses - for a hypothesis to be worth considering, it must already have > a lot of evidence in favor of it. There is an infinity of hypotheses that > can be randomly generated but their mere generation is not enough to devote > computational resources to them. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 18:02:09 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 11:02:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Ben, I didn't CC you. The problem is, if posts are too long, they run the risk of being not accepted to the list. So many people, including me, want to be CCed, just in case a post is not accepted. Also, congratulations. You've come up with some great arguments some of which are not consistent with glutamate being redness. Again, as I was replying to Rafal, this kind of falsifiability is the point. You just need any working hypothesis of what could be redness. What we are describing is the technique to falsify that, or any other theory. The important thing is describing a non qualia blind method for experimentalists to use, to falsify such theories. Brent On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 5:51 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:50 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat > wrote: > > Brent: > I think I have a way to disprove your idea about physical substances in > the brain producing qualia, > > Is your position that specific types of molecule in the brain (e.g. the > infamous glutamate) are what produce specific qualia (e.g. the infamous > 'red'), and that this mapping is one-to-one (e.g. glutamate and only > glutamate produces the 'red' quale and only that)? > > >Yes > > The consequence of this would be that if you removed glutamate from > someone's brain (without killing them somehow), that person would be > incapable of experiencing 'red'. > > >Exactly > > > OK, good. > > My original idea turned out to be more difficult to verify than I > expected, but it also gave me two other ideas, that are better, and easier. > > Only one is necessary, so I'll talk about the easiest one to explain and > understand, and just mention the other one > > I'm going to call this the 'availability argument'. > > If a specific type of molecule produces a specific quale as you claim, > then that type of molecule must be deployed or activated somehow, for the > quale to become active. The example you always give, of glutamate, is a > neurotransmitter, that's released at the pre-synaptic membrane, which is > when it does its job of transmitting data from one neuron to another. If > this is also when it somehow causes the 'red' quale to become active, we > have an impossible situation. > > That's because of the very large number of qualia that can exist. We know > that humans are capable of distinguishing several million different > colours, and that's only a tiny fraction of all the qualia that can be > experienced. There are probably at least hundreds of millions of qualia > that are possible. By your own claim, each of them must be produced by a > different type of molecule. This means we must have hundreds of millions of > distinct types of molecule at the ready to be activated when needed. If we > assume that most of these molecules are proteins (because there aren't > enough varieties of any other kind of molecule, and and other type would > have to be made by proteins anyway), theoretically there is no problem in > creating them, we know that given enough amino acids, an arbitrarily large > number of different proteins can be created. The problem is in having them > available to be deployed when they are needed. > > Neurotransmitters are created in the neuronal cell body and transported > down the axon, then stored in vesicles just inside the pre-synaptic > membrane. Generally, one neuron uses one neurotransmitter (although that is > being called into question now, it doesn't really matter for this argument, > because the number of different neurotransmitters any one neuron uses is > certainly low). When needed (when an action potential depolarises the > synaptic membrane), a set of molecules on the inner surface of the membrane > links the vesicles to the membrane, fusing them and releasing the contents > of the vesicles into the synaptic cleft. > > We have identified somewhere between one hundred and two hundred different > signalling molecules that can be used as neurotransmitters. Let's be > generous and say a thousand exist. That's far short of the number of > 'quale-producing' molecules we need, so it's obvious that it can't just be > neurotransmitters that are involved. > > Let's assume, then, that some other, currently unknown system is > responsible for the production of qualia, via these hundreds of millions of > different types of molecule. > > The core of my argument is that these molecules can't possibly be > pre-existing, ready to be deployed within a fraction of a second in the way > that neurotransmitters are, because we would see them. We would know about > the ridiculously huge numbers of different molecules just hanging around in > our nervous system waiting for an appropriate signal to release them, or > activate them, or whatever. We don't see this, we see a comparatively small > number of signalling molecules instead. > > If they can't be stored ready for use, maybe they can be created when > needed? > > That doesn't work either. Protein synthesis is not quick. it takes a few > seconds to translate each amino acid, so a large protein (necessary, if we > are to have hundreds of millions of distinct ones) will take minutes to > produce at least. Then there's the transport of the proteins from the > endoplasmic reticulum where they're made to the site/s where they are > needed. For neurotransmitters, this means a trip down an axon, which is > even slower. > > So on-demand synthesis is not an option either. > > There's also a parsimony issue. Why would our brains make and keep ready a > vast set of molecules for qualia that we may never use? A native of a > tropical forest is very unlikely to ever experience snow. Why keep all the > molecules needed for this in his brain ready for use? We know that if such > a native is exposed to snow, he will instantly experience a new set of > qualia, without having to wait for a set of new molecules to be produced. > With all the overhead involved in creating and maintaining a very large > number of unused molecules, I'm sure evolution would have weeded out any > such profligacy a long time ago. > > The upshot of all this is that there is an availability problem. Hundreds > of millions of different types of molecule simply can't be made available > for the production of qualia on the milliseconds timescale that we need. So > the production of qualia can't be something that relies on a one-to-one > correspondence with specific types of molecule. > > > Another argument involves possible mechanisms for activating or deploying > these molecules (assuming it was possible for them to be ready and > waiting), and how any individual neuron or collection of neurons could know > just which molecule to pick. I'm not going to unravel this argument here, > but essentially it leads right back to what we currently know about how our > nervous system works, and makes an enormous set of specific types of > molecule redundant. > > > If you, or anyone else, can see any flaws in the 'availability argument' > above, please let me know. > > > Oh, and PS: *Please stop Cc'ing my email address in your replies to the > list*. I don't want to have to create a filter to automatically delete > any emails from you. > > Thanks. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 18:08:12 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 13:08:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: School sucks. It's not a surprise when kids don't care. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 18:29:02 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 11:29:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ben, this is all classic qualia blindness Sure, everything you say is true, within a naive model of reality, perception and epistemology of color. Within your overly simplistic model, the closest thing you can give to a physical definition of ?red? is to a particular wavelength of light. But that can't account for the inverted color perception facts portrayed in this video . All the 40 and growing number of experts that are supporting (have signed) ?Representational Qualia Theory ? are pointing out is that everything in physics, today, including all peer reviewed journals on perception of color are, like you are here, ?qualia blind?. Everyone thinks there is a ?hard mind body problem? but there isn?t a hard mind body problem. The only problem is, people are thinking in a qualia blind way as you are doing here. You must distinguish between reality and knowledge of reality. You must have two labels for physical red. Red as a label for anything that reflects or emits red light, and redness as the physical quality of your knowledge of ?red? things. Physics must have both color and colorness properties. For example, the color of glutamate is white, because it reflects white like. It?s colorness property is redness (hypothetically). Glutamate and our description of how it behaves in a synapse being a description of what we directly experience as redness. You must be able to say effing of the ineffable, bridging the explanatory gap things like: My redness is like your greenness, both of which we call red. Otherwise you can?t tell anyone the qualitative color of anything, and everyone that thinks this way must think there is a ?hard mind body problem.? Or an explanatory gap, that can?t be solved. On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:43 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Brent Allsop wrote: > > >If you surgically remove your eyes, and are put into a room with no > light, then stimulate the optic nerve, identical to the way it would be > when looking at a strawberry. You would have identical knowledge of the > strawberry. What is that knowledge, and what is it that has the redness > quality you experience? This can?t be ?perception? as that requires eyes. > It is simply conscious knowledge, the result of perception. > > > You are making a meaningless distinction. I would see a strawberry > (there's no need to say "have knowledge of", that's just an unnecessarily > complicated way of saying the same thing). > > My eyes would be whatever provides the pattern of signals to my brain, > instead of my original biological eyes. Even if that was a stored pattern > in a computer, the pattern would be my eyes. Rather limited eyes, but by > definition, whatever provides sensory signals to my visual cortex (or optic > nerves, or any point along that pathway) is my eyes. > > "What is that knowledge", I can only interpret as "what do you see?", so > the answer is "A strawberry". "What is it that has the redness quality?" = > "What is red?". Um, The strawberry! > > And if you're going to say "but the strawberry doesn't exist!", all I can > say is yes, it does, in two different ways. A 'real' strawberry must have > been used to create the stored pattern (or perhaps a composite of several > strawberries), and a representation of a strawberry exists in my brain, > exactly the same as when I used to see strawberries with my biological > eyes. > > In the virtual reality that my brain creates all the time, it's this > representation that's the important thing. In a sense, this is more 'real' > than the physical object that presumably exists, or has existed, in the > outside world. We can, after all, perceive and act upon things that have no > existence in the outside world. Beauty, for example, or jealousy. Or the > ghost I saw in the middle of my bedroom the other night (which turned out > to be the silhouette of my cats head about two inches from my face). > > What constitutes the representation of a strawberry in my brain? Exactly > the same pattern of neural activity as before, when I looked at a > strawberry with my biological eyes. > > Perception does not require eyes, or any other *specific* sensory organ > (I'm sure you're not claiming that I don't perceive music because my eyes > are not involved, or that there's no such thing as the perception of cool > wet grass because it involves several different sensory channels). > Perception requires a *brain*. The sensory organs just provide input to > the sensory processes. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 19:00:26 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 13:00:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 12:11 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > School sucks. It's not a surprise when kids don't care. > I loved school, but I loved even more getting out of school and learning what I wanted to when I wanted to. School - a place where what is being taught is not tied to anything important in the kids' lives. Why do this? Why learn this? Questions not answered. Because. Because we all have to do it. It's the law. Etc. Kids complaining that nothing is relevant to them have a point. bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 22:44:33 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 16:44:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: meant for everyone, Dave ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Dave Sill Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 1:08 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology To: William Flynn Wallace Did you mean to send this only to me? On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 1:51 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > I think we now know how to prevent cystic fibrosis. Any scientific > procedure can have unintended complications, but morally I would go ahead > and prevent it. Wouldn't you? And natural selection is so very slow. > After all, barring some truly impossible event, humans are here to stay. > Offspring not making it to maturity and not passing on genes is likely to > do little to extinguish those genes - too many people around with them. As > for mutations, I don't know what you are talking about. I was talking > about known diseases to eliminate. bill w > > On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 8:20 AM Dave Sill wrote: > >> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 11:52 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> But as you know more than most, we have thousands of diseases or >>> conditions with some genetic links that we have had for many millennia and >>> they are still around. Just waiting for natural selection seems a poor >>> choice. I can see a future where everyone will get genetic testing, paid >>> for in part by the government, since health conditions of children drain a >>> lot of public funds. Prevention is always better. Of course there will be >>> those who resist such testing and they will be shown that they are paying >>> the price by the poorer health of their children compared to those tested. >>> >> >> No doubt there are some obvious fixes we could apply, but don't pooh-pooh >> natural selection: it's done us right so far. There's more we don't know >> about genetics and epigenetics than we do know, and our "fixes" may turn >> out to be naive or have unintended consequences. Genetic diversity is good >> for the species--we never know when a mutation will turn out to be >> beneficial for some new disease or condition. >> >> -Dave >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 00:50:24 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 18:50:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Exoskeleton Win Message-ID: <3FC40DED-9702-4162-A8A9-D429715443AF@gmail.com> Paralyzed man breaks world record for finishing a marathon in an exoskeleton suit https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/12/us/paralyzed-man-charleston-marathon-record-trnd/index.html ?A South Carolina man competing in the 2020 Charleston Marathon has beaten the world record for the fastest time to finish a marathon in an exoskeleton suit. Adam Gorlitsky, who is paralyzed from the waist down, completed Saturday's 26.2-mile race with a time of 33 hours, 50 minutes and 23 seconds? ?In December 2005, Gorlitsky was in a car accident that left him paralyzed from a severe spinal cord injury. His doctors thought he would never be able to walk again. But after 10 years, Gorlitsky was able to stand up and walk using a ReWalk Robotic Exoskeleton.? ?Along with completing the marathon, Gorlitsky has walked in nearly 50 road races all around the country. But his next goal, he joked, is to face the man whose record he beat. "I want to challenge Simon to a one-on-one exoskeleton race one day," Gorlitsky said. "I'd love to go head to head with him on his home turf at the London Marathon."? It?s written as a ?feel-good? price but very cool news, nonetheless. I would be excited for there to be an exoskeleton race created. SR Ballard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 00:53:24 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 19:53:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 5:47 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I think we now know how to prevent cystic fibrosis. Any scientific >> procedure can have unintended complications, but morally I would go ahead >> and prevent it. Wouldn't you? >> > As a hypothetical, sure. Obviously nobody wants anyone to have CF. And that may be one of the low-hanging fruit, where the genetic cause clear and simple and the downsides clearly outweigh any potential upsides. But there are thousands of illnesses caused by genetic defects, and many have multiple contributing genetic factors and the downsides are much less dire. E.g., something like a disposition towards vitiligo, which is mostly cosmetic...say fixing it turns out to have some bad side effect later in life like increased Alzheimer's risk. > And natural selection is so very slow. After all, barring some truly >> impossible event, humans are here to stay. >> > Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it's impossible. And if poorly thought out genetic mods break something, it could be more likely. > Offspring not making it to maturity and not passing on genes is likely to >> do little to extinguish those genes - too many people around with them. >> > Well, that's exactly how natural selection works. Bad genes die out all the time. > As for mutations, I don't know what you are talking about. I was >> talking about known diseases to eliminate. >> > Genetic changes are the origin of the genetic flaws that cause genetic diseases. Mutations are also the source of genetic changes that result in improvements. Do we want a stagnant gene pool, or do we want the kind of diversity that's worked for millions of years? If we knew the human genome inside and out and knew all of the upsides and downsides to edits, that would be one thing. But we're still mostly in the dark. It's too soon to make self-editing routine. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 01:29:35 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 20:29:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In my opinion, school should: 1) Track students into what they are interested in. Yes, learn to spell, basic arithmetic, etc. Not everyone needs calculus, or needs to read Dickens. And I went to a big "core education" school (University of Chicago) but I think that the core can be kind of elitist. 2) Integrate work into school far more. IMO, every student should be in an apprenticeship by the time they are 16. Imagine little Timmy is interested in gardening. So teach him to garden from age 10 to age 20. With an education like that, who needs college? College doesn't mean shit these days because bachelor's degrees are so oversaturated that you need a higher degree anyway for everything but basic stuff. Much better to teach kids work skills and other stuff like financial/social/emotional skills than to force non-mathy kids to take calc. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 02:17:11 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 18:17:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology Message-ID: wrote: snip [Keith] >>...Got a pointer? > Do you mean for the event? No, to the writings or something about this Dr. Stock. Couldn't tell which one you were talking about. snip ? Keith you hit upon something important. The limeys set us up for greatness: they got the industrial revolution going in England with the coal power and the this and the that, but there isn't much land on those islands out there west of Europe, so a bunch of us bred-for-wealth-building English lads came over to the colonies in about the 1700s where there was this big old pristine continent in desperate need of industrialization and young men seeking to make buttloads of money, these including all of my direct ancestors, and I would just be letting them down if I failed to carry on the tradish, ja? I think your characterization of the colonization of the US is not very accurate. Most of population were farmers until late in the game. I also think you need to reread Clark. >> Oh man, there just hasta be some way I can make a buttload of money > from this. >...You did. Keith _______________________________________________ > Well, OK sure there is that, but your idea really has my wheels spinning. I think you are onto something important, something which has a lotta explanatory power. > For instance, let me just offer a vague outline. The notion of collecting a pile of assets is universal I really doubt this. If you are a nomatic hunter-gatherer, what are you going to do with such assets? At the minimum a society has to be sedentary for wealth accumulation to be practical. > but there are different mindsets that appear to be cultural. Clark makes the case that it is mostly genetic. > Consider the extremes: the understated style of the young wealth-building English-ancestor guy. Clark did his work in the UK, statistically analyzing many thousands of probated wills. The selection he found was indirect, the children of the poor died in the frequent famines. But it is clear that the same selection was going on in most of north western Europe so German ancestr;y doesn't hurt. He specifically mentions the Chinese at the end of the "genetically capitalist" article. Though the selection in China was less intense, it went on much longer. > You and I met at least one at a cryonics event (I think you were there) over at the Tied House in Palo Alto about 15 yrs ago and I don't even remember his name, but he was one of the local billllionehs. I think I know who you mean. If so, I might have been editing his Wikipedia page recently. snip > Contrast that with the rap culture hip-hop star millionaire, the style: jewelry, outrageous cars and so on. Right up the hill in sight of my house is an enormous estate built by one of them, MC Hammer. He went broke because he overdid everything, and doesn't live there now, but everything there is so overstated, it is practically a museum. One look at his Wikipedia page makes it clear that not many of his ancestors were subjected to the kind of selection Clark found. Which is why Clark gets in trouble. It's not possible to say that certain human groups were subject to harsh selection without implying that there are differences between the groups. This is reality, but not PC. snip > It isn't clear if that observation goes anywhere near Stock's theory, but I have some thinking to do on that. Need that pointer so I can see what you are talking about. Keith From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 14 02:34:20 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 18:34:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002201d5ca83$203553f0$609ffbd0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat >>...Got a pointer? > Do you mean for the event? >...No, to the writings or something about this Dr. Stock. Couldn't tell which one you were talking about. Keith I probably misunderstood what you originally wrote. I thought you wrote Gregory Stock, but this study is by Clark? OK, retract, cool. This Dr. Stock is one who has hung around with transhumanist groups for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Stock He wrote Metaman, which is a bit on the easy-breezy side, but I liked it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaman I was reading Stock before I even heard of Max More. Metaman came out in 1993. spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 04:26:42 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 12:26:42 +0800 Subject: [ExI] 20 Technology Metatrends That Will Define the Next Decade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "Augmented human longevity" does seem a bit wordy... On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 11:23 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Increasing "healthspan". > > yea, that's the term to use. > Every time I say Increasing lifespan, everyone thinks you are only talking > about getting ever older and more decrepit. > > On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 7:44 PM John Grigg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> "In the decade ahead, waves of exponential technological advancements are >> stacking atop one another, eclipsing decades of breakthroughs in scale and >> impact. >> >> Emerging from these waves are 20 ?metatrends? likely to revolutionize >> entire industries (old and new), redefine tomorrow?s generation of >> businesses and contemporary challenges, and transform our livelihoods from >> the bottom up. >> >> Among these metatrends are augmented human longevity, the surging smart >> economy, AI-human collaboration, urbanized cellular agriculture, and >> high-bandwidth brain-computer interfaces, just to name a few. >> >> It is here that master entrepreneurs and their teams must see beyond the >> immediate implications of a given technology, capturing second-order, >> Google-sized business opportunities on the horizon. >> >> Welcome to a new decade of runaway technological booms, historic >> watershed moments, and extraordinary abundance." >> >> >> >> https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/10/20-tech-metatrends-to-look-out-for-in-the-2020s/ >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 12:55:50 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 07:55:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 8:32 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > In my opinion, school should: > > 1) Track students into what they are interested in. Yes, learn to spell, > basic arithmetic, etc. Not everyone needs calculus, or needs to read > Dickens. And I went to a big "core education" school (University of > Chicago) but I think that the core can be kind of elitist. > > 2) Integrate work into school far more. IMO, every student should be in > an apprenticeship by the time they are 16. > > Imagine little Timmy is interested in gardening. So teach him to garden > from age 10 to age 20. With an education like that, who needs college? > College doesn't mean shit these days because bachelor's degrees are so > oversaturated that you need a higher degree anyway for everything but basic > stuff. Much better to teach kids work skills and other stuff like > financial/social/emotional skills than to force non-mathy kids to take calc. > Yes to all of that. Once upon a time, when kids reached high school they gravitated toward one of two tracks: college prep or trade school (prep). That's kind of degraded since every parent seems to want their kids to get a degree, and trades are looked down upon. Today, skilled tradespeople are out-earning a lot of college grads. IMO, higher education has become something of a scam, piling huge debt on students who are ill-prepared to pay it back. A more trade-like approach to some careers like accounting, marketing, programming, web development, etc., that's based on work experience, certifications, and portfolios would allow young people to acquire earning potential much faster and cheaper. Where high school really needs to improve, though, is in the teaching of life skills like: managing finances, decision making/problem solving/critical thinking, parenting, negotiating, studying, communication, finding and keeping a job, etc. Those are areas where a little education could yield significant improvement in quality of life. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 14 15:46:51 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 07:46:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006a01d5caf1$d7284f90$8578eeb0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat >?Yes to all of that. Once upon a time, when kids reached high school they gravitated toward one of two tracks: college prep or trade school (prep). That's kind of degraded since every parent seems to want their kids to get a degree, and trades are looked down upon. ?Where high school really needs to improve, though, is in the teaching of life skills like: managing finances, decision making/problem solving/critical thinking, parenting, negotiating, studying, communication, finding and keeping a job, etc. Those are areas where a little education could yield significant improvement in quality of life. -Dave Dave, consider how we have used the term escape velocity. Orbit mechanics guys use it the literal way: the velocity needed to escape the surly bonds of earth, get up there, coast around indefinitely, etc. We starry-eyed dreamers and future gazers talk about forms of immortality, a time when medical technology advances so quickly that lifespans and health spans increase a year every year, so we achieved escape velocity in medicine, in a figurative sense. Your commentary above reflects a very traditional view of life and society, the one which has served us so long and so well, the one I certainly grew up with and know. Think now about what escape velocity means to a lot of young people today. They are dreaming of ways to escape the dreary 9 to 5 their parents and grandparents knew and accepted. There are plenty of alternate paths today, and some of them are not dreadfully uncomfortable really. I wouldn?t choose those alternatives, but I ain?t young. Were I a teenager now looking at my options, I might well choose an alternative path, and it wouldn?t require very much of the kinds of things schools have to offer. Society today is making it ever easier to be a freeloader, particularly if one is young, capable, self-sufficient and healthy. We are collectively approaching escape velocity from office life, at least for some. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 16:22:23 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 10:22:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? In-Reply-To: <006a01d5caf1$d7284f90$8578eeb0$@rainier66.com> References: <006a01d5caf1$d7284f90$8578eeb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yes to everything Dave and Will and Spike said. I think maybe we need a bit of research looking at future jobs since they seem to be changing so rapidly. One little bit of trouble I have is trying to force kids into a career path before they even know much about the world or what they want or are good at. The trade school option does that more than the college option. I didn't know I was rabid about gardening until my 30s. If I had known that earlier I would have had an excellent alternative to what I did, but that's impossible to measure. I did not know until my junior year in college that I loved psychology. What we really need are aptitude tests and we don't have any. Oh, we have some named that, but they are really achievement tests. And all, I think, are paper and pencil (Henry??). How do we measure emotional and social intelligence with paper and pencil? Not well, I suspect. bill w On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 9:49 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Dave Sill via extropy-chat > > > > >?Yes to all of that. Once upon a time, when kids reached high school they > gravitated toward one of two tracks: college prep or trade school (prep). > That's kind of degraded since every parent seems to want their kids to get > a degree, and trades are looked down upon. ?Where high school really needs > to improve, though, is in the teaching of life skills like: managing > finances, decision making/problem solving/critical thinking, parenting, > negotiating, studying, communication, finding and keeping a job, etc. Those > are areas where a little education could yield significant improvement in > quality of life. -Dave > > > > > > Dave, consider how we have used the term escape velocity. Orbit mechanics > guys use it the literal way: the velocity needed to escape the surly bonds > of earth, get up there, coast around indefinitely, etc. > > > > We starry-eyed dreamers and future gazers talk about forms of immortality, > a time when medical technology advances so quickly that lifespans and > health spans increase a year every year, so we achieved escape velocity in > medicine, in a figurative sense. > > > > Your commentary above reflects a very traditional view of life and > society, the one which has served us so long and so well, the one I > certainly grew up with and know. Think now about what escape velocity > means to a lot of young people today. They are dreaming of ways to escape > the dreary 9 to 5 their parents and grandparents knew and accepted. There > are plenty of alternate paths today, and some of them are not dreadfully > uncomfortable really. I wouldn?t choose those alternatives, but I ain?t > young. Were I a teenager now looking at my options, I might well choose an > alternative path, and it wouldn?t require very much of the kinds of things > schools have to offer. > > > > Society today is making it ever easier to be a freeloader, particularly if > one is young, capable, self-sufficient and healthy. We are collectively > approaching escape velocity from office life, at least for some. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 16:31:36 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 10:31:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Dope was Re: state of conflict technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I agree with all of what you say. But I am looking into the future maybe a hundred or more years ahead. Now we know little and should be cautious, but you will never have a situation where you can predict the outcome of meddling with genes perfectly. Never. We will be experimenting on babies. Period. I don't know of any other way to gain the knowledge. bill w On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 6:53 PM Dave Sill wrote: > On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 5:47 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I think we now know how to prevent cystic fibrosis. Any scientific >>> procedure can have unintended complications, but morally I would go ahead >>> and prevent it. Wouldn't you? >>> >> > As a hypothetical, sure. Obviously nobody wants anyone to have CF. And > that may be one of the low-hanging fruit, where the genetic cause clear and > simple and the downsides clearly outweigh any potential upsides. But there > are thousands of illnesses caused by genetic defects, and many have > multiple contributing genetic factors and the downsides are much less dire. > E.g., something like a disposition towards vitiligo, which is mostly > cosmetic...say fixing it turns out to have some bad side effect later in > life like increased Alzheimer's risk. > > >> And natural selection is so very slow. After all, barring some truly >>> impossible event, humans are here to stay. >>> >> > Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it's impossible. And if > poorly thought out genetic mods break something, it could be more likely. > > >> Offspring not making it to maturity and not passing on genes is likely to >>> do little to extinguish those genes - too many people around with them. >>> >> > Well, that's exactly how natural selection works. Bad genes die out all > the time. > > >> As for mutations, I don't know what you are talking about. I was >>> talking about known diseases to eliminate. >>> >> > Genetic changes are the origin of the genetic flaws that cause genetic > diseases. Mutations are also the source of genetic changes that result in > improvements. Do we want a stagnant gene pool, or do we want the kind of > diversity that's worked for millions of years? > > If we knew the human genome inside and out and knew all of the upsides and > downsides to edits, that would be one thing. But we're still mostly in the > dark. It's too soon to make self-editing routine. > > -Dave > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 20:00:27 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 15:00:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] 20 Technology Metatrends That Will Define the Next Decade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 9:46 PM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/10/20-tech-metatrends-to-look-out-for-in-the-2020s/ > If somebody believes that prediction #7 has a pretty good chance of coming true in the next 10 years then I don't understand how they could not also believe they need to modify their previous rather radical libertarian (small l) philosophy, at least where purely economic issues are concerned. I do think it's rather likely so I have made the modification. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 20:13:21 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 14:13:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 20 Technology Metatrends That Will Define the Next Decade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Prediction from me: there will be little pills you will swallow that will analyze the microbes in your gut and nag you with messages to your phone about what you are eating: "Hey, slow down on the bacon, will ya? You have exceeded your saturated fat for the week, much less today!" bill w On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 2:03 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 9:46 PM John Grigg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/10/20-tech-metatrends-to-look-out-for-in-the-2020s/ >> > > If somebody > believes that prediction #7 has a pretty good chance of coming true in the > next 10 years then I don't understand how they could not also believe they > need to modify their previous rather radical libertarian (small l) > philosophy, at least where purely economic issues are concerned. I do think > it's rather likely so I have made the modification. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 20:44:34 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 15:44:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] 20 Technology Metatrends That Will Define the Next Decade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 3:15 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Prediction from me: there will be little pills you will swallow that > will analyze the microbes in your gut and nag you with messages to your > phone about what you are eating: "Hey, slow down on the bacon, will ya? > You have exceeded your saturated fat for the week, much less today!" bill w > My prediction is there will be a genetic engineering bubble much like the Internet bubble of the late 1990's, and one company will be set up to use CRISPR technology to modify the genome in e-coli gut bacteria so it produces the aromatic compound in rose oil; then somebody could say with perfect honesty "my shit don't stink" and people would even thank them when they farted. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 20:35:15 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 15:35:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Big Ideas 2020 Message-ID: I thought some might find this interesting. Although it's aimed at investors, it also provides a nice overview of where things are headed... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Big Ideas 2020-Final_011020.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 9098419 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 22:09:40 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 16:09:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 20 Technology Metatrends That Will Define the Next Decade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well, here's to Ben Franklin, whose book Fart Proudly, I have. He did spend some time working on ways to make the gas smell better. Tongue in cheek or serious, you never knew with Ben. bill w On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 2:47 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 3:15 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Prediction from me: there will be little pills you will swallow that >> will analyze the microbes in your gut and nag you with messages to your >> phone about what you are eating: "Hey, slow down on the bacon, will ya? >> You have exceeded your saturated fat for the week, much less today!" bill w >> > > My prediction is there will be a genetic engineering bubble much like the > Internet bubble of the late 1990's, and one company will be set up to use > CRISPR technology to modify the genome in e-coli gut bacteria so it > produces the aromatic compound in rose oil; then somebody could say with > perfect honesty "my shit don't stink" and people would even thank them when > they farted. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 22:17:48 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 16:17:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] tech note Message-ID: I bought a Sony Bravia OLED, 55", picture superb, no surprise there, but the sound comes from the front glass! Surely the biggest surface area of any speaker I have heard of. I can't tell the difference, but of course I wear two hearing aids. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Tue Jan 14 23:03:49 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 23:03:49 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3181d5d6-a009-0495-d784-b53a02b5699c@zaiboc.net> Brent Allsop wrote: > We only use a simplified version of the easiest theory to falsify, > "elemental qualia are molecular material qualities," is to better help > people understand what it means to be qualia blind. Well, I still have no real clue what you mean by 'qualia blind', even after falsifying your theory. It can't mean being blind to qualia, because that's not possible, assuming the word 'qualia' has the commonly-accepted meaning of "subjective experiences". > Also, congratulations.? You've come up with some great arguments some > of which are not consistent with glutamate being redness. I think I've done more than that. I've falsified the theory, wouldn't you say? Anyway, I'm very glad to hear it, and look forward to you not talking about glutamate (or any other substance) somehow being redness any more. Perhaps you can now start thinking about what it /could/ be, if it's not molecules. > You just need any working hypothesis of what could be redness. What we > are describing is the technique to falsify that, or any other theory.? > The important thing is describing a non qualia blind method for > experimentalists to use, to falsify such theories. Well, you could do worse than read what neurologists have to say about how the brain works. Here is a hypothesis that is at least theoretically testable: The experience of redness is accompanied by the presence of certain neural circuits in parts of the visual cortex. (in V8, in the occipital lobe), and that temporarily knocking out these circuits (via local electrodes, or a drug, or some other means) would prevent the perception of redness (as well as all other colours, quite possibly). If this was done precisely enough, it would at least demonstrate that the perception of colour was dependent on these circuits. If some kind of neural interface was developed that could link to precise sets of neurons, you could maybe even pinpoint circuits that only affect the perception of a specific hue and saturation of redness and not other colours. With enough investigation of this kind, you could probably even tease out the entire route of a large neural circuit that travels round the visual areas, the thalamus and other parts of the brain, and be able to say "this circuit here, is redness (Hue 0, Sat 67%) (Strawberry, as it happens). If interrupting or disrupting that circuit removes that specific redness quale (such that the subject would report that they can't see it, and tests could verify that), then you've pinned it down. You now know what that quale actually is. In case you wondered where the 'Lightness' component went, I think it will be conveyed by the frequency of the spikes in the circuit, but again, that's something that could be experimentally verified. I say that this is theoretically testable. It may require uploading-level technology to actually be able to test it, as the 'circuits' I'm talking about are unlikely to be simple loops or patterns like you'd see on an electronic circuit board. They are probably very complex, with many branches and loops. Probably the term 'network' is more appropriate than 'circuits'. Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 15 14:18:43 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 09:18:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quantum Computers Message-ID: The Hype Over Quantum Computers, Explained John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 15 18:58:22 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 13:58:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Betelgeuse Message-ID: It's probably just a coincidence but LIGO just detected a Gravitational Wave from the same general area of the sky as Betelgeuse. It?s probably nothing: Gravitational wave burst detected near Betelgeuse John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Wed Jan 15 20:43:19 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 20:43:19 +0000 Subject: [ExI] e: 20 Technology Metatrends That Will Define the Next Decade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 14/01/2020 20:13, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Prediction from me:? there will be little pills you will swallow that > will analyze the microbes in your gut and nag you with messages to > your phone about what you are eating:? "Hey, slow down on the bacon, > will ya?? You have exceeded your saturated fat for the week, much less > today!" Perfect example of a very common problem: No matter how advanced your technology, it's worse than useless if the assumptions it uses are wrong. On the other hand, this kind of technology could be used to find out for sure, on an individual basis, what is actually good and bad for you. Ben Zaiboc From giulio at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 08:40:06 2020 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 09:40:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Tales of the Turing Church, second edition: Public draft Message-ID: Tales of the Turing Church, second edition: Public draft Here?s a public draft of the second edition of my book ?Tales of the Turing Church: Hacking religion, enlightening science, awakening technology.? https://turingchurch.net/tales-of-the-turing-church-second-edition-public-draft-40c831e99de1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 20:32:35 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 15:32:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The USA is no longer the uncontested leader in science Message-ID: 25% of the amount of money spent on R&D worldwide is spent by the USA, for China it's 23%; but in the USA it's increasing by only 4.3% a year, in China it's increasing by 17% a year. China is closing gap with the USA on research John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 20:42:53 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 14:42:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The USA is no longer the uncontested leader in science In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yeah? Just how much of the money China spends is on industrial espionage? bill w On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 2:36 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > 25% of the amount of money spent on R&D worldwide is spent by the USA, for > China it's 23%; but in the USA it's increasing by only 4.3% a year, in > China it's increasing by 17% a year. > > China is closing gap with the USA on research > > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 20:47:05 2020 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 21:47:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The USA is no longer the uncontested leader in science In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: That is a form of research, no? /Henrik Den tors 16 jan. 2020 21:45William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> skrev: > Yeah? Just how much of the money China spends is on industrial espionage? > bill w > > On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 2:36 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> 25% of the amount of money spent on R&D worldwide is spent by the USA, >> for China it's 23%; but in the USA it's increasing by only 4.3% a year, in >> China it's increasing by 17% a year. >> >> China is closing gap with the USA on research >> >> >> John K Clark >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 21:09:03 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 15:09:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?A_step_forward_in_Alzheimer=E2=80=99s_investigat?= =?utf-8?q?ion?= Message-ID: <9D104F53-BDDF-4B86-BB5D-1D4E2ECCBC03@gmail.com> Possible Missing Link in Alzheimer?s Pathology Identified https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/possible-missing-link-in-alzheimers-pathology-identified/ ?Alzheimer's disease has long been characterized by the buildup of two distinct proteins in the brain: first beta-amyloid, which accumulates in clumps, or plaques, and then tau, which forms toxic tangles that lead to cell death. But how beta-amyloid leads to the devastation of tau has never been precisely clear.? ?Buildup of beta-amyloid activates a receptor that responds to a brain chemical called norepinephrine, which is commonly known for mobilizing the brain and body for action. Activation of this receptor by both beta-amyloid and norepinephrine boosts the activity of an enzyme that activates tau and increases the vulnerability of brain cells to it? ?Beta-amyloid itself can kill neurons but only in very high doses, Wang says. Add norepinephrine, and it takes only 1 to 2 percent as much beta-amyloid to eliminate brain cells in a lab dish.? ?A drug that was developed to treat depression but too ineffective to win approval seems to act on this same pathway, Wang says. The drug, idazoxan, which has also been studied in schizophrenia, has already passed through initial clinical testing and been shown to be safe, she adds. Wang is now looking to promote larger clinical trials of idazoxan to see if it can be used to effectively treat early-stage Alzheimer?s. She hopes that eventually, a drug can be developed that will act on this Alzheimer?s-related pathway in a more targeted way to minimize side effects and maximize effectiveness.? Hopefully his disease won?t exist by the time I have to worry about it. SR Ballard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 21:10:41 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 15:10:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The USA is no longer the uncontested leader in science In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <59C224B5-0BBD-4DDC-96B3-2464543C619D@gmail.com> I agree, industrial espionage is a form of ?research?. We advanced so much after WWII because we ?stole? the best and brightest German scientists. SR Ballard > On Jan 16, 2020, at 2:47 PM, Henrik Ohrstrom via extropy-chat wrote: > > That is a form of research, no? > > /Henrik > > > Den tors 16 jan. 2020 21:45William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat skrev: >> Yeah? Just how much of the money China spends is on industrial espionage? bill w >> >> On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 2:36 PM John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >>> 25% of the amount of money spent on R&D worldwide is spent by the USA, for China it's 23%; but in the USA it's increasing by only 4.3% a year, in China it's increasing by 17% a year. >>> >>> China is closing gap with the USA on research >>> >>> John K Clark >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Jan 17 14:16:59 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 09:16:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The USA is no longer the uncontested leader in science In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 3:53 PM Henrik Ohrstrom via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > That is a form of research, no? > Not all research is science. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 17 20:26:15 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 14:26:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] health note - hearing Message-ID: A friend my age, 77, needs aids. He is aghast at the prices, which run to thousands. I told him never pay this much. I did, and found out later I was ripped off. Everyone is ripped off with aids. A hearing aid guy told me that if everyone who needed one got one, the prices would be around $350. So when mine died, I went to eBay, got two ReSound aids and a remote for $600. Middle of the line. But the things is, the expensive functions don't work that well. They promise to shield you from background noise - the usual complaint - HAHAHAHA! Forget that and forget all those other niceties. Just get a recent aid from a top brand, Germany makes good ones, have the hearing aid guy adjust them for you, and you have saved thousands. I have bought many things from eBay and Amazon used and never had one problem. In any case, there are guarantees from both places. You might even try Craigslist. 100% of males will need one or two. You are losing your highs (makes me remember Eagles singing Desperado) if you are over 60, and music doesn't sound as good, you are asking people to repeat themselves (because the consonants get expressed clearly through the high Hertz notes), and noise in restaurants in beginning to drive you crazy (That will also drive you crazy if you buy the most expensive aids on the market because noise suppression just doesn't work well at all.) Don't get ripped off by the hearing aid professional. Get tested, go home and get on eBay. Most older men wind up with aids, and most older men die fairly soon, so there are many aids there in perfect condition. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mlatorra at gmail.com Fri Jan 17 22:55:02 2020 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 15:55:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] health note - hearing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Good advice. I'm in my late 60s. I know older men with hearing aids and their experience (dissatisfaction) matches yours. Although I am not yet in need of these aids, I can "hear" the need approaching like hoofbeats in the distance. Mike LaTorra On Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 1:29 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > A friend my age, 77, needs aids. He is aghast at the prices, which run to > thousands. I told him never pay this much. I did, and found out later I > was ripped off. Everyone is ripped off with aids. A hearing aid guy told > me that if everyone who needed one got one, the prices would be around $350. > > So when mine died, I went to eBay, got two ReSound aids and a remote for > $600. Middle of the line. But the things is, the expensive functions > don't work that well. They promise to shield you from background noise - > the usual complaint - HAHAHAHA! Forget that and forget all those other > niceties. Just get a recent aid from a top brand, Germany makes good ones, > have the hearing aid guy adjust them for you, and you have saved > thousands. > > I have bought many things from eBay and Amazon used and never had one > problem. In any case, there are guarantees from both places. You might > even try Craigslist. 100% of males will need one or two. You are losing > your highs (makes me remember Eagles singing Desperado) if you are over 60, > and music doesn't sound as good, you are asking people to repeat themselves > (because the consonants get expressed clearly through the high Hertz > notes), and noise in restaurants in beginning to drive you crazy (That will > also drive you crazy if you buy the most expensive aids on the market > because noise suppression just doesn't work well at all.) > > > > Don't get ripped off by the hearing aid professional. Get tested, go home > and get on eBay. Most older men wind up with aids, and most older men die > fairly soon, so there are many aids there in perfect condition. > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 08:57:20 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 03:57:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 11:01 PM SR Ballard wrote: Can?t you abolish the (current form of) police by just... cutting the > funding, and legalizing a lot of petty things? > > ### There is no doubt that the regulatory state has been running rampant for decades, creating thousands of new "crimes" (like speeding) and the police do inflict significant social harm by enforcing them. Yes, in a sane world these made up crimes would be stricken off the books and the much smaller police, preferably private police, would only enforce justified laws. I would however say that this isn't an argument against police in general but rather an argument against stupid people voting to elect depraved and stupid politicians who create harmful laws. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:03:56 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 04:03:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 9:30 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 at 07:16, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > wrote: > > ### Well, yes - real libertarianism is "live and let live", and this > also implies "live and let die". > > I am not my brother's keeper. Removal of legal sanctions for using and > selling dangerous drugs > > would certainly facilitate infliction of self-harm, and some people who > are too timid to use drugs > > now might become victims of their own stupidity - well, so what? We may > offer good advice in > > the spirit of the good Samaritan but if this advice is not heeded, I do > not feel guilty for whatever > > happens. The only situation where this does not apply is of course > children and other wards > > but that's a different story. > > _______________________________________________ > > In response bill wrote the following: > This interpretation is based on the now discredited Social Darwinism > belief system. > Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, > eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century > and a half. > ### Oh, so if I say "live and let live", I am a racist and an imperialist? Well, whatever. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:37:55 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 04:37:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 1:59 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > SR Ballard> wrote: > >> I?m sorry, but some people are genetically unfit to have children. >> > > Yeah? Agreed. So what do you want to do about it? Give governments a > say in who is born? > > bill w > ### Why do people always ask What Should the Government Do, instead of asking What Should We Reasonable People Do? SR is right - there are people genetically unfit but still able to have children, in the sense that their actually having a child results in wrongful life. "Wrongful life" is a legal concept that allows children or their guardians to sue their parents for the harm of being born malformed, sick, disabled and suffering, if this harm was preventable and was caused by the parent's failure to take reasonable preventative action. Under the concept of wrongful life there is no need for government commissions, bumptious officials and crusading politicians to force this or that on parents. We, reasonable people, may demand that all parents take complete responsibility, including legal and financial responsibility, for the life, survival and well-being of their children. We may expect all fertile adults in our in-group to show proof of insurance for causing wrongful life and insurance against disability in their children. Private and competitive insurance is a wonderful thing - it creates a responsive, incredibly efficient mechanism for pricing behaviors based on their costs. If carelessly having a child destined to sickness and early death is a cost, a harm, then that cost can be transferred to the parents responsible for it, and thus exert a pressure to change parents' behavior that is commensurate with the potential harm of their behaviors. In a reasonable world having children while genetically healthy and socially productive would be cheap but having sick children while genetically damaged and unproductive would be ruinously expensive. Everything in between would be priced according to the risk imposed on unborn children, letting everybody make informed decisions about having children and encouraging parents to take measures to reduce the risk of harm to their children, such measures to include prenatal testing, carrier testing, genetic screening of potential marriage partners, PGD, and in the future also genetic engineering. It would be a brave and much better new world. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:43:17 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 04:43:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 9:07 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > And yes, having tubes tied is very difficult. They expect you to have two > children, be married, and have your husband?s written consent in some places > ### A non-emergency physician may refuse any procedure for any reason but in general tubal ligation is easy to get with no specific age requirement, much less "husband's consent": https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/10/19/requirements-women-seeking-get-tubes-tied/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:45:11 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 04:45:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] 'Survival of the fittest' ?? In-Reply-To: References: <0A60BAAE-C4E9-4BD1-8E07-29C129108A81@gmail.com> <5F1881EC-FBA7-4758-BBD9-F761BF90943E@gmail.com> <1891174C-E18E-4DAF-8235-34CFA66C72A3@gmail.com> <55832B3E-FA91-41B4-9A10-C80473A1A13A@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 10:52 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/sterilization/how-do-i-get-tubal-ligation-procedure > > ?Depending on where you live, there may be age restrictions or waiting > periods to get a tubal ligation.? > > ?Vasectomies > (aka > male sterilization) are usually a lot cheaper than female sterilization.? > > ?Many ... Planned Parenthood health centers do tubal ligation.? Not all. > > I don?t understand why you think it should be difficult? > ### Vasectomy is cheaper because it's technically easy and very safe, while tubal ligation is more difficult and has a small but no negligible risk of complications. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:49:19 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:49:19 +0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Scientists_Discovered_=E2=80=98Mini-Computers?= =?utf-8?b?4oCZIGluIEh1bWFuIE5ldXJvbnPigJRhbmQgVGhhdOKAmXMgR3JlYXQg?= =?utf-8?q?News_for_AI?= Message-ID: "For 70 years, neurons were considered the basic computational unit of the brain. Yet according to *a new study * published this month in *Science*, the neurons in our cortex, the outermost ?crust? of our brain, seem to have uniquely evolved to sustain incredibly complex computations in their input cables. It?s as if someone finally obtained proof that your computer?s electrical wiring is actually made up of mini-processors, each performing calculations before sending results to a CPU." "It?s weird. It?s controversial. But it has also just been seen for the first time in human neurons." https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/14/scientists-discovered-mini-computers-in-human-neurons-and-thats-great-news-for-ai/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:49:09 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 04:49:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is science fiction like television has never seen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 6:27 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I didn?t like the Altered Carbon show. They transformed a great science > fiction book into third rate TV ?science fiction.? > ### I didn't like the Altered Carbon book. Too much of a leftist eat-the-rich vibe. Didn't watch the show, because I don't watch shows. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:52:48 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:52:48 +0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?How_Google=E2=80=99s_New_Weather_AI_Will_Make_Su?= =?utf-8?q?re_You_Never_Get_Caught_in_the_Rain?= Message-ID: "On Monday, a post on Google?s AI blog shared a machine learning method the company is developing for weather prediction. Google calls the technique ?nowcasting? because it?s set up to predict weather zero to six hours ahead of time, and is focused around weather events like thunderstorms that can quickly morph from clear skies to heavy rains to gusting wind and back again." "By simplifying its methodology and actually using *less* data than existing forecasting techniques, the company believes it can give us accurate, timely weather predictions, especially ones relating to precipitation." https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/15/how-googles-new-weather-ai-makes-instant-accurate-forecasts/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:56:01 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:56:01 +0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?IBM=E2=80=99s_Plan_to_Design_Solid-State_Batteri?= =?utf-8?q?es_Using_Quantum_Tech?= Message-ID: "And that?s not the only collaboration IBM has going with the German car maker. Scientists at IBM and Daimler have joined forces to uses the computing giant?s quantum computers to probe the properties of three molecules that could form in the operation of lithium-sulfur batteries." "This battery chemistry promises to be more powerful, longer-lasting, and cheaper than lithium ion technology and could also make it possible to create solid-state batteries that are, in theory, lighter and more compact. But it?s still experimental at this stage, and there are plenty of mysteries about how all the components interact." "Simulating the three molecules will help us better understand how their behavior will affect important properties like energy storage and discharge, but it can take huge amounts of computing power. Quantum computers hold the promise of doing these kinds of simulations much more efficiently." https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/13/ibms-plan-to-design-solid-state-batteries-using-quantum-tech/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:59:20 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:59:20 +0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?VIDEO=3A_US_special_operations_just_purchased_Si?= =?utf-8?b?ZyBTYXVlcuKAmXMgbmV3IG1hY2hpbmUgZ3VuIOKAkyBoZXJl4oCZcyB3?= =?utf-8?q?hat_it_can_do?= Message-ID: ?For the first time in decades the U.S. military certified a new machine gun, ammunition, and suppressor at the same time, bringing new innovation, portability, and increased lethality to our ground forces, with all components coming from one company,? said Sig Sauer President and CEO Ron Cohen." When will American troops use laser or plasma sidearms? https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/01/video-us-special-operations-just-purchased-sig-sauers-new-machine-gun-heres-what-it-can-do/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 10:27:53 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 05:27:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <3181d5d6-a009-0495-d784-b53a02b5699c@zaiboc.net> References: <3181d5d6-a009-0495-d784-b53a02b5699c@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 6:05 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Here is a hypothesis that is at least theoretically testable: The > experience of redness is accompanied by the presence of certain neural > circuits in parts of the visual cortex. (in V8, in the occipital lobe), and > that temporarily knocking out these circuits (via local electrodes, or a > drug, or some other means) would prevent the perception of redness (as well > as all other colours, quite possibly). > > If this was done precisely enough, it would at least demonstrate that the > perception of colour was dependent on these circuits. If some kind of > neural interface was developed that could link to precise sets of neurons, > you could maybe even pinpoint circuits that only affect the perception of a > specific hue and saturation of redness and not other colours. With enough > investigation of this kind, you could probably even tease out the entire > route of a large neural circuit that travels round the visual areas, the > thalamus and other parts of the brain, and be able to say "this circuit > here, is redness (Hue 0, Sat 67%) (Strawberry, as it happens). If > interrupting or disrupting that circuit removes that specific redness quale > (such that the subject would report that they can't see it, and tests could > verify that), then you've pinned it down. You now know what that quale > actually is. > ### I think you are on the right track in general but going in the wrong direction: Qualia are best understood as properties of conscious brains, rather than low- and mid-level local circuits. Pinpointing which precise part of a color rosetter in the visual cortex is necessary to trigger conscious perception of a specific hue doesn't tell you that much. Instead I think we will understand the problem better once we move up in our level of analysis, to the detailed workings of whole large-scale networks within the brain. Most likely the answer will be a nothingburger, a huge load of details and a dismissal of the question of "What are qualia, for real?", rather than something groundbreaking, mystery-busting and spiritually uplifting. It would be like our modern answer to "What is life?" - which is just a mass of details about genetics, metabolism, control theory and the like, rather than the discovery of the mystic "elan vital". But, who knows? Future neuroscience and AI research will maybe tell. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 10:59:25 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 18:59:25 +0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Sci-Fi_Set_in_the_2020=E2=80=99s_Predicted_a_Dim?= =?utf-8?q?_Decade_for_Humanity?= Message-ID: "Now that we?re firmly entrenched in the 21st century (which for a long time was shorthand for ?the future? in sci-fi), it?s fascinating to look at all the stories set in this particular decade to see how past SF masters thought things were going to go. One thing is abundantly clear: No matter how bad you think the decade is going to be, sci-fi writers think the 2020s are going to be *worse*." https://www.bookbub.com/blog/science-fiction-set-in-the-2020s -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ilia.stambler at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 11:04:29 2020 From: ilia.stambler at gmail.com (Ilia Stambler) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 13:04:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The UNESCO Committee on Anti-Aging and International Conference on Aging and Disease 2020 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear friends Happy to share some good news: The Executive Committee on Anti-aging and Disease Prevention was recently established in the framework of Science and Technology, Pharmacology and Medicine Themes under an Interactive Atlas along the Silk Roads, UNESCO. The committee inauguration took place during the 2nd (Beijing) Annual International Biomedical Health Conference and the 1st Academician Forum of Transnational Biomedical Field, in Beijing, on December 16, 2019. *See more details about the establishment of the UNESCO Executive Committee on Anti-Aging and Disease Prevention* in the report of the International Society on Aging Disease - ISOAD (one of the main co-organizers of the UNESCO committee) in *Aging and Disease*, the journal of the International Society on Aging and Disease, entitled: ?The Urgent Need for International Action for Anti-aging and Disease Prevention? *Aging and Disease*, 2020, 11(1): 212-215 http://www.aginganddisease.org/article/2020/2152-5250/ad-11-1-212.shtml *And related news:* The next major gathering of the UNESCO Executive Committee on Anti-Aging and Disease Prevention will take place during *the 4th International Conference on Aging and Disease (ICAD 2020) of the International Society on Aging and Disease (ISOAD) that will be held at China National Convention Center, Beijing, China, from October 31 to November 3, 2020**.* About 1,500 scientists, physicians and students are expected to attend this leading conference on biomedical research of aging, aging-related diseases and healthy longevity from all over the world. Here is the detailed information about the conference, including the venue, confirmed speakers, program, call for papers, and registration: http://www.isoad.org/Data/List/Conference We wish the new UNESCO Executive Committee on Anti-Aging and Disease Prevention the best of success in its vitally important mission! And we look forward to seeing you in Beijing, China, from October 31st to November 3rd, 2020! *Thank you for your participation and spreading the word!* On behalf of the International Society on Aging and Disease www.isoad.org https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2744964195551323&id=763771300337299&__tn__=-R https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unesco-committee-anti-aging-international-conference-aging-stambler/ -- Ilia Stambler, PhD Director of Research and Development. Shmuel Harofe Geriatric Medical Center, Beer Yaakov, Israel, Affiliated to Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University http://www.shmuelh.org.il/ Chair. Israeli Longevity Alliance / CSO. Vetek (Seniority) ? The Movement for Longevity and Quality of Life (Israel) *http://www.longevityisrael.org/ * Coordinator. Longevity for All http://www.longevityforall.org Board member. International Longevity Alliance http://www.longevityalliance.org/ Board member. International Society on Aging and Disease http://www.isoad.org Fellow, Policy Director. Global Healthspan Policy Institute https://healthspanpolicy.org/ Author. Longevity History. *A History of Life-Extensionism in the Twentieth Century *; *Longevity Promotion: Multidisciplinary Perspectives * http://longevityhistory.com Email: ilia.stambler at gmail.com Tel: 972-3-961-4296 / 0522-283-578 Skype: iliastam Rishon Lezion. Israel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 12:51:05 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 07:51:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Sci-Fi_Set_in_the_2020=E2=80=99s_Predicted_a_Dim?= =?utf-8?q?_Decade_for_Humanity?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 6:01 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *No matter how bad you think the decade is going to be, sci-fi writers > think the 2020s are going to be worse."* Yes but that's not unique to sci-fi, it's in the very nature of drama that things have to go awry. Except for a few experimental novels that have no plot they all have places where the characters hopes and expectations go disastrously wrong; even novels that have happy endings have some pretty dark parts in the middle, even in romantic comedies there is usually some misunderstanding that causes the 2 lovers to hate each other in the middle of the book. Imagine if in the novel "Jurassic Park" everything had gone exactly as the park's creators originally thought it would, the novel would be about as interesting as reading a documentary about Disney World if Disney World were fictional and had never been actually built. As for reality not being worse than fiction, well, ...we'll see. The winner of the 2020 presidential election is supposed to take power one year from Monday, but he or she may not, instead there is a very real possibility the USA will officially become a dictatorship on Wednesday January 21 2021 at 12 noon Washington time. I sure hope my prediction is as wrong as Orwell's prediction of what 1984 will be like. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 14:10:34 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 08:10:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] addiction p.s. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: re harmful laws: Conservatives, who are the only elected officials we have in Mississippi, are fond of punishment as a means of altering behavior. So they pass laws making possession of small amounts of drugs felonies, which fill up the prisons, and since criminals aren't really American citizens, they deserve nothing. Prisons here are way underfunded and the present rioting and killing (prison gangs) are one result. We will get a federal order soon. To basically spend more money on prisons. So they brought it on themselves, as usual. It will be painful, again as usual, since they won't raise taxes of any kind, and so some agencies will get their funds confiscated to follow federal orders. Who wants to bet that the legislature will fight attempts to lower punishments for minor offenses? Of course they will. To do otherwise is to be soft on crime. Repeating mistakes - as usual. bill w On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 3:00 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 11:01 PM SR Ballard wrote: > > Can?t you abolish the (current form of) police by just... cutting the >> funding, and legalizing a lot of petty things? >> >> ### There is no doubt that the regulatory state has been running rampant > for decades, creating thousands of new "crimes" (like speeding) and the > police do inflict significant social harm by enforcing them. Yes, in a sane > world these made up crimes would be stricken off the books and the much > smaller police, preferably private police, would only enforce justified > laws. I would however say that this isn't an argument against police in > general but rather an argument against stupid people voting to elect > depraved and stupid politicians who create harmful laws. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 18 14:42:56 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 06:42:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Sci-Fi_Set_in_the_2020=E2=80=99s_Predicted_a_Dim?= =?utf-8?q?_Decade_for_Humanity?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00a801d5ce0d$92fd7b00$b8f87100$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Sci-Fi Set in the 2020?s Predicted a Dim Decade for Humanity On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 6:01 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat > wrote: >> No matter how bad you think the decade is going to be, sci-fi writers think the 2020s are going to be worse." >?Yes but that's not unique to sci-fi, it's in the very nature of drama that things have to go awry. Except for a few experimental novels that have no plot they all have places where the characters hopes and expectations go disastrously wrong; even novels that have happy endings have some pretty dark parts in the middle?John K Clark Drama exaggerates life?s dangers and hardships, for good reasons. Any drama that really does imitate life is too boring. Even military and crime drama, the few areas where there really is a lot of intense suffering and danger, must concentrate on the battles. If you ask real front-line soldiers, they will tell you in unison that real military life is far safer and more routine than any of the movies suggest. Likewise, we exaggerate the oddball risks of modern life. It is far safer than many of us imagine. Our biggest daily risks are real and ones we know well. It isn?t anarchy, it isn?t climate change, it isn?t even crime. It is heart attack, cancer and strokes. The ordinary well-known boring stuff is waaaay the hell more likely to spoil our fun than something dramatic but highly unlikely. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 18 14:44:25 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 14:44:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> On Tue, 14 Jan, 2020 at 6:05 PM Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Here is a hypothesis that is at least theoretically testable: The > experience of redness is accompanied by the presence of certain > neural circuits in parts of the visual cortex. (in V8, in the > occipital lobe), and that temporarily knocking out these circuits > (via local electrodes, or a drug, or some other means) would > prevent the perception of redness (as well as all other colours, > quite possibly). > > If this was done precisely enough, it would at least demonstrate > that the perception of colour was dependent on these circuits. If > some kind of neural interface was developed that could link to > precise sets of neurons, you could maybe even pinpoint circuits > that only affect the perception of a specific hue and saturation > of redness and not other colours. With enough investigation of > this kind, you could probably even tease out the entire route of a > large neural circuit that travels round the visual areas, the > thalamus and other parts of the brain, and be able to say "this > circuit here, is redness (Hue 0, Sat 67%) (Strawberry, as it > happens). If interrupting or disrupting that circuit removes that > specific redness quale (such that the subject would report that > they can't see it, and tests could verify that), then you've > pinned it down. You now know what that quale actually is. > > Rafal Smigrodzki replied: > ### I think you are on the right track in general but going in the > wrong direction: Qualia are best understood as properties of conscious > brains, rather than low- and mid-level local circuits. Pinpointing > which precise part of a color rosetter in the visual cortex is > necessary to trigger conscious perception of a specific hue doesn't > tell you that much. Instead I think we will understand the problem > better once we move up in our level of analysis, to the detailed > workings of whole large-scale networks within the brain. > > Most likely the answer will be a nothingburger, a huge load of details > and a dismissal of the question of "What are qualia, for real?", > rather than something groundbreaking, mystery-busting and spiritually > uplifting. It would be like our modern answer to "What is life?" - > which is just a mass of details about genetics, metabolism, control > theory and the like, rather than the discovery of the mystic "elan vital". > > But, who knows? Future neuroscience and AI research will maybe tell. > > Rafal I expect you're right, and the whole brain, or at least large parts of it, will be involved. Even so, it's possible that we could identify a specific pattern in the large-scale networks, and show that it's necessary and sufficient to produce the sensation of the colour 'strawberry'. To be sure, that would be a huge load of details, but it would also answer the question "what is the strawberry-colour quale?", very precisely. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if that answer was only valid for one specific individual. In fact, I'd be very surprised if it wasn't. I suspect a clear and precise answer like this still wouldn't satisfy some people, though! Another potential problem is that it might not just be specific to a single individual, but also to a specific point in time (i.e. it changes over time, because of related changes in the individuals brain due to experience, learning, etc.) In fact, thinking about it, this seems inevitable. I still think, though, that the hypothesis 'qualia are patterns of neural activation' can be shown to be falsifiable, given the appropriate technology. Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 17:57:57 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 09:57:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?VIDEO=3A_US_special_operations_just_purchased_Si?= =?utf-8?b?ZyBTYXVlcuKAmXMgbmV3IG1hY2hpbmUgZ3VuIOKAkyBoZXJl4oCZcyB3?= =?utf-8?q?hat_it_can_do?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 2:34 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > When will American troops use laser or plasma sidearms? > After sufficient advancements in energy storage that a decent number of sufficiently powerful shots can be packed into a sidearm magazine's volume and mass. There are some other advances that need to happen too, but that seems to be the big one. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sat Jan 18 19:54:52 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 11:54:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discovered ?Mini-Computers? in Human Neurons?and That?s Great News for AI Message-ID: <20200118115452.Horde.E0lJyJuPTWYqKIFogbj4Piy@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Grigg: > > "For 70 years, neurons were considered the basic computational unit of the > brain. Yet according to *a new study > * published this month > in *Science*, the neurons in our cortex, the outermost ?crust? of our > brain, seem to have uniquely evolved to sustain incredibly complex > computations in their input cables. It?s as if someone finally obtained > proof that your computer?s electrical wiring is actually made up of > mini-processors, each performing calculations before sending results to a > CPU." Yes, the discovery that dendrites have their own calcium-mediated action potentials that can form biological XOR logic gates is very cool and amazing. It also solves a minor mystery in physiology: the human brain is typically only about 2% the mass of the body, yet accounts for approximately 20% of its energy requirements. So while you are at rest, your brain burns about a fifth of the total calories you are burning despite having only 2% of your cells. If dendrites are XOR or another irreversible logic gate, then dendrites like such gates in general, erase information. This is because you have 2-bits going into the XOR gate but only 1-bit coming out. By Landauer's law, E>=k*T*ln(2), this must cost energy and increase the entropy of your environment. Since each neuron can have something like 5 dendrites and there are some 10^11 neurons, then that's a lot of bits being erased and a lot of heat and entropy being generated, and calories burned, just by thinking. Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 20:46:14 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 15:46:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 9:55 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *it's possible that we could identify a specific pattern in the > large-scale networks, and show that it's necessary and sufficient to > produce the sensation of the colour 'strawberry'.* > I don't think that's possible at all, in fact I'd say it's a logical impossibility. You might be able to show that a specific network pattern in a human biological brain was *sufficient* to cause a mouth to make a noise like "*I am experiencing the visual qualia I experience when I look at a strawberry*", or cause a electronic computer to print out the corresponding ASCII sequence when it is in the corresponding network state. But how in the world could you ever prove the man and the AI were experiencing the same visual qualia, or even prove either of them were experiencing a qualia at all? And even if you could somehow magically do that how could you prove it was *necessary*, how could you prove that some other network state or even something that had nothing to do with networks couldn't produce the same thing? There are after all an infinite number of things that have nothing to do with networks just as there are a infinite number of things that do, so you can't try them all. People are spending way too much time worrying about Artificial Consciousness, I say just concentrate on Artificial Intelligence, once you have that you'll get consciousness for free; it is after all the tactic that Evolution used and it produced you and me and I am a conscious being, you probably are too although I can't prove it. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 20:53:40 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 12:53:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <825853705.771957.1579379997535@mail.yahoo.com> References: <825853705.771957.1579379997535@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <634DAA25-F85E-4915-A144-D13616AC951A@gmail.com> Personal autonomy, yes, but not obedience to others or a right to rule over others. If there's a duty to obey someone, that would mean the obedient don't have personal autonomy, no? The right to rule is the flip side of this. You seem to conflate being ruled by someone else with respecting their autonomy. That's simply not the case in the ordinary meaning of being ruled or of obeying. (No one is someone's obedient servant merely because they don't rob, assault, or kill that person. No one is someone's ruler because that other person doesn't rob, assault, or kill them. If you disagree, then your world must abound in rulers and servants in a way that the terms make no distinctions over anyone save for folks living apart from everyone else.) In fact, an attack on someone's person or life is someone else really attempting to rule over them. It's treating them as if they're not autonomous -- not an end in themselves. And the right to stop them extends only so far as preserving autonomy. That doesn't put one into relationship as their ruler -- as the right ends when they're stopped (and maybe, in some cases, restitution* or further harm prevention+). Regards, Dan * As in you intentionally break my vase, you pay to replace it plus some damages. + As in you're proved to be a repeat offender, perhaps you're no longer permitted near my vase collection. On Saturday, January 11, 2020, 12:52:44 AM PST, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 3:02 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: On the issue of libertarianism: Does anyone have a right to rule over anyone else? Does anyone have a duty to obey anyone else? ### Strictly as a libertarian - of course, yes to both, for many values of "rule" and "obey". Enemies who refuse to let you live - they may need to be ruled, and they certainly must obey. Follows neatly from the notions of personal autonomy that are the bedrock of libertarianism. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 20:54:32 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 12:54:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <376669568.783906.1579380618964@mail.yahoo.com> References: <376669568.783906.1579380618964@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <664DC742-641F-41FC-AF32-38F6EDF7811D@gmail.com> This isn't a silly word game. A duty to not violate rights (and rights imply duties, no?) isn't at all the same as a duty to obey someone else. Hence, my wording: there's no right to rule over anyone else and no duty to obey anyone else. Libertarianism as such doesn't mean there are no values apart from individual ones, just that no one may violate the rights of others in striving for any values -- be these individual values or not, reasonable values or not, transcendent values or not. Thus, let's say someone believes, idiotically, that "survival of the fittest" is his master value. Fine. He can pretend to pursue that value up until he starts to violate others' rights. Yes, applying this and doing policy isn't the sort of crunch out deductions from a set of axioms, but it seems to me your talk here is a smokescreen to avoid what seems to be clear: personal autonomy, which you wax so starkly about elsewhere, must mean someone isn't ruled by others. (And unless you're positing said autonomy is the purview of one or a few people -- which wouldn't be libertarian at all -- then it means no one has a duty to obey others either. Again, don't get caught up in thinking you not abusing anyone you please is you being ruled by them.) Regards, Dan On Saturday, January 11, 2020, 01:24:55 AM PST, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:14 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: Similarly, a duty to obey means you (or whoever has such a duty) must obey. Again, this isn?t about doing whatever you want ? if you have no duty to obey a person or a group. You?d still be bound by other just claims. ### Wait, you have no duty but you are bound? Libertarianism is not a silly word game about the meaning "duty" and "right to rule". Libertarianism is based on acknowledging the value of individual desires as the primary or only basis for building a society, and thus generally refusing to recognize any societal values independent of individual desires. Various communitarian, religious and authoritarian philosophies claim there are values independent of individuals, that justify suppression of individual desires to achieve diverse self-transcendent goals - e.g. religious salvation despite lack of belief, dominance, complete equality of outcomes despite diversity of abilities and desires, protection of the environment despite individual wishes, etc. We libertarians refuse such transcendent claims. We know that self-transcendent value claims are usually power- or prestige-grabs used by various striving sociopaths to elevate their social ranks. We (or at least the reasonable ones among us) apply rational methodologies to find out the specific strategies that are most likely to help us achieve our desires, in a complex system of interactions between multiple individuals. This is a process of discovery, not a simple derivation of rules from axioms, and therefore the outcomes may be occasionally surprising and are always contingent. In some places a ruthless, overbearing state is desirable, in other places a pleasant anarcho-capitalist governance might be possible. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 21:24:22 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 15:24:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: What makes anyone think that a machine can experience anything? Do we know that? I don't think so. If you claim that we do, just how are you measuring that? Sounds like scifi to me. If enough humans say that they are experiencing a vision of a strawberry, I'd take their word for it. I would assume not all would lie. I assume nothing about a machine except that it is not a living thing and cannot be. bill w bill w On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 2:49 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 9:55 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> > *it's possible that we could identify a specific pattern in the >> large-scale networks, and show that it's necessary and sufficient to >> produce the sensation of the colour 'strawberry'.* >> > I don't think that's possible at all, in fact I'd say it's a logical > impossibility. You might be able to show that a specific network pattern in > a human biological brain was *sufficient* to cause a mouth to make a > noise like "*I am experiencing the visual qualia I experience when I look > at a strawberry*", or cause a electronic computer to print out the > corresponding ASCII sequence when it is in the corresponding network state. > But how in the world could you ever prove the man and the AI were > experiencing the same visual qualia, or even prove either of them were > experiencing a qualia at all? And even if you could somehow magically do > that how could you prove it was *necessary*, how could you prove that > some other network state or even something that had nothing to do with > networks couldn't produce the same thing? There are after all an infinite > number of things that have nothing to do with networks just as there are a > infinite number of things that do, so you can't try them all. > > People are spending way too much time worrying about Artificial > Consciousness, I say just concentrate on Artificial Intelligence, once you > have that you'll get consciousness for free; it is after all the tactic > that Evolution used and it produced you and me and I am a conscious being, > you probably are too although I can't prove it. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 21:33:13 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 13:33:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <664DC742-641F-41FC-AF32-38F6EDF7811D@gmail.com> References: <376669568.783906.1579380618964@mail.yahoo.com> <664DC742-641F-41FC-AF32-38F6EDF7811D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 1:04 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Thus, let's say someone believes, idiotically, that "survival of the > fittest" is his master value. Fine. He can pretend to pursue that value up > until he starts to violate others' rights. > What happens when someone - as too many do - believes their most fundamental right is, essentially, to not be bound by anyone else's rights? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 22:10:29 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 09:10:29 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 at 08:26, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What makes anyone think that a machine can experience anything? Do we > know that? I don't think so. If you claim that we do, just how are you > measuring that? Sounds like scifi to me. If enough humans say that they > are experiencing a vision of a strawberry, I'd take their word for it. I > would assume not all would lie. I assume nothing about a machine except > that it is not a living thing and cannot be. bill w > There is good reason to think that if the function of a brain could be reproduced, any associated consciousness would also be reproduced. So if a neuron could be replaced with an artificial neuron that performs the same function, firing in response to stimulation from neurons to which it is connected and stimulating downstream neurons, the brain as a whole would function normally and consciousness would remain the same. If not, there would be an absurd situation where consciousness changes but the subject does not notice any change. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 22:23:23 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:23:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 4:27 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What makes anyone think that a machine can experience anything? > Intelligent behavior. When they are behaving in that way I believe my fellow human beings are experiencing something, and when they are not behaving in that way, such as when they are sleeping or under anesthesia or dead, I believe they are not experiencing anything. > > Do we know that? I don't think so. > What's with this "we" business? I can only speak for myself but no, I don't "know" that, I don't claim this is a rock solid logical principle that always works, it's just a rule of thumb. But it's all I've got and all I'll ever have so it will just have to do. > > If enough humans say that they are experiencing a vision of a > strawberry, I'd take their word for it. > Although not provably correct that's sounds like a perfectly reasonable course of action to me, after all in the real world we can almost never be certain of anything but we must proceed nevertheless and do the best we can. So if enough AI's said the same thing, particularly if they were vastly smarter than me, I take their word they were experiencing a vision of a strawberry too. > > I would assume not all would lie. I assume nothing about a machine > except that it is not a living thing and cannot be. > Life is notoriously difficult to define and there is no reason to even try to do so because that's not really what we're interested in, what we're talking about is intelligence and its accompanying phenomenon consciousness. Of course I don't have a definition of "intelligent behavior" that's worth a damn either but that's OK because I have something much better than definitions, examples. Intelligent behavior is the sort of activity that Einstein engaged in. If you don't like intelligent behavior as a marker for consciousness what is the alternative? Only humans that have the same skin color as me are conscious? Only humans that have the same sex as me are conscious? Only entities whose data processing center is wet and squishy like mine is can be conscious, not dry and hard like a computer's is? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 22:48:57 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:48:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discovered ?Mini-Computers? in Human Neurons?and That?s Great News for AI In-Reply-To: <20200118115452.Horde.E0lJyJuPTWYqKIFogbj4Piy@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200118115452.Horde.E0lJyJuPTWYqKIFogbj4Piy@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 3:18 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > * > Yes, the discovery that dendrites have their own calcium-mediated > action potentials that can form biological XOR logic gates is very cool > and amazing.* > I agree, it's a significant discovery. > > > > > > > > > > > > > * > It also solves a minor mystery in physiology: the human brain is > typically only about 2% the mass of the body, yet accounts for > approximately 20% of its energy requirements. So while you are at rest, > your brain burns about a fifth of the total calories you are burning > despite having only 2% of your cells. If dendrites are XOR or another > irreversible logic gate, then dendrites like such gates in general, erase > information. This is because you have 2-bits going into the XOR gate but > only 1-bit coming out. By Landauer's law, E>=k*T*ln(2), this must cost > energy and increase the entropy of your environment. Since each neuron can > have something like 5 dendrites and there are some 10^11 neurons, then > that's a lot of bits being erased and a lot of heat and entropy being > generated, and calories burned, just by thinking.* Landauer's law can't be responsible for the high energy usage of the brain, dendrites are not nearly small enough or fast enough for it to be important. At body temperature Landauer says you could erase 10^11 bits a second and use only 2.8* 10^-10 watts of energy. And remember signals in the brain only travel at a few hundred meters a second. Even our best microprocessors are much too large and much too slow for Landauer's law to be important, although in about 20 years that could change and we'll have to start thinking about reversible computing. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 22:50:14 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 14:50:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7C5C4B81-926D-4F10-AB87-B5CD82D13A6E@gmail.com> You seem to be presuming whatever anyone?s whim is is their right ? as in a right to do anything at all. That?s not how the concept of rights originated much less how it?s used by libertarians. But to answer your question: much the same thing as would happen now ? provided the person isn?t, say, a national leader or in control of an effective military: they would liked be laughed at up until they tried to enforce their whims. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jan 18, 2020, at 1:37 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? >>> On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 1:04 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >>> Thus, let's say someone believes, idiotically, that "survival of the fittest" is his master value. Fine. He can pretend to pursue that value up until he starts to violate others' rights. >> >> >> What happens when someone - as too many do - believes their most fundamental right is, essentially, to not be bound by anyone else's rights? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 22:57:04 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 16:57:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: References: <376669568.783906.1579380618964@mail.yahoo.com> <664DC742-641F-41FC-AF32-38F6EDF7811D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 3:37 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 1:04 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Thus, let's say someone believes, idiotically, that "survival of the >> fittest" is his master value. Fine. He can pretend to pursue that value up >> until he starts to violate others' rights. >> > > What happens when someone - as too many do - believes their most > fundamental right is, essentially, to not be bound by anyone else's rights? > Adrian > Anarchy bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 23:34:12 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:34:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <7C5C4B81-926D-4F10-AB87-B5CD82D13A6E@gmail.com> References: <7C5C4B81-926D-4F10-AB87-B5CD82D13A6E@gmail.com> Message-ID: I asked you for an example. You ignored the request, so please just stop responding to my comments because I am not going to read any more of yours. bill w On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 5:03 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > You seem to be presuming whatever anyone?s whim is is their right ? as in > a right to do anything at all. That?s not how the concept of rights > originated much less how it?s used by libertarians. > > But to answer your question: much the same thing as would happen now ? > provided the person isn?t, say, a national leader or in control of an > effective military: they would liked be laughed at up until they tried to > enforce their whims. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Jan 18, 2020, at 1:37 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 1:04 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Thus, let's say someone believes, idiotically, that "survival of the >> fittest" is his master value. Fine. He can pretend to pursue that value up >> until he starts to violate others' rights. >> > > What happens when someone - as too many do - believes their most > fundamental right is, essentially, to not be bound by anyone else's rights? > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 23:56:52 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:56:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: So if enough AI's said the same thing, particularly if they were vastly smarter than me, I take their word they were experiencing a vision of a strawberry too. john Giving you an answer that is intelligent is far from having an experience like a human. I think the default should be that only flesh and blood creatures can have experiences and consciousness. I don't see rows of 1s and 0s as having anything other than an electrical charge in their memories. Why do we keep pretending that we know something about consciousness? It's the 12 blind men, but the elephant is imaginary. bill w On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 4:25 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 4:27 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > What makes anyone think that a machine can experience anything? >> > > Intelligent behavior. When they are behaving in that way I believe my > fellow human beings are experiencing something, and when they are not > behaving in that way, such as when they are sleeping or under anesthesia or > dead, I believe they are not experiencing anything. > > >> > Do we know that? I don't think so. >> > > What's with this "we" business? I can only speak for myself but no, I > don't "know" that, I don't claim this is a rock solid logical principle > that always works, it's just a rule of thumb. But it's all I've got and all > I'll ever have so it will just have to do. > > >> > If enough humans say that they are experiencing a vision of a >> strawberry, I'd take their word for it. >> > > Although not provably correct that's sounds like a perfectly reasonable > course of action to me, after all in the real world we can almost never be > certain of anything but we must proceed nevertheless and do the best we > can. So if enough AI's said the same thing, particularly if they were > vastly smarter than me, I take their word they were experiencing a vision > of a strawberry too. > > >> > I would assume not all would lie. I assume nothing about a machine >> except that it is not a living thing and cannot be. >> > > Life is notoriously difficult to define and there is no reason to even try > to do so because that's not really what we're interested in, what we're > talking about is intelligence and its accompanying phenomenon > consciousness. Of course I don't have a definition of "intelligent > behavior" that's worth a damn either but that's OK because I have something > much better than definitions, examples. Intelligent behavior is the sort of > activity that Einstein engaged in. > > If you don't like intelligent behavior as a marker for consciousness what > is the alternative? Only humans that have the same skin color as me are > conscious? Only humans that have the same sex as me are conscious? Only > entities whose data processing center is wet and squishy like mine is can > be conscious, not dry and hard like a computer's is? > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 00:18:26 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 16:18:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance In-Reply-To: <7C5C4B81-926D-4F10-AB87-B5CD82D13A6E@gmail.com> References: <7C5C4B81-926D-4F10-AB87-B5CD82D13A6E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:03 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > You seem to be presuming whatever anyone?s whim is is their right ? as in > a right to do anything at all. That?s not how the concept of rights > originated much less how it?s used by libertarians. > That may not have been how it originated, but what I was pointing out was how, in your post, it seemed to be sliding toward entirely self-defined "rights". As you rightly point out here, that slide is problematic. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 00:22:04 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 11:22:04 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 at 10:58, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > So if enough AI's said the same thing, particularly if they were vastly > smarter than me, I take their word they were experiencing a vision of a > strawberry too. john > > Giving you an answer that is intelligent is far from having an experience > like a human. I think the default should be that only flesh and blood > creatures can have experiences and consciousness. I don't see rows of 1s > and 0s as having anything other than an electrical charge in their memories. > > Why do we keep pretending that we know something about consciousness? > It's the 12 blind men, but the elephant is imaginary. > As I explained in my previous post, we are able to say that whatever consciousness is, it would be reproduced if the function (the observable behaviour) of anything that has it is reproduced. This is even without an explicit definition of consciousness or knowledge of whether other minds are conscious. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 00:22:16 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 16:22:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 1:26 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What makes anyone think that a machine can experience anything? Do we > know that? > We can't know it, for the same reason we can't know that you or I can experience anything. Either we accept that they are experiencing things (if there is sufficient evidence), or we do not accept that other humans are truly experiencing anything. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 00:56:07 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 18:56:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: whatever consciousness is, it would be reproduced if the function (the observable behaviour) of anything that has it is reproduced. stathis I keep reading this and keep thinking that I understand it, and then I think I don't. Are you saying that if we can get something to act like a human brain it will therefore have all the functions thereof? bill w On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 6:38 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 1:26 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> What makes anyone think that a machine can experience anything? Do we >> know that? >> > > We can't know it, for the same reason we can't know that you or I can > experience anything. Either we accept that they are experiencing things > (if there is sufficient evidence), or we do not accept that other humans > are truly experiencing anything. > >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 01:10:28 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 20:10:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 6:59 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Giving you an answer that is intelligent is far from having an experience > like a human. I think the default should be that only flesh and blood > creatures can have experiences and consciousness. I don't see rows of 1s > and 0s as having anything other than an electrical charge in their memories. > I'm having a difficult time imagining how you can be so bigoted over "flesh and blood" - it strikes me as something like racism despite having never even seen/heard of any other race. I don't see your own collection of ions as any less of a machine than the entire collection of ions that represent the state of "the internet" at any moment. Just because you cannot relate to non-biological sentience doesn't mean it can't have whatever it is we're trying to call consciousness. Nagel asked what it's like to be a bat I once asked what it's like to be a .bat I would not require "flesh and blood" for those who have sufficient medical technology to lose this "consciousness" (however it is defined) probably also loses for them the rights/agency afforded to those regarded (without proof, fwiw) as conscious. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 01:22:32 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 20:22:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 7:58 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > whatever consciousness is, it would be reproduced if the function (the > observable behaviour) of anything that has it is reproduced. stathis > > I keep reading this and keep thinking that I understand it, and then I > think I don't. Are you saying that if we can get something to act like a > human brain it will therefore have all the functions thereof? > I think a human-level artificial brain that emulates the functioning of human brain at the neuronal level would achieve consciousness. I'm skeptical that any higher-level approach like classic AI or deep learning would, though. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 01:37:57 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 12:37:57 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 at 11:57, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > whatever consciousness is, it would be reproduced if the function (the > observable behaviour) of anything that has it is reproduced. stathis > > I keep reading this and keep thinking that I understand it, and then I > think I don't. Are you saying that if we can get something to act like a > human brain it will therefore have all the functions thereof? > Neurons have observable behaviour: for example, when stimulated by other neurons they may ?fire?, propagating an action potential along their axon, and in turn stimulate neurons to which they connect. Billions of neurons in your visual cortex interact in this way and as a result you can identify objects in front of your eyes. These neurons, via a relay of multiple intermediate neurons, connect to the motor neurons controlling speech and you say ?I see a strawberry?. If the neurons in your visual cortex were destroyed their output would not get through to your vocal cords and you would not say ?I see a strawberry?, because you would be blind. But if the neurons were replaced by an artificial device that produced the same output given the same input, your vocal cords would receive the same input as before and you would say ?I see a strawberry?. The above is a purely behavioural account. As external observers, we can?t be sure if you have visual experiences or not. However, we can be sure that if you had them before the neural replacement, you have them afterwards as well. The alternative is that you become blind but don?t notice, and still say ?I see a strawberry?. This is absurd: what meaning could the word ?blind? have if you cannot notice that you are blind and behave as if you have normal vision? The conclusion is that an artificial device that correctly replicated neural behaviour will also replicate any associated consciousness. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Jan 19 02:05:12 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 18:05:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discovered ?Mini-Computers? in Human Neurons?and That?s Great News for AI In-Reply-To: <102517976.9107097.1579396651436@mail.yahoo.com> References: <20200118115452.Horde.E0lJyJuPTWYqKIFogbj4Piy@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <102517976.9107097.1579396651436@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20200118180512.Horde.3cZMjWo297AM2CmSDTA6EWN@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: > Landauer's law can't be responsible for the high energy usage of the > brain, dendrites are not nearly small enough or fast enough for it > to be important. At body temperature?Landauer says you could erase > 10^11 bits a second and use only 2.8* 10^-10 watts of energy.? And > remember signals in the brain only travel at a few hundred meters a > second. Even our best microprocessors are much too large and much > too slow for Landauer's law to be important, although in about 20 > years that could change and we'll have to start thinking about > reversible computing. Landauer's law is responsible in that it is defined as the lowest possible energy it would take to erase a bit in a 100% efficient computer. That is why it is expressed as greater-than-or-equal-to. That it costs energy at all to erase information is a consequence of Landauer's law. It is like a thermodynamic limit and it costs biological brains more to erase bits because they are kludgy naturally-evolved processors that uses selective movement of ions across membranes rather than a simple current of electrons to perform calculations. Action potentials happen in solution and involve moving entire atomic species around in potential fields instead mere electrons so it is bound to be many times more energetically costly than an electronic computer. Likewise using an abacus to calculate your mind instead of a compartmentalized ion concentration gradient would take even more energy and be even slower than your naturally-evolved brain. Perhaps I should have specified that a combination of Landauer's law and thermodynamics is responsible for the brain's high energy usage. But I admit I could be wrong. Seems like it should be a testable hypothesis. Stuart LaForge From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 03:20:01 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 22:20:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Sci-Fi_Set_in_the_2020=E2=80=99s_Predicted_a_Dim?= =?utf-8?q?_Decade_for_Humanity?= In-Reply-To: <00a801d5ce0d$92fd7b00$b8f87100$@rainier66.com> References: <00a801d5ce0d$92fd7b00$b8f87100$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 9:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: Our biggest daily risks are real and ones we know well. It isn?t anarchy, > it isn?t climate change, it isn?t even crime. It is heart attack, cancer > and strokes. > ### .... and ferrotoxicity! If I may offer advice that is *definitely not* medical advice and that does *not* constitute practice of medicine in states where I am not licensed - keep your total body stores of iron on the low side. This is especially important for men, who tend to accumulate much more iron than women and this even at the so called normal levels appears to exert significant and dose dependent toxicity, leading to strokes, heart disease and other major health problems. I started therapeutic phlebotomies a long time ago, and always try to keep ferritin, a measure of iron overload, at the ~30 ng/ml level, since this level is associated with best health outcomes. For those of you whose blood is not considered unclean (as mine is due to being European), regular blood donations are an excellent way of gaining potentially substantial health benefits. Disclaimers - The above is not medical advice. Do consult your physician before undertaking any action based on the above lifestyle advice. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 03:44:26 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 22:44:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Sci-Fi_Set_in_the_2020=E2=80=99s_Predicted_a_Dim?= =?utf-8?q?_Decade_for_Humanity?= In-Reply-To: References: <00a801d5ce0d$92fd7b00$b8f87100$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Although this book ultimately ends up in the same recommendation to give blood, it goes into the details behind ferrotoxicity... Dumping Iron: How to Ditch This Secret Killer and Reclaim Your Health https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CIZMFXO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_U.8iEbQDKS78N On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:21 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 9:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Our biggest daily risks are real and ones we know well. It isn?t >> anarchy, it isn?t climate change, it isn?t even crime. It is heart attack, >> cancer and strokes. >> > > ### .... and ferrotoxicity! > > If I may offer advice that is *definitely not* medical advice and that > does *not* constitute practice of medicine in states where I am not > licensed - keep your total body stores of iron on the low side. This is > especially important for men, who tend to accumulate much more iron than > women and this even at the so called normal levels appears to exert > significant and dose dependent toxicity, leading to strokes, heart disease > and other major health problems. > > I started therapeutic phlebotomies a long time ago, and always try to keep > ferritin, a measure of iron overload, at the ~30 ng/ml level, since this > level is associated with best health outcomes. For those of you whose blood > is not considered unclean (as mine is due to being European), regular blood > donations are an excellent way of gaining potentially substantial health > benefits. > > Disclaimers - The above is not medical advice. Do consult your physician > before undertaking any action based on the above lifestyle advice. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 12:42:34 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 07:42:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discovered ?Mini-Computers? in Human Neurons?and That?s Great News for AI In-Reply-To: <20200118180512.Horde.3cZMjWo297AM2CmSDTA6EWN@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200118115452.Horde.E0lJyJuPTWYqKIFogbj4Piy@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <102517976.9107097.1579396651436@mail.yahoo.com> <20200118180512.Horde.3cZMjWo297AM2CmSDTA6EWN@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 9:31 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Landauer's law can't be responsible for the high energy usage of the >> > brain, dendrites are not nearly small enough or fast enough for it >> > to be important. At body temperature Landauer says you could erase >> > 10^11 bits a second and use only 2.8* 10^-10 watts of energy. And >> > remember signals in the brain only travel at a few hundred meters a >> > second. Even our best microprocessors are much too large and much >> > too slow for Landauer's law to be important, although in about 20 >> > years that could change and we'll have to start thinking about reversible >> >computing. > > > > > * > Landauer's law is responsible in that it is defined as the lowest > possible energy it would take to erase a bit in a 100% efficient computer. > * Yes Landauer's law will tell you the least amount of energy needed to erase one bit of information, but if you want to use more energy than that it's OK with Landauer, and the human brain uses trillions of times more energy than that lower limit. *> It is like a thermodynamic limit* It gives a lower limit but not a upper one, you are free to use as much energy as you want to erase one bit of information. And the brain uses a LOT more. > > > *> and it costs biological brains more to erase bits because they are > kludgy naturally-evolved processors that uses selective movement of ions > across membranes* Yes, and that kludgy nature is the very reason Landauer's law doesn't play an important role in the brain. Nothing in biology is anywhere near to running up against Landauer's limit, it's far far too small, Biologists can safely ignore it. > *> rather than a simple current of electrons to perform calculations.* > That's much less kludgy but even todays microprocessor designers can safely ignore Landauer's law and can continue to do so for another decade or two because factors that have nothing to do with Landauer produce much more heat. When they've conquered those factors then they can worry about Landauer. *> Seems like it should be a testable hypothesis.* > It is. You gave the formula for the minimum amount of energy needed to erase one bit of information in your last post, just plug in the numbers for body temperature and the formula will give you a ridiculously small number, a number that remains ridiculously small even if you multiply it by 86 billion (the number of neurons in the human brain) and then multiply it again by 15,000 (the maximum number of dendrites any neuron has been observed to have). Biologists would do well to spend their time studying things other than Landauer, it just isn't important for there subject. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 13:11:33 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 08:11:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 6:59 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Giving you an answer that is intelligent is far from having an experience > like a human. I think the default should be that only flesh and blood > creatures can have experiences and consciousness. > Given that as a practical matter it's far far more important what AIs think about us than what we think about AIs, you'd better hope that computers default position isn't that only hard and dry creatures can have experiences and consciousness, not squishy and wet creatures like a certain bipedal ape descendant. *> I don't see rows of 1s and 0s as having anything other than an > electrical charge in their memories.* Why do people keep pretending that if something is digital then it can't be profound? A poetry book is digital as is a book of Shakespeare's plays, the only difference is most computers use base 2 but books use base 95 (the number of ASCII printable characters). And if that example isn't profound enough the human genome is digital too, it uses base 4 (the number of DNA nucleotides: A,G,C and T). John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 13:28:26 2020 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 14:28:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discovered ?Mini-Computers? in Human Neurons?and That?s Great News for AI In-Reply-To: References: <20200118115452.Horde.E0lJyJuPTWYqKIFogbj4Piy@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <102517976.9107097.1579396651436@mail.yahoo.com> <20200118180512.Horde.3cZMjWo297AM2CmSDTA6EWN@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: The number of computations in any cell when you calculate the Landauer energy expenditure needs to include all the housekeeping calculations that any cell do. That is a rather large number of computations, almost all done in a rather sloppy and partially reversible manner. (Saves energy as they are at least partially reversible? ) Any synapse should be regarded as a computational hotspot where you have an output that is both digital and analog as it at the same time can transmit all kinds of modulations on the downstream use of the signal and also send a feedback upstream to modulate intensity of signal and both amplify and/or inhibit transmission of the same or other signals. Also the fact that the signal pathway is in use change the cell with different kind of more or less persistent changes both in the synapse and all the way back to gene expression in the nucleus. All these computations needs to be included in the energy expenditure for any signal.... Get messy rather quickly. That's just what's happening inside the cell, any nerve cells that are highly active will also create a change in their support infrastructure, glial cells Schwann cells and nearby capillaries. Even more mess.... A quick check in my library tells me that I have not gotten any new books on the subject since -97. Meh, nowadays I just whack the CNS black box with chemicals until it respond in a somewhat useful manner. Do no more exact estimates of energy. Need to get updated, again, it never ends. And that is a good thing, else it would be booooring. /Henrik Den s?n 19 jan. 2020 13:46John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> skrev: > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 9:31 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> > > Landauer's law can't be responsible for the high energy usage of the >>> > brain, dendrites are not nearly small enough or fast enough for it >>> > to be important. At body temperature Landauer says you could erase >>> > 10^11 bits a second and use only 2.8* 10^-10 watts of energy. And >>> > remember signals in the brain only travel at a few hundred meters a >>> > second. Even our best microprocessors are much too large and much >>> > too slow for Landauer's law to be important, although in about 20 >>> > years that could change and we'll have to start thinking about reversible >>> >computing. >> >> >> >> >> * > Landauer's law is responsible in that it is defined as the lowest >> possible energy it would take to erase a bit in a 100% efficient computer. >> * > > > Yes Landauer's law will tell you the least amount of energy needed to > erase one bit of information, but if you want to use more energy than that > it's OK with Landauer, and the human brain uses trillions of times more > energy than that lower limit. > > *> It is like a thermodynamic limit* > > > It gives a lower limit but not a upper one, you are free to use as much > energy as you want to erase one bit of information. And the brain uses a > LOT more. > > >> >> >> *> and it costs biological brains more to erase bits because they are >> kludgy naturally-evolved processors that uses selective movement of ions >> across membranes* > > > Yes, and that kludgy nature is the very reason Landauer's law doesn't > play an important role in the brain. Nothing in biology is anywhere near to > running up against Landauer's limit, it's far far too small, Biologists > can safely ignore it. > > > >> *> rather than a simple current of electrons to perform calculations.* >> > > That's much less kludgy but even todays microprocessor designers can > safely ignore Landauer's law and can continue to do so for another decade > or two because factors that have nothing to do with Landauer produce much > more heat. When they've conquered those factors then they can worry about > Landauer. > > *> Seems like it should be a testable hypothesis.* >> > > It is. You gave the formula for the minimum amount of energy needed to > erase one bit of information in your last post, just plug in the numbers > for body temperature and the formula will give you a ridiculously small > number, a number that remains ridiculously small even if you multiply it by > 86 billion (the number of neurons in the human brain) and then multiply it > again by 15,000 (the maximum number of dendrites any neuron has been > observed to have). Biologists would do well to spend their time studying > things other than Landauer, it just isn't important for there subject. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jan 19 13:31:08 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 13:31:08 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6abfd60d-a98f-d3f3-6fc8-027fdb131628@zaiboc.net> On 18/01/2020 22:24, BillW wrote: > What makes anyone think that a machine can experience anything?? Do we > know that?? I don't think so.? If you claim that we do, just how are > you measuring that?? Sounds like scifi to me. If enough humans say > that they are experiencing?a vision of a strawberry, I'd take their > word for it.? I would assume not all would lie.? I assume nothing > about a machine except that it is not a living thing and cannot be.? > ?bill w The only thing that makes me think that a machine (a suitable machine, i.e. complex enough, and with the required organisation of its parts) can experience things, is that I can. I am a machine. Ipso facto. If you object that biological systems (yes, I am one) can't be machines, I'd say we need to better define the word 'machine'. To my way of thinking, we are machines because we are systems that process energy and do work. We are soft machines made of water, proteins, fats, etc. Biological machines. To someone else, it may be that the word indicates an artificial system, man-made, not natural ("not a living thing"). But that doesn't preclude an artificial system made of water, proteins, fats, etc. So claiming that machines can never experience things (and can't be 'living things'), is claiming that only /natural/ things can, and that identical, but artificially-produced things can't. And that is, well, you can see that's problematical, can't you? I've always regarded myself as a biological machine. Biologists often talk about the machinery of the cell. Ribosomes are a good example of a molecular, biological machine, that we now understand pretty well, and I wouldn't be surprised if we will be able to create them from scratch before too long. Oh, and the phrase "sounds like SciFi to me" always makes me smile, and think of space rockets, communication satellites, aeroplanes, TV, personal computers, mobile phones, etc. In fact, just about everything about modern life that we take so much for granted. Science Fiction is just building stories from imagined possible future technologies. So to use it as a synonym for implausibility seems rather blinkered. -- Ben Zaiboc From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jan 19 13:47:31 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 13:47:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <297395b4-ff4c-9e58-d5d2-225b9863232b@zaiboc.net> John Clark wrote > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 9:55 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat > > wrote: > > > /it's possible that we could identify a specific pattern in the > large-scale networks, and show that it's necessary and sufficient > to produce the sensation of the colour 'strawberry'./ > > I don't think that's possible at all, in fact I'd say it's a logical > impossibility. You might be able to show that a specific network > pattern in a human biological brain was *sufficient* to cause a mouth > to make a noise like "/I am experiencing the visual qualia I > experience when I look at a strawberry/", or cause a electronic > computer to print out the corresponding ASCII sequence when it is in > the corresponding network state. But how in the world could you ever > prove the man and the AI were experiencing the same visual qualia, or > even prove either of them were experiencing a qualia at all? And even > if you could somehow magically do that how could you prove it was > *necessary*, how could you prove that some other network state or even > something that had nothing to do with networks couldn't produce the > same thing? There are after all an infinite number of things that have > nothing to do with networks just as there are a infinite number of > things that do, so you can't try them all. > > People are spending way too much time worrying about Artificial > Consciousness, I say just concentrate on Artificial Intelligence, once > you have that you'll get consciousness for free; it is after all the > tactic that Evolution used and it produced you and me and I am a > conscious being, you probably are too although I can't prove it. I agree with what you say, especially the last bit. I meant 'necessary' in the context of a human brain, not any system, and I'm assuming that hearing someone claiming they can see the colour strawberry-red is enough evidence that they can see it. Proving that two separate brains (of whatever kind) are experiencing the same thing is of course impossible. That's not what I mean. I mean it should be possible to point to a specific thing in a specific beings brain and say that is what's causing their experience (or, rather, that's what 'their experience' *is*). -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 14:12:34 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 09:12:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discovered ?Mini-Computers? in Human Neurons?and That?s Great News for AI In-Reply-To: References: <20200118115452.Horde.E0lJyJuPTWYqKIFogbj4Piy@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <102517976.9107097.1579396651436@mail.yahoo.com> <20200118180512.Horde.3cZMjWo297AM2CmSDTA6EWN@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 8:31 AM Henrik Ohrstrom via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> The number of computations in any cell when you calculate the Landauer > energy expenditure needs to include all the housekeeping calculations that > any cell do. * > The housekeeping functions that any cell must do are irrelevant as we're talking about intelligence and why the brain needs to use so much more energy than any other part of the body of similar mass. Whatever the reason for the brain's disproportionate use of energy it can't have anything to do with Landauer's Limit because Landauer's Limit is many trillions of times too small to even be detectable much less make a significant contribution to the energy bill. > *> That is a rather large number of computations, almost all done in a > rather sloppy and partially reversible manner. (Saves energy as they are > at least partially reversible? )* > The amount of experimental evidence that the brain uses reversible computing is equal to the number of theoretical reasons Evolution would bother to come up with reversible computing. And that number is precisely zero. *> * > *Get messy rather quickly. That's just what's happening inside the cell, > any nerve cells that are highly active will also create a change in their > support infrastructure, glial cells Schwann cells and nearby capillaries. > Even more mess....* Yes, and all that mess is exactly why Landauer's Limit is of no importance whatsoever in figuring out how a biological brain can produce intelligent behavior. Other factors that have nothing to do with Landauer swamp it to an astronomical degree John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 14:28:03 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 09:28:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <297395b4-ff4c-9e58-d5d2-225b9863232b@zaiboc.net> References: <297395b4-ff4c-9e58-d5d2-225b9863232b@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 8:49 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> I mean it should be possible to point to a specific thing in a specific > beings brain and say that is what's causing their experience* I could be a zombie. How could you ever know for certain that I'm even having an experience much less point to a specific thing in my brain and say that is the cause of it? > or, rather, that's what 'their experience' *is* You could point to a specific part of my brain and say that is what caused me to behave in a certain way, but behavior is not qualia. You are in the same position that Evolution was in when it produced the human race; you can not directly detect qualia in others, you can only hypothesize about it from their behavior. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 15:32:03 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 09:32:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Sci-Fi_Set_in_the_2020=E2=80=99s_Predicted_a_Dim?= =?utf-8?q?_Decade_for_Humanity?= In-Reply-To: References: <00a801d5ce0d$92fd7b00$b8f87100$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: So what can I do to reduce iron if I cannot give blood? They listen to my heart and hear PVCs and a little valve noise and won't let me donate. bill w On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 9:22 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 9:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Our biggest daily risks are real and ones we know well. It isn?t >> anarchy, it isn?t climate change, it isn?t even crime. It is heart attack, >> cancer and strokes. >> > > ### .... and ferrotoxicity! > > If I may offer advice that is *definitely not* medical advice and that > does *not* constitute practice of medicine in states where I am not > licensed - keep your total body stores of iron on the low side. This is > especially important for men, who tend to accumulate much more iron than > women and this even at the so called normal levels appears to exert > significant and dose dependent toxicity, leading to strokes, heart disease > and other major health problems. > > I started therapeutic phlebotomies a long time ago, and always try to keep > ferritin, a measure of iron overload, at the ~30 ng/ml level, since this > level is associated with best health outcomes. For those of you whose blood > is not considered unclean (as mine is due to being European), regular blood > donations are an excellent way of gaining potentially substantial health > benefits. > > Disclaimers - The above is not medical advice. Do consult your physician > before undertaking any action based on the above lifestyle advice. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 15:40:44 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 09:40:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: And I will respond that thinking that machines can have emotions and consciousness is really way, way, far out - dreaming. Read too much scifi. There is not one iota of evidence that such things are possible, much less likely. bill w On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 7:12 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 6:59 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> Giving you an answer that is intelligent is far from having an experience >> like a human. I think the default should be that only flesh and blood >> creatures can have experiences and consciousness. I don't see rows of 1s >> and 0s as having anything other than an electrical charge in their memories. >> > > I'm having a difficult time imagining how you can be so bigoted over > "flesh and blood" - it strikes me as something like racism despite having > never even seen/heard of any other race. > > I don't see your own collection of ions as any less of a machine than the > entire collection of ions that represent the state of "the internet" at any > moment. Just because you cannot relate to non-biological sentience > doesn't mean it can't have whatever it is we're trying to call > consciousness. > > Nagel asked what it's like to be a bat > I once asked what it's like to be a .bat > > I would not require "flesh and blood" for those who have sufficient > medical technology to lose this "consciousness" (however it is defined) > probably also loses for them the rights/agency afforded to those regarded > (without proof, fwiw) as conscious. > >> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 15:51:48 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 08:51:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 6:39 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 at 11:57, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> whatever consciousness is, it would be reproduced if the function (the >> observable behaviour) of anything that has it is reproduced. stathis >> >> I keep reading this and keep thinking that I understand it, and then I >> think I don't. Are you saying that if we can get something to act like a >> human brain it will therefore have all the functions thereof? >> > > Neurons have observable behaviour: for example, when stimulated by other > neurons they may ?fire?, propagating an action potential along their axon, > and in turn stimulate neurons to which they connect. Billions of neurons in > your visual cortex interact in this way and as a result you can identify > objects in front of your eyes. These neurons, via a relay of multiple > intermediate neurons, connect to the motor neurons controlling speech and > you say ?I see a strawberry?. If the neurons in your visual cortex were > destroyed their output would not get through to your vocal cords and you > would not say ?I see a strawberry?, because you would be blind. But if the > neurons were replaced by an artificial device that produced the same output > given the same input, your vocal cords would receive the same input as > before and you would say ?I see a strawberry?. > This is all qualia blind. There is only red things in all this. You must also include the physically different redness that we experience as knowledge of red things. Also, everything you are saying here are objective descriptions of behavior in the brain. There are two ways for us to be aware of the same physical facts. One is by objective observation, which is qualia blind. The second way is subjective. The only way to know the physical quality, all this stuff Stathis is saying is describing, is to experience those physical facts being described, directly. > The above is a purely behavioural account. > As is everything stathis is describing, It's all only behavior descriptions of physical qualities, i.e it is qualia blind. > As external observers, we can?t be sure if you have visual experiences or > not. > We can objectively know if people are having visual experiences or not, via both the week and strongest forms of effing the ineffable. In order to do the week form, you just need a dictionary that tells you what phenomenal color descriptions of stuff in the brain are describing. If you objectively see a word like 'red' representing red knowledge, you know that isn't physically red. If you see a person representing green things with knowledge composed of glycine, you know that person is red / green inverted from you. With a neural ponytail (does what the corpus callosum does), where you can directly experience the physical colorness properties in another's consciousness, you will be aware of all your physical knowledge, and the same time you are aware of your partners physical knowledge. You will know, absolutely, that your partners is red / green inverted from yourself. > However, we can be sure that if you had them before the neural > replacement, you have them afterwards as well.The alternative is that you > become blind but don?t notice, and still say ?I see a strawberry?. This is > absurd: what meaning could the word ?blind? have if you cannot notice that > you are blind and behave as if you have normal vision? > Again, this is qualia blind. Consciousness is computationally bound elemental physical qualities like redness and grenness. In order to not be qualia blind, you need to include the physical redness functionality (must be objectively different than grenness functionality), and a computationally binding mechanism that enables you to be aware of both of them at the same time. The neural substitution mind experiment you propose can lead people astray in many ways. For example, if you have a single binding neuron, that is performing the binding functionally, so you can be aware of thousands of pixels neurons, each potentially firing with either glutamate and glycine (or whatever it is that has the redness and grenness physical qualities) When you do the neural substitution of the binging neuron in that case, it is just a slight of hand when you are switching between glutamate(redness)/glycine(grenness) the 1s(red)/0s(green). With that one neuron switching, you are removing any computationally bound information that was actual computationally bound awareness of redness, and replacing all of it with 1. Also, a required functionality is the ability to computationally bind, via a neural ponytail the two systems both before and after the neural substitution. With this required functionality, you must be able to know, directly, whether the neural substituted system now has redness swapped with grenness, or 1s. If you do not provide the ability to do that in your thought experiment, your thought experiment is qualia blind. If you thought experiment is not qualia blind, everything makes sense, there are no conundrums or absurd things like fading/dancing qualia. If your thought experiment is not qualia blind, and if you know the phenomenal physical quality of stuff (or functionality, if you must) everything is knowable both objectively and subjectively. In qualia blind views like this, there are impossibly hard mind body problems. If your thought experiment is not qualia blind, the only problem is an easy color problem. The conclusion is that an artificial device that correctly replicated > neural behaviour will also replicate any associated consciousness. > This conclusion can only true in a qualia blind thought experiment that does not include a necessary redness functionality that necessarily can be computationally bound with grenness. Brent -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 18:05:54 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 10:05:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 7:44 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > And I will respond that thinking that machines can have emotions and > consciousness is really way, way, far out - dreaming. Read too much > scifi. There is not one iota of evidence that such things are possible, > much less likely. > Sure there is. You, and me, and all of us. Humans are biological machines. I know that you actually mean metal and otherwise nonbiological machines. But our brains work on electrical and chemical signals that silicon brains could react to just the same - indeed, modern CPUs are inspired by the electrical side of that, and there have been good simulations of neurons made - up to the level of complexity of insects, as I recall, and more complex is being worked on. No evidence has yet been produced that extending that up to human-level is impossible. All the evidence that we have so far suggests this can be done. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jan 19 18:13:20 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 18:13:20 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9b945c3f-c6f1-d9e5-1c46-42694fc9128e@zaiboc.net> On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 8:49 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat > wrote: /> I mean it should be possible to point to a specific thing in a specific beings brain and say that is what's causing their experience/ > I could be a zombie. How could you ever know for certain that I'm even having an experience much less point to a specific thing in my brain and say that is the cause of it? > or, rather, that's what 'their experience' *is* > You could point to a specific part of my brain and say that is what caused me to behave in a certain way, but behavior is not qualia. You are in the same position that Evolution was in when it produced the human race; you can not directly detect qualia in others, you can only hypothesize about it from their behavior. OK, in that case, what use is the word and concept "Qualia"? Does it add anything at all to our understanding of ourselves? It would seem not. I don't believe in zombies. If memory serves, there's a logical argument by someone or other to prove they can't exist, I don't remember who though. Anyway, the concept seems just daft. If anyone could be a zombie, we'd all be zombies. I'm not, though, so I reckon no-one is. You can probably articulate the evolutionary argument for this better than I can. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 18:20:25 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 12:20:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: We are still pretty much in the dark about what neurons can do, as evidenced by the latest data. Now add to that the functions of the glial cells, of which we are almost entirely ignorant (I have read two books on them - have you?), the fact that dendrites may be able to produce more than one chemical, the fact that a neuron can be excitatory or inhibitory, the fact that the brain and the neurons in the gut interact in ways that we have no idea about currently, the influence, again largely unknown, of endocrine hormones,and that's just a few things I know. How complicated is that? Way way way more than we can even guess at now. Just sitting here my neurons are firing at rates of quadrillions of times a second, as discussed several years ago here. What I am hearing from some people seems to me to be underestimating the complexity of the brain. I think we are hundreds of years from understanding it to some extent- never completely. It may be like that Einstein quote, which I do not recall, but something to the effect that the universe may be more complex that we CAN know. If that doesn't get you off my back, well, just leave me alone with my beliefs. bill w On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 12:08 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 7:44 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> And I will respond that thinking that machines can have emotions and >> consciousness is really way, way, far out - dreaming. Read too much >> scifi. There is not one iota of evidence that such things are possible, >> much less likely. >> > > Sure there is. You, and me, and all of us. Humans are biological > machines. > > I know that you actually mean metal and otherwise nonbiological machines. > But our brains work on electrical and chemical signals that silicon brains > could react to just the same - indeed, modern CPUs are inspired by the > electrical side of that, and there have been good simulations of neurons > made - up to the level of complexity of insects, as I recall, and more > complex is being worked on. No evidence has yet been produced that > extending that up to human-level is impossible. All the evidence that we > have so far suggests this can be done. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jan 19 18:24:38 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 18:24:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 19/01/2020 15:41, BillW wrote: > And I will respond that thinking that machines can have emotions and > consciousness is really way, way, far out - dreaming.? ? Read too much > scifi.? There is not one iota of evidence that such things are > possible, much less likely.? bill w I take it that you must be equally disbelieving about the possibility of nanotechnology then? Something that exists in biology, but no way can it be possible in non-biological systems? I'm wondering how far does this go? There must be some line along the capabilities of biological systems, where on this side, non-bio systems can do the same thing, but on the other side, they can't. Any idea where this line might be? (to avoid misunderstanding, I don't actually think that any such line exists, or can exist) -- Ben Zaiboc From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 18:45:57 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 13:45:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <9b945c3f-c6f1-d9e5-1c46-42694fc9128e@zaiboc.net> References: <9b945c3f-c6f1-d9e5-1c46-42694fc9128e@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 1:16 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> You could point to a specific part of my brain and say that is what >> caused me to behave in a certain way, but behavior is not qualia. You are >> in the same position that Evolution was in when it produced the human race; >> you can not directly detect qualia in others, you can only hypothesize >> about it from their behavior. > > > > *OK, in that case, what use is the word and concept "Qualia"?* > Not much use at all, that's why I rarely use the word except when other people start using it. > *Does it add anything at all to our understanding of ourselves?* > Nope. > * > I don't believe in zombies.* > I don't either even though I can't prove it's untrue, I can't prove I not the only person who isn't a zombie. But I could not function if I really thought solipsism was true, few could, so one of my axioms of existence must be intelligent behavior implies consciousness; the fact that Evolution managed to produced at least one conscious being, me, despite Evolution's inability to directly detect consciousness, gives me some confidence that my axiom is not only useful in preserving my sanity but is probably true too. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 19:16:46 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 14:16:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 1:23 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> How complicated is that? Way way way more than we can even guess at > now. Just sitting here my neurons are firing at rates of quadrillions of > times a second,* An individual neuron can only fire about 200 times a second and there are about 8.6 * 10^10 neurons in the human brain, that may sound like a big number but it really isn't. China is expected to have a Supercomputer this year that can make 10^18 flops a second where a "flop" is equivalent to multiplying two 15 digit numbers together, the USA is expected to have a similar machine next year. It's not really surprising that the brain is being outclassed by electronics, signals in the brain travel at a variety of speeds from 1 mph to 268 mph, in other words at a snail's pace, but signals in computers travel close to 670 MILLION mph. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 19:25:33 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 14:25:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 2:19 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > China is expected to have a Supercomputer this year that can make 10^18 > flops a second where a "flop" is equivalent to multiplying two 15 digit > numbers together... > FLOPS is FLoating-point Operations Per Second. so "flops a second" would be a measure of computing acceleration. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 20:21:45 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 15:21:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena Message-ID: > > >> >>China is expected to have a Supercomputer this year that can make >> 10^18 flops a second where a "flop" is equivalent to multiplying two 15 >> digit numbers together... >> > > *> FLOPS is FLoating-point Operations Per Second. so "flops a second" > would be a measure of computing acceleration.* > You're right. Sorry for the error. I should have said "China is expected to have a Supercomputer this year that can make 10^18 flops where one "flop" is equivalent to multiplying two 15 digit numbers together every second." John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 20:53:07 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 14:53:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ben wrote - I take it that you must be equally disbelieving about the possibility of nanotechnology then? Something that exists in biology, but no way can it be possible in non-biological systems? I never said it was impossible, just enormously complicated. I believe nanotechnology will revolutionize many things- buildings that build themselves, injections into our bodies to cure things. Most unimaginable now. What interests me most about AI is their ability to correct the sorts of mental errors we are so likely to make. For instance: I answer a lot of questions on Quora. I get a lot of this: "Do you think you can tell if a person is good or bad?" My answer, to keep it short: "There are no bad people. There are no good people. Nobody is totally good or bad." Simple overgeneralization, and yet supposedly intelligent people are making this easily avoidable error. AI can be programmed to think better than we can, not just faster. That excites me. Whether they are conscious or ever will be, does not. Either way is OK with me. Is there some advantage I am missing, having AI being conscious? bill w On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 12:32 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 19/01/2020 15:41, BillW wrote: > > And I will respond that thinking that machines can have emotions and > > consciousness is really way, way, far out - dreaming. Read too much > > scifi. There is not one iota of evidence that such things are > > possible, much less likely. bill w > > I take it that you must be equally disbelieving about the possibility of > nanotechnology then? Something that exists in biology, but no way can it > be possible in non-biological systems? > > I'm wondering how far does this go? There must be some line along the > capabilities of biological systems, where on this side, non-bio systems > can do the same thing, but on the other side, they can't. Any idea where > this line might be? > > (to avoid misunderstanding, I don't actually think that any such line > exists, or can exist) > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 20:55:44 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 14:55:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Well, John, speed is very impressive. Did you know that cars can go faster than people can run? Even a hippo can do it. Speed alone can solve math problems and that's great. Can it tell us how to get along with one another? bill w On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 1:19 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 1:23 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *> How complicated is that? Way way way more than we can even guess at >> now. Just sitting here my neurons are firing at rates of quadrillions of >> times a second,* > > > An individual neuron can only fire about 200 times a second and there are > about 8.6 * 10^10 neurons in the human brain, that may sound like a big > number but it really isn't. China is expected to have a Supercomputer this > year that can make 10^18 flops a second where a "flop" is equivalent to > multiplying two 15 digit numbers together, the USA is expected to have a > similar machine next year. It's not really surprising that the brain is > being outclassed by electronics, signals in the brain travel at a variety > of speeds from 1 mph to 268 mph, in other words at a snail's pace, but > signals in computers travel close to 670 MILLION mph. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 21:29:57 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 08:29:57 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Jan 2020 at 02:59, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 6:39 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 at 11:57, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> whatever consciousness is, it would be reproduced if the function (the >>> observable behaviour) of anything that has it is reproduced. stathis >>> >>> I keep reading this and keep thinking that I understand it, and then I >>> think I don't. Are you saying that if we can get something to act like a >>> human brain it will therefore have all the functions thereof? >>> >> >> Neurons have observable behaviour: for example, when stimulated by other >> neurons they may ?fire?, propagating an action potential along their axon, >> and in turn stimulate neurons to which they connect. Billions of neurons in >> your visual cortex interact in this way and as a result you can identify >> objects in front of your eyes. These neurons, via a relay of multiple >> intermediate neurons, connect to the motor neurons controlling speech and >> you say ?I see a strawberry?. If the neurons in your visual cortex were >> destroyed their output would not get through to your vocal cords and you >> would not say ?I see a strawberry?, because you would be blind. But if the >> neurons were replaced by an artificial device that produced the same output >> given the same input, your vocal cords would receive the same input as >> before and you would say ?I see a strawberry?. >> > > This is all qualia blind. There is only red things in all this. You must > also include the physically different redness that we experience as > knowledge of red things. Also, everything you are saying here are > objective descriptions of behavior in the brain. There are two ways for us > to be aware of the same physical facts. One is by objective observation, > which is qualia blind. The second way is subjective. The only way to know > the physical quality, all this stuff Stathis is saying is describing, is to > experience those physical facts being described, directly. > > >> The above is a purely behavioural account. >> > As is everything stathis is describing, It's all only behavior > descriptions of physical qualities, i.e it is qualia blind. > > >> As external observers, we can?t be sure if you have visual experiences or >> not. >> > We can objectively know if people are having visual experiences or not, > via both the week and strongest forms of effing the ineffable. In order to > do the week form, you just need a dictionary that tells you what phenomenal > color descriptions of stuff in the brain are describing. If you > objectively see a word like 'red' representing red knowledge, you know that > isn't physically red. If you see a person representing green things with > knowledge composed of glycine, you know that person is red / green inverted > from you. With a neural ponytail (does what the corpus callosum does), > where you can directly experience the physical colorness properties in > another's consciousness, you will be aware of all your physical knowledge, > and the same time you are aware of your partners physical knowledge. You > will know, absolutely, that your partners is red / green inverted from > yourself. > > >> However, we can be sure that if you had them before the neural >> replacement, you have them afterwards as well.The alternative is that you >> become blind but don?t notice, and still say ?I see a strawberry?. This is >> absurd: what meaning could the word ?blind? have if you cannot notice that >> you are blind and behave as if you have normal vision? >> > Again, this is qualia blind. Consciousness is computationally bound > elemental physical qualities like redness and grenness. In order to not be > qualia blind, you need to include the physical redness functionality (must > be objectively different than grenness functionality), and a > computationally binding mechanism that enables you to be aware of both of > them at the same time. The neural substitution mind experiment you propose > can lead people astray in many ways. For example, if you have a single > binding neuron, that is performing the binding functionally, so you can be > aware of thousands of pixels neurons, each potentially firing with either > glutamate and glycine (or whatever it is that has the redness and grenness > physical qualities) When you do the neural substitution of the binging > neuron in that case, it is just a slight of hand when you are switching > between glutamate(redness)/glycine(grenness) the 1s(red)/0s(green). With > that one neuron switching, you are removing any computationally bound > information that was actual computationally bound awareness of redness, and > replacing all of it with 1. > > Also, a required functionality is the ability to computationally bind, via > a neural ponytail the two systems both before and after the neural > substitution. With this required functionality, you must be able to know, > directly, whether the neural substituted system now has redness swapped > with grenness, or 1s. If you do not provide the ability to do that in your > thought experiment, your thought experiment is qualia blind. If you > thought experiment is not qualia blind, everything makes sense, there are > no conundrums or absurd things like fading/dancing qualia. If your thought > experiment is not qualia blind, and if you know the phenomenal physical > quality of stuff (or functionality, if you must) everything is knowable > both objectively and subjectively. In qualia blind views like this, there > are impossibly hard mind body problems. If your thought experiment is not > qualia blind, the only problem is an easy color problem. > > > The conclusion is that an artificial device that correctly replicated >> neural behaviour will also replicate any associated consciousness. >> > > This conclusion can only true in a qualia blind thought experiment that > does not include a necessary redness functionality that necessarily can be > computationally bound. > Here is the problem which you seem to be missing. If your visual cortex is replaced, you are qualia blind with respect to visual qualia. However, you behave normally, because the output to the muscles is the same. Also, the rest of your brain works normally because it was not modified, and even blind people are able to think and talk. Why don?t you say ?I am qualia blind?? What is the point of having qualia if even you yourself don?t notice if the qualia disappear? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 22:20:08 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 15:20:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: OK very good points. So, let me see if I can address these good points in the way I?m saying things. If you do a neuro substitution from redness physics to greenness physics, (and visa versa) that would be possible if, in one step, you replaced all the glutamate being presented to the binding neuron (including any possible memory of glutamates colorness property) with glycine and your memory of glycine's colorness property, that would be possible as i've pointed out many times. But, still you must include this binding neuron (or something that performs this required functionality) in your thought experiment, otherwise composite computationally bound elemental physical qualities like redness and greenness aren?t possible. And also, this same binding mechanism must be able to connect a pre inverted system, with a post inverted system, so that you can see that redness and grenness are inverted. Now, if you are doing a neuro substitution from redness to a binary one or word like red (which is intentionally abstracted away from any physical properties via additional hardware enabling substrate independence. It wouldn?t be possible to include anything like knowledge that has a physical redness quality functionality, without such extremely absurd hard programmed functionality like: ?If someone asks you what it means to say: ?My redness is like your greenness, both of which we say is red? you say I understand that, and it is all true. Even though such is lie, since abstract ones and zeros, by definition, are abstracted away from such physical properties. On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 2:32 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Mon, 20 Jan 2020 at 02:59, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 6:39 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 at 11:57, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> whatever consciousness is, it would be reproduced if the function (the >>>> observable behaviour) of anything that has it is reproduced. stathis >>>> >>>> I keep reading this and keep thinking that I understand it, and then I >>>> think I don't. Are you saying that if we can get something to act like a >>>> human brain it will therefore have all the functions thereof? >>>> >>> >>> Neurons have observable behaviour: for example, when stimulated by other >>> neurons they may ?fire?, propagating an action potential along their axon, >>> and in turn stimulate neurons to which they connect. Billions of neurons in >>> your visual cortex interact in this way and as a result you can identify >>> objects in front of your eyes. These neurons, via a relay of multiple >>> intermediate neurons, connect to the motor neurons controlling speech and >>> you say ?I see a strawberry?. If the neurons in your visual cortex were >>> destroyed their output would not get through to your vocal cords and you >>> would not say ?I see a strawberry?, because you would be blind. But if the >>> neurons were replaced by an artificial device that produced the same output >>> given the same input, your vocal cords would receive the same input as >>> before and you would say ?I see a strawberry?. >>> >> >> This is all qualia blind. There is only red things in all this. You >> must also include the physically different redness that we experience as >> knowledge of red things. Also, everything you are saying here are >> objective descriptions of behavior in the brain. There are two ways for us >> to be aware of the same physical facts. One is by objective observation, >> which is qualia blind. The second way is subjective. The only way to know >> the physical quality, all this stuff Stathis is saying is describing, is to >> experience those physical facts being described, directly. >> >> >>> The above is a purely behavioural account. >>> >> As is everything stathis is describing, It's all only behavior >> descriptions of physical qualities, i.e it is qualia blind. >> >> >>> As external observers, we can?t be sure if you have visual experiences >>> or not. >>> >> We can objectively know if people are having visual experiences or not, >> via both the week and strongest forms of effing the ineffable. In order to >> do the week form, you just need a dictionary that tells you what phenomenal >> color descriptions of stuff in the brain are describing. If you >> objectively see a word like 'red' representing red knowledge, you know that >> isn't physically red. If you see a person representing green things with >> knowledge composed of glycine, you know that person is red / green inverted >> from you. With a neural ponytail (does what the corpus callosum does), >> where you can directly experience the physical colorness properties in >> another's consciousness, you will be aware of all your physical knowledge, >> and the same time you are aware of your partners physical knowledge. You >> will know, absolutely, that your partners is red / green inverted from >> yourself. >> >> >>> However, we can be sure that if you had them before the neural >>> replacement, you have them afterwards as well.The alternative is that you >>> become blind but don?t notice, and still say ?I see a strawberry?. This is >>> absurd: what meaning could the word ?blind? have if you cannot notice that >>> you are blind and behave as if you have normal vision? >>> >> Again, this is qualia blind. Consciousness is computationally bound >> elemental physical qualities like redness and grenness. In order to not be >> qualia blind, you need to include the physical redness functionality (must >> be objectively different than grenness functionality), and a >> computationally binding mechanism that enables you to be aware of both of >> them at the same time. The neural substitution mind experiment you propose >> can lead people astray in many ways. For example, if you have a single >> binding neuron, that is performing the binding functionally, so you can be >> aware of thousands of pixels neurons, each potentially firing with either >> glutamate and glycine (or whatever it is that has the redness and grenness >> physical qualities) When you do the neural substitution of the binging >> neuron in that case, it is just a slight of hand when you are switching >> between glutamate(redness)/glycine(grenness) the 1s(red)/0s(green). With >> that one neuron switching, you are removing any computationally bound >> information that was actual computationally bound awareness of redness, and >> replacing all of it with 1. >> >> Also, a required functionality is the ability to computationally bind, >> via a neural ponytail the two systems both before and after the neural >> substitution. With this required functionality, you must be able to know, >> directly, whether the neural substituted system now has redness swapped >> with grenness, or 1s. If you do not provide the ability to do that in your >> thought experiment, your thought experiment is qualia blind. If you >> thought experiment is not qualia blind, everything makes sense, there are >> no conundrums or absurd things like fading/dancing qualia. If your thought >> experiment is not qualia blind, and if you know the phenomenal physical >> quality of stuff (or functionality, if you must) everything is knowable >> both objectively and subjectively. In qualia blind views like this, there >> are impossibly hard mind body problems. If your thought experiment is not >> qualia blind, the only problem is an easy color problem. >> >> >> The conclusion is that an artificial device that correctly replicated >>> neural behaviour will also replicate any associated consciousness. >>> >> >> This conclusion can only true in a qualia blind thought experiment that >> does not include a necessary redness functionality that necessarily can be >> computationally bound. >> > > Here is the problem which you seem to be missing. If your visual cortex is > replaced, you are qualia blind with respect to visual qualia. However, you > behave normally, because the output to the muscles is the same. Also, the > rest of your brain works normally because it was not modified, and even > blind people are able to think and talk. Why don?t you say ?I am qualia > blind?? What is the point of having qualia if even you yourself don?t > notice if the qualia disappear? > >> -- > Stathis Papaioannou > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 22:40:36 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 16:40:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: I have a suggestion: can we stop using strawberries and red? Yellow is my favorite color, though blue is good too. Just to change up a bit, eh? bill w On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 4:22 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > OK very good points. So, let me see if I can address these good points in > the way I?m saying things. > > > > If you do a neuro substitution from redness physics to greenness physics, > (and visa versa) that would be possible if, in one step, you replaced all > the glutamate being presented to the binding neuron (including any possible > memory of glutamates colorness property) with glycine and your memory of > glycine's colorness property, that would be possible as i've pointed out > many times. > > > > But, still you must include this binding neuron (or something that > performs this required functionality) in your thought experiment, otherwise > composite computationally bound elemental physical qualities like redness > and greenness aren?t possible. And also, this same binding mechanism must > be able to connect a pre inverted system, with a post inverted system, so > that you can see that redness and grenness are inverted. > > > > Now, if you are doing a neuro substitution from redness to a binary one or > word like red (which is intentionally abstracted away from any physical > properties via additional hardware enabling substrate independence. It > wouldn?t be possible to include anything like knowledge that has a physical > redness quality functionality, without such extremely absurd hard > programmed functionality like: ?If someone asks you what it means to say: > ?My redness is like your greenness, both of which we say is red? you say I > understand that, and it is all true. Even though such is lie, since > abstract ones and zeros, by definition, are abstracted away from such > physical properties. > > > > On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 2:32 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Mon, 20 Jan 2020 at 02:59, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 6:39 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 at 11:57, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> whatever consciousness is, it would be reproduced if the function >>>>> (the observable behaviour) of anything that has it is reproduced. stathis >>>>> >>>>> I keep reading this and keep thinking that I understand it, and then I >>>>> think I don't. Are you saying that if we can get something to act like a >>>>> human brain it will therefore have all the functions thereof? >>>>> >>>> >>>> Neurons have observable behaviour: for example, when stimulated by >>>> other neurons they may ?fire?, propagating an action potential along their >>>> axon, and in turn stimulate neurons to which they connect. Billions of >>>> neurons in your visual cortex interact in this way and as a result you can >>>> identify objects in front of your eyes. These neurons, via a relay of >>>> multiple intermediate neurons, connect to the motor neurons controlling >>>> speech and you say ?I see a strawberry?. If the neurons in your visual >>>> cortex were destroyed their output would not get through to your vocal >>>> cords and you would not say ?I see a strawberry?, because you would be >>>> blind. But if the neurons were replaced by an artificial device that >>>> produced the same output given the same input, your vocal cords would >>>> receive the same input as before and you would say ?I see a strawberry?. >>>> >>> >>> This is all qualia blind. There is only red things in all this. You >>> must also include the physically different redness that we experience as >>> knowledge of red things. Also, everything you are saying here are >>> objective descriptions of behavior in the brain. There are two ways for us >>> to be aware of the same physical facts. One is by objective observation, >>> which is qualia blind. The second way is subjective. The only way to know >>> the physical quality, all this stuff Stathis is saying is describing, is to >>> experience those physical facts being described, directly. >>> >>> >>>> The above is a purely behavioural account. >>>> >>> As is everything stathis is describing, It's all only behavior >>> descriptions of physical qualities, i.e it is qualia blind. >>> >>> >>>> As external observers, we can?t be sure if you have visual experiences >>>> or not. >>>> >>> We can objectively know if people are having visual experiences or not, >>> via both the week and strongest forms of effing the ineffable. In order to >>> do the week form, you just need a dictionary that tells you what phenomenal >>> color descriptions of stuff in the brain are describing. If you >>> objectively see a word like 'red' representing red knowledge, you know that >>> isn't physically red. If you see a person representing green things with >>> knowledge composed of glycine, you know that person is red / green inverted >>> from you. With a neural ponytail (does what the corpus callosum does), >>> where you can directly experience the physical colorness properties in >>> another's consciousness, you will be aware of all your physical knowledge, >>> and the same time you are aware of your partners physical knowledge. You >>> will know, absolutely, that your partners is red / green inverted from >>> yourself. >>> >>> >>>> However, we can be sure that if you had them before the neural >>>> replacement, you have them afterwards as well.The alternative is that you >>>> become blind but don?t notice, and still say ?I see a strawberry?. This is >>>> absurd: what meaning could the word ?blind? have if you cannot notice that >>>> you are blind and behave as if you have normal vision? >>>> >>> Again, this is qualia blind. Consciousness is computationally bound >>> elemental physical qualities like redness and grenness. In order to not be >>> qualia blind, you need to include the physical redness functionality (must >>> be objectively different than grenness functionality), and a >>> computationally binding mechanism that enables you to be aware of both of >>> them at the same time. The neural substitution mind experiment you propose >>> can lead people astray in many ways. For example, if you have a single >>> binding neuron, that is performing the binding functionally, so you can be >>> aware of thousands of pixels neurons, each potentially firing with either >>> glutamate and glycine (or whatever it is that has the redness and grenness >>> physical qualities) When you do the neural substitution of the binging >>> neuron in that case, it is just a slight of hand when you are switching >>> between glutamate(redness)/glycine(grenness) the 1s(red)/0s(green). With >>> that one neuron switching, you are removing any computationally bound >>> information that was actual computationally bound awareness of redness, and >>> replacing all of it with 1. >>> >>> Also, a required functionality is the ability to computationally bind, >>> via a neural ponytail the two systems both before and after the neural >>> substitution. With this required functionality, you must be able to know, >>> directly, whether the neural substituted system now has redness swapped >>> with grenness, or 1s. If you do not provide the ability to do that in your >>> thought experiment, your thought experiment is qualia blind. If you >>> thought experiment is not qualia blind, everything makes sense, there are >>> no conundrums or absurd things like fading/dancing qualia. If your thought >>> experiment is not qualia blind, and if you know the phenomenal physical >>> quality of stuff (or functionality, if you must) everything is knowable >>> both objectively and subjectively. In qualia blind views like this, there >>> are impossibly hard mind body problems. If your thought experiment is not >>> qualia blind, the only problem is an easy color problem. >>> >>> >>> The conclusion is that an artificial device that correctly replicated >>>> neural behaviour will also replicate any associated consciousness. >>>> >>> >>> This conclusion can only true in a qualia blind thought experiment that >>> does not include a necessary redness functionality that necessarily can be >>> computationally bound. >>> >> >> Here is the problem which you seem to be missing. If your visual cortex >> is replaced, you are qualia blind with respect to visual qualia. However, >> you behave normally, because the output to the muscles is the same. Also, >> the rest of your brain works normally because it was not modified, and even >> blind people are able to think and talk. Why don?t you say ?I am qualia >> blind?? What is the point of having qualia if even you yourself don?t >> notice if the qualia disappear? >> >>> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 19 23:08:47 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 15:08:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <00d001d5cf1d$681622a0$384267e0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2020 12:56 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] Mental Phenomena Well, John, speed is very impressive. Did you know that cars can go faster than people can run? Even a hippo can do it. Speed alone can solve math problems and that's great. Can it tell us how to get along with one another? bill w Sure can! Get those turbos spinning, SHOOM the car gets there so fast and the passengers are so terrified during the short trip, there are no arguments or quarrels at all. Lotsa Hail Marys and stuff, but they hug each other when they get out, and everybody goes away. Speed helps us get along. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 19 23:34:10 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 15:34:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <00e301d5cf20$f36df370$da49da50$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] Mental Phenomena >?I have a suggestion: can we stop using strawberries and red? Yellow is my favorite color, though blue is good too. Just to change up a bit, eh? bill w BillW, recall this scene in Fiddler On the Roof: https://youtu.be/gRdfX7ut8gw Red has been the traditional color for ExI qualia discussions for over two decades. Twenty years of internet time is analogous to twenty centuries for Tevye (which is cool in itself.) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 11:49:13 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 06:49:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 4:04 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Well, John, speed is very impressive. Did you know that cars can go > faster than people can run? Even a hippo can do it. Speed alone can solve > math problems and that's great. Can it tell us how to get along with one > another? > In the first place walking is a poor analogy for thinking. In the second place speed won't help us do anything if we don't have it and we don't, computers do. That's why I said as a practical matter in the future it's very important that AIs think humans are conscious, but it won't matter in the slightest if humans believe AIs are conscious or not because humans will no longer have the power to act on those beliefs. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 19:05:53 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 13:05:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] height of frustration Message-ID: Hippos running reminded me of a radio show of many years ago featuring a man who thought he could outrun an antelope. A man can outrun a horse in the long distance, and so he went West and tried. He picked out an antelope and ran after it for miles and miles and the came over a ridge and saw a small herd of antelope. He could not identify the one he was chasing. So he just picked one out and did it again. Miles and miles and came over a ridge and there was a small herd and he could not pick out the one he was chasing. Repeat ad nauseam. This story wants a moral, so it is up to Spike or whoever wants to jump in here. Repeating one's mistakes is too obvious. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 20 19:20:49 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 11:20:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] height of frustration In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002401d5cfc6$b9bcf3a0$2d36dae0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] height of frustration Hippos running reminded me of a radio show? He picked out an antelope and ran after it for miles and miles and the came over a ridge and saw a small herd of antelope? Repeat ad nauseam. This story wants a moral, so it is up to Spike or whoever wants to jump in here. Repeating one's mistakes is too obvious. bill w Ja there is a moral to the story: If you wish to outrun a hippo, shoot the bastard first. Then run along at your leisure. The story you mention about the antelope explains why herd instinct was so effective a defense mechanism against predators, and it also explain why humans were such effective predators: that range thing is important. Humans recognize they need to carry water (and have the means to do it) for long chase. They can organize themselves, chase prey for a few miles, then hand off to the next guy who will chase, in hopes the next guy will return the favor at some future time and chase a tired antelope your way. Then share the meat afterwards. Always share the meat with the guy who chased it your way. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 19:32:34 2020 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 20:32:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] height of frustration In-Reply-To: <002401d5cfc6$b9bcf3a0$2d36dae0$@rainier66.com> References: <002401d5cfc6$b9bcf3a0$2d36dae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: The moral, appart from the obvious gun/bow related jokes is: you eat as you prep. The interesting thing here is that almost all human cultures have done endurance hunting in one way or another. If done right it is effective enough to motivate the energy expenditure. And when done vs predators like the Sami hunting of wolf's, even if the wolf gets away alive you get your secondary objective, namely a wolf that thinks humies are a dangerous bother and stay away. /Henrik Den m?n 20 jan. 2020 20:23spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> skrev: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* [ExI] height of frustration > > > > Hippos running reminded me of a radio show? > > > > He picked out an antelope and ran after it for miles and miles and the > came over a ridge and saw a small herd of antelope? > > > > Repeat ad nauseam. This story wants a moral, so it is up to Spike or > whoever wants to jump in here. Repeating one's mistakes is too obvious. > > > > bill w > > > > > > > > > > Ja there is a moral to the story: If you wish to outrun a hippo, shoot > the bastard first. Then run along at your leisure. > > > > The story you mention about the antelope explains why herd instinct was so > effective a defense mechanism against predators, and it also explain why > humans were such effective predators: that range thing is important. > Humans recognize they need to carry water (and have the means to do it) for > long chase. They can organize themselves, chase prey for a few miles, then > hand off to the next guy who will chase, in hopes the next guy will return > the favor at some future time and chase a tired antelope your way. Then > share the meat afterwards. Always share the meat with the guy who chased > it your way. > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jan 20 19:38:35 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 11:38:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discovered ?Mini-Computers? in Human Neurons?and That?s Great News for AI Message-ID: <20200120113835.Horde.YNjZ8ZCmGYEECB2Dunk2Urj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: > *> Seems like it should be a testable hypothesis.* >> > > It is. You gave the formula for the minimum amount of energy needed to > erase one bit of information in your last post, just plug in the numbers > for body temperature and the formula will give you a ridiculously small > number, a number that remains ridiculously small even if you multiply it by > 86 billion (the number of neurons in the human brain) and then multiply it > again by 15,000 (the maximum number of dendrites any neuron has been > observed to have). I am not disputing this, but Landauer's main point, and consequently mine, was that information is physical because it costs energy to erase. This remains true regardless of whether the amount of energy being used is near the limit or trillions of times more than it. You are right, the limit itself is unimportant to biology. But, the equivalence of information and energy implied by the limit is important in considering why the brain uses more energy than any other organ including the heart. Which is surprising since the heart is of similar mass and does literal physical work schlepping blood from your feet to your head and back every minute of every day. > Biologists would do well to spend their time studying things other > than Landauer, it just isn't important for there subject. The Landauer limit might not be important to biologists but Landauer's central thesis that information costs energy to process and is in some sense equivalent to energy certainly is. It is probably no accident that the cell's energy currency ATP is also one of the building blocks of nucleic acids which directly encodes information. Do you dispute information-energy equivalence? Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 21:13:54 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 16:13:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discovered ?Mini-Computers? in Human Neurons?and That?s Great News for AI In-Reply-To: <20200120113835.Horde.YNjZ8ZCmGYEECB2Dunk2Urj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200120113835.Horde.YNjZ8ZCmGYEECB2Dunk2Urj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 2:46 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *information is physical because it costs energy to erase.* Yes, I agree. Landauer proved that information is physical. > *Do you dispute information-energy equivalence?* Yes I dispute that. Information and energy are related but they are not equivalent. Energy and Momentum are also physical and there is a simple formula to translate one into the other, but they are not equivalent, that's why we need 2 different words for them. They are 2 different things. *> The Landauer limit might not be important to biologists* but [...] There is no "might" about it. Landauer's limit is not important to biologists period. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 21:42:34 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 16:42:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] height of frustration In-Reply-To: <002401d5cfc6$b9bcf3a0$2d36dae0$@rainier66.com> References: <002401d5cfc6$b9bcf3a0$2d36dae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 2:23 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *> The story you mention about the antelope explains why herd instinct was > so effective a defense mechanism against predators, and it also explain why > humans were such effective predators: that range thing is important. > Humans recognize they need to carry water (and have the means to do it) for > long chase. They can organize themselves, chase prey for a few miles, then > hand off to the next guy who will chase, in hopes the next guy will return > the favor at some future time and chase a tired antelope your way. Then > share the meat afterwards. Always share the meat with the guy who chased > it your way.* > Evaporation is an extremely good way to get rid of waste heat, but prey animals can only do it through the mouth by panting. However humans are naked apes and can sweat and evaporate water over their entire body, as a result they are much better at getting rid of heat when they exert themselves than any other animal of similar size. So humans became marathon runners not sprinters, they are not very fast but they are persistent and can keep running after their speedier prey have collapsed from heat exhaustion. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 01:21:59 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 20:21:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] height of frustration In-Reply-To: References: <002401d5cfc6$b9bcf3a0$2d36dae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Gotta break down the story: Man has problem he wants to solve. Tries, and fails. As a result, comes across another opportunity to solve the same problem. Tries, and fails again. Repeats. Perhaps something about how overconfidence leads to us not being able to learn from our failures. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 01:22:24 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 20:22:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] height of frustration In-Reply-To: References: <002401d5cfc6$b9bcf3a0$2d36dae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Which is basically repeating one's mistakes, but fancier -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Tue Jan 21 09:35:22 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 09:35:22 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9cdac581-02f1-71ee-b666-69ae3554818b@zaiboc.net> On 20/01/2020 19:32, Brent Allsop wrote: > > OK very good points. So, let me see if I can address these good points > in the way I?m saying things. > > If you do a neuro substitution from redness physics to greenness > physics, (and visa versa) that would be possible if, in one step, you > replaced all the glutamate being presented to the binding neuron > (including any possible memory of glutamates colorness property) with > glycine and your memory of glycine's?colorness property, that would be > possible as i've pointed out many times. > > But, still you must include this binding neuron (or something that > performs this required functionality) in your thought experiment, > otherwise composite computationally bound elemental physical qualities > like redness and greenness aren?t possible.? And also, this same > binding mechanism must be able to connect a pre inverted system, with > a post inverted system, so that you can see that redness and grenness > are inverted. > Brent, I think the biggest problem here /is/ the way you're saying things. A way that, as I've already demonstrated, cannot possibly reflect reality. As far as I know. You acknowledged my argument ("availability argument") as a good one, but failed to respond to my reply, saying I think the argument demolishes the idea of molecules being able to represent (or contain, or whatever) qualia. My question "I've falsified the theory, wouldn't you say?", was never answered. And now you continue to talk about glutamate and glycine, etc., and 'physical rednesss' being an 'elemental quality'. So I can only assume your answer is "No". Obviously, if there's something wrong with my argument, I'd like to know what it is, so please tell me! Unless you can show my argument to be wrong, you can't continue to talk in these terms. Well, you can, of course, but how can you expect anyone to take you seriously? So, please, either falsify my argument or stop talking about molecules like glycine having a 'colourness property', which my argument shows is impossible. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 12:48:54 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 07:48:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Lies Message-ID: According to the Washington Post fact Checker the current Commander In Chief of the USA has lied 16,241 times in the 3 years he has held that office. And the lies are accelerating, he lied more in 2019 than 2017 and 2018 combined. Last year on average he lied 22 times a day, or one public lie every 43 waking minutes. The number of private lies told is unknown. Lies Told By The President in 3 years John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 21 14:59:34 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 06:59:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] significant figures Message-ID: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> >? has lied 16,241 times in the 3 years ? News people often mix numbers having several significant digits to a subjective category. It is analogous to saying ?In the northern hemisphere it is cold 37.641 percent of the time.? That depends of course on who is being asked if it is cold. News people don?t really get this. Science rules in our world. Math rules reality. The rest of it is just sound and fury. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 14:59:28 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 08:59:28 -0600 Subject: [ExI] kirinyaga Message-ID: The author died recently, I read - Mike Resnick. So I ordered Kirinyaga. I have never been more depressed by a book. The main character is extremely highly educated in Europe but is a shaman of East AFrican descent. He sets up a community on a far planet to keep to traditional beliefs. One example: a baby is born feet first, so he kills the baby as it will be a demon. Another: one of the two twins must be killed because one woman cannot produce two souls, so one must be killed as it will be a demon. This sort of thing continues throughout the book. The shaman never changes his mind one iota. Maybe I missed the point. I hope his other books are not so depressing, Maybe one of you could recommend one. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 15:01:10 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 09:01:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] height of frustration In-Reply-To: References: <002401d5cfc6$b9bcf3a0$2d36dae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I think overconfidence is part of it. I graded essay tests by the many thousands. I don't know how many times I wrote on a paper that they were repeating their mistakes, but it was depressing. Human behavior is simply hard to change. In the metaphor, our unconscious is the elephant and we are the rider and have limited control over where the elephant goes. All behavior comes from the unconscious, so we have to figure out a way of controlling it better. It ought to be self-fixing: shown the right way to do something, the vastly increased success ought to be enough to get rid of the wrong behaviors. Sometimes that works. Sometime I had to write: You are repeating your mistakes AGAIN. If you have anything to share regarding changing your own behavior, succeeding or failing, I would like to read it. bill w On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 7:33 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Which is basically repeating one's mistakes, but fancier > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 15:09:06 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 09:09:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: So why aren't the math people in charge, Spike? bill w On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 9:02 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > >? has lied 16,241 times in the 3 years ? > > > > > > News people often mix numbers having several significant digits to a > subjective category. It is analogous to saying ?In the northern hemisphere > it is cold 37.641 percent of the time.? That depends of course on who is > being asked if it is cold. > > > > News people don?t really get this. > > > > Science rules in our world. Math rules reality. The rest of it is just > sound and fury. > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 21 15:31:48 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 07:31:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kirinyaga In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007a01d5d06f$e7918a80$b6b49f80$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] kirinyaga The author died recently, I read - Mike Resnick. So I ordered Kirinyaga. I have never been more depressed by a book. The main character is extremely highly educated in Europe but is a shaman of East AFrican descent?I hope his other books are not so depressing, Maybe one of you could recommend one?bill w BillW when I read this comment, I remember you had said something about another book being depressing, so I asked myself why I generally don?t find dark books depressing. The answer I came up with: the European-educated shaman (and the other dark character from Stuart) are caricatures. Dark writing is often filled with symbolism, and are intentionally exaggerated for the shock value. Don?t be depressed, be elated. Reasoning: this kind of thing generally doesn?t happen in Europe and generally doesn?t happen in the modern developed world. Science wins over superstition. We all win. Life is better here and now. Places where life isn?t better yet are getting better now, because they can learn from us. Example: the students fomenting revolution in Iran. They see how the rest of the world works and they want to be like us. Cool! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 21 15:35:08 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 07:35:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures >?So why aren't the math people in charge, Spike? bill w They are in charge BillW. People who hold offices and titles fool themselves. Our world today is ruled by science, technology, engineering and math. We even have a name for it: STEM. The students get it. They know who really runs our world. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 16:30:45 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 08:30:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:42 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > They are in charge BillW. People who hold offices and titles fool > themselves. Our world today is ruled by science, technology, engineering > and math. We even have a name for it: STEM. The students get it. They > know who really runs our world. > Only to a point. We do not yet live in a pure technocracy. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 21 16:37:06 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 08:37:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] significant figures > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures >?So why aren't the math people in charge, Spike? bill w >?They are in charge BillW. People who hold offices and titles fool themselves. Our world today is ruled by science, technology, engineering and math. We even have a name for it: STEM. The students get it. They know who really runs our world. spike To expand a bit on that thought: the decisions made by the guys who run the big search engine companies, the big social media hangouts and so on have so much influence on US elections one could argue they are in charge, but they only select political leaders. In our world today, we realize it is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns the world. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in Tue Jan 21 16:53:14 2020 From: f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in (Kunvar Thaman) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 22:23:14 +0530 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: 1. Math guys don't rule the world because they're good at math, not people pleasing or policy issues or administration. 2. Math guys to an extent are in charge (ex: finance - algo trading, etc). Tech influence is on almost everything, which itself is based on math. 3. No single person has an influence on search or how the ads are shown. No CEO or even the top engineer at Google understands even a small part of even the search algorithm they use (they do far more than that) simply because it's already too complex to be understood by any single person. Algorithms rule the world in that sense, not people. 4. If you think about it, even the current world hasn't been run by humans for a long time now. The major players in today's world are super powerful imaginary entities, bigger and stronger and more powerful than any human - countries like china and US. 5. >In our world today, we realize it is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns the world. Check out the book LIFE 3.0 - it's on this topic and is brilliantly written. &Kunvar On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 10:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > *Subject:* RE: [ExI] significant figures > > > > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] significant figures > > > > >?So why aren't the math people in charge, Spike? bill w > > > > > > > > >?They are in charge BillW. People who hold offices and titles fool > themselves. Our world today is ruled by science, technology, engineering > and math. We even have a name for it: STEM. The students get it. They > know who really runs our world. spike > > > > > > > > To expand a bit on that thought: the decisions made by the guys who run > the big search engine companies, the big social media hangouts and so on > have so much influence on US elections one could argue they are in charge, > but they only select political leaders. In our world today, we realize it > is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns > the world. > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 17:12:56 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 12:12:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 10:02 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >? has lied 16,241 times in the 3 years ? > > > > *> News people often mix numbers having several significant digits to a > subjective category. * > They didn't just pull that number out of the air, every single one of those 16,241 utterances can be specified, the only subjective part is in deciding whether to call them "lies" or to use a euphemism like "misleading statement". > *It is analogous to saying ?In the northern hemisphere it is cold 37.641 > percent of the time.? * > Misleading statements like "My opponent in this election Spike Jones has said the northern hemisphere it is cold 37.641 percent of the time and I have the quote to prove it!". Some would argue that wouldn't exactly be a lie but.. well.. it wouldn't exactly demonstrate a strong urge to get at the truth either. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 17:35:00 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 09:35:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kirinyaga In-Reply-To: <007a01d5d06f$e7918a80$b6b49f80$@rainier66.com> References: <007a01d5d06f$e7918a80$b6b49f80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 7:34 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > BillW when I read this comment, I remember you had said something about > another book being depressing, so I asked myself why I generally don?t find > dark books depressing. The answer I came up with: the European-educated > shaman (and the other dark character from Stuart) are caricatures. Dark > writing is often filled with symbolism, and are intentionally exaggerated > for the shock value. > Poe's Law applies, unfortunately. It is too often impossible to tell if this is the case, or if it's not an exaggeration at all and it is a serious proposal. Too often, it really is a serious proposal. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 17:50:11 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 11:50:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] kirinyaga In-Reply-To: References: <007a01d5d06f$e7918a80$b6b49f80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike, I don't want to be shocked. I want to be entertained. My daughter reads dystopian, post nuclear world war sorts of books and I asked her why. She said that in the end they triumphed over their troubles. Fine, but not for me. Why read an entire book about a guy who doesn't triumph in the end except to prove that there are truly irrational people among the intellectual elite. His son and everyone else has moved on to the modern world. He hasn't. I get the symbolism - it's just depressing. bill w On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 11:37 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 7:34 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> BillW when I read this comment, I remember you had said something about >> another book being depressing, so I asked myself why I generally don?t find >> dark books depressing. The answer I came up with: the European-educated >> shaman (and the other dark character from Stuart) are caricatures. Dark >> writing is often filled with symbolism, and are intentionally exaggerated >> for the shock value. >> > > Poe's Law applies, unfortunately. It is too often impossible to tell if > this is the case, or if it's not an exaggeration at all and it is a serious > proposal. Too often, it really is a serious proposal. > >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 17:53:35 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 11:53:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: If STEM people got together, they could stop anything from functioning. But they take their orders from elected, corrupt fools who keep getting elected despite the peoples' disgust with them. Side question: are there any engineers in Congress? In the California legislature? Doctors and lawyers, yes. STEM people, not so much. bill w On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 11:20 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 10:02 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > >> >? has lied 16,241 times in the 3 years ? >> >> >> >> *> News people often mix numbers having several significant digits to a >> subjective category. * >> > > They didn't just pull that number out of the air, every single one of > those 16,241 utterances can be specified, the only subjective part is in > deciding whether to call them "lies" or to use a euphemism like "misleading > statement". > > > *It is analogous to saying ?In the northern hemisphere it is cold >> 37.641 percent of the time.? * >> > > Misleading statements like "My opponent in this election Spike Jones has > said the northern hemisphere it is cold 37.641 percent of the time and I > have the quote to prove it!". Some would argue that wouldn't exactly be a > lie but.. well.. it wouldn't exactly demonstrate a strong urge to get at > the truth either. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 18:03:52 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 11:03:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <9cdac581-02f1-71ee-b666-69ae3554818b@zaiboc.net> References: <9cdac581-02f1-71ee-b666-69ae3554818b@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Ben, Yes, thanks for asking questions about my intentions instead of just dismissing me as an idiot. I?ve answered this question multiple times on this list, but I guess you haven?t seen this yet so let me try again. There is evidence of a clear consensus around qualia as indicated in ?Representational Qualia Theory ?. The only disagreement is what is the nature of qualia, as you can see in the many competing sub camps. In order to communicate the general ideas contained in RQT about how to eff the ineffable, why it is qualia blind to only use one word ?red? for all things red, and why the so called impossibly ?hard mind body problem? is really just a color problem and all that (already a somewhat difficult task to communicate) Of all the theories of qualia, we take the most straight forward, easiest to falsify ?Molecular Materialism ? theory, and we go way beyond even that, for simplicity sake. We imagine an imaginary world where there are only two colors red and green. Not even any other shades of color ? just red and green. And in this overly simplistic world it is glutamate reacting in a synapse that has the elemental pixel quality of redness, and glycine that has the elemental quality of greenness. All this, so we can say things like glutamate has a color property of white (it reflects white light) and it has a colorness quality of redness. Our abstract descriptions of how glutamate behaves in a synapse is one and the same as what we directly experience as elemental redness. So, if someone thinks redness = glutamate has been falsified, just substitute some other set of physics in the brain that hasn?t? yet been falsified. Replace every occurrence of glutamate, above, with whatever that things is. If you think there is a more likely theory than glutamate = redness (it must be very falsifiable, as most competing theories of ?molecular materialism, it isn?t clear how to falsify them) I would be happy to substitute whatever you think could be a description of the necessary and sufficient set of physics that is a description of what we directly experience as redness. And of course, it would be great if you would create a camp for what you think is most likely, so we can see how many other people agree with you, compared to competing theories. You still haven?t fully falsified Molecular Materialism for me, so I?m still supporting that as my top working hypothesis choice. The problem is, everyone gets lost in the minor details everyone disagrees on, and focuses on that. While completely missing what all the experts agree is important (that which is contained in RQT .) That is the power of cononizer ? the ability to push disagreements into lower level sub camps, out of the way of building consensus around what most experts agree is important:? There is no hard mind body problem, it?s just that nobody knows what color anything is. So, Ben, Please. From here on out, whenever I say glutamate, please replace that word with a description of whatever physics you most likely think is a description of redness. On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 2:36 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 20/01/2020 19:32, Brent Allsop wrote: > > OK very good points. So, let me see if I can address these good points in > the way I?m saying things. > > > > If you do a neuro substitution from redness physics to greenness physics, > (and visa versa) that would be possible if, in one step, you replaced all > the glutamate being presented to the binding neuron (including any possible > memory of glutamates colorness property) with glycine and your memory of > glycine's colorness property, that would be possible as i've pointed out > many times. > > > > But, still you must include this binding neuron (or something that > performs this required functionality) in your thought experiment, otherwise > composite computationally bound elemental physical qualities like redness > and greenness aren?t possible. And also, this same binding mechanism must > be able to connect a pre inverted system, with a post inverted system, so > that you can see that redness and grenness are inverted. > > > Brent, I think the biggest problem here *is* the way you're saying > things. A way that, as I've already demonstrated, cannot possibly reflect > reality. As far as I know. > > You acknowledged my argument ("availability argument") as a good one, but > failed to respond to my reply, saying I think the argument demolishes the > idea of molecules being able to represent (or contain, or whatever) qualia. > My question "I've falsified the theory, wouldn't you say?", was never > answered. And now you continue to talk about glutamate and glycine, etc., > and 'physical rednesss' being an 'elemental quality'. So I can only assume > your answer is "No". > > Obviously, if there's something wrong with my argument, I'd like to know > what it is, so please tell me! > > Unless you can show my argument to be wrong, you can't continue to talk in > these terms. Well, you can, of course, but how can you expect anyone to > take you seriously? > > So, please, either falsify my argument or stop talking about molecules > like glycine having a 'colourness property', which my argument shows is > impossible. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 21 18:41:50 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 10:41:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <012e01d5d08a$721bb3a0$56531ae0$@rainier66.com> Kunvar, welcome! Do tell us something about Kunvar please. Where are ya from? Where are ya headed? spike From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2020 8:53 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: Kunvar Thaman Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures 1. Math guys don't rule the world because they're good at math, not people pleasing or policy issues or administration. 2. Math guys to an extent are in charge (ex: finance - algo trading, etc). Tech influence is on almost everything, which itself is based on math. 3. No single person has an influence on search or how the ads are shown. No CEO or even the top engineer at Google understands even a small part of even the search algorithm they use (they do far more than that) simply because it's already too complex to be understood by any single person. Algorithms rule the world in that sense, not people. 4. If you think about it, even the current world hasn't been run by humans for a long time now. The major players in today's world are super powerful imaginary entities, bigger and stronger and more powerful than any human - countries like china and US. 5. >In our world today, we realize it is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns the world. Check out the book LIFE 3.0 - it's on this topic and is brilliantly written. &Kunvar On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 10:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: From: spike at rainier66.com > Subject: RE: [ExI] significant figures > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures >?So why aren't the math people in charge, Spike? bill w >?They are in charge BillW. People who hold offices and titles fool themselves. Our world today is ruled by science, technology, engineering and math. We even have a name for it: STEM. The students get it. They know who really runs our world. spike To expand a bit on that thought: the decisions made by the guys who run the big search engine companies, the big social media hangouts and so on have so much influence on US elections one could argue they are in charge, but they only select political leaders. In our world today, we realize it is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns the world. spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in Tue Jan 21 18:12:08 2020 From: f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in (Kunvar Thaman) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 23:42:08 +0530 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: > But they take their orders from elected, corrupt fools who keep getting elected despite the peoples' disgust with them 1. Aren't those people getting elected because the majority of people see them as competent leaders and elect them? Then it's essentially the public which is the fool, not those political leaders. 2. Where do these corrupt fools come from? They also came out of the system like us, went to similar schools, etc. We're in a system which promotes and selects for people who are good speakers and people pleasers, who may not efficient or smart people. 3. What can the STEM people do (I'm curious because I'm one of them) - not follow the law? There have already been pretty good solutions to most world problems which haven't been realized in practice. Small steps over time lead to huge changes. 4.Sure there have been engineers in Congress but the elections don't select for that. Public elections where common people vote are inherently going to promote people who can influence other better than their competition. 5. There's plenty of stupidity and ignorance in STEM people as well. There's a large percentage of people who got in to this field only for financial gains ( well, these jobs *do* pay well) and not internal interest or desire. &Kunvar On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 11:28 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > If STEM people got together, they could stop anything from functioning. > But they take their orders from elected, corrupt fools who keep getting > elected despite the peoples' disgust with them. Side question: are there > any engineers in Congress? In the California legislature? Doctors and > lawyers, yes. STEM people, not so much. bill w > > On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 11:20 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 10:02 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >> >>> >? has lied 16,241 times in the 3 years ? >>> >>> >>> >>> *> News people often mix numbers having several significant digits to a >>> subjective category. * >>> >> >> They didn't just pull that number out of the air, every single one of >> those 16,241 utterances can be specified, the only subjective part is in >> deciding whether to call them "lies" or to use a euphemism like "misleading >> statement". >> >> > *It is analogous to saying ?In the northern hemisphere it is cold >>> 37.641 percent of the time.? * >>> >> >> Misleading statements like "My opponent in this election Spike Jones has >> said the northern hemisphere it is cold 37.641 percent of the time and I >> have the quote to prove it!". Some would argue that wouldn't exactly be a >> lie but.. well.. it wouldn't exactly demonstrate a strong urge to get at >> the truth either. >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 19:13:38 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 13:13:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I thought after I got my doctorate that, while I got out of clinical work in grad school, I might go into sports psych. Then I said, no, a lifetime of sport? Unhuh. But a lasting interest has been marketing, which is mainly about images, and those are mainly visual. I read one study where the only thing that really mattered about a TV ad for soap was the repeated image of the product. So if you want people to buy Tide, have them see the box over and over during the ad. Other studies show that if you show people pictures of people they can pick out which ones they would vote for. Political ads feature the image of the person and a few words and they are very successful. What that comes down to is money. More money, more images you can put in front of people. I don't know how long George Wallace was voted for after he died, but it was a long time. Seeing Wallace on the ballot was all it took: his name (he had a son who kept getting elected). Later there was an unrelated Wallace who got elected without running. Just got his name on the ballot. Just a few words: the magical words here are Baptist, family man, family values, conservative. And Republican. Those here have vowed to choke government until it dies and never raise taxes for any reason, and they keep getting elected. Prison riots, roads closing, bridges closing - nothing seems to get through to the people here that some things need to change. Just vote Republican and go home. They don't know what socialism is, but they don't like it, and the Repubs have branded the Democrats with that,and the only Demos that get elected are blacks from black districts. Speaking of depressing. I can only hope that things are better elsewhere. But people are people and images are nearly everything. bill w On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 12:53 PM Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > But they take their orders from elected, corrupt fools who keep getting > elected despite the peoples' disgust with them > 1. Aren't those people getting elected because the majority of people see > them as competent leaders and elect them? Then it's essentially the public > which is the fool, not those political leaders. > > 2. Where do these corrupt fools come from? They also came out of the > system like us, went to similar schools, etc. We're in a system which > promotes and selects for people who are good speakers and people pleasers, > who may not efficient or smart people. > > 3. What can the STEM people do (I'm curious because I'm one of them) - not > follow the law? There have already been pretty good solutions to most world > problems which haven't been realized in practice. Small steps over time > lead to huge changes. > > 4.Sure there have been engineers in Congress but the elections don't > select for that. Public elections where common people vote are inherently > going to promote people who can influence other better than their > competition. > > 5. There's plenty of stupidity and ignorance in STEM people as well. > There's a large percentage of people who got in to this field only for > financial gains ( well, these jobs *do* pay well) and not internal interest > or desire. > > &Kunvar > > > > On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 11:28 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> If STEM people got together, they could stop anything from functioning. >> But they take their orders from elected, corrupt fools who keep getting >> elected despite the peoples' disgust with them. Side question: are there >> any engineers in Congress? In the California legislature? Doctors and >> lawyers, yes. STEM people, not so much. bill w >> >> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 11:20 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 10:02 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>> >? has lied 16,241 times in the 3 years ? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> *> News people often mix numbers having several significant digits to a >>>> subjective category. * >>>> >>> >>> They didn't just pull that number out of the air, every single one of >>> those 16,241 utterances can be specified, the only subjective part is in >>> deciding whether to call them "lies" or to use a euphemism like "misleading >>> statement". >>> >>> > *It is analogous to saying ?In the northern hemisphere it is cold >>>> 37.641 percent of the time.? * >>>> >>> >>> Misleading statements like "My opponent in this election Spike Jones >>> has said the northern hemisphere it is cold 37.641 percent of the time >>> and I have the quote to prove it!". Some would argue that wouldn't exactly >>> be a lie but.. well.. it wouldn't exactly demonstrate a strong urge to get >>> at the truth either. >>> >>> John K Clark >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in Tue Jan 21 19:15:55 2020 From: f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in (Kunvar Thaman) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 00:45:55 +0530 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> <012e01d5d08a$721bb3a0$56531ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hey all, I'm a new member! ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Kunvar Thaman Date: Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:23 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures To: Gregory Jones Hey! 1. I'm an undergrad in college at the moment. My majors are Electrical+Electronics engineering and Biology. 2. My major interests are in neurobiology, machine learning, and I spend a large (shamelessly large amount of time) solving all sorts of problems from a data perspective (see: Fermi Calculations). 3. I find it convenient and concise to write down my thoughts in points, makes me free to not use as many filler sentences, gives it structure, and more organized. 4. I enjoy reading lots of books. I mostly read them in parallel - I've got many books going on at any given time. The reason for doing this is that emotions are not constant throughout the day, and between days. Some days you just don't feel like reading some romantic book but just want to read more about that murder plot. Having many books open in parallel makes it interesting for me. 5. I watch football (soccer), tennis, squash (I play it for my univ also), and follow chess. &Kunvar On Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:11 AM wrote: > Kunvar, welcome! > > > > Do tell us something about Kunvar please. Where are ya from? Where are > ya headed? > > > > spike > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Tuesday, January 21, 2020 8:53 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* Kunvar Thaman > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] significant figures > > > > 1. Math guys don't rule the world because they're good at math, not people > pleasing or policy issues or administration. > > > > 2. Math guys to an extent are in charge (ex: finance - algo trading, etc). > Tech influence is on almost everything, which itself is based on math. > > > > 3. No single person has an influence on search or how the ads are shown. > No CEO or even the top engineer at Google understands even a small part of > even the search algorithm they use (they do far more than that) simply > because it's already too complex to be understood by any single person. > Algorithms rule the world in that sense, not people. > > > > 4. If you think about it, even the current world hasn't been run by humans > for a long time now. The major players in today's world are super powerful > imaginary entities, bigger and stronger and more powerful than any human - > countries like china and US. > > > > 5. >In our world today, we realize it is a huge arms race for AI. The > first guy to create and control AI owns the world. > > Check out the book LIFE 3.0 - it's on this topic and is brilliantly > written. > > > > &Kunvar > > > > On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 10:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > *Subject:* RE: [ExI] significant figures > > > > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] significant figures > > > > >?So why aren't the math people in charge, Spike? bill w > > > > > > > > >?They are in charge BillW. People who hold offices and titles fool > themselves. Our world today is ruled by science, technology, engineering > and math. We even have a name for it: STEM. The students get it. They > know who really runs our world. spike > > > > > > > > To expand a bit on that thought: the decisions made by the guys who run > the big search engine companies, the big social media hangouts and so on > have so much influence on US elections one could argue they are in charge, > but they only select political leaders. In our world today, we realize it > is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns > the world. > > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 19:51:01 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 12:51:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> <012e01d5d08a$721bb3a0$56531ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yay, Welcome Kunvar, It is great to learn this about you. Multiple people on this list, including me, are very interested in theories of consciousness, and what other think, especially regarding what might uploading be like and all that. Some of us have "canonized" their view on this on Canonizer.com. For example, I'm support the following ladder of sub camps as my current working hypothesis: Agreement / Approachable Via Science / Representational Qualia / Mind-Brain Identity / Monism / Qualia are Material Qualities / Molecular Materialism I'd love to know your current thoughts on consciousness, and your beliefs about what uploading might be like. And do you think we'll be doing things like hacking our consciousness and uploading ourselves by the year 2100? Thanks for joining!! Brent Allsop On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 12:27 PM Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hey all, I'm a new member! > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Kunvar Thaman > Date: Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:23 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures > To: Gregory Jones > > > Hey! > > 1. I'm an undergrad in college at the moment. My majors are > Electrical+Electronics engineering and Biology. > > 2. My major interests are in neurobiology, machine learning, and I spend a > large (shamelessly large amount of time) solving all sorts of problems from > a data perspective (see: Fermi Calculations). > > 3. I find it convenient and concise to write down my thoughts in points, > makes me free to not use as many filler sentences, gives it structure, and > more organized. > > 4. I enjoy reading lots of books. I mostly read them in parallel - I've > got many books going on at any given time. The reason for doing this is > that emotions are not constant throughout the day, and between days. Some > days you just don't feel like reading some romantic book but just want to > read more about that murder plot. Having many books open in parallel makes > it interesting for me. > > 5. I watch football (soccer), tennis, squash (I play it for my univ also), > and follow chess. > > &Kunvar > > On Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:11 AM wrote: > >> Kunvar, welcome! >> >> >> >> Do tell us something about Kunvar please. Where are ya from? Where are >> ya headed? >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf >> Of *Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat >> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 21, 2020 8:53 AM >> *To:* ExI chat list >> *Cc:* Kunvar Thaman >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] significant figures >> >> >> >> 1. Math guys don't rule the world because they're good at math, not >> people pleasing or policy issues or administration. >> >> >> >> 2. Math guys to an extent are in charge (ex: finance - algo trading, >> etc). Tech influence is on almost everything, which itself is based on math. >> >> >> >> 3. No single person has an influence on search or how the ads are shown. >> No CEO or even the top engineer at Google understands even a small part of >> even the search algorithm they use (they do far more than that) simply >> because it's already too complex to be understood by any single person. >> Algorithms rule the world in that sense, not people. >> >> >> >> 4. If you think about it, even the current world hasn't been run by >> humans for a long time now. The major players in today's world are super >> powerful imaginary entities, bigger and stronger and more powerful than any >> human - countries like china and US. >> >> >> >> 5. >In our world today, we realize it is a huge arms race for AI. The >> first guy to create and control AI owns the world. >> >> Check out the book LIFE 3.0 - it's on this topic and is brilliantly >> written. >> >> >> >> &Kunvar >> >> >> >> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 10:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> *From:* spike at rainier66.com >> *Subject:* RE: [ExI] significant figures >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] significant figures >> >> >> >> >?So why aren't the math people in charge, Spike? bill w >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >?They are in charge BillW. People who hold offices and titles fool >> themselves. Our world today is ruled by science, technology, engineering >> and math. We even have a name for it: STEM. The students get it. They >> know who really runs our world. spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> To expand a bit on that thought: the decisions made by the guys who run >> the big search engine companies, the big social media hangouts and so on >> have so much influence on US elections one could argue they are in charge, >> but they only select political leaders. In our world today, we realize it >> is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns >> the world. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 20:11:59 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 12:11:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 9:59 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Side question: are there any engineers in Congress? In the California > legislature? Doctors and lawyers, yes. STEM people, not so much. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_States_Congress says 5 engineers & 6 scientists in Congress. The proportion is likely similar in the California legislature. As the counts of other professions in that article demonstrate, this is not the quality that electors care about. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 21:32:33 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 15:32:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> <012e01d5d08a$721bb3a0$56531ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: You and I may be the only sports fans in the group. I played and loved tennis, racquetball (no facility for squash but would love it) and golf. Sci-fi, science nonfiction, any biology but esp. parasites, bacteria, viruses etc. I am 78, retired, and read like you, several at a time. I am a social psychologist among all these STEM people. I try to keep them straight, but am failing. Watch out for Spike, he will pull both of your legs at the same time. bill w On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 1:28 PM Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hey all, I'm a new member! > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Kunvar Thaman > Date: Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:23 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures > To: Gregory Jones > > > Hey! > > 1. I'm an undergrad in college at the moment. My majors are > Electrical+Electronics engineering and Biology. > > 2. My major interests are in neurobiology, machine learning, and I spend a > large (shamelessly large amount of time) solving all sorts of problems from > a data perspective (see: Fermi Calculations). > > 3. I find it convenient and concise to write down my thoughts in points, > makes me free to not use as many filler sentences, gives it structure, and > more organized. > > 4. I enjoy reading lots of books. I mostly read them in parallel - I've > got many books going on at any given time. The reason for doing this is > that emotions are not constant throughout the day, and between days. Some > days you just don't feel like reading some romantic book but just want to > read more about that murder plot. Having many books open in parallel makes > it interesting for me. > > 5. I watch football (soccer), tennis, squash (I play it for my univ also), > and follow chess. > > &Kunvar > > On Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:11 AM wrote: > >> Kunvar, welcome! >> >> >> >> Do tell us something about Kunvar please. Where are ya from? Where are >> ya headed? >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf >> Of *Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat >> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 21, 2020 8:53 AM >> *To:* ExI chat list >> *Cc:* Kunvar Thaman >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] significant figures >> >> >> >> 1. Math guys don't rule the world because they're good at math, not >> people pleasing or policy issues or administration. >> >> >> >> 2. Math guys to an extent are in charge (ex: finance - algo trading, >> etc). Tech influence is on almost everything, which itself is based on math. >> >> >> >> 3. No single person has an influence on search or how the ads are shown. >> No CEO or even the top engineer at Google understands even a small part of >> even the search algorithm they use (they do far more than that) simply >> because it's already too complex to be understood by any single person. >> Algorithms rule the world in that sense, not people. >> >> >> >> 4. If you think about it, even the current world hasn't been run by >> humans for a long time now. The major players in today's world are super >> powerful imaginary entities, bigger and stronger and more powerful than any >> human - countries like china and US. >> >> >> >> 5. >In our world today, we realize it is a huge arms race for AI. The >> first guy to create and control AI owns the world. >> >> Check out the book LIFE 3.0 - it's on this topic and is brilliantly >> written. >> >> >> >> &Kunvar >> >> >> >> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 10:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> *From:* spike at rainier66.com >> *Subject:* RE: [ExI] significant figures >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] significant figures >> >> >> >> >?So why aren't the math people in charge, Spike? bill w >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >?They are in charge BillW. People who hold offices and titles fool >> themselves. Our world today is ruled by science, technology, engineering >> and math. We even have a name for it: STEM. The students get it. They >> know who really runs our world. spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> To expand a bit on that thought: the decisions made by the guys who run >> the big search engine companies, the big social media hangouts and so on >> have so much influence on US elections one could argue they are in charge, >> but they only select political leaders. In our world today, we realize it >> is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns >> the world. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 21 22:12:33 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 14:12:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> <012e01d5d08a$721bb3a0$56531ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002b01d5d0a7$e21a7c00$a64f7400$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2020 1:33 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Fwd: significant figures >? Watch out for Spike, he will pull both of your legs at the same time. bill w Well ja. But never in opposite directions. I will not go there. I do have a sense of propriety. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 22:21:46 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 16:21:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Hello Kunvar [was : significant figures] In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> <012e01d5d08a$721bb3a0$56531ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <7B96BCDD-421D-4DD8-915E-5D98E82F15C4@gmail.com> I enjoy Hockey (never played) and Competitive Weightlifting (did for 3 1/2 years). I also like Go, but almost never play and so I am absolutely terrible at it. I?m 26 and currently failing to do anything in life other than suffer from pneumonia, lol. And Spike really will pull both your legs. SR Ballard > On Jan 21, 2020, at 3:32 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > You and I may be the only sports fans in the group. I played and loved tennis, racquetball (no facility for squash but would love it) and golf. Sci-fi, science nonfiction, any biology but esp. parasites, bacteria, viruses etc. I am 78, retired, and read like you, several at a time. I am a social psychologist among all these STEM people. I try to keep them straight, but am failing. Watch out for Spike, he will pull both of your legs at the same time. bill w > >> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 1:28 PM Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat wrote: >> Hey all, I'm a new member! >> >> ---------- Forwarded message --------- >> From: Kunvar Thaman >> Date: Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:23 AM >> Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures >> To: Gregory Jones >> >> >> Hey! >> >> 1. I'm an undergrad in college at the moment. My majors are Electrical+Electronics engineering and Biology. >> >> 2. My major interests are in neurobiology, machine learning, and I spend a large (shamelessly large amount of time) solving all sorts of problems from a data perspective (see: Fermi Calculations). >> >> 3. I find it convenient and concise to write down my thoughts in points, makes me free to not use as many filler sentences, gives it structure, and more organized. >> >> 4. I enjoy reading lots of books. I mostly read them in parallel - I've got many books going on at any given time. The reason for doing this is that emotions are not constant throughout the day, and between days. Some days you just don't feel like reading some romantic book but just want to read more about that murder plot. Having many books open in parallel makes it interesting for me. >> >> 5. I watch football (soccer), tennis, squash (I play it for my univ also), and follow chess. >> >> &Kunvar >> >>> On Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:11 AM wrote: >>> Kunvar, welcome! >>> >>> >>> >>> Do tell us something about Kunvar please. Where are ya from? Where are ya headed? >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> >>> >>> >>> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat >>> Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2020 8:53 AM >>> To: ExI chat list >>> Cc: Kunvar Thaman >>> Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures >>> >>> >>> >>> 1. Math guys don't rule the world because they're good at math, not people pleasing or policy issues or administration. >>> >>> >>> >>> 2. Math guys to an extent are in charge (ex: finance - algo trading, etc). Tech influence is on almost everything, which itself is based on math. >>> >>> >>> >>> 3. No single person has an influence on search or how the ads are shown. No CEO or even the top engineer at Google understands even a small part of even the search algorithm they use (they do far more than that) simply because it's already too complex to be understood by any single person. Algorithms rule the world in that sense, not people. >>> >>> >>> >>> 4. If you think about it, even the current world hasn't been run by humans for a long time now. The major players in today's world are super powerful imaginary entities, bigger and stronger and more powerful than any human - countries like china and US. >>> >>> >>> >>> 5. >In our world today, we realize it is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns the world. >>> >>> Check out the book LIFE 3.0 - it's on this topic and is brilliantly written. >>> >>> >>> >>> &Kunvar >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 10:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> From: spike at rainier66.com >>> Subject: RE: [ExI] significant figures >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>> Subject: Re: [ExI] significant figures >>> >>> >>> >>> >?So why aren't the math people in charge, Spike? bill w >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >?They are in charge BillW. People who hold offices and titles fool themselves. Our world today is ruled by science, technology, engineering and math. We even have a name for it: STEM. The students get it. They know who really runs our world. spike >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> To expand a bit on that thought: the decisions made by the guys who run the big search engine companies, the big social media hangouts and so on have so much influence on US elections one could argue they are in charge, but they only select political leaders. In our world today, we realize it is a huge arms race for AI. The first guy to create and control AI owns the world. >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 21 23:21:02 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 15:21:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Hello Kunvar [was : significant figures] In-Reply-To: <7B96BCDD-421D-4DD8-915E-5D98E82F15C4@gmail.com> References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> <012e01d5d08a$721bb3a0$56531ae0$@rainier66.com> <7B96BCDD-421D-4DD8-915E-5D98E82F15C4@gmail.com> Message-ID: <004401d5d0b1$72a39690$57eac3b0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat ubject: [ExI] Hello Kunvar [was : significant figures] I enjoy Hockey (never played) and Competitive Weightlifting (did for 3 1/2 years). I also like Go, but almost never play and so I am absolutely terrible at it. I?m 26 and currently failing to do anything in life other than suffer from pneumonia, lol. And Spike really will pull both your legs. SR Ballard SR so sorry to hear of your pneumonia. I had it for nearly all of December. The difference between us: I ain?t young. Do get well soon, young human. I need a pair of legs to pull (in the same direction.) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 00:01:23 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 19:01:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Cancer Message-ID: The journal Nature Immunology published an article yesterday that I think could be pretty important in the war on cancer: CRISPR?Cas9 screening reveals ubiquitous T-cell cancer targeting via the monomorphic MR1 protein It's been Known for some time that T-cells can be extracted from a cancer patient and genetically modified with CRISPR to produce a receptor for the patient's cancer and therefore label it as malignant so the immune system can attack it. This has produced some very good results for some cancers like leukemia but unfortunately the treatment must be personalized for each patient and is far less effective in dealing with large solid cancers. But in this new discovery they found a protein called MR1 that does not change from person to person and exists on the surface of many different types of cancers. When they used CRISPR to make T-cells to produce a receptor for this MR1 protein the results have been encouraging. So far they've only tried it with mice and with human cells in vitro, but at least in those limited circumstances it has been shown to kill lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney, and cervical cancer cells but seems to have no effect at all on non-cancerous normal cells. And one size fits all, no personalization is needed. It remains to be seen if this works as well in clinical trials, sometimes they don't, but one can hope. Scientist Finds New Blood Cell That Kills Cancer While Ignoring Healthy Cells John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 00:04:25 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 00:04:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Hello Kunvar [was : significant figures] In-Reply-To: <004401d5d0b1$72a39690$57eac3b0$@rainier66.com> References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> <012e01d5d08a$721bb3a0$56531ae0$@rainier66.com> <7B96BCDD-421D-4DD8-915E-5D98E82F15C4@gmail.com> <004401d5d0b1$72a39690$57eac3b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 21 Jan 2020 at 23:24, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > SR so sorry to hear of your pneumonia. I had it for nearly all of December. The difference between us: I ain?t young. > Do get well soon, young human. I need a pair of legs to pull (in the same direction.) > In UK all over 65s are offered the pneumonia vaccination as they are an at-risk group. It is a once-only vaccination, free to over 65s via the National Health Service. BillK From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 00:56:39 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 19:56:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: significant figures In-Reply-To: References: <004501d5d06b$64bc7c90$2e3575b0$@rainier66.com> <007f01d5d070$5d2f8e90$178eabb0$@rainier66.com> <008d01d5d079$05283900$0f78ab00$@rainier66.com> <012e01d5d08a$721bb3a0$56531ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 4:35 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > You and I may be the only sports fans in the group. I played and loved > tennis, racquetball (no facility for squash but would love it) and golf. > Sci-fi, science nonfiction, any biology but esp. parasites, bacteria, > viruses etc. I am 78, retired, and read like you, several at a time. I am > a social psychologist among all these STEM people. I try to keep them > straight, but am failing. Watch out for Spike, he will pull both of your > legs at the same time. > I row competitively (against people my age), was a regional autocross champion ~10 years ago, and was on the rifle team in college. I watch college football and basketball and pros occasionally. I read some sci-fi and sci-nonfi, but not as much as I used to. l just turned 60. I'm in IT at Oak Ridge National Lab. I play bass in a "dad band"--we play one or two gigs per month and recorded a CD available in all the usual places online (Shelter Road Band - Shelter Blues). I wrote a computer book a long time ago (The qmail Handbook) that is still selling on Amazon and other places. I drink a fair amount of beer, whiskey, and wine, and retired from homebrewing a couple years ago. I live on 31 acres in east Tennessee. I have three kids who all have master's degrees and three grandkids. That hits the highlights. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 13:57:39 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 08:57:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Encryption Message-ID: A decade or two ago this list was very pro encryption so I thought some might still be interested in these developments. The current presidential administration has pressured Apple to drop its plan to use end to end encryption on all its products: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups It seems that governments just don't like encryption, or at least they don't like it when it's used to prevent them from knowing what their citizens are saying, but they love encryption when its used to prevent its citizens from knowing what the government is doing. China has long been on the anti-encryption bandwagon and now India has jumped on too and wants to stop civilian use of it; of course political leaders want to continue to use it among themselves, heaven forbid that citizens find out what they're up to: India will force companies to trace messages back to their originators John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 14:10:58 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 09:10:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Encryption In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 9:01 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > A decade or two ago this list was very pro encryption so I thought some > might still be interested in these developments. The current > presidential administration has pressured Apple to drop its plan to use end > to end encryption on all its products: > > Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups > > > It seems that governments just don't like encryption, or at least they > don't like it when it's used to prevent them from knowing what their > citizens are saying, but they love encryption when its used to prevent its > citizens from knowing what the government is doing. China has long been on > the anti-encryption bandwagon and now India has jumped on too and wants to > stop civilian use of it; of course political leaders want to continue to > use it among themselves, heaven forbid that citizens find out what they're > up to: > > India will force companies to trace messages back to their originators > > Attempts to control/limit/weaken encryption are popular with authoritarians but are foolish and will fail, in the long run. That won't stop them from trying, of course. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 22 14:21:44 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 06:21:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Encryption In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007001d5d12f$469c63a0$d3d52ae0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Encryption >? Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups It seems that governments just don't like encryption.... China has long been on the anti-encryption bandwagon and now India has jumped on too and wants to stop civilian use of it? John K Clark Technology has come to our rescue. Consider a photograph made with a standard phone with 16 bit color. One could take that photo, encode a message in the least significant bit. The change in the photograph would be impossible to detect. There is no way to prove that there is a message in that LSB. Of course the message is 16 times longer than the unencrypted message, but that shouldn?t matter in our times of abundant bandwidth. Not only could encrypted messages be sent in such a way that they look like ordinary photos, it could be completely secure if encrypted using a one-time pad on a computer not connected to the internet. Result: snoops can neither crack the message nor even prove there is an encrypted message to crack. Ain?t math cool? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in Wed Jan 22 14:54:11 2020 From: f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in (Kunvar Thaman) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 20:24:11 +0530 Subject: [ExI] Encryption In-Reply-To: <007001d5d12f$469c63a0$d3d52ae0$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d5d12f$469c63a0$d3d52ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: > > Consider a photograph made with a standard phone with 16 bit color. One > could take that photo, encode a message in the least significant bit. The > change in the photograph would be impossible to detect. There is no way to > prove that there is a message in that LSB. Of course the message is 16 > times longer than the unencrypted message, but that shouldn?t matter in our > times of abundant bandwidth. Nice example. Yes, the governments can try to put restrictions on companies, but even now there are ways to encrypt messages such that even if quantum computers are there, they won't be able to crack the messages. I'm not aware of what's going on in China other than that they use Deep NNs for facial recognition, somewhat similar to 1984's Big Brother's party. (Funny story - I like to ask my friends whether they'd ever give the government their photograph and personal identification data, and they're almost always like "NO" but then I tell them that they all have passports. Que the look of surprise.) Everything is information - the bits of information are indestructible - everything theoretically could be used to encrypt messages. &Kunvar On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 7:52 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *John Clark via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] Encryption > > > > >? > > > > Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups > > > > > It seems that governments just don't like encryption.... China has long > been on the anti-encryption bandwagon and now India has jumped on too and > wants to stop civilian use of it? > > John K Clark > > > > > > Technology has come to our rescue. > > > > Consider a photograph made with a standard phone with 16 bit color. One > could take that photo, encode a message in the least significant bit. The > change in the photograph would be impossible to detect. There is no way to > prove that there is a message in that LSB. Of course the message is 16 > times longer than the unencrypted message, but that shouldn?t matter in our > times of abundant bandwidth. > > > > Not only could encrypted messages be sent in such a way that they look > like ordinary photos, it could be completely secure if encrypted using a > one-time pad on a computer not connected to the internet. Result: snoops > can neither crack the message nor even prove there is an encrypted message > to crack. > > > > Ain?t math cool? > > > > spike > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 15:22:22 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 09:22:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Encryption In-Reply-To: References: <007001d5d12f$469c63a0$d3d52ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: So what can a government do? Investigate anyone who sends encrypted messages? I suppose you can battle that by sheer numbers of people doing it. I remember reading in Heinlein that when a government issued id cards to everyone which were required to live in the society, it was time to move on. bill w On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 8:57 AM Kunvar Thaman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Consider a photograph made with a standard phone with 16 bit color. One >> could take that photo, encode a message in the least significant bit. The >> change in the photograph would be impossible to detect. There is no way to >> prove that there is a message in that LSB. Of course the message is 16 >> times longer than the unencrypted message, but that shouldn?t matter in our >> times of abundant bandwidth. > > > Nice example. Yes, the governments can try to put restrictions on > companies, but even now there are ways to encrypt messages such that even > if quantum computers are there, they won't be able to crack the messages. > > I'm not aware of what's going on in China other than that they use Deep > NNs for facial recognition, somewhat similar to 1984's Big Brother's party. > > (Funny story - I like to ask my friends whether they'd ever give the > government their photograph and personal identification data, and they're > almost always like "NO" but then I tell them that they all have passports. > Que the look of surprise.) > > Everything is information - the bits of information are indestructible - > everything theoretically could be used to encrypt messages. > > &Kunvar > > On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 7:52 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf >> Of *John Clark via extropy-chat >> *Subject:* [ExI] Encryption >> >> >> >> >? >> >> >> >> Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups >> >> >> >> >> It seems that governments just don't like encryption.... China has long >> been on the anti-encryption bandwagon and now India has jumped on too and >> wants to stop civilian use of it? >> >> John K Clark >> >> >> >> >> >> Technology has come to our rescue. >> >> >> >> Consider a photograph made with a standard phone with 16 bit color. One >> could take that photo, encode a message in the least significant bit. The >> change in the photograph would be impossible to detect. There is no way to >> prove that there is a message in that LSB. Of course the message is 16 >> times longer than the unencrypted message, but that shouldn?t matter in our >> times of abundant bandwidth. >> >> >> >> Not only could encrypted messages be sent in such a way that they look >> like ordinary photos, it could be completely secure if encrypted using a >> one-time pad on a computer not connected to the internet. Result: snoops >> can neither crack the message nor even prove there is an encrypted message >> to crack. >> >> >> >> Ain?t math cool? >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 15:35:09 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 10:35:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Encryption In-Reply-To: References: <007001d5d12f$469c63a0$d3d52ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 10:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > So what can a government do? > Anything they want, up to and including imprisonment and execution. > Investigate anyone who sends encrypted messages? I suppose you can battle > that by sheer numbers of people doing it. I remember reading in Heinlein > that when a government issued id cards to everyone which were required to > live in the society, it was time to move on. > Moving on is easier said than done. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 22 15:39:26 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 07:39:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Encryption In-Reply-To: References: <007001d5d12f$469c63a0$d3d52ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00da01d5d13a$20e22ea0$62a68be0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Encryption >?So what can a government do? Write a 4th Amendment acknowledging intentional limits to what a government can do. >?Investigate anyone who sends encrypted messages? See above. The 4th amendment is our own government?s recognition that a sealed letter is a form of encryption: they are paid to deliver the message but cannot legally open it. >?I suppose you can battle that by sheer numbers of people doing it? Of course. >?I remember reading in Heinlein that when a government issued id cards to everyone which were required to live in the society, it was time to move on. bill w Sure, however at some point there is no on to move to. This planet is already out of on. If you know where there is still on to be found, do share. I will seriously consider moving on. In the meantime, there is a reason why we are paying such close attention to that recent distasteful episode involving the FISA court, which is a special-case permission for the government to go around its own 4th amendment. The problem with that was pointed out when the FISA court was first established: over time special cases become less special. A human or group of humans are in charge of determining what constitutes a special case. This is dangerous and invites abuse. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 15:44:01 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 10:44:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Encryption In-Reply-To: References: <007001d5d12f$469c63a0$d3d52ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 10:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > So what can a government do? Investigate anyone who sends encrypted > messages? > Yes, or at least investigate anyone who doesn't use government approved encryption that has a backdoor in it that the government can use whenever they want. > I suppose you can battle that by sheer numbers of people doing it. > China has more people than anyone and they seem to be having little trouble stamping out encryption, and I certainly don't think the current congress of the USA would hesitate to do the same thing for one second if their Generalissimo ordered them too, although that probably won't happen until afer November 3. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 22 16:26:24 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 08:26:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Encryption In-Reply-To: References: <007001d5d12f$469c63a0$d3d52ae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <011801d5d140$b11393a0$133abae0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat ubject: Re: [ExI] Encryption On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 10:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: >> So what can a government do? Investigate anyone who sends encrypted messages? >?Yes, or at least investigate anyone who doesn't use government approved encryption that has a backdoor in it that the government can use whenever they want?John K Clark I have an idea on that which might work. I mentioned earlier that we have bandwidth available that is too cheap to meter (how often in history is anything of value so abundant it is indistinguishable from free?) so we can get around the problem John mentioned. We have reams of text available on chat sites, news commentary sections and so forth, megabytes of text generated per second, which anyone can highlight, copy, paste, and boom you have megabytes of blather. Just as messages can by embedded in a photo (at a ratio of 16 to 1 length of photo to length of message) anyone could embed a message encrypted by one-time pad in a text message at a ratio of 1000 to 1 and it would be undetectable. It would start with reams of blather and a very slight tweak would leave it that way. Start with a coupla K of message, such as this one, embed it in a coupla megabytes of pointless blather, encrypt that file using government-approved backdoor-enabled encryption. Local tyrant decrypts your message and finds only a pile of commentary so commonly found everywhere on the internet, with no indication there is anything more in there. Of course there is always the problem the local tyrant could beat it out of us. But I don?t see society developing that way. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 16:49:08 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 10:49:08 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Encryption In-Reply-To: <011801d5d140$b11393a0$133abae0$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d5d12f$469c63a0$d3d52ae0$@rainier66.com> <011801d5d140$b11393a0$133abae0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: JUst another ignorant idea from me? Hope not. What could happen? Private companies are now putting satellites in orbit. I assume with gov. OK. What is to stop another country from doing that and making use of it available to all? Now we have a means of communicating that is free of the U.S., although of course they probably could hack it. Or even a private individual on his own polynesian island doing that? At some point won't there be too many things to monitor and no way to pass laws stopping any encryption? bill w On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 10:28 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *John Clark via extropy-chat > *ubject:* Re: [ExI] Encryption > > > > On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 10:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > >> So what can a government do? Investigate anyone who sends encrypted > messages? > > > > >?Yes, or at least investigate anyone who doesn't use government approved > encryption that has a backdoor in it that the government can use whenever > they want?John K Clark > > > > > > I have an idea on that which might work. > > > > I mentioned earlier that we have bandwidth available that is too cheap to > meter (how often in history is anything of value so abundant it is > indistinguishable from free?) so we can get around the problem John > mentioned. > > > > We have reams of text available on chat sites, news commentary sections > and so forth, megabytes of text generated per second, which anyone can > highlight, copy, paste, and boom you have megabytes of blather. Just as > messages can by embedded in a photo (at a ratio of 16 to 1 length of photo > to length of message) anyone could embed a message encrypted by one-time > pad in a text message at a ratio of 1000 to 1 and it would be > undetectable. It would start with reams of blather and a very slight tweak > would leave it that way. > > > > Start with a coupla K of message, such as this one, embed it in a coupla > megabytes of pointless blather, encrypt that file using government-approved > backdoor-enabled encryption. Local tyrant decrypts your message and finds > only a pile of commentary so commonly found everywhere on the internet, > with no indication there is anything more in there. > > > > Of course there is always the problem the local tyrant could beat it out > of us. But I don?t see society developing that way. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 16:56:24 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 10:56:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: A gift for you from the volunteers at Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <1964304428.48058001579709172593.JavaMail.app@rbg43.atlis1> References: <1964304428.48058001579709172593.JavaMail.app@rbg43.atlis1> Message-ID: my reward from donating to Wikipedia. Trivia: did you know that owls cannot move their eyes? No wonder they need swivel necks! bill w ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Grateful Wikipedians Date: Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 10:29 AM Subject: A gift for you from the volunteers at Wikipedia To: Fifteen amazing photos, from the volunteers at Wikipedia. [image: Wikipedia] [image: WikiLovesEarth2019] *Thank you* Please accept this small token of our gratitude for donating to Wikipedia in 2019. It?s a series of amazing images to explore from the Wiki Loves Earth contest. Wiki Loves Earth is an annual international photo competition organized worldwide by Wikimedia community members. Why did we choose to send you photos from Wiki Loves Earth? For some, they are simply fun to explore--and we know our donors have curious minds and love to learn. For others, they serve as an annual reminder of how big the world we live in actually is. For every photograph taken, a person was there to experience something amazing and they decided to share it with you. With everyone. For free. That?s what Wikimedia is all about, and you just made it a little better. Thank you for being an active part of this beautiful world we share. See the photos [image: WinnersWLE] Get the Wikipedia app for the quickest way to check a fact and learn. It?s free and ad-free! [image: Android] [image: iOS] [image: FollowSocial] Presenting the stunning 2019 winners from the world?s largest photo contest. [image: Facebook Share] [image: Twitter Share] [image: Survey] How can we do better? Take this quick survey and let us know. Take our survey *Happy new year to you and yours from all of us here at the Wikimedia Foundation.* Images all freely licensed, found on Wikimedia Commons. You are receiving this email at foozler83 at gmail.com as a valued donor of the Wikimedia Foundation. If you do not wish to receive any future emails from the Wikimedia Foundation, unsubscribe now . If you?ve already donated recently, we may have an alternate email address on file for you. Please let us know it! We?ll be happy to unsubscribe any old email addresses. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. P.O. ?Box 98?204 Was?hington, D?C 200?90-8204 United S?tates of America enUSC1920-Thankyou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 22 17:48:16 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 09:48:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: A gift for you from the volunteers at Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <1964304428.48058001579709172593.JavaMail.app@rbg43.atlis1> Message-ID: <014d01d5d14c$208ae1b0$61a0a510$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Fwd: A gift for you from the volunteers at Wikipedia >? Trivia: did you know that owls cannot move their eyes? No wonder they need swivel necks! bill w BillW, that?s what I tell my wife whenever she catches me checking out some young woman wearing Them-Ain?t-Britches: I have intermittent optical paralysis, also known as owlitis. It isn?t my fault at all, it?s theirs. Note the following Public Service Announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uiTMtY7CKw spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 19:43:20 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 14:43:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Most Complete Brain Map Ever Is Here: A Fly's 'Connectome' Message-ID: https://www.wired.com/story/most-complete-brain-map-ever-is-here-a-flys-connectome/ It took 12 years and at least $40 million to chart a region about 250 micrometers across?about the thickness of two strands of hair. When asked what?s so special about Drosophila melanogaster, or the common fruit fly, Gerry Rubin quickly gets on a roll. Rubin has poked and prodded flies for decades, including as a leader of the effort to sequence their genome. So permit him to count their merits. They?re expert navigators, for one, zipping around without crashing into walls. They have great memories, too, he adds. Deprived of their senses, they can find their way around a room?much as you, if you were suddenly blindfolded, could probably escape through whichever door you most recently entered. ?Fruit flies are very skillful,? he appraises. And all that skill, although contained in a brain the size of a poppy seed, involves some neural circuitry similar to our own?a product of our distant common ancestor. That?s why, as director of Janelia Research Campus, part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he?s spent the last 12 years leading a team that?s mapping out the fly brain?s physical wiring, down to the very last neuron. Janelia researchers announced a major step in that quest on Wednesday, releasing a wiring diagram of the fly brain that contains 25,000 neurons and the 20 million connections between them. The so-called ?connectome? corresponds to the fly?s hemibrain, a region that?s about 250 micrometers across?the size of a dust mite, or the thickness of two strands of hair. It?s about a third of the total fly brain, and contains many of the critical regions responsible for memory, navigation and learning. ? Rubin hopes wiring diagrams such as this one, showing neurons involved in navigation, will give researchers a better sense of how brain circuits work.ILLUSTRATION: FLYEM/JANELIA RESEARCH CAMPUS Researchers like Rubin believe a physical blueprint of the brain could become a foundational resource for neuroscientists?doing for brain science what genome sequences have done for genetics. The argument is that to get anywhere with understanding brain circuits, you first need to know what the circuits are, and what kinds of cells they join. That physical schematic becomes a roadmap for all kinds of inquiries, Rubin says?anything from understanding the role of the brain?s wiring in psychiatric disorders to how our brains store memories. Obviously, it would be nice to pursue those questions with a complete human connectome. But that?s a long way off. Fully analyzing even the tiniest amount of brain matter requires an enormous amount of time and treasure. Hence, the brain of the humble fruit fly, with one millionth the number of neurons of our own. Drosophila is only the second adult animal to have its brain circuitry mapped at this level of detail, following the nematode C. elegans, back in 1986. The task was far more modest. The entire nervous system spanned 302 neurons and 7000 connections?small enough for researchers, with enough effort, to get the job done by physically shaving off layers of cells, printing off images taken with an electron microscope, and tracing them with colored pencils. The complexity of the fly brain is two orders of magnitude greater?thus the three decade gap in getting it done. ?It?s a landmark,? says Clay Reid, a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute in Seattle who has been working to create a similar map for a cubic millimeter of mouse brain. For the small community of researchers who have spent decades building connectomes, the emergence of these first large-scale datasets feels like vindication, he says. ?In the beginning people thought we were certifiable. And if we weren?t nutty, we were boring.? Reid and Rubin?s fellow neuroscientists questioned whether, given the great number of unknowns about how neurons work, such schematics would be useful. You might end up with the physical structures, but little insight into the neural activity that happens there. The rest found the whole enterprise unfeasible. In 2004, researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany had demonstrated automated methods that could analyze images of neurons produced by electron microscopes?a process known as segmentation. It was a vast improvement over tracing neurons by hand. But even then, completing the whole fly brain connectome would have taken 250 people working for two decades, Rubin estimates. ? Google's algorithms "paint" black-and-white images of neurons to give a clearer view of where the cells begin and end?a process known as segmentation.ILLUSTRATION: FLYEM/JANELIA RESEARCH CAMPUS Rubin was undeterred, betting the technology could be sped up. The team initially focused on improving methods of gathering the data using electronic microscopy. To get the complete neuron-by-neuron map they hoped for, the researchers needed to develop new computational techniques to produce clearer, denser three-dimensional images. The process involved slicing the brain into 20 nanometer slabs, and then continuously imaging them for months in an undisturbed environment. A tiny error in one part of the imaging might cause rippling effects across the entire connectome dataset. But the real bottleneck remained in the process of making sense of those images?the segmentation problem. A former Janelia lab manager, Viren Jain, had been working on that very problem at Google, using a machine learning technique called flood-filling networks. Whereas previous methods had involved detecting boundaries between neurons and then grouping together related pixels, the new method combined those steps to fill in neurons one at a time??like creating a painting of the image,? Jain says. To train its machine learning algorithms, Google needed data?images of neurons filled in by humans?which Janelia could provide. It also needed a human fact-check. Back at Janelia, after the computers filled in the neuron images, a team of about 50 proofreaders went over the algorithm?s results, looking for erroneous shapes and connections. ?Computers can?t do all the work,? Jain says. Most Popular ? IDEAS Deepfake Porn Harms Adult Performers, Too LUX ALPTRAUM ? SCIENCE A Surge of New Plastic Is About to Hit the Planet BETH GARDINER ? SCIENCE Automated Solar Arrays Could Help Incinerate Global Warming LAURA MALLONEE ? GEAR Sonos Will Soon End Software Support for Its Older Speakers LAUREN GOODE Now that the data is publicly available, it remains to be seen how researchers will use the schematic. While researchers could previously zero in on brain circuits of interest and map those neurons, doing so was costly, says Reid, the Allen Institute researcher. He?s hopeful that a complete map will help researchers see distant connections that might otherwise be overlooked. It?s also potentially more efficient. ?Before this, each question required a difficult experiment. But now it?s a computer query,? he says. ?There?s no comparison.? That?s an exciting prospect for researchers like Karla Kaun, a professor at Brown University who studies the effect of alcohol and drugs on memory formation. Having a detailed map of the hemibrain is important, she says, for understanding the nuances between the circuitry involved in the extremely long-lasting, intense memories, and more typical long-term memory. She?d like to see that data married with other methods that can be used to cheaply compare structures across brains within the same species. That could potentially show how differences in physical structure contribute to diseases and behaviors. A few other connectome projects are grinding forward. Google has partnered with researchers at Max Planck to analyze circuits in the brains of song birds involved in learning songs, and with Harvard to study a tiny human sample. ?It?s the opposite of the fly project, just one millionth of a whole human brain,? says Jain. Still, it will potentially involve a petabyte of data. Later this year, Reid expects to release an even larger dataset corresponding to the cubic millimeter of the mouse brain his team has been imaging, part of a project funded by IARPA. An advantage shared by independently funded places like Allen Institute and HHMI is they can make these long-term gambles. ?I was sort of the venture capitalist here, keeping the money flowing for 12 years, making sure no one kills anyone,? Rubin says. Janelia has spent $40 million on the project, not including Google?s contribution, for which the cloud computing budget alone would tally in the millions. Janelia has an ongoing budget of $5 million per year to map the full nervous system of both a male and a female fly. Rubin hopes that effort will pay off in time. ?I lived through the genome projects,? he says. ?I can remember in the 1980s, when people said all you?ll get is a string of AGCTs and you won?t know how to interpret the data.? We still don?t know how to read that sequence, not even close, but we?re making progress. And the cost of sequencing genomes has come down significantly in the process. ?Everyone who thought the genome project was a dumb thing now admits it was worth every penny,? he says. Still, it?s unclear who will pick up the tab on future connectomes, especially with the most interesting brains orders of magnitude bigger than the fly?s. Rubin is rooting for a full-fledged effort to map the mouse?s 75 million neurons. The cost is perhaps $500 million, he muses, assuming the tools speed up by perhaps two or three orders of magnitude. But such was the case when he started on his own brain mapping journey. ?We?ve shown people that it?s feasible,? he says. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 22 20:15:54 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 12:15:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Most Complete Brain Map Ever Is Here: A Fly's 'Connectome' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <018801d5d160$c0a67e20$41f37a60$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] The Most Complete Brain Map Ever Is Here: A Fly's 'Connectome' https://www.wired.com/story/most-complete-brain-map-ever-is-here-a-flys-connectome/ >? They?re expert navigators, for one, zipping around without crashing into walls? This always amazed me. If you watch what happens when flying bugs get inside the house, you see that some bugs will continuously bop against the walls, not hard enough to harm them really but they fly right into them like they don?t know they are there or don?t know how close they are. OK so think about it: a uniformly painted wall from a bug?s perspective is just a big uniform surface. Insects don?t really focus two eyes on a point to judge distance as we predator mammals do. They don?t have the necessary parts to do that, yet some bugs will fly towards a wall then turn away, while others will just keep going and bop. Others are stupid: they keep bopping repeatedly and it so odd: some flies will bop, others will turn. They all look pretty similar, but clearly they are different beasts. Often my ponderings are interrupted by a sharp SMACK as my bride swats the buzzy bastard, but until then I am intrigued by the dichotomy between this bug and that one. I was not aware that melanogaster was a turner rather than a bopper, but I am tempted to experiment with them. It would be easy to do: go get a fallen orange or lemon, bring it inside, observe the flight habits, annoy my family and so on. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 20:32:09 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 15:32:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A odd Gravitational Wave Message-ID: At 9:02:11 PM Eastern Standard Time on Monday January 13 the 2 LIGO detectors in the USA and the VIRGO detector in Italy noticed an unusual Gravitational Wave, unlike merging Neutron Stars that produce waves that last about 30 seconds and merging stellar mass Black Holes that last about a second this one only lasted for 14 milliseconds. Nobody is quite sure what caused it, the best guess is a unnovae, they have been observed optically a few times in stars too large to go supernova and instead collapse directly into Black Holes and just turn off; no supernova has ever been observed from a star larger than 18 solar masses although stars well over 100 solar masses exist. As it happened this event occurred on a area in the sky near to but not precisely at Betelgeuse's location, but Betelgeuse is still there and probably isn't massive enough to be a unnovae, its eventual fate is probably just a boring old Supernova. And the wave could be caused by something else, 14 milliseconds is pretty short even for a unnovae. Gravitational-Wave Candidate Event Database John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 20:58:40 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 13:58:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Brent Allsop Date: Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 1:55 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Mental Phenomena To: Stathis Papaioannou Thank you for making a testable hypothetical prediction. When I got to the end of all this email, I finally realized this is all as simple as the last 3 sections of this e-mail. So if you want, you can just skip to those last 3 sections. This substitution argument is dependent on the initial assumption you are trying to prove, that qualia are substrate independent. We can use this falsifiable example you provide to reveal the problems that result when starting with this assumption. So now that you have proven that LM740 doesn't have a redness quality, one at a time, replace this LM740 with every other possible internal difference (including all of the following: different gates, different matter, different internal functionality, different networks of gates, some with silicone, some with neurons....) You will notice that no matter what you include in all these different internal physics, we can make the same claim, for the same reason. That red qualia cannot be a specific property of the LM741 op amp, nor can it be a property of anything else, including whatever higher up levels there are, at which point redness finally does emerge. This is the definition of qualia blindness, Making this assumption that redness always only arises at some higher level than where you are doing the substitution, makes it impossible for there to be redness at every level, by definition. Therefor, you must rule out the initial assumption that qualia are substrate independent (always at some higher level, independent of whatever level you are doing the substitution.) because if you make this assumption, qualia are not possible at any level. And we know, more than we know anything, that we are directly aware of our qualia. So making the assumption that we can't be directly aware of qualia, in a substrate dependent way is just contradictory to what we know qualia to be. Oh, and there must be a binding system that enables us to experience both redness and grenness at the same time. So, replace glutamate with LM740 and assume that redness arises from the particular configuration of transistors being used in the LM740. Since the set of configuration of transistors in the LM741 is different, the different grenness could arise from this different configuration. You must also be able to bind these two systems together, so you can be aware of the LM740ness and the LM741ness, at the same time. Then you can say my 740ness is like your 741ness, both of which we say implements the substrate independent function we call op amp. In other words, qualia are physical qualities, on which our knowledge is represented. So having a thought experiment for which that isn't possible, isn't relevant to a consciousness which is implemented on qualia. You must agree that consciousness is qualia dependent, right? In other words, my redness could be like yoru grenness, both of which we call red. It's just an absurdity to assume, from the get go, that consciousness is qualia independent as this argument requires. And that is the reason you get all these so called impossibly hard problems and contradictions, when you make this assumption about consciousness. So does that work?, every time you ask "Is the behavior the same?" I'll just fire back with: "Is consciousness not qualia independent"? And since qualia must be something, whatever that substrate is, qualia are dependent on that substrate. On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 2:02 PM Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On Wed, 22 Jan 2020 at 05:26, Brent Allsop wrote: > > >> With your robot example, you are proposing that we consider what qualia > are, then change the system so that the qualia are inverted or disappear or > are represented by a different, abstract method. The qualia would change, > and the behaviour of the system would also change if it had a memory of > what it was like before. > > >Exactly. The consensus Representational Qualia Theory says that > consciousness is computationally bound elemental physical qualities, in the > brain, like redness and grenness. You can play all you want with thought > experiments. But if they do not include the minimum requirements to not be > qualia blind thought experiments, you aren't really talking about the > qualitative nature of consciousness or what it is like. You are just > talking about what computers can do and just quine or ignore qualia. > > >>What I am proposing with the neural substitution is that you only > attempt to reproduce the low level behaviour. So in a robot, if there is a > LM741 op amp you can replace it with a TL071 op amp, which has a completely > different internal circuit design but identical pins and similar > performance. > > >Yes, and all this is completely qualia blind. You start with the > assumption that whatever it is that has the redness quality we can directly > experience can somehow "arise" in a disconnected or separate from reality > "magic happens here" way. If you could include anything in your thought > experiment of things you are substituting that includes redness, and the > ability to bind this with something physically different like grenness, > this substitution thought experiment would be something more than absurd > (i.e. only revealing of your ignorance of how consciousness is > "computationally bound qualia.") And also, I predict that no matter what > you come up with as a prediction of what could be redness (whether > functional, behavioral, physical, quantum, the right set of logic gates, > the rite string of ones and zeros... or anything else, even including > "magic happens here") you will find that this will be impossible, for the > same reasons you don't think glutamate can be redness. The way this > thought experiment is designed qualia simply aren't possible, even > magically. It's just not logically possible in any way, without having the > same problem you have with glutamate being redness. To say nothing about > the required neural ponytail binding system which can connect to brains so > you can verify whether it has changed, or not, after the substitution. > > You don?t think it?s possible the robot?s red qualia could be a property > specific to the LM741 op amp? Neither do I. Here is why. > > 1. Suppose the red qualia are a specific property of the LM741 op amp, a > component in the robot?s visual processing system. > > 2. The TL071 op amp has completely different internal circuitry to the > LM741, but an identical pin configuration, and identical performance in the > robot. > > 3. Therefore, if you replace the LM741 with TL071, the robot will behave > the same in every way. You can observe it, test it, talk to it, connect it > with a neural ponytail to your own brain: there can be no difference. > > 4. The conclusion is that red qualia cannot be a specific property of the > LM741 op amp. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 21:37:57 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:37:57 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 23 Jan 2020 at 08:00, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Brent Allsop > Date: Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 1:55 PM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Mental Phenomena > To: Stathis Papaioannou > > > Thank you for making a testable hypothetical prediction. > > When I got to the end of all this email, I finally realized this is all as > simple as the last 3 sections of this e-mail. > So if you want, you can just skip to those last 3 sections. > > This substitution argument is dependent on the initial assumption you are > trying to prove, that qualia are substrate independent. > We can use this falsifiable example you provide to reveal the problems > that result when starting with this assumption. > The point of the exercise is to assume that qualia ARE substrate dependent, and show the problem that this assumption creates. So now that you have proven that LM740 [TL071] doesn't have a redness > quality, one at a time, replace this LM740 [TL071] with every other > possible internal difference (including all of the following: different > gates, different matter, different internal functionality, different > networks of gates, some with silicone, some with neurons....) > You will notice that no matter what you include in all these different > internal physics, we can make the same claim, for the same reason. > That red qualia cannot be a specific property of the LM741 op amp, nor can > it be a property of anything else, including whatever higher up levels > there are, at which point redness finally does emerge. > This is the definition of qualia blindness, Making this assumption that > redness always only arises at some higher level than where you are doing > the substitution, makes it impossible for there to be redness at every > level, by definition. > Why is this ?qualia blindness?? We can clearly say that the op amp is required for red qualia because if we remove it and leave an empty socket the red qualia disappear. But many other devices, with different physical properties, preserve the qualia. Therefor, you must rule out the initial assumption that qualia are > substrate independent (always at some higher level, independent of whatever > level you are doing the substitution.) because if you make this assumption, > qualia are not possible at any level. And we know, more than we know > anything, that we are directly aware of our qualia. So making the > assumption that we can't be directly aware of qualia, in a substrate > dependent way is just contradictory to what we know qualia to be. > We can find out exactly what parts of the system are required for the qualia by removing parts and seeing if the qualia are affected. Oh, and there must be a binding system that enables us to experience both > redness and grenness at the same time. > So, replace glutamate with LM740 [TL071] and assume that redness arises > from the particular configuration of transistors being used in the LM740 > [TL071]. > Since the set of configuration of transistors in the LM741 is different, > the different grenness could arise from this different configuration. > > You must also be able to bind these two systems together, so you can be > aware of the LM740[TL071]ness and the LM741ness, at the same time. > Then you can say my 740[TL071]ness is like your 741ness, both of which we > say implements the substrate independent function we call op amp. > That can only be the case if the electrical signals coming out of the two different op amps affect the rest of the robot differently. In other words, qualia are physical qualities, on which our knowledge is > represented. So having a thought experiment for which that isn't possible, > isn't relevant to a consciousness which is implemented on qualia. > It is the electrical signals that cause the robot to move, not the qualia. This is an important point. If the different op amps, in addition to the electrical signals, secreted a substance, ?red qualia? or ?green qualia?, that affected the robot?s motors differently, then obviously the functional substitution would not work. But there is no such substance. Similarly with glutamate and glycine: the ONLY way they can affect the body is through their chemical interactions. You must agree that consciousness is qualia dependent, right? In other > words, my redness could be like yoru grenness, both of which we call red. > It's just an absurdity to assume, from the get go, that consciousness is > qualia independent as this argument requires. > And that is the reason you get all these so called impossibly hard > problems and contradictions, when you make this assumption about > consciousness. > I?m not sure of what you are trying to say here. I think of consciousness as being the set of all qualia that one experiences. How can that be qualia independent? So does that work?, every time you ask "Is the behavior the same?" > I'll just fire back with: "Is consciousness not qualia independent"? > > And since qualia must be something, whatever that substrate is, qualia are > dependent on that substrate. > Why could they not be dependent on a variety of substrates with similar properties? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 22:38:24 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 16:38:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] news to me Message-ID: (from the article) In fact, empirical studies have revealed quite a range of cognitive functions can be performed outside of conscious awareness even when the stimuli relevant for the task are not perceived consciously. Even functions thought to be tightly linked with consciousness such as attention, working memory, and executive control can be performed in the absence of conscious awareness. https://blog.oup.com/2020/01/does-consciousness-have-a-function/ If someone knows of these studies will you please provide a link to one of them? Thanks. Bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 13:28:39 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 06:28:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Stathis: ?I think of consciousness as being the set of all qualia that one experiences. How can that be qualia independent?? OK, great. That was what I was trying to point out, that consciousness IS qualia dependent. So we are in agreement with this. ?Why is this ?qualia blindness?? We can clearly say that the op amp is required for red qualia because if we remove it and leave an empty socket the red qualia disappear. But many other devices, with different physical properties, preserve the qualia.? OK, great. This will still illustrate the point I am trying to make since you are still specifying what it is that could be redness. You are saying that it is the op amp functionality that is the redness, not the physics implementing the op amp functionality. In this case, it would be much like color (as opposed to colorness). There are lots of different things that can reflect red light. So despite the fact that multiple things can reflect red light, this is what red is. The physical facts of redness could be similar as in this case you are proposing. So, let?s see what happens with op ampness being the redness quale. So, you are just substituting op amness for glutamate as being what has the redness quality. So, you must treat this the same as you insist I must do with glutamate. You must show that op ampness can be substituted for anything, proving op ampness can?t have qualia. No matter what you substitute for glutamate or op ampnes, it can?t have the redness quality for the same reasons. So if nothing can have redness, again, that is the definition of qualia blindness. ?The point of the exercise is to assume that qualia ARE substrate dependent, and show the problem that this assumption creates.? As I?ve always been demonstrating, there are no problems when you assume redness is fundamental The only problem is a color problem, of which you adequately describe how to discover by removing the op ampness functionality, and the redness goes away. But with the assumption that function is more fundamental, in addition to all the other ?hard mind problem problems? that result from assuming qualia are substrate independent, there is this nasty additional contradiction that I have shown above, that nothing can have a redness quality. Again, consciousness is qualia dependent, as I pointed out you are agreeing with. And qualia must be something. So, consciousness is dependent on whatever that qualia is. In other words, consciousness must be qualia=substrate dependent, as you admitted. And again. If qualia are separate and only supervene on something physical, we are not interested in the physics on which qualia supervene. We are interested in objectively discovering the physics that are a redness quale which is doing the supervening. On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 2:39 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Thu, 23 Jan 2020 at 08:00, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> ---------- Forwarded message --------- >> From: Brent Allsop >> Date: Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 1:55 PM >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Mental Phenomena >> To: Stathis Papaioannou >> >> >> Thank you for making a testable hypothetical prediction. >> >> When I got to the end of all this email, I finally realized this is all >> as simple as the last 3 sections of this e-mail. >> So if you want, you can just skip to those last 3 sections. >> >> This substitution argument is dependent on the initial assumption you are >> trying to prove, that qualia are substrate independent. >> We can use this falsifiable example you provide to reveal the problems >> that result when starting with this assumption. >> > > The point of the exercise is to assume that qualia ARE substrate > dependent, and show the problem that this assumption creates. > > So now that you have proven that LM740 [TL071] doesn't have a redness >> quality, one at a time, replace this LM740 [TL071] with every other >> possible internal difference (including all of the following: different >> gates, different matter, different internal functionality, different >> networks of gates, some with silicone, some with neurons....) >> You will notice that no matter what you include in all these different >> internal physics, we can make the same claim, for the same reason. >> That red qualia cannot be a specific property of the LM741 op amp, nor >> can it be a property of anything else, including whatever higher up levels >> there are, at which point redness finally does emerge. >> This is the definition of qualia blindness, Making this assumption that >> redness always only arises at some higher level than where you are doing >> the substitution, makes it impossible for there to be redness at every >> level, by definition. >> > > Why is this ?qualia blindness?? We can clearly say that the op amp is > required for red qualia because if we remove it and leave an empty socket > the red qualia disappear. But many other devices, with different physical > properties, preserve the qualia. > > Therefor, you must rule out the initial assumption that qualia are >> substrate independent (always at some higher level, independent of whatever >> level you are doing the substitution.) because if you make this assumption, >> qualia are not possible at any level. And we know, more than we know >> anything, that we are directly aware of our qualia. So making the >> assumption that we can't be directly aware of qualia, in a substrate >> dependent way is just contradictory to what we know qualia to be. >> > > We can find out exactly what parts of the system are required for the > qualia by removing parts and seeing if the qualia are affected. > > Oh, and there must be a binding system that enables us to experience both >> redness and grenness at the same time. >> So, replace glutamate with LM740 [TL071] and assume that redness arises >> from the particular configuration of transistors being used in the LM740 >> [TL071]. >> Since the set of configuration of transistors in the LM741 is different, >> the different grenness could arise from this different configuration. >> >> You must also be able to bind these two systems together, so you can be >> aware of the LM740[TL071]ness and the LM741ness, at the same time. >> Then you can say my 740[TL071]ness is like your 741ness, both of which we >> say implements the substrate independent function we call op amp. >> > > That can only be the case if the electrical signals coming out of the two > different op amps affect the rest of the robot differently. > > In other words, qualia are physical qualities, on which our knowledge is >> represented. So having a thought experiment for which that isn't possible, >> isn't relevant to a consciousness which is implemented on qualia. >> > > It is the electrical signals that cause the robot to move, not the qualia. > This is an important point. If the different op amps, in addition to the > electrical signals, secreted a substance, ?red qualia? or ?green qualia?, > that affected the robot?s motors differently, then obviously the functional > substitution would not work. But there is no such substance. Similarly with > glutamate and glycine: the ONLY way they can affect the body is through > their chemical interactions. > > You must agree that consciousness is qualia dependent, right? In other >> words, my redness could be like yoru grenness, both of which we call red. >> It's just an absurdity to assume, from the get go, that consciousness is >> qualia independent as this argument requires. >> And that is the reason you get all these so called impossibly hard >> problems and contradictions, when you make this assumption about >> consciousness. >> > > I?m not sure of what you are trying to say here. I think of consciousness > as being the set of all qualia that one experiences. How can that be qualia > independent? > > So does that work?, every time you ask "Is the behavior the same?" >> I'll just fire back with: "Is consciousness not qualia independent"? >> >> And since qualia must be something, whatever that substrate is, qualia >> are dependent on that substrate. >> > > Why could they not be dependent on a variety of substrates with similar > properties? > >> -- > Stathis Papaioannou > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Thu Jan 23 17:00:50 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 17:00:50 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2415cbbe-c1fd-a426-544a-d36314f12c29@zaiboc.net> On 21/01/2020 19:14, Brent Allsop wrote: > So, Ben, Please.? From here on out, whenever I say glutamate, please > replace that word with a description of whatever physics you most > likely think is a description of redness You ask that we substitute whatever we think is responsible for 'elemental redness' for glutamate, but the whole point of my arguments is that /there is no such thing as 'elemental' qualia at all/. It's a nonsense concept. You talk of 'the physics' of perception, but the physics is not the important thing. The informatics is. We know this for a fact, from countless neurology studies and experiments (many of them unintentional, the results of accidents). We know that even a slight change in the wiring of the brain (not a change in its biochemistry, note. Not a change in materials, but a change in structure) can deprive someone of the ability to perceive or understand certain things, or add perceptions they never had before. Changes in their qualia. This can't be explained if these perceptions are somehow 'elemental', tied to materials, because it's not that all the GABA, for instance, has been removed from their brain. It's the /wiring/ that has been changed. The patterns of information have changed, nothing else. Qualia are not elemental properties of anything, they are patterns of information. If you can't see that, or simply won't contemplate it, there's really no point talking any further. You're in the position of someone who, when presented with two brick buildings, one circular and one square, and told that the circular one is much better at withstanding battering rams, jumps to the conclusion that the bricks in the circular building must be stronger, and when told "no, the bricks are the same in both buildings", refuses to believe it. After all, the 'elemental strength' must be greater in the round buildings bricks, mustn't it? >The problem is, everyone gets lost in the minor details everyone disagrees on, and focuses on that Not at all. It's the bigger picture that we are disagreeing on. Not the precise identity of specific qualia, but the very nature of qualia in general. And you still haven't said why you think my 'availability argument' is invalid. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 18:30:21 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 11:30:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <2415cbbe-c1fd-a426-544a-d36314f12c29@zaiboc.net> References: <2415cbbe-c1fd-a426-544a-d36314f12c29@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Ben, The term ?elemental? is simply to contrast an idea with the different composite qualitative experiences. When you experience redness, there are lots of other things bound into the experience. The things that we can be aware of at the same time can include the name ?red?, holidays, how sweet a ?red ?strawberry tastes?.. A good amount of people think qualia are everything else but the redness quality. They think the redness is a property of the strawberry, out there. It is evident that you are thinking in this qualia blind way when you say things like: ?Qualia are not elemental properties of anything, they are patterns of information.? So tell me, when a pixel of knowledge on the surface of a strawberry is switching between redness and greenness, as illustrated here , what might the change be in this ?pattern? of information. And can you tell me anything about the phsyics, of which such a ?pattern? might exist? If not, then your theory isn?t falsifiable, is it? Is inverted qualia even possible in your theory? ?Representational Qualia Theory ? predicts that consciousness can be ?painted? (more accurately: computationally bound) out of an elemental set of qualities, similar to the way a painting can be built out of a set of pixels with elemental colors. It points out that it is a necessary fact that if you know something, there must be something, physical, that is each piece of that knowledge. At some level, you need to break down consciousness it?s elemental constituents. ?You talk of 'the physics' of perception, but the physics is not the important thing. The informatics is. We know this for a fact, from countless neurology studies and experiments (many of them unintentional, the results of accidents).? Part of what ?Representational Qualia Theory ? is predicting is that all the peer reviewed journal articles reporting on all this ?neurology studies and experiments? is qualia blind. For example, all of it only uses one word for all things red. Nothing in any of that stuff you are pointing to can account for the fact that qualia can easily be inverted, again as illustrated in the video . You must be able to say things like: ?My redness is like your greenness, both of which we call red. All of the stuff you are referencing is just abstract descriptions of stuff in the brain. Nowhere in any of that can anyone tell you the physical color of any of their abstract descriptions are describing. There are now over 40 experts that are supporting the general Ideas I?m talking about here in ?Representational Qualia Theory ?. No other theory has any significant amount of consensus. Even Dennett?s Predictive Bayesian Coding Theory is supporting what I?m talking about here. I?ve run into lots of people that think the way you do, and disagree with the general ideas now supported by all these experts. I beg them to canonize whatever it is they think is wrong with this emerging consensus. But nobody ever does. If you do disagree with all these experts, could you please create a competing camp to ?Representational Qualia Theory ? and concisely state what you are trying to say here? Don?t you think it would be interesting to see if anyone else is brave enough to risk their reputation by supporting competing camps? My prediction is that in the next 10 years experimentalists (finally collecting data in a way that is not qualia blind) will discover what it is, in the brain, that has a redness quality. This will falsify all the bad camps, and result in a clear and definitive consensus. My prediction is that before 10 years, using the ?Mind Expert ? canonizer algorithm it will show a greater than 80% expert consensus for this one camp, that was initially predicting what redness is, before the experimentalists were finally able to experimentally prove this. If you are the first one in the camp that turns out to be the one, that would be huge, reputation wise. But of course myself, and now over 40 people are predicting your theory will be one of the many that will be falsified by science, especially if experimentalists discover what it is that has an elemental redness quality, out of which consciousness can be built. On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 10:02 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 21/01/2020 19:14, Brent Allsop wrote: > > So, Ben, Please. From here on out, whenever I say glutamate, please > replace that word with a description of whatever physics you most likely > think is a description of redness > > > You ask that we substitute whatever we think is responsible for 'elemental > redness' for glutamate, but the whole point of my arguments is that *there > is no such thing as 'elemental' qualia at all*. It's a nonsense concept. > You talk of 'the physics' of perception, but the physics is not the > important thing. The informatics is. We know this for a fact, from > countless neurology studies and experiments (many of them unintentional, > the results of accidents). We know that even a slight change in the wiring > of the brain (not a change in its biochemistry, note. Not a change in > materials, but a change in structure) can deprive someone of the ability to > perceive or understand certain things, or add perceptions they never had > before. Changes in their qualia. This can't be explained if these > perceptions are somehow 'elemental', tied to materials, because it's not > that all the GABA, for instance, has been removed from their brain. It's > the *wiring* that has been changed. The patterns of information have > changed, nothing else. > > Qualia are not elemental properties of anything, they are patterns of > information. > > If you can't see that, or simply won't contemplate it, there's really no > point talking any further. > > You're in the position of someone who, when presented with two brick > buildings, one circular and one square, and told that the circular one is > much better at withstanding battering rams, jumps to the conclusion that > the bricks in the circular building must be stronger, and when told "no, > the bricks are the same in both buildings", refuses to believe it. After > all, the 'elemental strength' must be greater in the round buildings > bricks, mustn't it? > > >The problem is, everyone gets lost in the minor details everyone > disagrees on, and focuses on that > > Not at all. It's the bigger picture that we are disagreeing on. Not the > precise identity of specific qualia, but the very nature of qualia in > general. > > And you still haven't said why you think my 'availability argument' is > invalid. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 20:00:59 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 12:00:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <2415cbbe-c1fd-a426-544a-d36314f12c29@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 10:32 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The term ?elemental? is simply to contrast an idea with the different > composite qualitative experiences. > The term "elemental" suggests there is some fundamental physical thing - as opposed to a pattern of information - that is redness. You keep linking it to glutamate. When you experience redness, there are lots of other things bound into the > experience. The things that we can be aware of at the same time can > include the name ?red?, holidays, how sweet a ?red ?strawberry tastes?.. > So far, so true. > A good amount of people think qualia are everything else but the redness > quality. They think the redness is a property of the strawberry, out > there. It is evident that you are thinking in this qualia blind way when > you say things like: > > > > ?Qualia are not elemental properties of anything, they are patterns of > information.? > This is where you fail. He means that you keep insisting on terminology that suggests there is some discrete protein - some molecular unit - that encapsulates "redness" in the brain. "Redness" is a pattern of information. It has a physical substrate, but it is distinct from that substrate. In the same manner, a computer program is distinct from the silicon upon which it runs. It is true that if one exactly duplicated this physical substrate - including all its energy states, and specifically the patterns - then one would have duplicated the program as well. But it is not the case that just duplicating the CPU - without regard for the energy states in its transistors and memory - is sufficient to duplicate the program. The way you have been using "elemental" suggests the latter, incorrect approach. That is his and my objection. So tell me, when a pixel of knowledge on the surface of a strawberry is > switching between redness and greenness, as illustrated here > , what might the change be > in this ?pattern? of information. And can you tell me anything about the > phsyics, of which such a ?pattern? might exist? > Of course he can. So can I. If you want to wrestle it down to a single pixel, what happens is that one or more photoreceptors in the eye stop giving the signal they give when a photon of about 570 nanometers is received, and start giving the signal they give when a photon of wavelength about 540 nanometers is received. This signal is then transmitted via the optical nerve to the brain's sensory cortex, whereupon a previously learned association (memory) is triggered, noting that the sensation previously labeled "red" has stopped for this pixel and the sensation previously labeled "green" has started for this pixel. It is these previously learned associations - the patterns that form the memories - that matter. This has been tested thoroughly and found true. Humans in different societies, with different language terminology, perceive color differently - same basic human wetware, different learned associations. Even the difference in male vs. female color perception within the same Western societies appears to be more nurture (learned associations) than nature (actual genetic differences). > If not, then your theory isn?t falsifiable, is it? Is inverted qualia > even possible in your theory? > > > > ?Representational Qualia Theory > ? > predicts that consciousness can be ?painted? (more accurately: > computationally bound) out of an elemental set of qualities, similar to the > way a painting can be built out of a set of pixels with elemental colors. > It points out that it is a necessary fact that if you know something, there > must be something, physical, that is each piece of that knowledge. At some > level, you need to break down consciousness it?s elemental constituents. > These constituents are informational, just like the painting's pixels. It is true that they have a physical representation at any given time, but what is important is the information. The information can be represented in different physical forms, and remains the same information. For instance, this provides the possibility of silicon, or similar computational substrates, emulating the energy states, hormone levels, and other informational qualities in a human brain (a concept commonly termed "uploading"). This emulation could then be run without the long-term degradation that biological solutions fall to, allowing the (emulated) brain a much longer run time (which is commonly termed "longevity" or "immortality"). > Part of what ?Representational Qualia Theory > ? is > predicting is that all the peer reviewed journal articles reporting on all > this ?neurology studies and experiments? is qualia blind. For example, all > of it only uses one word for all things red. Nothing in any of that stuff > you are pointing to can account for the fact that qualia can easily be > inverted, again as illustrated in the video > . > That video only demonstrates that the inputs can be rewired, such that greenness can be triggered off of something that is actually red. That seems to be a distinct concept from actually inverting the qualia. Further, "inverted" implies there are only two states, and that they are both pre-existing. Does your brain have qualia for infraredness or ultravioletness? Probably not, as infrared and ultraviolet are colors that you can not directly perceive. If your eyes were to grow photoreceptors that could trigger off these colors, your brain would have to figure out what to do with these stimuli, and then you might gain those qualia. You must be able to say things like: ?My redness is like your greenness, > both of which we call red. > Not really. Not in the general case truth that that phrasing implies, anyway. My redness is what I call red; your redness is what you call red. That's the definition. Perhaps "my redness is like your greenness right now, since your redness inputs and greenness inputs have just been switched" would be defensible, though. All of the stuff you are referencing is just abstract descriptions of stuff > in the brain. Nowhere in any of that can anyone tell you the physical > color of any of their abstract descriptions are describing. > Sure they can - if that person knew what the physical stuff mapped to. The person whose brain it is has an intuitive knowledge of this, even if no one (yet) has a complete physical map of how it all works - but there is no reason to believe that such a map can not be made, at least to a useful general purpose level. Just recently, such a map was published for how a certain insect species' brain works. I?ve run into lots of people that think the way you do, and disagree with > the general ideas now supported by all these experts. I beg them to > canonize whatever it is they think is wrong with this emerging consensus. > But nobody ever does. > Because they see no value in engaging with Canonizer. It's the inverse network effect: you have so few users that Canonizer fails to be worth the time to even look at, let alone vote in or write opinions for, for most people. This says nothing about the validity of their logic. And yes, you have very few users. A quick check suggests you do not even have a thousand users yet, let alone a million. (As of right now you seem to have about 402 users, the most recently signed up user having a gmail.com email address and having only given name and email for biographic info - a typical low-engagement user, but then, this is the most recently signed up so there might not have been time for much engagement yet.) Just last year I was working on (moonlighting side job) a system with a few hundred million users. > If you do disagree with all these experts, could you please create a > competing camp to ?Representational Qualia Theory > ? > and concisely state what you are trying to say here? > Why bother? > Don?t you think it would be interesting to see if anyone else is brave > enough to risk their reputation by supporting competing camps? > No, we don't. We also don't believe that any significant reputation would be risked by doing so. More reputation can be gained or lost - trivially - by debating on this list. (Granted, this list doesn't have even a thousand members either - I think; Spike can correct me if needed. But active and relevant participation on this list is currently well in excess of what Canonizer seems to offer.) I sympathize: you have this thing that you want to be of value, so you promote it, only for people to dismiss it because it isn't already being used by lots of people so they don't see value in it. This is quite similar to getting a startup corporation through the valley of death, which I have done many times. It takes a lot of work to get something through that stage. Before you plead, beg, and whine like so many others have: I am not going to do that work for you for Canonizer, nor am I going to hold your hand and give you a walkthrough that I don't have. The process is different for each such effort, and it must be done by the people who are passionate about it. In this case, that's you, not me. I can tell you that pretending that you are already through that phase and that it thus has the value it would have when it has a lot of users, is a quick way to turn off would-have-been early adopters. You need to find some other way to attract and sustain initial participation. I have seen the ruins of countless social media efforts, infrastructure there but participation low and then zeroing out, virtual ghost towns built for people who never came. When I encounter them, unless I care, the only useful use of my time is to move along. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Thu Jan 23 17:23:01 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 09:23:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] A odd Gravitational Wave Message-ID: <20200123092301.Horde.f5CcPvJUTl7uG9rY0ApmGnx@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: > > At 9:02:11 PM Eastern Standard Time on Monday January 13 the 2 LIGO > detectors in the USA and the VIRGO detector in Italy noticed an unusual > Gravitational Wave, unlike merging Neutron Stars that produce waves that > last about 30 seconds and merging stellar mass Black Holes that last about > a second this one only lasted for 14 milliseconds. Nobody is quite sure > what caused it, the best guess is a unnovae, they have been observed > optically a few times in stars too large to go supernova and instead > collapse directly into Black Holes and just turn off; no supernova has ever > been observed from a star larger than 18 solar masses although stars well > over 100 solar masses exist. Failed supernovae are fairly controversial phenomena and according to wikipedia, only two such candidates have been allegedly observed, neither of which was in our own galaxy. I don't see how the gravitational collapse of such a huge star could be so stealthy since matter accretion by black holes is usually one of the brightest phenomena that we observe (e.g. x-ray binaries and quasars). > As it happened this event occurred on a area > in the sky near to but not precisely at Betelgeuse's location, but > Betelgeuse is still there and probably isn't massive enough to be a > unnovae, its eventual fate is probably just a boring old Supernova. And the > wave could be caused by something else, 14 milliseconds is pretty short > even for a unnovae. I don't see how an isotropic gravitational collapse could cause gravitational waves. I thought the generation of gravitational waves required a dipole or quadripole or some kind of asymmetry. Either the star was spinning in which case it should have caused an accretion disk with an observable optical or radio signal due to conservation of angular momentum. Or the star was not spinning, in which case in should have collapsed isotropically and uniformly and not generated gravitational waves. But if it wasn't a failed supernova, then I have no idea what could have caused such a short powerful burst of gravitational waves. Very mysterious indeed. Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 21:53:16 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 16:53:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A odd Gravitational Wave In-Reply-To: <20200123092301.Horde.f5CcPvJUTl7uG9rY0ApmGnx@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200123092301.Horde.f5CcPvJUTl7uG9rY0ApmGnx@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 4:41 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > * > I don't see how an isotropic gravitational collapse could cause > gravitational waves. I thought the generation of gravitational waves > required a dipole or quadripole or some kind of asymmetry.* True, the collapse would have to be very asymmetrical , and I admit that seems a bit unlikely. > > * > But if it wasn't a failed supernova, then I have no idea what could > have caused such a short powerful burst of gravitational waves. Very > mysterious indeed.* I was thinking maybe 2 sub solar mass Black Holes coalescing. That would be really cool if true. Black Holes that small would pretty much have to be primordial, I can't think of anything except the Big Bang itself that would have conditions extreme enough to produce them. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Thu Jan 23 23:14:26 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 23:14:26 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4f7add2c-6196-198d-97b6-8edba53c2cf0@zaiboc.net> Adrian Tymes wrote: A lot of stuff, which I completely agree on. Including "...the only useful use of my time is to move along". Time to do just that, I think, because clearly this discussion is going nowhere. And I /still/ haven't had a reply to my question, "Where's the flaw in my 'availability argument' against the 'molecular qualia' concept?". Never mind, too late now. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 23:22:52 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 15:22:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <4f7add2c-6196-198d-97b6-8edba53c2cf0@zaiboc.net> References: <4f7add2c-6196-198d-97b6-8edba53c2cf0@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 3:17 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Adrian Tymes wrote: > > A lot of stuff, which I completely agree on. > Thanks. I figured I'd take a stab at rephrasing it, since Brent did not seem to be understanding some of how you put it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jan 24 01:55:07 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 18:55:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <4f7add2c-6196-198d-97b6-8edba53c2cf0@zaiboc.net> References: <4f7add2c-6196-198d-97b6-8edba53c2cf0@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Ben I guess I didn't fully understand your availability argument, as I thought your thinking was at least compatible with representational qualia theory, and just disagreeing with molecular materialism. Would you mind sumerizing it again? On Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:15 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Adrian Tymes wrote: > > A lot of stuff, which I completely agree on. > > Including "...the only useful use of my time is to move along". > > Time to do just that, I think, because clearly this discussion is going > nowhere. > > And I *still* haven't had a reply to my question, "Where's the flaw in my > 'availability argument' against the 'molecular qualia' concept?". Never > mind, too late now. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 24 05:03:53 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 21:03:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance Message-ID: <640EEBB9-FBE1-494F-BC8D-C0ABFD3B9780@gmail.com> I'm sorry I missed your question, whatever it was. I got backed up on email. And the list volume here is usually too much for me, especially given the density of some of the content. For instance, I'd love to participate in the discussions on qualia and consciousness, but it quickly turns into many posts I just never get around to reading. However, your reaction is childish, in my opinion. You really should work on that. I won?t dwell further on this here. For others who might read this, I'm guessing Bill W asked for an example of a libertarian society. I can't think of any pure examples, though there are definitely societies that were more libertarian than others at least in some respects. I think most people in much of the West today live fairly libertarianly -- even if they don't know what libertarianism is much less would agree with its tenets. Why do I believe this? Because most in the daily lives tend not to coerce others. (Yes, there are government agents who do -- the police and deployed militaries, for instances, but I'd also include others who indirect coercers such as judges and bureaucrats. There are also, of course, individuals who coerce others -- muggers, assaulters, rapists, and murderers, but they're generally not seen as legitimate users of coercion and are often resisted, sometimes successfully. It's rare when, for example, an unarmed person is shot to death by the cops that the cops are then penalized in any way. But if some lone individual shots to death an unarmed person, there's usually an immediate response -- from other people if not from the cops or government.) Now, regarding past examples, it's funny that there are folks here claiming to be libertarians who seem to know almost nothing about libertarianism, including haven't read any of the libertarian classics or the literature. (Not all of it. It's far too large for even scholars to keep up. The classics, though, are a much smaller set than all the journal articles, research studies, positions papers, debates in print or in video, conference notes, etc.) Murray Rothbard raised the example of Ancient Ireland (in his _For a New Liberty_, one of the classics) as a society without a ruler. The example is a bit complicated, but during part of the time there was no overall king and aligning oneself with a legal authority wasn't tied to territory. It's not a knock down argument, but shows that one can have a working society that lasts for hundreds of years without a central authority. It's even an example of something that was hard to conquer. (The English eventually did conquer it, but it took much longer because conquering each group had to proceed piecemeal. There wasn't William the Conqueror approach where you defeat the central authority and the rest is merely mopping up pockets of resistance.) David Friedman (in his _The Machinery of Freedom_) gave the example of Medieval Iceland from about 900 CE until Norway took over about 300 years later. (A period, mind you, that's longer than the US has been in existence.) It's similar in that there's no central authority and legal disputes are settled by both parties agreeing on an arbiter. (What happened if they didn't agree? Well, either party risked getting declared an outlaw -- being outside the law, and so prey to anyone else.) Someone might point out that these examples weren't modern societies. Fair enough as far as it goes. Someone else might point out that they eventually were absorbed into states (like England or Norway), though this doesn't really tell us a society without a central authority isn't possible or can't flourish.* Any society might succumb to military invasion or even just internal change. The issue is whether such a society is more or less stable rather than whether it's eternally immune to all ills (which would seem setting the standard impossibly high). I'm sure no one would use the example of Poland and France falling to German invasions in 1939 CE and 1940 CE to the fact that they both had central governments and the latter even had a world class military with the latest tech (better tanks and aircraft, I've read, than the Germans). In the context of their times, the above examples seem to have done quite well. Later! Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst * See: http://praxeology.net/libertariannation/a/f13l1.html On Saturday, January 18, 2020, 03:45:34 PM PST, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: I asked you for an example. You ignored the request, so please just stop responding to my comments because I am not going to read any more of yours. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 24 05:09:24 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 21:09:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] your big chance Message-ID: ?Well, in order to apply rights in a real world situation -- have them respected -- the problem would be convincing others. Therein lies the problem. (A problem not limited to advocates of rights or to libertarians. It's a general problem with agreement among enough people to a given social practice. I don't think it insurmountable. If I did, I'd probably leave it as a theoretical concern -- a la, "Wouldn't it be nice if enough people agreed on X, but that's not going to happen, so let's move along to other topics.":)) You could bounce this as "What difference does it make then?" I believe Roderick Long came up with a decent response to this: http://freenation.org/a/f42l1.html#4.3 Note his distinction between normative, legal, and de facto rights. Let me step back for a second too. My claim that no one has a right to rule anyone else -- and no one has a duty to obey anyone else -- isn't an argument that each person gets to define what rights are -- no more than each of us speaking a natural language gets to define what's grammatical. Instead, it simply means no one has authority over anyone else and no one has a duty to anyone else as an authority. This is another of saying no one owes obedience to someone else's dictates -- that no individual creates rights or duties in any godlike fashion. Instead, these arise -- in Long's view -- from what persons are and how they live and interact. The idea here isn't "No one has a right to tell me what to do, so I can make up shit about how far I can swing my fist." Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst On Saturday, January 18, 2020, 04:27:12 PM PST, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: That may not have been how it originated, but what I was pointing out was how, in your post, it seemed to be sliding toward entirely self-defined "rights". As you rightly point out here, that slide is problematic. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 24 05:12:56 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 21:12:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] news to me In-Reply-To: <809284388.573843.1579828972721@mail.yahoo.com> References: <809284388.573843.1579828972721@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <781D2420-A3FF-41B2-9B4B-F3EEA47AA74B@gmail.com> For those interested in a book length treatment of the subject, see Wayne Wu's _Attention_.* (Of course, Wu focuses on attention itself -- and that's a fascinating subject and he _does_ consider attention without conscious awareness -- but along the way he goes over quite a lot of empirical work on things like blindsight (which probably almost anyone with a passing interest in consciousness has heard before) and various agnosias, apraxias, and the like. For an actual empirical example, see https://www.nature.com/articles/349154a0 Later! Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst * Really wanted to recommend this book since I read it last year. Hoping to write a longer review of it sometime. On Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 02:47:18 PM PST, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: (from the article) In fact, empirical studies have revealed quite a range of cognitive functions can be performed outside of conscious awareness even when the stimuli relevant for the task are not perceived consciously. Even functions thought to be tightly linked with consciousness such as attention, working memory, and executive control can be performed in the absence of conscious awareness. https://blog.oup.com/2020/01/does-consciousness-have-a-function/ If someone knows of these studies will you please provide a link to one of them? Thanks. Bill w From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 24 13:01:36 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 08:01:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <2415cbbe-c1fd-a426-544a-d36314f12c29@zaiboc.net> References: <2415cbbe-c1fd-a426-544a-d36314f12c29@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 12:04 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *You *[Brent Allsop] *ask that we substitute whatever we think is > responsible for 'elemental redness' for glutamate, but the whole point of > my arguments is that there is no such thing as 'elemental' qualia at all. > It's a nonsense concept.* > I could not agree more! You can't talk about the red qualia in isolation to everything else because meaning needs contrast. If from the day you were born your visual field consisted of nothing but a uniform wall of red you'd be as blind as a bat and know nothing about the red qualia. And if everything that existed and everything that didn't exist had the Klogknee property then the word " Klogknee" would be a nonsense word that has no meaning. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jan 24 17:15:52 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 10:15:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <2415cbbe-c1fd-a426-544a-d36314f12c29@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Take a case where a person suffered from achromatopsia from birth. He would be undergoing a procedure, whose goal was to cure him. The first thing this person experiences, early in the procedure, is a patch of color. The first time he experienced it he won?t know its name. He will have no memories of such, and every other piece of information that you and I could have bound to make compost versions of that color, didn?t exist for this person at first. Just the elemental color, nothing else. So, since the first time he experienced this color it was in isolation, would you say this first experience of that color, in isolation, didn?t exist, or are you saying it would exist, it just wouldn?t have any meaning, making that color, in isolation, nothing but a nonsense experience? On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 6:03 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 12:04 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > *You *[Brent Allsop] *ask that we substitute whatever we think is >> responsible for 'elemental redness' for glutamate, but the whole point of >> my arguments is that there is no such thing as 'elemental' qualia at all. >> It's a nonsense concept.* >> > > I could not agree more! You can't talk about the red qualia in isolation > to everything else because meaning needs contrast. If from the day you were > born your visual field consisted of nothing but a uniform wall of red you'd > be as blind as a bat and know nothing about the red qualia. And if > everything that existed and everything that didn't exist had the Klogknee > property then the word " Klogknee" would be a nonsense word that has no > meaning. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 24 18:06:03 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 10:06:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <2415cbbe-c1fd-a426-544a-d36314f12c29@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 9:18 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Take a case where a person suffered from achromatopsia from birth. He > would be undergoing a procedure, whose goal was to cure him. The first > thing this person experiences, early in the procedure, is a patch of > color. The first time he experienced it he won?t know its name. He will > have no memories of such, and every other piece of information that you and > I could have bound to make compost versions of that color, didn?t exist for > this person at first. Just the elemental color, nothing else. So, since > the first time he experienced this color it was in isolation, would you say > this first experience of that color, in isolation, didn?t exist, or are you > saying it would exist, it just wouldn?t have any meaning, making that > color, in isolation, nothing but a nonsense experience? > The latter. It would exist, but would be nonsense until it was repeated. Eventually a name would be attached, and the experience would retroactively be given meaning. Consider if your eye suddenly grew new photoreceptors for ultraviolet, with no forewarning to you. At first you wouldn't know what you were seeing. Eventually you would likely figure it out or be told, and then you would perceive "ultravioletness" (to adapt from terms you have used). Technically it would be the same sensation as before, meaning that from the first you would perceive ultravioletness, but you would not know that it is ultravioletness until later. Thus, the very first perception would be both ultravioletness (as it would be known later) and nonsense (as it would be known at the moment). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jan 24 18:44:29 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 11:44:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <2415cbbe-c1fd-a426-544a-d36314f12c29@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi John, On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 11:07 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 9:18 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Take a case where a person suffered from achromatopsia from birth. He >> would be undergoing a procedure, whose goal was to cure him. The first >> thing this person experiences, early in the procedure, is a patch of >> color. The first time he experienced it he won?t know its name. He will >> have no memories of such, and every other piece of information that you and >> I could have bound to make compost versions of that color, didn?t exist for >> this person at first. Just the elemental color, nothing else. So, since >> the first time he experienced this color it was in isolation, would you say >> this first experience of that color, in isolation, didn?t exist, or are you >> saying it would exist, it just wouldn?t have any meaning, making that >> color, in isolation, nothing but a nonsense experience? >> > > The latter. It would exist, but would be nonsense until it was repeated. > This physical quality that exists, which is just nonsense when isolated, is elemental qualia. Once it has meaning and lots of other things bound to it, it is a composite qualia, of which one of the constituents is elemental redness. It remains a fact that you could replace only the elemental redness, in your composite experience, so that all your meaning and names are now bound to an elemental grenness. The two composite qualia being identical in name, meaning... except for the alemental redness being swapped with grenness. That is what a qualia invert, from you, from birth would be. And that's what we mean when we say: "My redness is like your greenness" We'not talking the entire composite redness and meaning, Just the elemental redness and meaning. All the other meanings, names and such remain the same. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 06:51:49 2020 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 07:51:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Expanse is great science fiction on the cosmic frontier Message-ID: The Expanse is great science fiction on the cosmic frontier The Expanse is science fiction at its best, able to provoke a cosmic sense of wonder and great expectations for our future in space. https://turingchurch.net/the-expanse-is-great-science-fiction-on-the-cosmic-frontier-561535c307f7 From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 15:46:24 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 09:46:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] simpson's paradox - bill w Message-ID: This one is new to me. During a faculty meeting, a group of 9th grade teachers decided they needed to further understand what the optimal duration of study is for students to achieve satisfactory results. So, they decided to gather the approximate number of hours students were studying, and then compare to the student?s test scores. Mr. Simpson convinced the faculty that more data means better results, and so all of the teachers integrated their cross-course data for the analysis. The results were astounding. To everyone?s confusion, the less a student studied, the higher they tend to score on tests. In fact, the coefficient associated with this correlation was -0.7981, a strongly negative relationship. Should they be encouraging their students to study less? How in the world could data be backing up such a claim? Surely something was missing. After discussing the results, the teachers agreed they should consult the school?s statistician, Mrs. Paradox. After Mr. Simpson explained to Mrs. Paradox what they had found in their results, Mrs. Paradox suggested they analyze each course?s data individually. So, they went ahead and analyzed Phys. Ed. and proceeded to have their minds blown. A correlation of 0.6353! How in the statistical universe was this even possible? Mrs. Paradox then explained this as *Simpson?s Paradox, a statistical phenomenon where a seemingly strong relationship reverses or disappears when introduced to a third confounding variable.* She convinced Mr. Simpson to plot all of the data once again, but then color-code each course separately to distinguish them from one another. After doing so, Mr. Simpson and the 9th grade faculty concluded that the relationship was indeed positive, and that the more hours a student studied, the higher the grade tends to be. Including the course of study in the analysis completely reversed the relationship. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 15:56:58 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 10:56:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] simpson's paradox - bill w In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 25, 2020 at 10:49 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > This one is new to me. > > During a faculty meeting, a group of 9th grade teachers decided they > needed to further understand what the optimal duration of study is for > students to achieve satisfactory results. So, they decided to gather the > approximate number of hours students were studying, and then compare to the > student?s test scores. > > Mr. Simpson convinced the faculty that more data means better results, and > so all of the teachers integrated their cross-course data for the analysis. > > The results were astounding. To everyone?s confusion, the less a student > studied, the higher they tend to score on tests. > > In fact, the coefficient associated with this correlation was -0.7981, a > strongly negative relationship. > > Should they be encouraging their students to study less? How in the world > could data be backing up such a claim? Surely something was missing. > This is the classic confusion of correlation with causation. If these statistics were valid, it wouldn't mean that they should discourage studying. For example, it could be that more intelligent students need less time to prepare, and less intelligent ones don't perform as well, even with more preparation. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sat Jan 25 17:54:49 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 09:54:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] A odd Gravitational Wave Message-ID: <20200125095449.Horde.KM0Yxoa7N9gxDqq7uwHcxVh@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: >> >> * > I don't see how an isotropic gravitational collapse could cause >> gravitational waves. I thought the generation of gravitational waves >> required a dipole or quadripole or some kind of asymmetry.* > > True, the collapse would have to be very asymmetrical , and I admit that > seems a bit unlikely. > >> >> * > But if it wasn't a failed supernova, then I have no idea what could >> have caused such a short powerful burst of gravitational waves. Very >> mysterious indeed.* > > I was thinking maybe 2 sub solar mass Black Holes coalescing. That would be > really cool if true. Black Holes that small would pretty much have to be > primordial, I can't think of anything except the Big Bang itself that would > have conditions extreme enough to produce them. But the burst was so short, only 14 milliseconds. That is shorter than both the typical signals of the usual stellar black hole collisions which are on the order of a couple of seconds and neutron star collisions which are on the order of 30 seconds. According to space.com: https://www.space.com/mysterious-gravitational-burst.html "Another possibility is that the merging of two intermediate-mass black holes caused the signal, Howell said. Merging neutron stars produce waves that last longer (around 30 seconds) than this new signal, while merging black holes might more closely resemble bursts (that last around a couple of seconds). However, intermediate black hole mergers might also release a series of waves that change in frequency." Wouldn't it be cool if the signal was an advanced civilization that activated an Alcubierre drive powered by a mountain-massed microscopic black hole in order to escape the imminent supernova of Betelguese? LIGO hasn't released the frequency/shape of the signal yet so, it is all just speculation anyway. Gravitational wave astronomy is such cool stuff. It is like a renaissance in astrophysics and I seriously think that it will lead us to a theory of quantum gravity someday. Stuart LaForge From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 25 19:07:23 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 11:07:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] A odd Gravitational Wave In-Reply-To: <20200125095449.Horde.KM0Yxoa7N9gxDqq7uwHcxVh@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200125095449.Horde.KM0Yxoa7N9gxDqq7uwHcxVh@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <017201d5d3b2$ad0ae730$0720b590$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat >...LIGO hasn't released the frequency/shape of the signal yet so, it is all just speculation anyway... It has me calculating and pondering. Perhaps more pondering than calculating so far. >...Gravitational wave astronomy is such cool stuff. It is like a renaissance in astrophysics and I seriously think that it will lead us to a theory of quantum gravity someday. Stuart LaForge Thanks for that Avant. I am glad others notice this too: astronomy has come alive in just the past 3 yrs. We are going thru a... I like your term... renaissance with those results. They still blow my mind and give me the brand of awed astonishment I have not felt since the Hubble started sending back good images. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 26 02:55:07 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 20:55:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? Message-ID: The American West took a long time to develop. Many thousands of people went farther and farther West. I have an intuition that they were, on average, uglier than the people left behind. What do you think? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jan 26 11:22:53 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 11:22:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 25/01/2020 15:46, Brent Allsop wrote: > Hi Ben > I guess I didn't fully understand your availability argument, as I > thought your thinking was at least compatible with representational > qualia theory, and just disagreeing with molecular materialism. > > Would you mind sumerizing it again? All right, I'll summarise it. If you remember, I asked "Is your position that specific types of molecule in the brain (e.g. the infamous glutamate) are what produce specific qualia (e.g. the infamous 'red'), and that this mapping is one-to-one (eg. glutamate and only glutamate produces the 'red' quale and only that)?", and your answer was "Yes". My argument addresses that specific claim by simply comparing the numbers. The (estimated) number of types of molecules available in the brian to potentially have a 'quale property' (M), vs. the number of qualia that may be possible (Q). If M >= Q, your claim is feasible, If not, it is not. If we assume an exaggerated upper bound for M (which would likely be around 1000 for neurotransmitters, but let's not make it so easy, and assume it's not just neurotransmitters that are relevant, and say 10 000 000 for any old type of molecule that could conceivably be involved. Let's then derive a ridiculously low lower bound for the number of different qualia that human beings can experience (I'm going to say 10 000 000 for colours alone, and then there's all the sounds (~330 000 distinct frequencies, times all the many different types of sound - hearing a violin at 440Hz is a different experience to hearing a trumpet at the same pitch - and we get a another high number, I'm not sure what, but I'll say about 1 000 000, to be safely on the very low side. And then think of all the many, many other things that come in through our other senses, and the range of experiences they can bring (temperature and pressure from the skin, taste and smell, proprioceptive signals from our limbs and vestibular system, feedback from our speech machinery, sensations from our digestive system, and other internal organs, pain sensations of different types from all over our bodies, plus a huge variety of emotional states resulting from social interactions and many other things. I think 1 000 000 000 is not an unreasonable number for Q, and is almost certainly on the low, if not extremely low side). So, M= ~10 000 000 Q= ~1 000 000 000 In my extremely conservative estimate of Q, and extremely exaggerated estimate of M, Q still exceeds M by a factor of 100. And if it's neurotransmitters that are supposed to be the relevant molecules, even a wildly exaggerated estimate of their number (we think there may actually be up to about 200, not 1000), then the ratio of Q:M is a million to one! The inevitable conclusion: There are not nearly enough different types of molecule available to go round! The number of possible qualia (or even the number of qualia that the normal person experiences in their lifetime) far exceeds the number of types of molecule that could possibly be available in our brains for the job of producing these qualia. It's a physical impossibility for qualia to be produced in the way you describe. On the other hand, if we assume that qualia are produced as complex patterns of information, by means of neural networks, then, well, my maths is not really up to calculating how many possible patterns a human brain can produce, but I'm confident it will exceed the quadrillions. I've heard it said that the number would exceed the number of particles of matter in the universe, in which case my estimate of Q is laughably low. -- Ben Zaiboc From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 26 12:46:58 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 12:46:58 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Genetics doesn't explain why people are poor Message-ID: A Study Tried to Use Genetics to Explain Why People Are Poor Scientists wanted to explain health disparities and ended up with a right-wing talking point. by Dan Samorodnitsky Jan 24 2020 Quotes: Genetics? allure can draw people away from more obvious explanations for problems. Here?s a hypothetical. Imagine a poor neighborhood on the side of a highway. If you notice that people living in poor neighborhoods next to highways get asthma more often than rich people across town, you could study their genomes and find some genes common in poor asthmatics. Some of those might even be for genes expressed in the throat and lungs, and then suddenly it seems like poor people are genetically predisposed to having asthma, all while ignoring the much simpler explanation that poor people are breathing in car exhaust while rich people aren?t. Viewing genes as a determining factor while ignoring larger systemic and societal issues is misleading. With a sample size as big as the UK Biobank you could pick any characteristic you wanted, like, say, enjoying an evening cup of tea. Then, comparing thousands of tea-drinkers to non-tea-drinkers, you might find that there are genetic variations more common in tea-drinkers. But that?s as far as the genetic analysis could take you. Whether tea-drinking is actually driven by genes, and whether that makes any sense, would simply have to be decided by humans. Harpak and colleagues? study compared two different types of GWASs: one made up of random people, and another that?s made up of family members. If differences in traits, like income, come from genetic sources, the tests will have the same outcome. If a trait is confounded by environmental and cultural factors, the two tests will have different results, which is exactly what Harpak saw. Things like years of smoking, years of schooling, and, yes, household income were heavily affected by the environment. ------------------ It's the old nature versus nurture argument. How much of each???? BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 26 17:02:09 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 09:02:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Genetics doesn't explain why people are poor In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008d01d5d46a$590d8da0$0b28a8e0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- > On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Genetics doesn't explain why people are poor A Study Tried to Use Genetics to Explain Why People Are Poor Scientists wanted to explain health disparities and ended up with a right-wing talking point. by Dan Samorodnitsky Jan 24 2020 < https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgepv8/a-study-tried-to-use-genetics-to-explain-why-people-are-poor> Quotes: Genetics? allure can draw people away from more obvious explanations for problems. Here?s a hypothetical. Imagine a poor neighborhood on the side of a highway. If you notice that people living in poor neighborhoods next to highways get asthma more often than rich people across town, you could study their genomes and find some genes common in poor asthmatics. ... ------------------ It's the old nature versus nurture argument. How much of each???? BillK _______________________________________________ BillK the example given could be explained two different ways. In our modern fortunate times, it isn't so much car exhaust (which is clean, certainly relative to the old days) but rather Diesel exhaust which contains carbon particulates. Clearly asthma and lung irritation can be caused by particulates, and asthma is known to be genetically related. No mystery there, both are factors. Now change the venue of the experiment to Interstate 680 in San Jose California, which is an ideal laboratory, because the freeway carries many Diesel-belching trucks, day and night, and it also comes down thru a crowded metropolis where the genetic makeup and economic status is about the same on both sides of the freeway. However... being close to the sea, the prevailing breeze is from the west. It blows the particulates east most of the time. I intentionally bought a home west of the freeway for that reason. So... compare the east side to the west side, and you have your answer. The experiment you posted was about how people explained the condition of the poor neighborhood, but all I can tell from it is that political notions are genetic. That sounds plausible, but they are also certainly memetic, heavily influenced by the family in which we are born. So with that, we still don't get to the answers on the nurture vs nature question. I would like to see a study on asthma west side vs east side of the freeway in San Jose. That could help drive laws to require additional exhaust filtering on Diesel trucks if it turns out the way I think it will. Carbon particulates irritate the lungs in all humans. This is very exciting however: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13585-5 Nature Communications ? Published: 16 December 2019 Genome-wide analysis identifies molecular systems and 149 genetic loci associated with income ? We have CRISPR technology, ja? So we just poke the right stuff in those 149 loci associated with income and everybody gets rich as a king! We could have a prosperous well-fed world, filled with kings. Better yet: find a group of traditionally disadvantaged volunteers, poke the right stuff in those 149 genetic locations, their genetically-modified children grow up in the traditionally disadvantaged culture, see if they get rich. What a cool experiment! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 26 17:59:32 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 11:59:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Genetics doesn't explain why people are poor In-Reply-To: <008d01d5d46a$590d8da0$0b28a8e0$@rainier66.com> References: <008d01d5d46a$590d8da0$0b28a8e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: The basic problem is that you simply cannot do a study of poverty and intelligence without massive confounding, so all you will ever get is correlations. Best type of study: identical twins raised apart in very different environments. bill w On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 11:04 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat > > > Subject: [ExI] Genetics doesn't explain why people are poor > > > > A Study Tried to Use Genetics to Explain Why People Are Poor Scientists > wanted to explain health disparities and ended up with a right-wing talking > point. > > > > by Dan Samorodnitsky Jan 24 2020 > > > > < > https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgepv8/a-study-tried-to-use-genetics-to-explain-why-people-are-poor > > > > > > Quotes: > > Genetics? allure can draw people away from more obvious explanations for > problems. Here?s a hypothetical. Imagine a poor neighborhood on the side of > a highway. If you notice that people living in poor neighborhoods next to > highways get asthma more often than rich people across town, you could > study their genomes and find some genes common in poor asthmatics. ... > > ------------------ > > > > It's the old nature versus nurture argument. How much of each???? > > > > BillK > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > > BillK the example given could be explained two different ways. > > > > In our modern fortunate times, it isn't so much car exhaust (which is > clean, certainly relative to the old days) but rather Diesel exhaust which > contains carbon particulates. Clearly asthma and lung irritation can be > caused by particulates, and asthma is known to be genetically related. No > mystery there, both are factors. > > > > Now change the venue of the experiment to Interstate 680 in San Jose > California, which is an ideal laboratory, because the freeway carries many > Diesel-belching trucks, day and night, and it also comes down thru a > crowded metropolis where the genetic makeup and economic status is about > the same on both sides of the freeway. However... being close to the sea, > the prevailing breeze is from the west. It blows the particulates east > most of the time. I intentionally bought a home west of the freeway for > that reason. So... compare the east side to the west side, and you have > your answer. > > > > The experiment you posted was about how people explained the condition of > the poor neighborhood, but all I can tell from it is that political notions > are genetic. That sounds plausible, but they are also certainly memetic, > heavily influenced by the family in which we are born. So with that, we > still don't get to the answers on the nurture vs nature question. > > > > I would like to see a study on asthma west side vs east side of the > freeway in San Jose. That could help drive laws to require additional > exhaust filtering on Diesel trucks if it turns out the way I think it > will. Carbon particulates irritate the lungs in all humans. > > > > This is very exciting however: > > > > https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13585-5 > > > > Nature Communications > > ? > > Published: 16 December 2019 > > Genome-wide analysis identifies molecular systems and 149 genetic loci > associated with income > > ? > > > > We have CRISPR technology, ja? So we just poke the right stuff in those > 149 loci associated with income and everybody gets rich as a king! We > could have a prosperous well-fed world, filled with kings. > > > > Better yet: find a group of traditionally disadvantaged volunteers, poke > the right stuff in those 149 genetic locations, their genetically-modified > children grow up in the traditionally disadvantaged culture, see if they > get rich. What a cool experiment! > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Jan 26 20:27:21 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 13:27:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Ben, Thanks for your extra work in our efforts to communicate. We are obviously failing miserably. The fact that everyone in this field has such a difficult time communicating, like this, is a huge problem with the "peer reviewed' journal and book writing system of today. All authors write a paper or book from their own point of view, using their own unique terminology. The papers tend to only be about mistakes they believe exists in other papers describing competing theories. There is no motivation to ever write a paper and say: "A agree", other than to "cite" the paper. (Again, in in many cases, citation are to criticize, nobody tracking any of this.) Nobody ever checks to see if any of the arguments they are presenting convert anyone to a different camp or anything like that. So the same old bad arguments get thrown arround in everyone bubbles (usually polarized between religion and science), nobody ever noticing if anyone on any side, agrees. This gives everyone the false perception that nobody agrees on anything. Everyone believes their own theory is a minority position, even when it is very popular. Basically, zero progress has been made in this field for hundreds of years. I personally know some great experimentalists. When I ask them if they ever studied qualia, they often say something like they spent several years trying to understand the concept, but eventually just gave up, it is all such crap. I was facing the same thing, I couldn't get anything form all the crap literature. I just wanted to know what, if any, theory was the most well accepted theory, consensus wise, and all you can find is lots of papers yelling with the same old arguments, about how everyone else is wrong and they are right. We're trying to find ways to cut through all that with Canonizer.com. Instead of one person authoring a paper or book, everyone gets together to collaborate on the best terminology to use to concisely describe their current working hypothesis. The disagreements everyone is focusing on are almost always far less important than what the experts do agree on. Canonizer's camp tree structure allows the important stuff that everyone agrees on and trying to build and track consensus around ("Approachable via Science " with over 50 of the total 60 participants and "Representational Qualia Theory " with 40 of the 50 approachable people). The only disagreement which everyone is publishing about are minor in comparison competing ideas about the nature of qualia. Canonizer.com let's people push these kinds of disagreements out of the way of the important stuff the experts are building consensus arround. Notice that even Dennett's current "Predictive Bayesian Coding theory" is now in a supporting sub camp position to "Representational Qualia Theory " Anywhere else you go to find out this kind of info is just ideological polarized crap, saying that Dennett, representing the scientific side disagrees with the religious fold. This kind of false crap is exactly what you everywhere except canonizer example being the wikipedia article on qualia . So, back to the material at hand. You said: "*My question 'I've falsified the theory, wouldn't you say?*'" Hopefully you can see below, where I did try to agree with this, and point out that you had falsified the idea that glutamate = redness. And I've repeatedly tried to point out how that is missing the point, which you seem so have completely missed. The glutamate=redness is just a way overly simplified description of an imaginary world where there are only 2 colors: red and green - nothing else. We are trying to communicate how one can be non qualia blind (a difficult task in itself) in this type of simplified world. Once people understand qualia blindness in this simple world, they can then apply the same theory to other theories more capably describing everything we know about the physics of the brain, like your theory that qualia are "patterns of information in neural networks". To me, everything you are saying about this sounds perfectly compatible with everything in RQT . Like all the other sub camps, you are making yet more competing predictions about the nature of qualia. Would it help if from now on, in my discussions with only you, I replace the word glutamate with "patterns of information in neural networks" ? Of course, you would be the only one this would benefit, which is why we try to canonizer things, to find the best terminology to use. Also, you said: "Qualia are not elemental properties of anything", indicating you maybe thinking we are talking about objective descriptions of some new "elemental" physics or something. In "Representational Qualia Theory" we define "elemental qualities" to simply be different than composite qualia. When someone experiences redness, they also experience a LOT of other computationally bound information. Meaning (the color of a strawberry), the word "red", blood.....) Elemental redness is just a constituent of such a composite redness experience. Surely, whatever redness is a quality of, it may not be elemental. This would be true if redness is a "pattern of information". Such a pattern of redness could be further broken down into the elements making up that patter. The point being that if you wanted to fully describe the subjective knowledge of the strawberry, you don't need to descend down and describe all the patterns. All you would need to describe is the elemental redness. That would allow you to reproduce such in another's mind, since you would know the specifics of the "pattern" that was redness and how that might differ from a grenness pattern. In other words "elemental redness" is just the bottom level of description required, to fully describe a composite subjective experience. Here's where I tried to say the same thing, before: On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 11:03 AM Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Ben, > > Yes, thanks for asking questions about my intentions instead of just > dismissing me as an idiot. I?ve answered this question multiple times on > this list, but I guess you haven?t seen this yet so let me try again. > > There is evidence of a clear consensus around qualia as indicated in ?Representational > Qualia Theory ?. > The only disagreement is what is the nature of qualia, as you can see in > the many competing sub camps. > > > > In order to communicate the general ideas contained in RQT > about how to > eff the ineffable, why it is qualia blind to only use one word ?red? for > all things red, and why the so called impossibly ?hard mind body problem? > is really just a color problem and all that (already a somewhat difficult > task to communicate) Of all the theories of qualia, we take the most > straight forward, easiest to falsify ?Molecular Materialism > ? theory, and > we go way beyond even that, for simplicity sake. We imagine an imaginary > world where there are only two colors red and green. Not even any other > shades of color ? just red and green. And in this overly simplistic world > it is glutamate reacting in a synapse that has the elemental pixel quality > of redness, and glycine that has the elemental quality of greenness. All > this, so we can say things like glutamate has a color property of white (it > reflects white light) and it has a colorness quality of redness. Our > abstract descriptions of how glutamate behaves in a synapse is one and the > same as what we directly experience as elemental redness. > > > > So, if someone thinks redness = glutamate has been falsified, just > substitute some other set of physics in the brain that hasn?t? yet been > falsified. Replace every occurrence of glutamate, above, with whatever > that things is. > > > > If you think there is a more likely theory than glutamate = redness (it > must be very falsifiable, as most competing theories of ?molecular > materialism, it isn?t clear how to falsify them) I would be happy to > substitute whatever you think could be a description of the necessary and > sufficient set of physics that is a description of what we directly > experience as redness. And of course, it would be great if you would > create a camp for what you think is most likely, so we can see how many > other people agree with you, compared to competing theories. You still > haven?t fully falsified Molecular Materialism for me, so I?m still > supporting that as my top working hypothesis choice. > > > > > > The problem is, everyone gets lost in the minor details everyone disagrees > on, and focuses on that. While completely missing what all the experts > agree is important (that which is contained in RQT > .) That is the > power of Cononizer ? the ability to push disagreements into lower level sub > camps, out of the way of building consensus around what most experts agree > is important:? There is no hard mind body problem, it?s just that nobody > knows what color anything is. > > > > So, Ben, Please. From here on out, whenever I say glutamate, please > replace that word with a description of whatever physics you most likely > think is a description of redness. > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jan 27 01:28:37 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 17:28:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Low-dose lithium stops disease progression in a transgenic rat model of Alzheimer's disease Message-ID: <20200126172837.Horde.18H6mpNAcyY8t30S9YlObLj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> This looks encouraging, since lithium is already a drug prescribed for mood disorders and the dosage for Alzheimer's is much lower than the currently used dosage. Of course they still need to conduct human clinical trials for efficacy. But hope is hope. Stuart LaForge https://scitechdaily.com/low-dose-lithium-may-stop-alzheimers-disease-in-its-tracks/ There remains a controversy in scientific circles today regarding the value of lithium therapy in treating Alzheimer?s disease. Much of this stems from the fact that because the information gathered to date has been obtained using a multitude of differential approaches, conditions, formulations, timing and dosages of treatment, results are difficult to compare. In addition, continued treatments with high dosage of lithium render a number of serious adverse effects making this approach impracticable for long term treatments especially in the elderly. In a new study, however, a team of researchers at McGill University led by Dr. Claudio Cuello of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, has shown that, when given in a formulation that facilitates passage to the brain, lithium in doses up to 400 times lower than what is currently being prescribed for mood disorders is capable of both halting signs of advanced Alzheimer?s pathology such as amyloid plaques and of recovering lost cognitive abilities. The findings are published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Alzheimer?s Disease. Building on their previous work ?The recruitment of Edward Wilson, a graduate student with a solid background in psychology, made all the difference,? explains Dr. Cuello, the study?s senior author, reflecting on the origins of this work. With Wilson, they first investigated the conventional lithium formulation and applied it initially in rats at a dosage similar to that used in clinical practice for mood disorders. The results of the initial tentative studies with conventional lithium formulations and dosage were disappointing however, as the rats rapidly displayed a number of adverse effects. The research avenue was interrupted but renewed when an encapsulated lithium formulation was identified that was reported to have some beneficial effects in a Huntington disease mouse model. Lithium in doses up to 400 times lower than what is currently being prescribed for mood disorders is capable of both halting signs of advanced Alzheimer?s pathology such as amyloid plaques and of recovering lost cognitive abilities. The new lithium formulation was then applied to a rat transgenic model expressing human mutated proteins causative of Alzheimer?s, an animal model they had created and characterized. This rat develops features of the human Alzheimer?s disease, including a progressive accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brain and concurrent cognitive deficits. Microdoses of lithium at concentrations hundreds of times lower than applied in the clinic for mood disorders were administered at early amyloid pathology stages in the Alzheimer?s-like transgenic rat. These results were remarkably positive and were published in 2017 in Translational Psychiatry and they stimulated us to continue working with this approach on a more advanced pathology,? notes Dr. Cuello. Encouraged by these earlier results, the researchers set out to apply the same lithium formulation at later stages of the disease to their transgenic rat modeling neuropathological aspects of Alzheimer?s disease. This study found that beneficial outcomes in diminishing pathology and improving cognition can also be achieved at more advanced stages, akin to late preclinical stages of the disease, when amyloid plaques are already present in the brain and when cognition starts to decline. ?From a practical point of view our findings show that microdoses of lithium in formulations such as the one we used, which facilitates passage to the brain through the brain-blood barrier while minimizing levels of lithium in the blood, sparing individuals from adverse effects, should find immediate therapeutic applications,? says Dr. Cuello. ?While it is unlikely that any medication will revert the irreversible brain damage at the clinical stages of Alzheimer?s it is very likely that a treatment with microdoses of encapsulated lithium should have tangible beneficial effects at early, preclinical stages of the disease.? Moving forward Dr. Cuello sees two avenues to build further on these most recent findings. The first involves investigating combination therapies using this lithium formulation in concert with other interesting drug candidates. To that end he is pursuing opportunities working with Dr. Sonia Do Carmo, the Charles E. Frosst-Merck Research Associate in his lab. He also believes that there is an excellent opportunity to launch initial clinical trials of this formulation with populations with detectable preclinical Alzheimer?s pathology or with populations genetically predisposed to Alzheimer?s, such as adult individuals with Down Syndrome. While many pharmaceutical companies have moved away from these types of trials, Dr. Cuello is hopeful of finding industrial or financial partners to make this happen, and, ultimately, provide a glimmer of hope for an effective treatment for those suffering from Alzheimer?s disease. Reference: ?NP03, a Microdose Lithium Formulation, Blunts Early Amyloid Post-Plaque Neuropathology in McGill-R-Thy1-APP Alzheimer-Like Transgenic Rats,? by Edward N. Wilson, Sonia Do Carmo, Lindsay A. Welikovitch, H?l?ne Hall, Lisi Flores Aguilar, Morgan K. Foret, M. Florencia Iulita, Dan Tong Jia, Adam R. Marks, Simon Allard, Joshua T. Emmerson, Adriana Ducatenzeiler and A. Claudio Cuello, 16 December 2019. Journal of Alzheimer?s disease. DOI: 10.3233/JAD-190862 From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 14:58:46 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 22:58:46 +0800 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: William Flynn Wallace wrote: "The American West took a long time to develop. Many thousands of people went farther and farther West. I have an intuition that they were, on average, uglier than the people left behind." An interesting theory. And so goodlooking people, having an easier time of it, getting mates and resources, stayed behind? I suppose quite a few "incels" of the 18th and 19th century, headed out west, in search of wealth, in hopes of gaining status and a quality mate. But despite your theory, I still tend to think most settlers and cowboys were actually of average appearance. I love books about the old west, and the many photographs I have seen of the people of the time, showed individuals were who not generally ugly. I do find it interesting how Australia is known for a goodlooking populace, despite having originated from outlaw colonists. Perhaps lots of lowborn and troublemaking alpha males were sent there by the British, to stop them from causing anymore trouble for local law enforcement and the crown. And now the Australian gene pool further changes due to the large amount of Asian immigrants. If only Damien Broderick were still posting to the list... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 15:11:33 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 23:11:33 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: A gift for you from the volunteers at Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <014d01d5d14c$208ae1b0$61a0a510$@rainier66.com> References: <1964304428.48058001579709172593.JavaMail.app@rbg43.atlis1> <014d01d5d14c$208ae1b0$61a0a510$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hahaha! Hold on, are leggings the same as yoga pants? Back when I would occasionally visit ASU for a free lecture or seminar, there were some genetically blessed coeds who could have easily caused a car pile up, due to the yoga pants they chose to wear. Her accent... Kansas? North Carolina? On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 1:51 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] Fwd: A gift for you from the volunteers at Wikipedia > > > > >? Trivia: did you know that owls cannot move their eyes? No wonder > they need swivel necks! bill w > > > > > > BillW, that?s what I tell my wife whenever she catches me checking out > some young woman wearing Them-Ain?t-Britches: I have intermittent optical > paralysis, also known as owlitis. It isn?t my fault at all, it?s theirs. > > > > Note the following Public Service Announcement: > > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uiTMtY7CKw > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 18:17:42 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 10:17:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Genetics doesn't explain why people are poor Message-ID: "'BillK'" wrote "A Study Tried to Use Genetics to Explain Why People Are Poor Scientists wanted to explain health disparities and ended up with a right-wing talking point." As a minor point, Vice is a publication with a strong bias. I often agree with them but not this time. When science runs up against political bias, I go with the science and damn political correctness. The Nature article didn't cite Gregory Clark who has been discussed here for the last 12 years. His paper "Genetically Capitalist?" is entirely supportive of the findings and vice versa. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d5a8/35ee085a87394dc53eb0db82450fe9dd372a.pdf Here is the oldest mention I can find in my email. Dec 20, 2007, 10:09 AM Being much influenced by the concepts of evolutionary psychology, I have tended to discount the idea of humans being much shaped by recent evolution. Exceptions have been accumulating, the taming of wild foxes in as few as 8 generations, and the acquisition of genes (a number of them!) for adult lactose tolerance in peoples with a dairy culture. Yes, you can get serious population average shifts if the selection pressure is high enough. Now Dr. Gregory Clark, in one of those huge efforts that lead to breakthroughs has produced a study that makes a strong case for recent (last few hundred years) and massive changes in population average psychological traits. It leaves in place that a huge part of our psychological traits did indeed come out of the stone age, but adds to that recent and very strong selection pressures on the population of settled agriculture societies in the "Malthusian trap." I came a bit late to this party, Dr. Clark's book _A Farewell to Alms_ peaked at 17 on Amazon's sales months ago. My copy has not come yet so I read this paper off his academic web site. http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf "Genetically Capitalist? The Malthusian Era, Institutions and the Formation of Modern Preferences." There is lots of other material here: http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/research.html but this paper is just stunning because of how much light it shines on a long list of mysteries. Such as: Why did the modern world grow out of a small part of Europe and why did it take so long? Why are the Chinese doing so well compared to say, Africa? The upshot of his research was that in the Malthusian era in England people with the personality characteristics to become well off economically had at least twice as many surviving children as those in the lower economic classes--who were not replacing themselves. This, of course, led to "downward social mobility," where the numerous sons and daughters of the rich tended to be less well off (on average) than their parents. But over 20 generations (1200-1800) it did spread the genes for the personality characteristics for accumulating wealth through the entire population. "In the institutional and technological context of these societies, a new set of human attributes mattered for the only currency that mattered in the Malthusian era, which was reproductive success. In this world literacy and numeracy, which were irrelevant before, were both helpful for economic success in agrarian pre-industrial economies. Thus since economic success was linked to reproductive success, facility with numbers and wordswas pulled along in its wake. Since patience and hard work found a new reward in a society with large amounts of capital, patience and hard work were also favored." Fascinating work, memes that slot right into the rest of my understanding of the world and the people in it. I very strongly recommend reading this paper at least. **** (end of quote from 2007) There are about 160 mentions of this subject on Ext-chat since then. From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 19:41:25 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:41:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Genetics doesn't explain why people are poor In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 27 Jan 2020 at 18:21, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > > The Nature article didn't cite Gregory Clark who has been discussed > here for the last 12 years. His paper "Genetically Capitalist?" is > entirely supportive of the findings and vice versa. > > https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d5a8/35ee085a87394dc53eb0db82450fe9dd372a.pdf > Perhaps the Nature article didn't refer to Clark's paper because he reached his genetic conclusions without any genetics research being involved? The difficulty with Clark's research and evolutionary psychology is that they leap from behaviour analysis to the conclusion that it must be due to genes and miss out all the steps in between. What about the causes of the behaviour? How much was influenced by genes and how much by social learned behaviour? What genes cause what behaviour? Do these genes *always* cause that behaviour or only in some social environments? All these questions and more are ignored to reach their preferred conclusion. Now that real scientific genetic research is being done different conclusions are being suggested. Variable prediction accuracy of polygenic scores within an ancestry group Hakhamanesh Mostafavi, Arbel Harpak, Dalton Conley, Jonathan K Pritchard, Molly Przeworski BillK BillK From ddraig at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 04:12:12 2020 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig@pobox.com) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 15:12:12 +1100 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 02:06, John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I do find it interesting how Australia is known for a goodlooking > populace, despite having originated from outlaw colonists. > Probably because a lot of them were Irish > If only Damien Broderick were still posting to the list... > Why did he stop? Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://fav.me/dqkgpd our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 28 04:54:26 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 20:54:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of ddraig--- via extropy-chat If only Damien Broderick were still posting to the list... Why did he stop? Dwayne Hi Dwayne, Damien stopped posting because he was very annoyed at the incessant US political chatter, where USians appear to think we are the only country in the world. Far too often we assume that everyone cares who is our president and what he thinks or does. We also lost Anders Sandberg and Eugen Leitl that way and several other valuable posters. In retrospect I partially blame myself for doing too little to encourage that to tone down forthwith and be respectful of international perspectives. BillK doesn?t hammer us with whatever Her Majesty is doing because it doesn?t apply to most of us. Australia has a Prime Minister, but I don?t know who it is and don?t concern myself with Australian affairs. So Damien didn?t post about that. He and plenty of others would prefer we USians would return the favor. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in Tue Jan 28 05:04:34 2020 From: f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in (Kunvar Thaman) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 10:34:34 +0530 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> References: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: >USians appear to think we are the only country in the world. Far too often we assume that everyone cares who is our president and what he thinks or does. Yeah, this is true. I'm not an American and the last time I talked to any of my friends about the POTUS or US Politics was around impeachment news time. Only reason I'm bothered at times is because as a student, for me US has some of the best universities and advisors for grad school and the environment is great for tech related stuff. &Kunvar On Tue, Jan 28, 2020, 10:25 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *ddraig--- via extropy-chat > > > > If only Damien Broderick were still posting to the list... > > > > > > Why did he stop? > > > > Dwayne > > > > > > > > Hi Dwayne, > > > > Damien stopped posting because he was very annoyed at the incessant US > political chatter, where USians appear to think we are the only country in > the world. Far too often we assume that everyone cares who is our > president and what he thinks or does. > > > > We also lost Anders Sandberg and Eugen Leitl that way and several other > valuable posters. > > > > In retrospect I partially blame myself for doing too little to encourage > that to tone down forthwith and be respectful of international > perspectives. > > > > doesn?t hammer us with whatever Her Majesty is doing because it doesn?t > apply to most of us. Australia has a Prime Minister, but I don?t know who > it is and don?t concern myself with Australian affairs. So Damien didn?t > post about that. He and plenty of others would prefer we USians would > return the favor. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 15:06:54 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 09:06:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] evolution Message-ID: There are several on this list who know much more than I do about revolution. But I don't see how we can discuss evolution anymore with including epigenetics. Nothing can be less random, it seems, than a person's activities affecting their germ cells. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 15:13:34 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 09:13:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] insult generators Message-ID: http://www.robietherobot.com/insult-generator.htm Just for fun. Try all of them. Not only kids will enjoy them. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ddraig at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 22:46:30 2020 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig@pobox.com) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 09:46:30 +1100 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> References: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hi On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 15:54, wrote: > > > > > > > Damien stopped posting because he was very annoyed at the incessant US > political chatter, where USians appear to think we are the only country in > the world. Far too often we assume that everyone cares who is our > president and what he thinks or does. > Ohhhhh. Fair enough. I did a search but did not see anything from him in the last 5 or 6 posts. Unless there's gaps in my extropy archive on gmail. I can totally understand that, that's ... the entire fucking internet, pretty much. In the last few months before the last US election I withdrew from nearly all interactive online things (mostly gaming) which had Americans in it because it was just non-stop hysteria and shrieking back and forth. It drives the rest of us crazy. But that's okay! If we miss anything, the media in Australia will give us a minute-by-minute update on nearly anything to do with US politics, because they think we care. I suspect mostly because it is cheap content. > > > We also lost Anders Sandberg and Eugen Leitl that way and several other > valuable posters. > I thought that happened after 911 when the list suddenly discovered it's inner nuke-em-all gun nut. > In retrospect I partially blame myself for doing too little to encourage > that to tone down forthwith and be respectful of international > perspectives. > But in fairness to you, living in the US, you'd be used to that sort of stuff and might not see it as unusual, whereas from the outside it looks ... insane. In Australia it is not the done thing to discuss politics or religion. I kind of like the way the population of the US (at least the parts I interact with) are so politically engaged (compared to Australians) - but I also hate the fact that a lot of the Americans I know are so politically engaged ;p > BillK doesn?t hammer us with whatever Her Majesty is doing because it > doesn?t apply to most of us. Australia has a Prime Minister, but I don?t > know who it is and don?t concern myself with Australian affairs. So Damien > didn?t post about that. He and plenty of others would prefer we USians > would return the favor. > On behalf of the rest of the global internet, I would agree. But I'm used to it, so I just ignore it. From where I sit it's mostly a religious civil war, instead of politics being discussed amongst civilised humans. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://fav.me/dqkgpd our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 23:06:36 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 17:06:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: References: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: What is more valuable: keeping this chat content like it is, with the occasional political issues, or just banning politics totally and emailing the lost members and inviting them back to a new and improved content? I would be strongly for the ban. There are plenty (!!) of outlets for politics. And we can always email person to person and exclude the chat group. What say? Let's make a case for getting those people back! bill w On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 4:49 PM ddraig--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Hi > > On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 15:54, wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Damien stopped posting because he was very annoyed at the incessant US >> political chatter, where USians appear to think we are the only country in >> the world. Far too often we assume that everyone cares who is our >> president and what he thinks or does. >> > > > Ohhhhh. Fair enough. I did a search but did not see anything from him in > the last 5 or 6 posts. Unless there's gaps in my extropy archive on > gmail. I can totally understand that, that's ... the entire fucking > internet, pretty much. In the last few months before the last US election > I withdrew from nearly all interactive online things (mostly gaming) which > had Americans in it because it was just non-stop hysteria and shrieking > back and forth. It drives the rest of us crazy. But that's okay! If we > miss anything, the media in Australia will give us a minute-by-minute > update on nearly anything to do with US politics, because they think we > care. I suspect mostly because it is cheap content. > > > > >> >> >> We also lost Anders Sandberg and Eugen Leitl that way and several other >> valuable posters. >> > > > I thought that happened after 911 when the list suddenly discovered it's > inner nuke-em-all gun nut. > > > > >> In retrospect I partially blame myself for doing too little to encourage >> that to tone down forthwith and be respectful of international >> perspectives. >> > > > But in fairness to you, living in the US, you'd be used to that sort of > stuff and might not see it as unusual, whereas from the outside it looks > ... insane. In Australia it is not the done thing to discuss politics or > religion. I kind of like the way the population of the US (at least the > parts I interact with) are so politically engaged (compared to Australians) > - but I also hate the fact that a lot of the Americans I know are so > politically engaged ;p > > >> BillK doesn?t hammer us with whatever Her Majesty is doing because it >> doesn?t apply to most of us. Australia has a Prime Minister, but I don?t >> know who it is and don?t concern myself with Australian affairs. So Damien >> didn?t post about that. He and plenty of others would prefer we USians >> would return the favor. >> > > > On behalf of the rest of the global internet, I would agree. But I'm used > to it, so I just ignore it. From where I sit it's mostly a religious civil > war, instead of politics being discussed amongst civilised humans. > > > Dwayne > -- > ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna > ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... > http://fav.me/dqkgpd > > our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 28 23:10:30 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 15:10:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: References: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00a801d5d630$233de1d0$69b9a570$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of ddraig--- via extropy-chat On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 15:54, > wrote: >? Far too often we assume that everyone cares who is our president and what he thinks or does. >?Ohhhhh. Fair enough. I did a search but did not see anything from him in the last 5 or 6 posts? None of this was recent. Several years ago. >?. On behalf of the rest of the global internet, I would agree. But I'm used to it, so I just ignore it. From where I sit it's mostly a religious civil war, instead of politics being discussed amongst civilised humans. Dwayne It has become a disease Dwayne, a bad one. Internet news is free but it still hasta make a living somehow. So it sells ad space. The advertisers can track how well their investment is working by noting which stories the users click on and how long they stay where the ads are visible. They watch all of it. So? news people note what sells. It evolved from actual news into mostly political nothing-burgers and news of the weird. They then learned to convince us that every little story has significance when in reality almost none of it does. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 01:48:09 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 17:48:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Genetics doesn't explain why people are poor Message-ID: BillK wrote: > Perhaps the Nature article didn't refer to Clark's paper because he reached his genetic conclusions without any genetics research being involved? More likely the authors were not aware of Clark's work. But Clark showed a consistent selection from around 1250 to 1800 for wealth or whatever psychological characteristics lie behind a person becoming wealthy. How can you have selection in a population without it affecting population gene frequencies? > The difficulty with Clark's research and evolutionary psychology is that they leap from behaviour analysis to the conclusion that it must be due to genes and miss out all the steps in between. I think you are conflating my interest in evolutionary psychology with Clark's work. Clark was looking at the outcome of a lifetime of behavior that generated wealth and children and seeing how well they correlated. > What about the causes of the behaviour? How much was influenced by genes and how much by social learned behaviour? What genes cause what behaviour? Ultimately genes build bodies with psychological traits. There are not a lot of examples where specific genes are known to be connected to behavior. I can think of only two, waltzing in mice and dogs playing fetch. Recently researchers found that some wolf cubs will play fetch. But Chows will not. That's going to be traced to genes eventually. If you think not, why not? > Do these genes *always* cause that behaviour or only in some social environments? It depends on the particular behavior. Dunk a rat in water and it swims. But do this with a million rats and you might find one that sinks like a stone. Dry out your sinker and see if it breeds true. If it does, would you consider this an example of genes causing behavior (or lack of same)? Incidentally, the outcome of the behaviors that lead to wealth depends strongly on the social environment. Clark goes into considerable detail about the "stable agrarian society" which made accumulating wealth possible. > All these questions and more are ignored to reach their preferred conclusion. I lost track of your argument. What is the "preferred conclusion" here? > Now that real scientific genetic research is being done different conclusions are being suggested. Hmm. Do you have an example? Keith From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 02:14:49 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 18:14:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: References: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 3:08 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What is more valuable: keeping this chat content like it is, with the > occasional political issues, or just banning politics totally and emailing > the lost members and inviting them back to a new and improved content? > > I would be strongly for the ban. There are plenty (!!) of outlets for > politics. And we can always email person to person and exclude the chat > group. > Good luck with that. Certain topics are just inherently borderline political, or politics injects itself over time. For example, a decade ago, who knew that the availability of clean drinking water in the US would become a political hot topic? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 02:34:50 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 20:34:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: References: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Good point, Adrian. The politics should be applicable worldwide, such as the lack of water is also a global concern. If it's just national politics we can ban that. Posts ranting about good or evil Americans are pointless to the lost group. Basic question: what are we willing to do to get those quality people back? Anything at all? Give up some content to get quality posters seems like a no-brainer to me. bill w On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 8:16 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 3:08 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> What is more valuable: keeping this chat content like it is, with the >> occasional political issues, or just banning politics totally and emailing >> the lost members and inviting them back to a new and improved content? >> >> I would be strongly for the ban. There are plenty (!!) of outlets for >> politics. And we can always email person to person and exclude the chat >> group. >> > > Good luck with that. Certain topics are just inherently borderline > political, or politics injects itself over time. For example, a decade > ago, who knew that the availability of clean drinking water in the US would > become a political hot topic? > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 29 03:22:48 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 19:22:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: References: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001801d5d653$622eedd0$268cc970$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat ubject: Re: [ExI] were they ugly? On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 3:08 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: What is more valuable: keeping this chat content like it is, with the occasional political issues, or just banning politics totally and emailing the lost members and inviting them back to a new and improved content? I would be strongly for the ban. There are plenty (!!) of outlets for politics. And we can always email person to person and exclude the chat group. >?Good luck with that. Certain topics are just inherently borderline political, or politics injects itself over time. For example, a decade ago, who knew that the availability of clean drinking water in the US would become a political hot topic? There is a way to do political discussions on a forum not suited for that (such as ours.) It isn?t a hard and fast rule, but rather a guideline: do not mention any person?s name, no specific office, no political party. With those three things out, much of the political discussion could apply to most countries and makes for an interesting challenge to write, and an interesting post to read. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Wed Jan 29 03:26:19 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 19:26:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] were they ugly? In-Reply-To: <573699151.585469.1580266109232@mail.yahoo.com> References: <005a01d5d597$049f1490$0ddd3db0$@rainier66.com> <573699151.585469.1580266109232@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20200128192619.Horde.-iTT6aKvvPhSHOVl-fB5KNx@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Adrian Tymes: > > Good luck with that.? Certain topics are just inherently borderline > political, or politics injects itself over time.? For example, a > decade ago, who knew that the availability of clean drinking water > in the US would become a political hot topic? To a certain degree water rights have always been a political hot topic, especially in California. But I agree that a decade ago, the idea that entire cities and regions of the U.S. like Flint, Michigan and Puerto Rico would lose their access to clean drinking water would have been hard to foresee. Especially for those who don't believe in climate change. But Nestle foresaw it. And they are no doubt profiting from it. Who knows? They might have even lobbied for it. Deliberate or not, I am deeply disturbed by this fact, and don't understand why there is not more widespread anger over this. In college, a friend of mine once remarked that civilization largely consisted of "getting food into cities and shit out of them." It was a sure sign of the decline of Rome when her government could no longer maintain her aqueducts and sewers. Maybe we should hold off on making America great again and instead shoot for simply making it livable again. Stuart LaForge Stuart LaForge From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 14:44:32 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 22:44:32 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Love It or Hate It, Tesla Cybertruck Is Revolutionary Message-ID: "With the Cybertruck, Tesla has integrated several of its technologies into one offering. The truck features the *same stainless steel alloy* being used at Musk's other company, SpaceX. And it has lithium ion batteries, software and hardware for self-driving and a *solar roof option* to help boost the Cybertruck's range." https://www.livescience.com/why-tesla-cybertruck-is-revolutionary.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 14:49:27 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 22:49:27 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Scientists uncover new mode of evolution Message-ID: "Evolution and natural selection take place at the level of DNA, as genes mutate and genetic traits either stick around or are lost over time. But now, scientists think evolution may take place on a whole other scale ? passed down not through genes, but through molecules stuck to their surfaces." "These molecules, known as methyl groups, alter the structure of DNA and can turn genes on and off. The alterations are known as "*epigenetic modifications* ," meaning they appear "above" or "on top of" the genome. Many organisms, including humans, have DNA dotted with methyl groups, but creatures like fruit flies and roundworms lost the required genes to do so over evolutionary time." https://www.livescience.com/yeast-reveals-new-mode-of-evolution.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 14:52:34 2020 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 22:52:34 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discover 4 Distinct Patterns of Aging Message-ID: "Some people's hearts stay strong well into their 60s, but their kidneys begin to fail. Others may have the kidneys of a 30-year-old but fall victim to constant infection." "Now, scientists may be one step closer to understanding why the aging process varies so drastically between people." "Even within a single person, aging unfolds at different rates in different tissues, sometimes striking the liver before the heart or kidney, for example. People fall into distinct categories depending on which of their biological systems ages fastest, and someday, doctors could use this information to recommend specific lifestyle changes and design personalized medical treatments, according to a new study, published Jan. 13 in the journal *Nature Medicine* . " https://www.livescience.com/four-types-of-aging-revealed.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 15:06:05 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 10:06:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 10:10 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > There are several on this list who know much more than I do about > revolution. But I don't see how we can discuss evolution anymore with > including epigenetics. Nothing can be less random, it seems, than a > person's activities affecting their germ cells. > Epigenetics is about methylation, methyl groups that are added as tags to DNA that tell RNA if it should translate a sequence into a protein or not, those tags are the only reason liver cells are different from brain cells even though they have identical DNA sequences. And the pattern of those tags can change throughout the lifetime of the individual so it's not outrageous to think that sometimes a few of those methyl groups could make it into germ cells and thus the next generation. And there is some evidence that on rare occasions this does in fact happen, although the effect seems to die out after 2 or 3 generations. But even if it didn't that wouldn't mean Lamarckian Evolution (the inheritance of acquired characteristics) has taken over from Darwinian Evolution (random mutation and natural selection) in its role of explaining the complexity of life. Most, in fact nearly all, acquired characteristics are detrimental not beneficial, that's true for all machines not just the biological type, they are all subjected to the ravages of time, they wear out; if the blacksmith's son inherited massive muscles in his arms from his father the boy must also inherit burns on his arms and a broken leg that his father received from a horse kicking him when he was working his trade. So if Lamarckian Evolution is to explain why organisms are so well adapted to their environment it needs a mechanism to sort out the very rare beneficia acquired characteristics from the vastly more numerous harmful acquired characteristics, and there is only one mechanism that fits the bill, Darwinian Natural Selection. Most changes, regardless of it they come from mutation or come from the life experience of the parents, are harmful, only a very few are helpful and those few are the ones that make it into the next generation. There are also reasons from embryology to think acquired characteristics is not significant to Evolution. The genome is a recipe not a blueprint and the difference is reversibility. If you had access to my house it would be easy to measure things and draw blueprints for it, but if would be far far more difficult to write a recipe for it because it would have to include detailed instructions for the workmen who built my house about what they should do and exactly when they should to it. Even if Evolution could somehow see the blacksmith's powerful arms it would be very difficult verging on the impossible to translate that into a recipe. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 15:56:35 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 10:56:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 10:12 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Epigenetics is about methylation, ... > That may be the primary mechanism but it's not the only one. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in Wed Jan 29 19:15:54 2020 From: f20170964 at pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in (Kunvar Thaman) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 00:45:54 +0530 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Discover 4 Distinct Patterns of Aging In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >Some people's hearts stay strong well into their 60s, A few months back I was taking a physiology class and I remember being very confused about how the heart could maintain a very specific rhythm for a very long time, never stopping, everything remaining in sync and then suddenly it falls out of the synchronization for some people. Sometimes it happens before 30, sometimes never once in the entire lifetime. Although I haven't read up on it myself yet, I'd love to hear some ideas &Kunvar On Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 8:33 PM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > "Some people's hearts stay strong well into their 60s, but their kidneys > begin to fail. Others may have the kidneys of a 30-year-old but fall victim > to constant infection." > > "Now, scientists may be one step closer to understanding why the aging > process varies so drastically between people." > > "Even within a single person, aging unfolds at different rates in > different tissues, sometimes striking the liver before the heart or kidney, > for example. People fall into distinct categories depending on which of > their biological systems ages fastest, and someday, doctors could use this > information to recommend specific lifestyle changes and design personalized > medical treatments, according to a new study, published Jan. 13 in the > journal *Nature Medicine* > . " > > https://www.livescience.com/four-types-of-aging-revealed.html > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 23:44:58 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 23:44:58 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Piano spectacular! Message-ID: Something I've just found. In London UK pianos were placed in public spaces, train stations, shopping malls, etc. which anybody was welcome to play. Sometimes professional musicians played, sometimes amateurs or tourists. And sometimes magic happened........ 2min 38s 4 min 50s 4 min BillK From ddraig at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 05:39:45 2020 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig@pobox.com) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 16:39:45 +1100 Subject: [ExI] /r/extropian Message-ID: hi this just popped up in my reddit newsfeed. Anyone interested? r/extropian ?Posted by u/request_bot 2 months ago r/extropian needs moderators and is currently available for request If you're interested and willing to moderate and grow this community, please go to r/redditrequest , where you can submit a request to take over the community. Be sure to read through the faq for r/redditrequest before submitting. -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://fav.me/dqkgpd our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 05:56:57 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 21:56:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] /r/extropian In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Looks like a ghost community. Maybe take it over so as to delete it? On Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 9:42 PM ddraig--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > hi > > this just popped up in my reddit newsfeed. Anyone interested? > > > r/extropian > ?Posted by > u/request_bot > 2 months ago > > r/extropian needs moderators and is currently available for request > > If you're interested and willing to moderate and grow this community, > please go to r/redditrequest , > where you can submit a request to take over the community. Be sure to read > through the faq for > r/redditrequest before > submitting. > > > -- > ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna > ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... > http://fav.me/dqkgpd > > our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 07:53:50 2020 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 08:53:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] /r/extropian In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't think there's a way to delete a subreddit. Lest time I checked, there was only the option to abandon a subreddit, like the owner of r/extropians has done. On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 6:58 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Looks like a ghost community. Maybe take it over so as to delete it? > > On Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 9:42 PM ddraig--- via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> hi >> >> this just popped up in my reddit newsfeed. Anyone interested? >> >> >> r/extropian >> ?Posted by >> u/request_bot >> 2 months ago >> >> r/extropian needs moderators and is currently available for request >> >> If you're interested and willing to moderate and grow this community, >> please go to r/redditrequest , >> where you can submit a request to take over the community. Be sure to read >> through the faq for >> r/redditrequest before >> submitting. >> >> >> -- >> ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna >> ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... >> http://fav.me/dqkgpd >> >> our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Thu Jan 30 09:53:44 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 09:53:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <29980f84-fea8-2788-5696-fdf0cbe62b29@zaiboc.net> Brent Allsop wrote: > Hi Ben, > Thanks for your extra work in our efforts to communicate.? We are > obviously failing miserably. Well, I would suggest that your model example using glutamate, combined with your terminology ('elemental') could almost be designed to mislead people about what you actually mean, so it's no wonder there's miscommunication. My 'availability' argument was a response to what you seemed to be claiming (and you agreed to what I asked about it. That question wasn't aimed at a simplified imaginary world, it was about the real world), and it doesn't just falsify the idea that glutamate = redness, but falsifies the whole concept of any molecule representing any quale, but perhaps you accept that, and perhaps it is missing the point anyway, which just reinforces what I'm saying here. I still don't understand what you mean by 'qualia blindness', and your simple-world examples do nothing towards helping me (or anyone else, that I can see) to understand it. As the saying goes "If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got". Perhaps it's time to try a different tack? The more different ways you can explain something, the better chance there is of people understanding it. When I have difficulty understanding a thing, I try to find a variety of sources with different ways of explaining it, then there's a better chance of finding something that makes sense to me. Any idea worth its salt can be explained in a number of different ways, or looked at from different angles. Unfortunately, you seem to be the only source of this idea, whatever it is, so it's up to you to come up with the different ways of explaining it that might help people to understand it. I suggest you add more ways of looking at this to your vocabulary, make new models, using different viewpoints, to try to convey what 'qualia blindness' is. Without this, I for one, wiil certainly continue to have no clue what it can mean. The only thing the term suggests to me is a lack of ability to experience qualia, just as ordinary blindness is a lack of ability to see. You clearly don't mean that, as it's an absurd thing to say. I know that you've probably invested a lot of time and thought in coming up with your model and terminology, and presumably it makes perfect sense to you, but if I'm any indication, it doesn't necessarily make sense to many other people. Time to think of other ways to explain it (and I don't just mean 'yellowness' instead of 'redness', and serotonin instead of glutamate!!). Preferably several different ways, if you want people to latch on to what you mean. I don't know, but perhaps drop the 'simplified world' and try using the real world? Or create a less simplified imaginary world? Or better still, translate into a completely different system that has nothing to do with brains, colours and neurotransmitters, but embodies the same concept? (I remember, long long ago, having difficulty understanding multiplication, it was all very abstract and mysterious, until someone drew a 2 x 3 grid on a piece of paper in front of me, and said "There, *that's* what multiiplication is!". I was all OOOOHHH!!! Suddenly it made complete sense. It just hadn't been explained to me like that before (for some daft reason)). By the way, if anyone can come up with a similar way of explaining what complex numbers are, I'd be very grateful! I know the usual description, but that just doesn't make any sense to me. (Yes, I know, it's extremely unlikely). And you're /still/ CCing my private email address, despite repeated requests that you don't. That doesn't improve my mood (I won't repeat what escapes my lips every time I see this. Use your imagination). Please stop it, permanently. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 17:29:20 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 10:29:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <29980f84-fea8-2788-5696-fdf0cbe62b29@zaiboc.net> References: <29980f84-fea8-2788-5696-fdf0cbe62b29@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi, Ben, I've been improving my method of communicating this information for many years. I'm able to communicate these ideas now much better than five and especially 10 years ago. But obviously I still have a long way to go so I appreciate your help. One of the important fundamentals is that knowledge of reality is different than reality. Knowledge of reality is simplified and optimized so we can survive more efficiently. It only focuses on and models what is important to us. Qualia blindness is simply having a model of reality that does not include qualia. If there is only one word being used for all things red, that is qualia blind language. People don't stop to think that to know what a word like red means you need to point to a specific set of physics. And even if qualia blind thinking does do this it is only connected to light. But of course that does not account for the fact that perception can be inverted anywhere in the chain of perception. In order for a language to not be qualia blind you need at least two words for two very different physical properties. Like red for the physical properties of the target of perception and the different word redness for the physical properties of our knowledge of that. In the models and language you must be able to comprehend and communicate effing of the ineffable ideas like "my redness could be like your greenness both of which we call red." Does that help? Brent On Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 2:55 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Ben, > Thanks for your extra work in our efforts to communicate. We are > obviously failing miserably. > > > > Well, I would suggest that your model example using glutamate, combined > with your terminology ('elemental') could almost be designed to mislead > people about what you actually mean, so it's no wonder there's > miscommunication. > > My 'availability' argument was a response to what you seemed to be > claiming (and you agreed to what I asked about it. That question wasn't > aimed at a simplified imaginary world, it was about the real world), and it > doesn't just falsify the idea that glutamate = redness, but falsifies the > whole concept of any molecule representing any quale, but perhaps you > accept that, and perhaps it is missing the point anyway, which just > reinforces what I'm saying here. > > I still don't understand what you mean by 'qualia blindness', and your > simple-world examples do nothing towards helping me (or anyone else, that I > can see) to understand it. > > As the saying goes "If you do what you always did, you'll get what you > always got". Perhaps it's time to try a different tack? The more different > ways you can explain something, the better chance there is of people > understanding it. When I have difficulty understanding a thing, I try to > find a variety of sources with different ways of explaining it, then > there's a better chance of finding something that makes sense to me. Any > idea worth its salt can be explained in a number of different ways, or > looked at from different angles. Unfortunately, you seem to be the only > source of this idea, whatever it is, so it's up to you to come up with the > different ways of explaining it that might help people to understand it. > > I suggest you add more ways of looking at this to your vocabulary, make > new models, using different viewpoints, to try to convey what 'qualia > blindness' is. Without this, I for one, wiil certainly continue to have no > clue what it can mean. The only thing the term suggests to me is a lack of > ability to experience qualia, just as ordinary blindness is a lack of > ability to see. You clearly don't mean that, as it's an absurd thing to say. > > I know that you've probably invested a lot of time and thought in coming > up with your model and terminology, and presumably it makes perfect sense > to you, but if I'm any indication, it doesn't necessarily make sense to > many other people. Time to think of other ways to explain it (and I don't > just mean 'yellowness' instead of 'redness', and serotonin instead of > glutamate!!). Preferably several different ways, if you want people to > latch on to what you mean. > > I don't know, but perhaps drop the 'simplified world' and try using the > real world? Or create a less simplified imaginary world? Or better still, > translate into a completely different system that has nothing to do with > brains, colours and neurotransmitters, but embodies the same concept? (I > remember, long long ago, having difficulty understanding multiplication, it > was all very abstract and mysterious, until someone drew a 2 x 3 grid on a > piece of paper in front of me, and said "There, *that's* what > multiiplication is!". I was all OOOOHHH!!! Suddenly it made complete sense. > It just hadn't been explained to me like that before (for some daft > reason)). > > By the way, if anyone can come up with a similar way of explaining what > complex numbers are, I'd be very grateful! I know the usual description, > but that just doesn't make any sense to me. > (Yes, I know, it's extremely unlikely). > > > And you're *still* CCing my private email address, despite repeated > requests that you don't. That doesn't improve my mood (I won't repeat what > escapes my lips every time I see this. Use your imagination). Please stop > it, permanently. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 17:51:33 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 10:51:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <29980f84-fea8-2788-5696-fdf0cbe62b29@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: All experimentalists, today, only use one word for all things red. If they detect any physical differences in the brains of people percieving red, they "correct" for this only thinking of all of it as red. And that is the only reason, today, nobody can tell is the color of anything. And that is the only reason people think there is a hard mind body problem. Once you have a more capable way of modelling perception, you realize it is all just an easy color problem. On Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 10:29 AM Brent Allsop wrote: > Hi, Ben, > I've been improving my method of communicating this information for many > years. I'm able to communicate these ideas now much better than five and > especially 10 years ago. But obviously I still have a long way to go so I > appreciate your help. > > One of the important fundamentals is that knowledge of reality is > different than reality. Knowledge of reality is simplified and optimized so > we can survive more efficiently. It only focuses on and models what is > important to us. Qualia blindness is simply having a model of reality that > does not include qualia. If there is only one word being used for all > things red, that is qualia blind language. > > People don't stop to think that to know what a word like red means you > need to point to a specific set of physics. And even if qualia blind > thinking does do this it is only connected to light. But of course that > does not account for the fact that perception can be inverted anywhere in > the chain of perception. In order for a language to not be qualia blind > you need at least two words for two very different physical properties. > Like red for the physical properties of the target of perception and the > different word redness for the physical properties of our knowledge of > that. In the models and language you must be able to comprehend and > communicate effing of the ineffable ideas like "my redness could be like > your greenness both of which we call red." > > Does that help? > > Brent > > > > > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 2:55 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Brent Allsop wrote: >> >> Hi Ben, >> Thanks for your extra work in our efforts to communicate. We are >> obviously failing miserably. >> >> >> >> Well, I would suggest that your model example using glutamate, combined >> with your terminology ('elemental') could almost be designed to mislead >> people about what you actually mean, so it's no wonder there's >> miscommunication. >> >> My 'availability' argument was a response to what you seemed to be >> claiming (and you agreed to what I asked about it. That question wasn't >> aimed at a simplified imaginary world, it was about the real world), and it >> doesn't just falsify the idea that glutamate = redness, but falsifies the >> whole concept of any molecule representing any quale, but perhaps you >> accept that, and perhaps it is missing the point anyway, which just >> reinforces what I'm saying here. >> >> I still don't understand what you mean by 'qualia blindness', and your >> simple-world examples do nothing towards helping me (or anyone else, that I >> can see) to understand it. >> >> As the saying goes "If you do what you always did, you'll get what you >> always got". Perhaps it's time to try a different tack? The more different >> ways you can explain something, the better chance there is of people >> understanding it. When I have difficulty understanding a thing, I try to >> find a variety of sources with different ways of explaining it, then >> there's a better chance of finding something that makes sense to me. Any >> idea worth its salt can be explained in a number of different ways, or >> looked at from different angles. Unfortunately, you seem to be the only >> source of this idea, whatever it is, so it's up to you to come up with the >> different ways of explaining it that might help people to understand it. >> >> I suggest you add more ways of looking at this to your vocabulary, make >> new models, using different viewpoints, to try to convey what 'qualia >> blindness' is. Without this, I for one, wiil certainly continue to have no >> clue what it can mean. The only thing the term suggests to me is a lack of >> ability to experience qualia, just as ordinary blindness is a lack of >> ability to see. You clearly don't mean that, as it's an absurd thing to say. >> >> I know that you've probably invested a lot of time and thought in coming >> up with your model and terminology, and presumably it makes perfect sense >> to you, but if I'm any indication, it doesn't necessarily make sense to >> many other people. Time to think of other ways to explain it (and I don't >> just mean 'yellowness' instead of 'redness', and serotonin instead of >> glutamate!!). Preferably several different ways, if you want people to >> latch on to what you mean. >> >> I don't know, but perhaps drop the 'simplified world' and try using the >> real world? Or create a less simplified imaginary world? Or better still, >> translate into a completely different system that has nothing to do with >> brains, colours and neurotransmitters, but embodies the same concept? (I >> remember, long long ago, having difficulty understanding multiplication, it >> was all very abstract and mysterious, until someone drew a 2 x 3 grid on a >> piece of paper in front of me, and said "There, *that's* what >> multiiplication is!". I was all OOOOHHH!!! Suddenly it made complete sense. >> It just hadn't been explained to me like that before (for some daft >> reason)). >> >> By the way, if anyone can come up with a similar way of explaining what >> complex numbers are, I'd be very grateful! I know the usual description, >> but that just doesn't make any sense to me. >> (Yes, I know, it's extremely unlikely). >> >> >> And you're *still* CCing my private email address, despite repeated >> requests that you don't. That doesn't improve my mood (I won't repeat what >> escapes my lips every time I see this. Use your imagination). Please stop >> it, permanently. >> >> -- >> Ben Zaiboc >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 18:45:53 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 05:45:53 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 at 08:24, Brent Allsop wrote: > Hi Stathis, > > > > ?I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I am sorry > that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting through to the > other.? > > > > After I sent that last long one to you, I was thinking I should have > included a statement like this, with it. So, thanks and right back at > you. James Carroll finally gave up on me LONG ago. > > > > I?m thinking this pretty much captures your view in a way I can understand: > > > > ?IF glutamate is responsible for associated with redness qualia, and we > replicate the objective behaviour of the glutamate (the qualia-blind > behaviour, in your terminology) by some non-glutamate means, then the > redness qualia will also be replicated. It's quite remarkable that we can > say this, but it is true.? > > > > But I still struggle with the way you talk about many things. You haven?t > mentioned the substitution argument, but I?m assuming this is the only > justification you have for making that last ?but it is true.? Claim.? No > thoughts on nothing being able to be redness, for the same reasons? Would > you not agree that if experimentalist were never able to reproduce redness, > without glutamate, it would falsify this claim? > If the experimentalist could reproduce all the behaviour associated with redness but not the redness, then that would mean qualia are meaningless. The subject would have altered or absent qualia, but they would not notice any difference, and communicate that everything was exactly the same. The most important thing about qualia is that we know we have them and we know if they change; if this is eliminated, what is there left? ?If the op amp configuration is changed but other circuitry is also changed > to compensate, the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so will > the redness qualia.? > > > > You never seem to acknowledge any other behavior than external behavior > (picking the strawberry). You seem to be ignoring the fact that a qualia > invert robot could have identical ?behavior?, and the qualia is NOT the > same. > If this is possible, then for the reason above it makes qualia meaningless. Behaviour does not mean just picking the strawberry, it means every type of behaviour that the subject can display, such as talking in detail about its experience of seeing strawberries. It will therefore have different qualia but declare that the strawberries are exactly the same shade of red as they were before the change. That would mean that your qualia might have become inverted in the last five minutes but you haven?t noticed. As far as you are concerned redness is still redness and greenness is still greenness. Or you might have gone completely blind in the last five minutes, but not noticed that you have no visual qualia at all any more. If you do notice, you are trapped in a nightmare, unable to communicate this information in any way. Does this make any sense? ?I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are > epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and > deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other > beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many > times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour > will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could > be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics > that is necessary for particular qualia.? > > > > You always ignore the binding functionality. For example, you mentioned > multiple ways to study epiphenomenal qualia in that closing statement, but > not once did you mention anything about using neural ponytails to do the > strongest form of effing the ineffable to directly observe the physical > qualia of others physical knowledge. Do you not agree that your left > hemisphere, knows absolutely, if your right hemisphere?s knowledge is > inverted? (for example, you use some special glasses and a camera system > to make everything in the right field of vision red/green inverted from the > information in your right hemisphere (from the left field of vision)?. It > seems to me that facts like this (and being necessarily possible to do the > same thing for 4 brain hemispheres [Is this not a fact or not necessary if > if qualia are epiphenomenal?]) should have some effect on these closing > remarks of yours? > Connecting brains together is not going to allow knowledge of qualia differences if even the original brain cannot notice qualia differences. On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 1:37 AM Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > >> >> >> On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 16:13, Brent Allsop >> wrote: >> >>> Hi Stathis, >>> >> >> Hi Brent. I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I am >> sorry that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting through >> to the other. >> >> >>> On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 4:12 PM Stathis Papaioannou >>> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> I don't think glutamate is sufficient for redness because it's too >>>> simple. You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is >>>> just an example to facilitate discussion. But I agree that glutamate might >>>> be sufficient as part of a component in a system. It cannot be necessary, >>>> because once we work out what physical interactions the component is >>>> involved in, we can substitute another component. >>>> >>> >>> I always think you understand, especially when you say thing like: " You >>> might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is just an >>> example to facilitate discussion." >>> But then you prove that you still don't understand, with the rest. >>> >>> Let's back up a bit, and see if we can get this right. Start by >>> watching this video up to >>> the "inverting pixel" section where it goes into a loop (1 pixel switching >>> between red and green) till you press continue. >>> >>> I'm talking about what is the necessary and sufficient set of physics >>> (or magic or spirit world stuff, or whatever) for that one pixel to have a >>> redness quality. And what are the changers, when only that one pixel >>> changes. >>> Implications being you can do this for every pixel you are consciously >>> aware of, and that being proof that there must be something physical for >>> everything you know, including every pixel of visual knowledge. >>> >> >> If the pixel changes subjectively, then it must change objectively also. >> That is, there must be some test that can be done on the system which will >> reveal that there has been a change: the subject cannot distinguish between >> objects that are a different colour, or the subject says that the >> strawberry looks different, or something. If there is no such objective >> change, then there cannot be a subjective change. It is possible to change >> many parts of the system and produce no objective change. It is like a >> computer running a program: there are multiple different computers that >> will run the program exactly the same and give the same user experience. >> Thus it might be sufficient for a certain set of hardware to run Microsoft >> Word, but we can't state what is necessary to run Microsoft Word: in a >> thousand years time people may be running old computer programs on hardware >> based on dark matter, or other technologies that we can't even imagine now. >> >> >>> When we abstractly describe glutamate, we have no idea the colorness >>> property of what we are objectively describing. Everything we get, >>> objectively, is necessary abstracted away from physical qualities and >>> necessary substrate independent. In other words, without a dictionary, you >>> can't know the colorness property you are describing or objectively >>> observing. Subjective experience is very different. Subjectively, we >>> directly experience the physical quality of what our abstract descriptions >>> are describing. In order to connect the two, you need a mapping like both >>> the objective word "glutamate" and the subjective word "redness" are labels >>> for the same physical thing. >>> >> >> By examining glutamate objectively, we cannot know what redness is like. >> However, we do know that IF glutamate is responsible for associated with >> redness qualia, and we replicate the objective behaviour of the glutamate >> (the qualia-blind behaviour, in your terminology) by some non-glutamate >> means, then the redness qualia will also be replicated. It's quite >> remarkable that we can say this, but it is true. >> >> >>> So, despite attempting to define glutamate that way, as you are doing >>> here, you think of glutamate in a completely different way than I was >>> attempting to describe. You reveal this misinterpretation of what I'm >>> trying to say with things like: "the component is involved in, we can >>> substitute another component." In other words you are assuming glutamate >>> is just some "component" of whatever it is that has redness. (Completely >>> changing what it actually says). Thankfully, in the past, after a >>> gazillion requests, you finally provided the "op amp" example. You pointed >>> out that you can replace all the neurons performing the op amp >>> functionality with neurons that can perform the same functionality, and it >>> would still result in redness. You think I disagree with this, but I >>> don't. You are just changing the conversion away from what I"m trying to >>> talk about. If glutamate is just a component of rendes, then you must >>> substitute glutamate for whatever it is glutamate is a component of that >>> performs the necessary and sufficient functionality that is redness for >>> that one pixel, THAT is what I'm talking about, and you continue to change >>> the subject. If that is true, I'm not talking about glutamate at all, as >>> you continue to think I am. Glutamate is just a stand in word for whatever >>> is the necessary and sufficient set of physics (or functionality. For your >>> sake, let's assume an addition op amp has the redness quality, and when >>> that pixel switches from redness to grenness, the op amp functionality >>> changes from addition to subtraction. I can completely agree with you that >>> you could implement both an addition and a subtraction op amp in either >>> neurons, or silicone, or anything else, but I"m not talking about >>> components of redness, I'm talking about redness. In this case it is the >>> the addition op amp functionality which can be implemented with either >>> silicon or neurons. >>> >> >> You seem to be agreeing with me that if the op amp is involved in redness >> qualia, and it is changed for a functionally identical op amp in a >> different substrate, then the redness qualia will be preserved. If the op >> amp configuration is changed, say from inverting to non-inverting, while >> leaving everything else the same, the behaviour of the system will change >> and the redness qualia may also change. On the other hand, if the op amp >> configuration is changed but other circuitry is also changed to compensate, >> the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so will the redness >> qualia. This demonstrates that there can be no particular physical property >> of the op amp that is necessary and sufficient for redness qualia. >> >> >>> The binding system is part of the required functionality. The binding >>> system makes you aware of the pixel that is changing from an addition op >>> amp, to a subtraction op amp (bound with all the other pixels of color of >>> yet different op amps that are not changing, while this one pixel does >>> change.) Anything else you present to that binding system, for that pixel, >>> the system must immediately be aware of the change, just as when you see >>> that pixel change from addition op amp ness to subtraction op amp ness. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 3:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Glutamate may be involved when red qualia are experienced, but this >>>>>> cannot be a unique property of glutamate, because if glutamate's physical >>>>>> effect in the brain, >>>>>> >>>>> It almost sounds like you think you have found a way arround my >>>>> "proof" that if it can't be glutamate, it can't be anything. Since you now >>>>> seem to be on board (a change?) with glutamate at least being sufficient >>>>> for redness, but not necessary? Is this new? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> changing the shape of glutamate receptors to which it binds, were >>>>>> replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia would continue. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> How is this not just saying redness isn't physically real, it is just >>>>> magic. There must be a very discoverable set of objectively observable >>>>> physics, that can result in a redness experience. This is just up to >>>>> nature. Either it is within that set or it isn't. We don't get to specify >>>>> when we do and do not want redness to arise so it will fit our possible >>>>> faulty thinking. Do you agree that even if there is some "software >>>>> functionality" (trying to imagine what a "non physical functionality" >>>>> might be), it is up to physics (or God?) as to whether redness will "arize' >>>>> from that, right? In other words, in all possible cases, redness is a real >>>>> physical quality? >>>>> >>>> >>>> I honestly can't see why you think that if the glutamate is replaced by >>>> another mechanism and everything works the same, that means qualia are >>>> magic. >>>> >>> >>> Again, you are thinking completely incorrectly about what I think, as I >>> indicated above. If it is the entire mechanism that has the redness >>> quality, and glutamate is only a "component" of that mechanism. In that >>> case, you need to replace glutamate, with the entire mechanism, or whatever >>> it is that is the necessary and sufficient set of functionality required >>> for you to directly experience it as a pixel of redness. >>> >>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> Also, changing the shape of the glutamate receptor can't uniquely be >>>>>> the determinant of red qualia because if the physical effect in the brain >>>>>> of (one type of) glutamate receptor, opening sodium ion channels when >>>>>> glutamate binds, were replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia >>>>>> would continue. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I've repeatedly tried to show the error I think I see in this logic >>>>> (you are clearly thinking as if glutamate isn't the redness, that redness >>>>> is something higher up in the system) but you just continue to even >>>>> acknowledge what I'm trying to say, let alone point out some mistake in my >>>>> logic. You just keep saying this same old (clearly mistaken to me) >>>>> argument over and over again. There must be something that is the >>>>> redness. If this physically changes in any way, it will be physically >>>>> different than redness. The system only works if it is physical redness. >>>>> If the system can't tell when the redness has physical changed, resulting >>>>> in the entire system being aware that it has changed, physics, it isn't >>>>> functioning correctly. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Glutamate changes the shape of receptors that it binds to due to the >>>> electrostatic force, and this is how it causes other physical effects in >>>> the body, such as muscle movement. Therefore, if the shape of the receptors >>>> can be changed by some other means than glutamate, the other effects in the >>>> body will be the same. Your error is to assume that glutamate has some >>>> other physical effect, "redness", that can cause muscle movement, such as >>>> the muscle movement associated with saying "I see red". But there is no >>>> extra such effect; changing the shape of receptors that it binds to due to >>>> the electrostatic force is 100% of the relevant physical effect of every >>>> glutamate molecule in every human that has ever lived. >>>> >>> More proof that you are completely misunderstanding what I"m trying to >>> say. Again, in the case you are talking about, glutamate is only a >>> "component". In that case I'm not talking about a "component" of redness, >>> I'm talking about whatever is the necessary and sufficient set of physics >>> that has the redness quality we directly experience for that one pixel. >>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> This analysis can be continued for the whole brain, replacing every >>>>>> part with a different part, but preserving all the qualia and >>>>>> consciousness. It cannot be any one component, or any one physical process, >>>>>> that is identified with qualia. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Again, as I've said, and demonstrated (remember the checkmate?) IF >>>>> this is true, then the result is that nothing can have redness, for the >>>>> same reason. It seems like you are completely ignoring that, and just >>>>> going back and replaying the old steps that lead to the checkmate, without >>>>> changing anything, yet expecting different results? >>>>> >>>> >>>> I misunderstood the "checkmate". Was it that qualia are epiphenomenal? >>>> I don't consider that "checkmate". >>>> >>> >>> OH, yea. That was my bad. James Carroll, who is also a functionalist >>> (the guy that joined the conversation on Quora the other day, he liking >>> your "functionalists" responses, and hem adding additional functionalist >>> responses.) >>> >>> My recollection is that he would repeatedly say the neural substitution >>> argument proves that if it is glutamate that has the redness quality, then >>> redness must be "epiphenomenal", which we both agreed meant redness would >>> not be approachable via science, and we both agreed that would be game over >>> or something neither one of us could accept. Kind of ironic, in a way. >>> >>> So, it was a big surprize to me to hear you say you believe qualia are >>> epiphenomenal. But anyway, that doesn't matter. What I was talking about, >>> was the second argument I was making that would also be a "check mate", >>> especially in your case. (in James' case, I think I have a double check >>> mate, but let's ignore that for now.) >>> >>> So, back to the op amp being the necessary and sufficient set of >>> functionality to experience a redness quality (including when you can >>> achieve the same addition op amp with various diverse sets of >>> "components") So, now, we need to replace glutamate, with this op amp (or >>> whatever it is, including magic) that is the necessary and sufficient set >>> of physics that have the redness quality you can experience for that one >>> pixel. For the same reason you are claiming it can't be glutamate, you >>> must also make the same claim for addition op amps. They can't have >>> redness, absolutely nothing, even magic, can have redness, and you can >>> prove that for anything that you try to substitute glutamate with. >>> >>> With that I'm thinking: And we all know, more than anything, that we >>> can experience redness. So if your so called "proof" "proves" we can't, >>> there is something wrong with your proof. >>> That seems to me to be Checkmate. >>> >>> Does that help at all? >>> >> >> I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are >> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and >> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other >> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many >> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour >> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could >> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics >> that is necessary for particular qualia. >> >> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou >> > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 20:45:36 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 13:45:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Stathis, How about we try this. I'm going to state your position, and all the points you keep making, as completely and concisely as I can. Then you can tell me if I'm missing anything important. Then, let's see if you can do the same back to me, with anything close to the same fidelity. Describe, even briefly, my model of consciousness, and using that model, point out as many of the problems as you can, which I believe this view brings to light in your position. OK, let me know if I'm missing anything in the following: I don't recall any other arguments from you, other than the neural substitution argument. The Neural Substitution argument is as follows. You replace neurons in the brain, one at a time, with simulated versions. For all possible inputs to the real neuron, the simulated version of the neuron results in identical outputs to what the real neuron would do. In other words, from an input and output perspective, they are indistinguishable. For each individual neuron substitution you do, you switch back and forth between the real and simulated to verify there is no subjective change by switching to the simulated version. You don't progress to the next neuron till this is achieved, perfectly. Eventually you will get to the last real neuron. When you switch back and forth, between the last real neuron, and simulated version of the same, still, the subject verifies that there is no subjective difference, The only conclusion that can be made from this, is that the subjective experience in the resulting final completely simulated version must be the same as in the real version. >From that we can conclude subjective experience must be "functional" and can't be "material", otherwise you would have irrational "fading", "dancing" or "absent" qualia, on the way to the simulated version. As long as the "behavior" remains the same the subjectivity must also remain the same. Now it's your turn. Can you describe my model of consciousness with an equivalent amount of fidelity? I believe my model of consciousness brings to light umpteen different problems in this substitution argument, all of which I'm sure I've described at least 2 or 3 times, in multiple different ways, over the years. How many of those different issues can you enumerate, using my model, and how well can you describe them? Feel free to point out the problems with each of these, as you describe them, but my prediction is that you won't have much more to say for any of them than: "That can't be, because of what the neural substitution argument demonstrates." On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:46 AM Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 at 08:24, Brent Allsop wrote: > >> Hi Stathis, >> >> >> >> ?I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I am sorry >> that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting through to the >> other.? >> >> >> >> After I sent that last long one to you, I was thinking I should have >> included a statement like this, with it. So, thanks and right back at >> you. James Carroll finally gave up on me LONG ago. >> >> >> >> I?m thinking this pretty much captures your view in a way I can >> understand: >> >> >> >> ?IF glutamate is responsible for associated with redness qualia, and we >> replicate the objective behaviour of the glutamate (the qualia-blind >> behaviour, in your terminology) by some non-glutamate means, then the >> redness qualia will also be replicated. It's quite remarkable that we can >> say this, but it is true.? >> >> >> >> But I still struggle with the way you talk about many things. You >> haven?t mentioned the substitution argument, but I?m assuming this is the >> only justification you have for making that last ?but it is true.? >> Claim.? No thoughts on nothing being able to be redness, for the same >> reasons? Would you not agree that if experimentalist were never able to >> reproduce redness, without glutamate, it would falsify this claim? >> > > If the experimentalist could reproduce all the behaviour associated with > redness but not the redness, then that would mean qualia are meaningless. > The subject would have altered or absent qualia, but they would not notice > any difference, and communicate that everything was exactly the same. The > most important thing about qualia is that we know we have them and we know > if they change; if this is eliminated, what is there left? > > ?If the op amp configuration is changed but other circuitry is also >> changed to compensate, the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so >> will the redness qualia.? >> >> >> >> You never seem to acknowledge any other behavior than external behavior >> (picking the strawberry). You seem to be ignoring the fact that a qualia >> invert robot could have identical ?behavior?, and the qualia is NOT the >> same. >> > > If this is possible, then for the reason above it makes qualia > meaningless. Behaviour does not mean just picking the strawberry, it means > every type of behaviour that the subject can display, such as talking in > detail about its experience of seeing strawberries. It will therefore have > different qualia but declare that the strawberries are exactly the same > shade of red as they were before the change. That would mean that your > qualia might have become inverted in the last five minutes but you haven?t > noticed. As far as you are concerned redness is still redness and greenness > is still greenness. Or you might have gone completely blind in the last > five minutes, but not noticed that you have no visual qualia at all any > more. If you do notice, you are trapped in a nightmare, unable to > communicate this information in any way. Does this make any sense? > > ?I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are >> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and >> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other >> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many >> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour >> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could >> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics >> that is necessary for particular qualia.? >> >> >> >> You always ignore the binding functionality. For example, you mentioned >> multiple ways to study epiphenomenal qualia in that closing statement, but >> not once did you mention anything about using neural ponytails to do the >> strongest form of effing the ineffable to directly observe the physical >> qualia of others physical knowledge. Do you not agree that your left >> hemisphere, knows absolutely, if your right hemisphere?s knowledge is >> inverted? (for example, you use some special glasses and a camera system >> to make everything in the right field of vision red/green inverted from the >> information in your right hemisphere (from the left field of vision)?. It >> seems to me that facts like this (and being necessarily possible to do the >> same thing for 4 brain hemispheres [Is this not a fact or not necessary if >> if qualia are epiphenomenal?]) should have some effect on these closing >> remarks of yours? >> > > Connecting brains together is not going to allow knowledge of qualia > differences if even the original brain cannot notice qualia differences. > > On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 1:37 AM Stathis Papaioannou >> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 16:13, Brent Allsop >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Stathis, >>>> >>> >>> Hi Brent. I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I >>> am sorry that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting >>> through to the other. >>> >>> >>>> On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 4:12 PM Stathis Papaioannou >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> I don't think glutamate is sufficient for redness because it's too >>>>> simple. You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is >>>>> just an example to facilitate discussion. But I agree that glutamate might >>>>> be sufficient as part of a component in a system. It cannot be necessary, >>>>> because once we work out what physical interactions the component is >>>>> involved in, we can substitute another component. >>>>> >>>> >>>> I always think you understand, especially when you say thing like: " >>>> You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is just an >>>> example to facilitate discussion." >>>> But then you prove that you still don't understand, with the rest. >>>> >>>> Let's back up a bit, and see if we can get this right. Start by >>>> watching this video up >>>> to the "inverting pixel" section where it goes into a loop (1 pixel >>>> switching between red and green) till you press continue. >>>> >>>> I'm talking about what is the necessary and sufficient set of physics >>>> (or magic or spirit world stuff, or whatever) for that one pixel to have a >>>> redness quality. And what are the changers, when only that one pixel >>>> changes. >>>> Implications being you can do this for every pixel you are consciously >>>> aware of, and that being proof that there must be something physical for >>>> everything you know, including every pixel of visual knowledge. >>>> >>> >>> If the pixel changes subjectively, then it must change objectively also. >>> That is, there must be some test that can be done on the system which will >>> reveal that there has been a change: the subject cannot distinguish between >>> objects that are a different colour, or the subject says that the >>> strawberry looks different, or something. If there is no such objective >>> change, then there cannot be a subjective change. It is possible to change >>> many parts of the system and produce no objective change. It is like a >>> computer running a program: there are multiple different computers that >>> will run the program exactly the same and give the same user experience. >>> Thus it might be sufficient for a certain set of hardware to run Microsoft >>> Word, but we can't state what is necessary to run Microsoft Word: in a >>> thousand years time people may be running old computer programs on hardware >>> based on dark matter, or other technologies that we can't even imagine now. >>> >>> >>>> When we abstractly describe glutamate, we have no idea the colorness >>>> property of what we are objectively describing. Everything we get, >>>> objectively, is necessary abstracted away from physical qualities and >>>> necessary substrate independent. In other words, without a dictionary, you >>>> can't know the colorness property you are describing or objectively >>>> observing. Subjective experience is very different. Subjectively, we >>>> directly experience the physical quality of what our abstract descriptions >>>> are describing. In order to connect the two, you need a mapping like both >>>> the objective word "glutamate" and the subjective word "redness" are labels >>>> for the same physical thing. >>>> >>> >>> By examining glutamate objectively, we cannot know what redness is like. >>> However, we do know that IF glutamate is responsible for associated with >>> redness qualia, and we replicate the objective behaviour of the glutamate >>> (the qualia-blind behaviour, in your terminology) by some non-glutamate >>> means, then the redness qualia will also be replicated. It's quite >>> remarkable that we can say this, but it is true. >>> >>> >>>> So, despite attempting to define glutamate that way, as you are doing >>>> here, you think of glutamate in a completely different way than I was >>>> attempting to describe. You reveal this misinterpretation of what I'm >>>> trying to say with things like: "the component is involved in, we can >>>> substitute another component." In other words you are assuming glutamate >>>> is just some "component" of whatever it is that has redness. (Completely >>>> changing what it actually says). Thankfully, in the past, after a >>>> gazillion requests, you finally provided the "op amp" example. You pointed >>>> out that you can replace all the neurons performing the op amp >>>> functionality with neurons that can perform the same functionality, and it >>>> would still result in redness. You think I disagree with this, but I >>>> don't. You are just changing the conversion away from what I"m trying to >>>> talk about. If glutamate is just a component of rendes, then you must >>>> substitute glutamate for whatever it is glutamate is a component of that >>>> performs the necessary and sufficient functionality that is redness for >>>> that one pixel, THAT is what I'm talking about, and you continue to change >>>> the subject. If that is true, I'm not talking about glutamate at all, as >>>> you continue to think I am. Glutamate is just a stand in word for whatever >>>> is the necessary and sufficient set of physics (or functionality. For your >>>> sake, let's assume an addition op amp has the redness quality, and when >>>> that pixel switches from redness to grenness, the op amp functionality >>>> changes from addition to subtraction. I can completely agree with you that >>>> you could implement both an addition and a subtraction op amp in either >>>> neurons, or silicone, or anything else, but I"m not talking about >>>> components of redness, I'm talking about redness. In this case it is the >>>> the addition op amp functionality which can be implemented with either >>>> silicon or neurons. >>>> >>> >>> You seem to be agreeing with me that if the op amp is involved in >>> redness qualia, and it is changed for a functionally identical op amp in a >>> different substrate, then the redness qualia will be preserved. If the op >>> amp configuration is changed, say from inverting to non-inverting, while >>> leaving everything else the same, the behaviour of the system will change >>> and the redness qualia may also change. On the other hand, if the op amp >>> configuration is changed but other circuitry is also changed to compensate, >>> the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so will the redness >>> qualia. This demonstrates that there can be no particular physical property >>> of the op amp that is necessary and sufficient for redness qualia. >>> >>> >>>> The binding system is part of the required functionality. The binding >>>> system makes you aware of the pixel that is changing from an addition op >>>> amp, to a subtraction op amp (bound with all the other pixels of color of >>>> yet different op amps that are not changing, while this one pixel does >>>> change.) Anything else you present to that binding system, for that pixel, >>>> the system must immediately be aware of the change, just as when you see >>>> that pixel change from addition op amp ness to subtraction op amp ness. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 3:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>>> stathisp at gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Glutamate may be involved when red qualia are experienced, but this >>>>>>> cannot be a unique property of glutamate, because if glutamate's physical >>>>>>> effect in the brain, >>>>>>> >>>>>> It almost sounds like you think you have found a way arround my >>>>>> "proof" that if it can't be glutamate, it can't be anything. Since you now >>>>>> seem to be on board (a change?) with glutamate at least being sufficient >>>>>> for redness, but not necessary? Is this new? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> changing the shape of glutamate receptors to which it binds, were >>>>>>> replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia would continue. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> How is this not just saying redness isn't physically real, it is just >>>>>> magic. There must be a very discoverable set of objectively observable >>>>>> physics, that can result in a redness experience. This is just up to >>>>>> nature. Either it is within that set or it isn't. We don't get to specify >>>>>> when we do and do not want redness to arise so it will fit our possible >>>>>> faulty thinking. Do you agree that even if there is some "software >>>>>> functionality" (trying to imagine what a "non physical functionality" >>>>>> might be), it is up to physics (or God?) as to whether redness will "arize' >>>>>> from that, right? In other words, in all possible cases, redness is a real >>>>>> physical quality? >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I honestly can't see why you think that if the glutamate is replaced >>>>> by another mechanism and everything works the same, that means qualia are >>>>> magic. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Again, you are thinking completely incorrectly about what I think, as I >>>> indicated above. If it is the entire mechanism that has the redness >>>> quality, and glutamate is only a "component" of that mechanism. In that >>>> case, you need to replace glutamate, with the entire mechanism, or whatever >>>> it is that is the necessary and sufficient set of functionality required >>>> for you to directly experience it as a pixel of redness. >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Also, changing the shape of the glutamate receptor can't uniquely be >>>>>>> the determinant of red qualia because if the physical effect in the brain >>>>>>> of (one type of) glutamate receptor, opening sodium ion channels when >>>>>>> glutamate binds, were replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia >>>>>>> would continue. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I've repeatedly tried to show the error I think I see in this logic >>>>>> (you are clearly thinking as if glutamate isn't the redness, that redness >>>>>> is something higher up in the system) but you just continue to even >>>>>> acknowledge what I'm trying to say, let alone point out some mistake in my >>>>>> logic. You just keep saying this same old (clearly mistaken to me) >>>>>> argument over and over again. There must be something that is the >>>>>> redness. If this physically changes in any way, it will be physically >>>>>> different than redness. The system only works if it is physical redness. >>>>>> If the system can't tell when the redness has physical changed, resulting >>>>>> in the entire system being aware that it has changed, physics, it isn't >>>>>> functioning correctly. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Glutamate changes the shape of receptors that it binds to due to the >>>>> electrostatic force, and this is how it causes other physical effects in >>>>> the body, such as muscle movement. Therefore, if the shape of the receptors >>>>> can be changed by some other means than glutamate, the other effects in the >>>>> body will be the same. Your error is to assume that glutamate has some >>>>> other physical effect, "redness", that can cause muscle movement, such as >>>>> the muscle movement associated with saying "I see red". But there is no >>>>> extra such effect; changing the shape of receptors that it binds to due to >>>>> the electrostatic force is 100% of the relevant physical effect of every >>>>> glutamate molecule in every human that has ever lived. >>>>> >>>> More proof that you are completely misunderstanding what I"m trying to >>>> say. Again, in the case you are talking about, glutamate is only a >>>> "component". In that case I'm not talking about a "component" of redness, >>>> I'm talking about whatever is the necessary and sufficient set of physics >>>> that has the redness quality we directly experience for that one pixel. >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> This analysis can be continued for the whole brain, replacing every >>>>>>> part with a different part, but preserving all the qualia and >>>>>>> consciousness. It cannot be any one component, or any one physical process, >>>>>>> that is identified with qualia. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Again, as I've said, and demonstrated (remember the checkmate?) IF >>>>>> this is true, then the result is that nothing can have redness, for the >>>>>> same reason. It seems like you are completely ignoring that, and just >>>>>> going back and replaying the old steps that lead to the checkmate, without >>>>>> changing anything, yet expecting different results? >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I misunderstood the "checkmate". Was it that qualia are epiphenomenal? >>>>> I don't consider that "checkmate". >>>>> >>>> >>>> OH, yea. That was my bad. James Carroll, who is also a functionalist >>>> (the guy that joined the conversation on Quora the other day, he liking >>>> your "functionalists" responses, and hem adding additional functionalist >>>> responses.) >>>> >>>> My recollection is that he would repeatedly say the neural substitution >>>> argument proves that if it is glutamate that has the redness quality, then >>>> redness must be "epiphenomenal", which we both agreed meant redness would >>>> not be approachable via science, and we both agreed that would be game over >>>> or something neither one of us could accept. Kind of ironic, in a way. >>>> >>>> So, it was a big surprize to me to hear you say you believe qualia are >>>> epiphenomenal. But anyway, that doesn't matter. What I was talking about, >>>> was the second argument I was making that would also be a "check mate", >>>> especially in your case. (in James' case, I think I have a double check >>>> mate, but let's ignore that for now.) >>>> >>>> So, back to the op amp being the necessary and sufficient set of >>>> functionality to experience a redness quality (including when you can >>>> achieve the same addition op amp with various diverse sets of >>>> "components") So, now, we need to replace glutamate, with this op amp (or >>>> whatever it is, including magic) that is the necessary and sufficient set >>>> of physics that have the redness quality you can experience for that one >>>> pixel. For the same reason you are claiming it can't be glutamate, you >>>> must also make the same claim for addition op amps. They can't have >>>> redness, absolutely nothing, even magic, can have redness, and you can >>>> prove that for anything that you try to substitute glutamate with. >>>> >>>> With that I'm thinking: And we all know, more than anything, that we >>>> can experience redness. So if your so called "proof" "proves" we can't, >>>> there is something wrong with your proof. >>>> That seems to me to be Checkmate. >>>> >>>> Does that help at all? >>>> >>> >>> I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are >>> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and >>> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other >>> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many >>> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour >>> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could >>> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics >>> that is necessary for particular qualia. >>> >>> -- >>> Stathis Papaioannou >>> >> -- > Stathis Papaioannou > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 21:27:19 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 14:27:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Oh, wait. I forgot an addition point about your view. In addition to saying: "That can't be, because of what the neural substitution argument demonstrates" You amy also say: "That isn't important, because of what the neural substitution argument demonstrates." On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 1:45 PM Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Stathis, > How about we try this. > I'm going to state your position, and all the points you keep making, as > completely and concisely as I can. > Then you can tell me if I'm missing anything important. > Then, let's see if you can do the same back to me, with anything close to > the same fidelity. Describe, even briefly, my model of consciousness, and > using that model, point out as many of the problems as you can, which I > believe this view brings to light in your position. > > OK, let me know if I'm missing anything in the following: > > I don't recall any other arguments from you, other than the neural > substitution argument. > The Neural Substitution argument is as follows. > You replace neurons in the brain, one at a time, with simulated versions. > For all possible inputs to the real neuron, the simulated version of the > neuron results in identical outputs to what the real neuron would do. > In other words, from an input and output perspective, they are > indistinguishable. > For each individual neuron substitution you do, you switch back and forth > between the real and simulated to verify there is no subjective change by > switching to the simulated version. > You don't progress to the next neuron till this is achieved, perfectly. > Eventually you will get to the last real neuron. When you switch back and > forth, between the last real neuron, and simulated version of the same, > still, the subject verifies that there is no subjective difference, > The only conclusion that can be made from this, is that the subjective > experience in the resulting final completely simulated version must be the > same as in the real version. > From that we can conclude subjective experience must be "functional" and > can't be "material", otherwise you would have irrational "fading", > "dancing" or "absent" qualia, on the way to the simulated version. > As long as the "behavior" remains the same the subjectivity must also > remain the same. > > Now it's your turn. Can you describe my model of consciousness with an > equivalent amount of fidelity? > I believe my model of consciousness brings to light umpteen different > problems in this substitution argument, all of which I'm sure I've > described at least 2 or 3 times, in multiple different ways, over the years. > How many of those different issues can you enumerate, using my model, and > how well can you describe them? > > Feel free to point out the problems with each of these, as you describe > them, but my prediction is that you won't have much more to say for any of > them than: "That can't be, because of what the neural substitution argument > demonstrates." > > > > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:46 AM Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > >> >> >> On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 at 08:24, Brent Allsop >> wrote: >> >>> Hi Stathis, >>> >>> >>> >>> ?I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I am sorry >>> that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting through to the >>> other.? >>> >>> >>> >>> After I sent that last long one to you, I was thinking I should have >>> included a statement like this, with it. So, thanks and right back at >>> you. James Carroll finally gave up on me LONG ago. >>> >>> >>> >>> I?m thinking this pretty much captures your view in a way I can >>> understand: >>> >>> >>> >>> ?IF glutamate is responsible for associated with redness qualia, and we >>> replicate the objective behaviour of the glutamate (the qualia-blind >>> behaviour, in your terminology) by some non-glutamate means, then the >>> redness qualia will also be replicated. It's quite remarkable that we can >>> say this, but it is true.? >>> >>> >>> >>> But I still struggle with the way you talk about many things. You >>> haven?t mentioned the substitution argument, but I?m assuming this is the >>> only justification you have for making that last ?but it is true.? >>> Claim.? No thoughts on nothing being able to be redness, for the same >>> reasons? Would you not agree that if experimentalist were never able to >>> reproduce redness, without glutamate, it would falsify this claim? >>> >> >> If the experimentalist could reproduce all the behaviour associated with >> redness but not the redness, then that would mean qualia are meaningless. >> The subject would have altered or absent qualia, but they would not notice >> any difference, and communicate that everything was exactly the same. The >> most important thing about qualia is that we know we have them and we know >> if they change; if this is eliminated, what is there left? >> >> ?If the op amp configuration is changed but other circuitry is also >>> changed to compensate, the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so >>> will the redness qualia.? >>> >>> >>> >>> You never seem to acknowledge any other behavior than external behavior >>> (picking the strawberry). You seem to be ignoring the fact that a qualia >>> invert robot could have identical ?behavior?, and the qualia is NOT the >>> same. >>> >> >> If this is possible, then for the reason above it makes qualia >> meaningless. Behaviour does not mean just picking the strawberry, it means >> every type of behaviour that the subject can display, such as talking in >> detail about its experience of seeing strawberries. It will therefore have >> different qualia but declare that the strawberries are exactly the same >> shade of red as they were before the change. That would mean that your >> qualia might have become inverted in the last five minutes but you haven?t >> noticed. As far as you are concerned redness is still redness and greenness >> is still greenness. Or you might have gone completely blind in the last >> five minutes, but not noticed that you have no visual qualia at all any >> more. If you do notice, you are trapped in a nightmare, unable to >> communicate this information in any way. Does this make any sense? >> >> ?I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are >>> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and >>> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other >>> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many >>> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour >>> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could >>> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics >>> that is necessary for particular qualia.? >>> >>> >>> >>> You always ignore the binding functionality. For example, you mentioned >>> multiple ways to study epiphenomenal qualia in that closing statement, but >>> not once did you mention anything about using neural ponytails to do the >>> strongest form of effing the ineffable to directly observe the physical >>> qualia of others physical knowledge. Do you not agree that your left >>> hemisphere, knows absolutely, if your right hemisphere?s knowledge is >>> inverted? (for example, you use some special glasses and a camera system >>> to make everything in the right field of vision red/green inverted from the >>> information in your right hemisphere (from the left field of vision)?. It >>> seems to me that facts like this (and being necessarily possible to do the >>> same thing for 4 brain hemispheres [Is this not a fact or not necessary if >>> if qualia are epiphenomenal?]) should have some effect on these closing >>> remarks of yours? >>> >> >> Connecting brains together is not going to allow knowledge of qualia >> differences if even the original brain cannot notice qualia differences. >> >> On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 1:37 AM Stathis Papaioannou >>> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 16:13, Brent Allsop >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hi Stathis, >>>>> >>>> >>>> Hi Brent. I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I >>>> am sorry that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting >>>> through to the other. >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 4:12 PM Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>> stathisp at gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I don't think glutamate is sufficient for redness because it's too >>>>>> simple. You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is >>>>>> just an example to facilitate discussion. But I agree that glutamate might >>>>>> be sufficient as part of a component in a system. It cannot be necessary, >>>>>> because once we work out what physical interactions the component is >>>>>> involved in, we can substitute another component. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I always think you understand, especially when you say thing like: " >>>>> You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is just an >>>>> example to facilitate discussion." >>>>> But then you prove that you still don't understand, with the rest. >>>>> >>>>> Let's back up a bit, and see if we can get this right. Start by >>>>> watching this video up >>>>> to the "inverting pixel" section where it goes into a loop (1 pixel >>>>> switching between red and green) till you press continue. >>>>> >>>>> I'm talking about what is the necessary and sufficient set of physics >>>>> (or magic or spirit world stuff, or whatever) for that one pixel to have a >>>>> redness quality. And what are the changers, when only that one pixel >>>>> changes. >>>>> Implications being you can do this for every pixel you are consciously >>>>> aware of, and that being proof that there must be something physical for >>>>> everything you know, including every pixel of visual knowledge. >>>>> >>>> >>>> If the pixel changes subjectively, then it must change objectively >>>> also. That is, there must be some test that can be done on the system which >>>> will reveal that there has been a change: the subject cannot distinguish >>>> between objects that are a different colour, or the subject says that the >>>> strawberry looks different, or something. If there is no such objective >>>> change, then there cannot be a subjective change. It is possible to change >>>> many parts of the system and produce no objective change. It is like a >>>> computer running a program: there are multiple different computers that >>>> will run the program exactly the same and give the same user experience. >>>> Thus it might be sufficient for a certain set of hardware to run Microsoft >>>> Word, but we can't state what is necessary to run Microsoft Word: in a >>>> thousand years time people may be running old computer programs on hardware >>>> based on dark matter, or other technologies that we can't even imagine now. >>>> >>>> >>>>> When we abstractly describe glutamate, we have no idea the colorness >>>>> property of what we are objectively describing. Everything we get, >>>>> objectively, is necessary abstracted away from physical qualities and >>>>> necessary substrate independent. In other words, without a dictionary, you >>>>> can't know the colorness property you are describing or objectively >>>>> observing. Subjective experience is very different. Subjectively, we >>>>> directly experience the physical quality of what our abstract descriptions >>>>> are describing. In order to connect the two, you need a mapping like both >>>>> the objective word "glutamate" and the subjective word "redness" are labels >>>>> for the same physical thing. >>>>> >>>> >>>> By examining glutamate objectively, we cannot know what redness is >>>> like. However, we do know that IF glutamate is responsible for associated >>>> with redness qualia, and we replicate the objective behaviour of the >>>> glutamate (the qualia-blind behaviour, in your terminology) by some >>>> non-glutamate means, then the redness qualia will also be replicated. It's >>>> quite remarkable that we can say this, but it is true. >>>> >>>> >>>>> So, despite attempting to define glutamate that way, as you are doing >>>>> here, you think of glutamate in a completely different way than I was >>>>> attempting to describe. You reveal this misinterpretation of what I'm >>>>> trying to say with things like: "the component is involved in, we can >>>>> substitute another component." In other words you are assuming glutamate >>>>> is just some "component" of whatever it is that has redness. (Completely >>>>> changing what it actually says). Thankfully, in the past, after a >>>>> gazillion requests, you finally provided the "op amp" example. You pointed >>>>> out that you can replace all the neurons performing the op amp >>>>> functionality with neurons that can perform the same functionality, and it >>>>> would still result in redness. You think I disagree with this, but I >>>>> don't. You are just changing the conversion away from what I"m trying to >>>>> talk about. If glutamate is just a component of rendes, then you must >>>>> substitute glutamate for whatever it is glutamate is a component of that >>>>> performs the necessary and sufficient functionality that is redness for >>>>> that one pixel, THAT is what I'm talking about, and you continue to change >>>>> the subject. If that is true, I'm not talking about glutamate at all, as >>>>> you continue to think I am. Glutamate is just a stand in word for whatever >>>>> is the necessary and sufficient set of physics (or functionality. For your >>>>> sake, let's assume an addition op amp has the redness quality, and when >>>>> that pixel switches from redness to grenness, the op amp functionality >>>>> changes from addition to subtraction. I can completely agree with you that >>>>> you could implement both an addition and a subtraction op amp in either >>>>> neurons, or silicone, or anything else, but I"m not talking about >>>>> components of redness, I'm talking about redness. In this case it is the >>>>> the addition op amp functionality which can be implemented with either >>>>> silicon or neurons. >>>>> >>>> >>>> You seem to be agreeing with me that if the op amp is involved in >>>> redness qualia, and it is changed for a functionally identical op amp in a >>>> different substrate, then the redness qualia will be preserved. If the op >>>> amp configuration is changed, say from inverting to non-inverting, while >>>> leaving everything else the same, the behaviour of the system will change >>>> and the redness qualia may also change. On the other hand, if the op amp >>>> configuration is changed but other circuitry is also changed to compensate, >>>> the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so will the redness >>>> qualia. This demonstrates that there can be no particular physical property >>>> of the op amp that is necessary and sufficient for redness qualia. >>>> >>>> >>>>> The binding system is part of the required functionality. The binding >>>>> system makes you aware of the pixel that is changing from an addition op >>>>> amp, to a subtraction op amp (bound with all the other pixels of color of >>>>> yet different op amps that are not changing, while this one pixel does >>>>> change.) Anything else you present to that binding system, for that pixel, >>>>> the system must immediately be aware of the change, just as when you see >>>>> that pixel change from addition op amp ness to subtraction op amp ness. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 3:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>>>> stathisp at gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Glutamate may be involved when red qualia are experienced, but this >>>>>>>> cannot be a unique property of glutamate, because if glutamate's physical >>>>>>>> effect in the brain, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> It almost sounds like you think you have found a way arround my >>>>>>> "proof" that if it can't be glutamate, it can't be anything. Since you now >>>>>>> seem to be on board (a change?) with glutamate at least being sufficient >>>>>>> for redness, but not necessary? Is this new? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> changing the shape of glutamate receptors to which it binds, were >>>>>>>> replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia would continue. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> How is this not just saying redness isn't physically real, it is >>>>>>> just magic. There must be a very discoverable set of objectively >>>>>>> observable physics, that can result in a redness experience. This is just >>>>>>> up to nature. Either it is within that set or it isn't. We don't get to >>>>>>> specify when we do and do not want redness to arise so it will fit our >>>>>>> possible faulty thinking. Do you agree that even if there is some >>>>>>> "software functionality" (trying to imagine what a "non physical >>>>>>> functionality" might be), it is up to physics (or God?) as to whether >>>>>>> redness will "arize' from that, right? In other words, in all possible >>>>>>> cases, redness is a real physical quality? >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I honestly can't see why you think that if the glutamate is replaced >>>>>> by another mechanism and everything works the same, that means qualia are >>>>>> magic. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Again, you are thinking completely incorrectly about what I think, as >>>>> I indicated above. If it is the entire mechanism that has the redness >>>>> quality, and glutamate is only a "component" of that mechanism. In that >>>>> case, you need to replace glutamate, with the entire mechanism, or whatever >>>>> it is that is the necessary and sufficient set of functionality required >>>>> for you to directly experience it as a pixel of redness. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> Also, changing the shape of the glutamate receptor can't uniquely be >>>>>>>> the determinant of red qualia because if the physical effect in the brain >>>>>>>> of (one type of) glutamate receptor, opening sodium ion channels when >>>>>>>> glutamate binds, were replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia >>>>>>>> would continue. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I've repeatedly tried to show the error I think I see in this logic >>>>>>> (you are clearly thinking as if glutamate isn't the redness, that redness >>>>>>> is something higher up in the system) but you just continue to even >>>>>>> acknowledge what I'm trying to say, let alone point out some mistake in my >>>>>>> logic. You just keep saying this same old (clearly mistaken to me) >>>>>>> argument over and over again. There must be something that is the >>>>>>> redness. If this physically changes in any way, it will be physically >>>>>>> different than redness. The system only works if it is physical redness. >>>>>>> If the system can't tell when the redness has physical changed, resulting >>>>>>> in the entire system being aware that it has changed, physics, it isn't >>>>>>> functioning correctly. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Glutamate changes the shape of receptors that it binds to due to the >>>>>> electrostatic force, and this is how it causes other physical effects in >>>>>> the body, such as muscle movement. Therefore, if the shape of the receptors >>>>>> can be changed by some other means than glutamate, the other effects in the >>>>>> body will be the same. Your error is to assume that glutamate has some >>>>>> other physical effect, "redness", that can cause muscle movement, such as >>>>>> the muscle movement associated with saying "I see red". But there is no >>>>>> extra such effect; changing the shape of receptors that it binds to due to >>>>>> the electrostatic force is 100% of the relevant physical effect of every >>>>>> glutamate molecule in every human that has ever lived. >>>>>> >>>>> More proof that you are completely misunderstanding what I"m trying to >>>>> say. Again, in the case you are talking about, glutamate is only a >>>>> "component". In that case I'm not talking about a "component" of redness, >>>>> I'm talking about whatever is the necessary and sufficient set of physics >>>>> that has the redness quality we directly experience for that one pixel. >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> This analysis can be continued for the whole brain, replacing every >>>>>>>> part with a different part, but preserving all the qualia and >>>>>>>> consciousness. It cannot be any one component, or any one physical process, >>>>>>>> that is identified with qualia. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Again, as I've said, and demonstrated (remember the checkmate?) IF >>>>>>> this is true, then the result is that nothing can have redness, for the >>>>>>> same reason. It seems like you are completely ignoring that, and just >>>>>>> going back and replaying the old steps that lead to the checkmate, without >>>>>>> changing anything, yet expecting different results? >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I misunderstood the "checkmate". Was it that qualia are >>>>>> epiphenomenal? I don't consider that "checkmate". >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> OH, yea. That was my bad. James Carroll, who is also a functionalist >>>>> (the guy that joined the conversation on Quora the other day, he liking >>>>> your "functionalists" responses, and hem adding additional functionalist >>>>> responses.) >>>>> >>>>> My recollection is that he would repeatedly say the neural >>>>> substitution argument proves that if it is glutamate that has the redness >>>>> quality, then redness must be "epiphenomenal", which we both agreed meant >>>>> redness would not be approachable via science, and we both agreed that >>>>> would be game over or something neither one of us could accept. Kind of >>>>> ironic, in a way. >>>>> >>>>> So, it was a big surprize to me to hear you say you believe qualia are >>>>> epiphenomenal. But anyway, that doesn't matter. What I was talking about, >>>>> was the second argument I was making that would also be a "check mate", >>>>> especially in your case. (in James' case, I think I have a double check >>>>> mate, but let's ignore that for now.) >>>>> >>>>> So, back to the op amp being the necessary and sufficient set of >>>>> functionality to experience a redness quality (including when you can >>>>> achieve the same addition op amp with various diverse sets of >>>>> "components") So, now, we need to replace glutamate, with this op amp (or >>>>> whatever it is, including magic) that is the necessary and sufficient set >>>>> of physics that have the redness quality you can experience for that one >>>>> pixel. For the same reason you are claiming it can't be glutamate, you >>>>> must also make the same claim for addition op amps. They can't have >>>>> redness, absolutely nothing, even magic, can have redness, and you can >>>>> prove that for anything that you try to substitute glutamate with. >>>>> >>>>> With that I'm thinking: And we all know, more than anything, that we >>>>> can experience redness. So if your so called "proof" "proves" we can't, >>>>> there is something wrong with your proof. >>>>> That seems to me to be Checkmate. >>>>> >>>>> Does that help at all? >>>>> >>>> >>>> I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are >>>> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and >>>> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other >>>> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many >>>> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour >>>> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could >>>> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics >>>> that is necessary for particular qualia. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Stathis Papaioannou >>>> >>> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 22:33:49 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 09:33:49 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 at 08:29, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Oh, wait. I forgot an addition point about your view. > In addition to saying: "That can't be, because of what the neural > substitution argument demonstrates" > You amy also say: > "That isn't important, because of what the neural substitution argument > demonstrates." > Yes, I admit I have probably said that, which I would be expected to do if indeed I thought you were making a point that was not relevant to the argument, but I should explain why exactly I believe it is not relevant. On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 1:45 PM Brent Allsop wrote: > >> >> Hi Stathis, >> How about we try this. >> I'm going to state your position, and all the points you keep making, as >> completely and concisely as I can. >> Then you can tell me if I'm missing anything important. >> Then, let's see if you can do the same back to me, with anything close to >> the same fidelity. Describe, even briefly, my model of consciousness, and >> using that model, point out as many of the problems as you can, which I >> believe this view brings to light in your position. >> >> OK, let me know if I'm missing anything in the following: >> >> I don't recall any other arguments from you, other than the neural >> substitution argument. >> The Neural Substitution argument is as follows. >> You replace neurons in the brain, one at a time, with simulated versions. >> For all possible inputs to the real neuron, the simulated version of the >> neuron results in identical outputs to what the real neuron would do. >> In other words, from an input and output perspective, they are >> indistinguishable. >> For each individual neuron substitution you do, you switch back and forth >> between the real and simulated to verify there is no subjective change by >> switching to the simulated version. >> You don't progress to the next neuron till this is achieved, perfectly. >> Eventually you will get to the last real neuron. When you switch back >> and forth, between the last real neuron, and simulated version of the same, >> still, the subject verifies that there is no subjective difference, >> The only conclusion that can be made from this, is that the subjective >> experience in the resulting final completely simulated version must be the >> same as in the real version. >> From that we can conclude subjective experience must be "functional" and >> can't be "material", otherwise you would have irrational "fading", >> "dancing" or "absent" qualia, on the way to the simulated version. >> As long as the "behavior" remains the same the subjectivity must also >> remain the same. >> >> Now it's your turn. Can you describe my model of consciousness with an >> equivalent amount of fidelity? >> I believe my model of consciousness brings to light umpteen different >> problems in this substitution argument, all of which I'm sure I've >> described at least 2 or 3 times, in multiple different ways, over the years. >> How many of those different issues can you enumerate, using my model, and >> how well can you describe them? >> >> Feel free to point out the problems with each of these, as you describe >> them, but my prediction is that you won't have much more to say for any of >> them than: "That can't be, because of what the neural substitution argument >> demonstrates." >> >> >> >> >> On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:46 AM Stathis Papaioannou >> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 at 08:24, Brent Allsop >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Stathis, >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ?I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I am sorry >>>> that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting through to the >>>> other.? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> After I sent that last long one to you, I was thinking I should have >>>> included a statement like this, with it. So, thanks and right back at >>>> you. James Carroll finally gave up on me LONG ago. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I?m thinking this pretty much captures your view in a way I can >>>> understand: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ?IF glutamate is responsible for associated with redness qualia, and we >>>> replicate the objective behaviour of the glutamate (the qualia-blind >>>> behaviour, in your terminology) by some non-glutamate means, then the >>>> redness qualia will also be replicated. It's quite remarkable that we can >>>> say this, but it is true.? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> But I still struggle with the way you talk about many things. You >>>> haven?t mentioned the substitution argument, but I?m assuming this is the >>>> only justification you have for making that last ?but it is true.? >>>> Claim.? No thoughts on nothing being able to be redness, for the same >>>> reasons? Would you not agree that if experimentalist were never able to >>>> reproduce redness, without glutamate, it would falsify this claim? >>>> >>> >>> If the experimentalist could reproduce all the behaviour associated with >>> redness but not the redness, then that would mean qualia are meaningless. >>> The subject would have altered or absent qualia, but they would not notice >>> any difference, and communicate that everything was exactly the same. The >>> most important thing about qualia is that we know we have them and we know >>> if they change; if this is eliminated, what is there left? >>> >>> ?If the op amp configuration is changed but other circuitry is also >>>> changed to compensate, the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so >>>> will the redness qualia.? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> You never seem to acknowledge any other behavior than external behavior >>>> (picking the strawberry). You seem to be ignoring the fact that a qualia >>>> invert robot could have identical ?behavior?, and the qualia is NOT the >>>> same. >>>> >>> >>> If this is possible, then for the reason above it makes qualia >>> meaningless. Behaviour does not mean just picking the strawberry, it means >>> every type of behaviour that the subject can display, such as talking in >>> detail about its experience of seeing strawberries. It will therefore have >>> different qualia but declare that the strawberries are exactly the same >>> shade of red as they were before the change. That would mean that your >>> qualia might have become inverted in the last five minutes but you haven?t >>> noticed. As far as you are concerned redness is still redness and greenness >>> is still greenness. Or you might have gone completely blind in the last >>> five minutes, but not noticed that you have no visual qualia at all any >>> more. If you do notice, you are trapped in a nightmare, unable to >>> communicate this information in any way. Does this make any sense? >>> >>> ?I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are >>>> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and >>>> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other >>>> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many >>>> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour >>>> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could >>>> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics >>>> that is necessary for particular qualia.? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> You always ignore the binding functionality. For example, you >>>> mentioned multiple ways to study epiphenomenal qualia in that closing >>>> statement, but not once did you mention anything about using neural >>>> ponytails to do the strongest form of effing the ineffable to directly >>>> observe the physical qualia of others physical knowledge. Do you not agree >>>> that your left hemisphere, knows absolutely, if your right hemisphere?s >>>> knowledge is inverted? (for example, you use some special glasses and a >>>> camera system to make everything in the right field of vision red/green >>>> inverted from the information in your right hemisphere (from the left field >>>> of vision)?. It seems to me that facts like this (and being necessarily >>>> possible to do the same thing for 4 brain hemispheres [Is this not a fact >>>> or not necessary if if qualia are epiphenomenal?]) should have some effect >>>> on these closing remarks of yours? >>>> >>> >>> Connecting brains together is not going to allow knowledge of qualia >>> differences if even the original brain cannot notice qualia differences. >>> >>> On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 1:37 AM Stathis Papaioannou >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 16:13, Brent Allsop >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Hi Stathis, >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Hi Brent. I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I >>>>> am sorry that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting >>>>> through to the other. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 4:12 PM Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>>> stathisp at gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I don't think glutamate is sufficient for redness because it's too >>>>>>> simple. You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is >>>>>>> just an example to facilitate discussion. But I agree that glutamate might >>>>>>> be sufficient as part of a component in a system. It cannot be necessary, >>>>>>> because once we work out what physical interactions the component is >>>>>>> involved in, we can substitute another component. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I always think you understand, especially when you say thing like: " >>>>>> You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is just an >>>>>> example to facilitate discussion." >>>>>> But then you prove that you still don't understand, with the rest. >>>>>> >>>>>> Let's back up a bit, and see if we can get this right. Start by >>>>>> watching this video up >>>>>> to the "inverting pixel" section where it goes into a loop (1 pixel >>>>>> switching between red and green) till you press continue. >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm talking about what is the necessary and sufficient set of physics >>>>>> (or magic or spirit world stuff, or whatever) for that one pixel to have a >>>>>> redness quality. And what are the changers, when only that one pixel >>>>>> changes. >>>>>> Implications being you can do this for every pixel you are >>>>>> consciously aware of, and that being proof that there must be something >>>>>> physical for everything you know, including every pixel of visual knowledge. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> If the pixel changes subjectively, then it must change objectively >>>>> also. That is, there must be some test that can be done on the system which >>>>> will reveal that there has been a change: the subject cannot distinguish >>>>> between objects that are a different colour, or the subject says that the >>>>> strawberry looks different, or something. If there is no such objective >>>>> change, then there cannot be a subjective change. It is possible to change >>>>> many parts of the system and produce no objective change. It is like a >>>>> computer running a program: there are multiple different computers that >>>>> will run the program exactly the same and give the same user experience. >>>>> Thus it might be sufficient for a certain set of hardware to run Microsoft >>>>> Word, but we can't state what is necessary to run Microsoft Word: in a >>>>> thousand years time people may be running old computer programs on hardware >>>>> based on dark matter, or other technologies that we can't even imagine now. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> When we abstractly describe glutamate, we have no idea the colorness >>>>>> property of what we are objectively describing. Everything we get, >>>>>> objectively, is necessary abstracted away from physical qualities and >>>>>> necessary substrate independent. In other words, without a dictionary, you >>>>>> can't know the colorness property you are describing or objectively >>>>>> observing. Subjective experience is very different. Subjectively, we >>>>>> directly experience the physical quality of what our abstract descriptions >>>>>> are describing. In order to connect the two, you need a mapping like both >>>>>> the objective word "glutamate" and the subjective word "redness" are labels >>>>>> for the same physical thing. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> By examining glutamate objectively, we cannot know what redness is >>>>> like. However, we do know that IF glutamate is responsible for associated >>>>> with redness qualia, and we replicate the objective behaviour of the >>>>> glutamate (the qualia-blind behaviour, in your terminology) by some >>>>> non-glutamate means, then the redness qualia will also be replicated. It's >>>>> quite remarkable that we can say this, but it is true. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> So, despite attempting to define glutamate that way, as you are doing >>>>>> here, you think of glutamate in a completely different way than I was >>>>>> attempting to describe. You reveal this misinterpretation of what I'm >>>>>> trying to say with things like: "the component is involved in, we can >>>>>> substitute another component." In other words you are assuming glutamate >>>>>> is just some "component" of whatever it is that has redness. (Completely >>>>>> changing what it actually says). Thankfully, in the past, after a >>>>>> gazillion requests, you finally provided the "op amp" example. You pointed >>>>>> out that you can replace all the neurons performing the op amp >>>>>> functionality with neurons that can perform the same functionality, and it >>>>>> would still result in redness. You think I disagree with this, but I >>>>>> don't. You are just changing the conversion away from what I"m trying to >>>>>> talk about. If glutamate is just a component of rendes, then you must >>>>>> substitute glutamate for whatever it is glutamate is a component of that >>>>>> performs the necessary and sufficient functionality that is redness for >>>>>> that one pixel, THAT is what I'm talking about, and you continue to change >>>>>> the subject. If that is true, I'm not talking about glutamate at all, as >>>>>> you continue to think I am. Glutamate is just a stand in word for whatever >>>>>> is the necessary and sufficient set of physics (or functionality. For your >>>>>> sake, let's assume an addition op amp has the redness quality, and when >>>>>> that pixel switches from redness to grenness, the op amp functionality >>>>>> changes from addition to subtraction. I can completely agree with you that >>>>>> you could implement both an addition and a subtraction op amp in either >>>>>> neurons, or silicone, or anything else, but I"m not talking about >>>>>> components of redness, I'm talking about redness. In this case it is the >>>>>> the addition op amp functionality which can be implemented with either >>>>>> silicon or neurons. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> You seem to be agreeing with me that if the op amp is involved in >>>>> redness qualia, and it is changed for a functionally identical op amp in a >>>>> different substrate, then the redness qualia will be preserved. If the op >>>>> amp configuration is changed, say from inverting to non-inverting, while >>>>> leaving everything else the same, the behaviour of the system will change >>>>> and the redness qualia may also change. On the other hand, if the op amp >>>>> configuration is changed but other circuitry is also changed to compensate, >>>>> the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so will the redness >>>>> qualia. This demonstrates that there can be no particular physical property >>>>> of the op amp that is necessary and sufficient for redness qualia. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> The binding system is part of the required functionality. The >>>>>> binding system makes you aware of the pixel that is changing from an >>>>>> addition op amp, to a subtraction op amp (bound with all the other pixels >>>>>> of color of yet different op amps that are not changing, while this one >>>>>> pixel does change.) Anything else you present to that binding system, for >>>>>> that pixel, the system must immediately be aware of the change, just as >>>>>> when you see that pixel change from addition op amp ness to subtraction op >>>>>> amp ness. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 3:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>>>>> stathisp at gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Glutamate may be involved when red qualia are experienced, but >>>>>>>>> this cannot be a unique property of glutamate, because if glutamate's >>>>>>>>> physical effect in the brain, >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> It almost sounds like you think you have found a way arround my >>>>>>>> "proof" that if it can't be glutamate, it can't be anything. Since you now >>>>>>>> seem to be on board (a change?) with glutamate at least being sufficient >>>>>>>> for redness, but not necessary? Is this new? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> changing the shape of glutamate receptors to which it binds, were >>>>>>>>> replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia would continue. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> How is this not just saying redness isn't physically real, it is >>>>>>>> just magic. There must be a very discoverable set of objectively >>>>>>>> observable physics, that can result in a redness experience. This is just >>>>>>>> up to nature. Either it is within that set or it isn't. We don't get to >>>>>>>> specify when we do and do not want redness to arise so it will fit our >>>>>>>> possible faulty thinking. Do you agree that even if there is some >>>>>>>> "software functionality" (trying to imagine what a "non physical >>>>>>>> functionality" might be), it is up to physics (or God?) as to whether >>>>>>>> redness will "arize' from that, right? In other words, in all possible >>>>>>>> cases, redness is a real physical quality? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I honestly can't see why you think that if the glutamate is replaced >>>>>>> by another mechanism and everything works the same, that means qualia are >>>>>>> magic. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Again, you are thinking completely incorrectly about what I think, as >>>>>> I indicated above. If it is the entire mechanism that has the redness >>>>>> quality, and glutamate is only a "component" of that mechanism. In that >>>>>> case, you need to replace glutamate, with the entire mechanism, or whatever >>>>>> it is that is the necessary and sufficient set of functionality required >>>>>> for you to directly experience it as a pixel of redness. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Also, changing the shape of the glutamate receptor can't uniquely >>>>>>>>> be the determinant of red qualia because if the physical effect in the >>>>>>>>> brain of (one type of) glutamate receptor, opening sodium ion channels when >>>>>>>>> glutamate binds, were replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia >>>>>>>>> would continue. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I've repeatedly tried to show the error I think I see in this logic >>>>>>>> (you are clearly thinking as if glutamate isn't the redness, that redness >>>>>>>> is something higher up in the system) but you just continue to even >>>>>>>> acknowledge what I'm trying to say, let alone point out some mistake in my >>>>>>>> logic. You just keep saying this same old (clearly mistaken to me) >>>>>>>> argument over and over again. There must be something that is the >>>>>>>> redness. If this physically changes in any way, it will be physically >>>>>>>> different than redness. The system only works if it is physical redness. >>>>>>>> If the system can't tell when the redness has physical changed, resulting >>>>>>>> in the entire system being aware that it has changed, physics, it isn't >>>>>>>> functioning correctly. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Glutamate changes the shape of receptors that it binds to due to the >>>>>>> electrostatic force, and this is how it causes other physical effects in >>>>>>> the body, such as muscle movement. Therefore, if the shape of the receptors >>>>>>> can be changed by some other means than glutamate, the other effects in the >>>>>>> body will be the same. Your error is to assume that glutamate has some >>>>>>> other physical effect, "redness", that can cause muscle movement, such as >>>>>>> the muscle movement associated with saying "I see red". But there is no >>>>>>> extra such effect; changing the shape of receptors that it binds to due to >>>>>>> the electrostatic force is 100% of the relevant physical effect of every >>>>>>> glutamate molecule in every human that has ever lived. >>>>>>> >>>>>> More proof that you are completely misunderstanding what I"m trying >>>>>> to say. Again, in the case you are talking about, glutamate is only a >>>>>> "component". In that case I'm not talking about a "component" of redness, >>>>>> I'm talking about whatever is the necessary and sufficient set of physics >>>>>> that has the redness quality we directly experience for that one pixel. >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> This analysis can be continued for the whole brain, replacing every >>>>>>>>> part with a different part, but preserving all the qualia and >>>>>>>>> consciousness. It cannot be any one component, or any one physical process, >>>>>>>>> that is identified with qualia. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Again, as I've said, and demonstrated (remember the checkmate?) IF >>>>>>>> this is true, then the result is that nothing can have redness, for the >>>>>>>> same reason. It seems like you are completely ignoring that, and just >>>>>>>> going back and replaying the old steps that lead to the checkmate, without >>>>>>>> changing anything, yet expecting different results? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I misunderstood the "checkmate". Was it that qualia are >>>>>>> epiphenomenal? I don't consider that "checkmate". >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> OH, yea. That was my bad. James Carroll, who is also a >>>>>> functionalist (the guy that joined the conversation on Quora the other day, >>>>>> he liking your "functionalists" responses, and hem adding additional >>>>>> functionalist responses.) >>>>>> >>>>>> My recollection is that he would repeatedly say the neural >>>>>> substitution argument proves that if it is glutamate that has the redness >>>>>> quality, then redness must be "epiphenomenal", which we both agreed meant >>>>>> redness would not be approachable via science, and we both agreed that >>>>>> would be game over or something neither one of us could accept. Kind of >>>>>> ironic, in a way. >>>>>> >>>>>> So, it was a big surprize to me to hear you say you believe qualia >>>>>> are epiphenomenal. But anyway, that doesn't matter. What I was talking >>>>>> about, was the second argument I was making that would also be a "check >>>>>> mate", especially in your case. (in James' case, I think I have a double >>>>>> check mate, but let's ignore that for now.) >>>>>> >>>>>> So, back to the op amp being the necessary and sufficient set of >>>>>> functionality to experience a redness quality (including when you can >>>>>> achieve the same addition op amp with various diverse sets of >>>>>> "components") So, now, we need to replace glutamate, with this op amp (or >>>>>> whatever it is, including magic) that is the necessary and sufficient set >>>>>> of physics that have the redness quality you can experience for that one >>>>>> pixel. For the same reason you are claiming it can't be glutamate, you >>>>>> must also make the same claim for addition op amps. They can't have >>>>>> redness, absolutely nothing, even magic, can have redness, and you can >>>>>> prove that for anything that you try to substitute glutamate with. >>>>>> >>>>>> With that I'm thinking: And we all know, more than anything, that we >>>>>> can experience redness. So if your so called "proof" "proves" we can't, >>>>>> there is something wrong with your proof. >>>>>> That seems to me to be Checkmate. >>>>>> >>>>>> Does that help at all? >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are >>>>> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and >>>>> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other >>>>> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many >>>>> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour >>>>> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could >>>>> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics >>>>> that is necessary for particular qualia. >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Stathis Papaioannou >>>>> >>>> -- >>> Stathis Papaioannou >>> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 03:05:00 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 20:05:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: OK, here are a few of the more important things you are missing. You said I would say: ?Finally, there is the actual conscious experience, such as seeing the redness of the strawberry.? I would not say: ?see the redness?. There are two ways to know about the same physical facts. 1. To objectively perceive them through a cause and effect chain of different physical events. You don?t ?ignore? the different physical qualities of all these intermediate things, you just think of all these different things in a substrate independent way, thinking or interpreting each of them as if they are only representing ?red? instead of modeling how they are physically nothing like red. The second way to know about physics is to directly subjectively experience them. The first is the ?objective? way, requiring lots of interpretation, which can be mistaken or a seeming. The second is the direct subjective way, which can?t be mistaken and there is no interpretation. Physical redness is just a physical quality which we can directly experience and are objectively describing, when we abstractly describe glutamate reacting in a synapse, possibly including the way you abstractly describe glutamate as changing the shape of the receptor. Next: ?from here on I get a bit lost. It seems to me that you are saying that since redness is a physical property of glutamate, it must have physical effects, and therefore it is not possible changing it would leave the qualia and behavior `unchanged.? The thing that leads you astray, is you interpret what I?m trying to say as if glutamate and redness are separate things. You are clearly saying it here in a way that separates these two. They are not separate in any way. Objectively, you see the glycine firing, instead of glutamate, resulting in you saying: That is not red. Subjectively, you directly experience this same physics as redness, or greenness, enabling you to say what color they are. The objective and subjective facts are all the same thing causing you to say: ?That is not red.? Saying redness causes you to say: ?that is red? is the same thing as saying glutamate, (possibly changing the shape of the receptor) causes you to say: ?That is red?. And you completely missed the second necessary half of what I model consciousness as being. This is strong evidence that you are completely blind to this half. And it is THIS half that reveals all the problems in the neural substitution argument. In my view, this is a necessary part of having composite qualitative experience or consciousness which we absolutely have. When you do the neural substitution in the way you do, it completely leaves out this necessary half of the functionality and this is part of the cause of all the craziness and ?hard problems? that don?t make any sense. Oh, and you also completely left out the fact that when doing the neural substitution without this necessary half of the functionality, you can prove that nothing, not even ?functionality? nor ?magic? can have a redness quality, for the same reasons glutamate can?t have redness. You just never notice this, because no matter where I try to put redness to make you happy, even if this is op amp functionality or magic, you change the subject and redefine everything as if the redness is someplace else, in the system. You never model what it is that has the redness quality, even if it is functionality. Because, if you did, I could prove to you that it can?t be that, for the same faulty logic causing you to think it can?t be glutamate. What I?m trying to say is IF you include anything that could have a redness quality we can directly experience, and if you would include the second half of the necessary part of consciousness, and if you adequately modeled both of these parts in your neural substitution, not only would everything be obvious about what is going on, it would become clear how various slight of hands can be done with this kind of substitution, to make it appear that the neural substitution is doing one thing, when in reality it could be physically or subjectively very different. I guess another part I?m not stressing enough (trying present things from your point of view) is the prediction that no such neural substitution would ever be remotely possible, except in only the most contrived and absurd ways. Once you got to a pixel neuron, presenting glutamate to the binding system, enabling you to be directly aware of it with all the other physical pixels and their physical qualities as one composite experience, the only way to do a switch, in a way that would even remotely behave the same, is if you, in one atomic switching operation, rebound everything, including all memories and names of things that are red with whatever you substitute redness with. I?ve tried to describe exactly this, many times in a neural substitution where the binding system is a single neuron ? resulting in exactly all the switching being made, in one atomic swap between the real and the simulated. In other words, when the binding system was replaced, in one atomic switch, there would be dancing (between red and green or absent) qualia. The only way it would work is if you replaced everything, all at once, and remove any knowledge from the system including that the word redness, before the switch, was bound to redness, while after it is now bound to greenness (or the word red). To say nothing of how hard it would be to get something that represented red things with the word red, to behave as if it?s knowledge really was physical redness, instead of an abstract word. Does any of this seem like evidence as to where the problem is, as it seems like evidence of the problem to me? On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 3:35 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 at 08:29, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> Oh, wait. I forgot an addition point about your view. >> In addition to saying: "That can't be, because of what the neural >> substitution argument demonstrates" >> You amy also say: >> "That isn't important, because of what the neural substitution argument >> demonstrates." >> > > Yes, I admit I have probably said that, which I would be expected to do if > indeed I thought you were making a point that was not relevant to the > argument, but I should explain why exactly I believe it is not relevant. > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 1:45 PM Brent Allsop >> wrote: >> >>> >>> Hi Stathis, >>> How about we try this. >>> I'm going to state your position, and all the points you keep making, as >>> completely and concisely as I can. >>> Then you can tell me if I'm missing anything important. >>> Then, let's see if you can do the same back to me, with anything close >>> to the same fidelity. Describe, even briefly, my model of consciousness, >>> and using that model, point out as many of the problems as you can, which I >>> believe this view brings to light in your position. >>> >>> OK, let me know if I'm missing anything in the following: >>> >>> I don't recall any other arguments from you, other than the neural >>> substitution argument. >>> The Neural Substitution argument is as follows. >>> You replace neurons in the brain, one at a time, with simulated versions. >>> For all possible inputs to the real neuron, the simulated version of the >>> neuron results in identical outputs to what the real neuron would do. >>> In other words, from an input and output perspective, they are >>> indistinguishable. >>> For each individual neuron substitution you do, you switch back and >>> forth between the real and simulated to verify there is no subjective >>> change by switching to the simulated version. >>> You don't progress to the next neuron till this is achieved, perfectly. >>> Eventually you will get to the last real neuron. When you switch back >>> and forth, between the last real neuron, and simulated version of the same, >>> still, the subject verifies that there is no subjective difference, >>> The only conclusion that can be made from this, is that the subjective >>> experience in the resulting final completely simulated version must be the >>> same as in the real version. >>> From that we can conclude subjective experience must be "functional" and >>> can't be "material", otherwise you would have irrational "fading", >>> "dancing" or "absent" qualia, on the way to the simulated version. >>> As long as the "behavior" remains the same the subjectivity must also >>> remain the same. >>> >>> Now it's your turn. Can you describe my model of consciousness with an >>> equivalent amount of fidelity? >>> I believe my model of consciousness brings to light umpteen different >>> problems in this substitution argument, all of which I'm sure I've >>> described at least 2 or 3 times, in multiple different ways, over the years. >>> How many of those different issues can you enumerate, using my model, >>> and how well can you describe them? >>> >>> Feel free to point out the problems with each of these, as you describe >>> them, but my prediction is that you won't have much more to say for any of >>> them than: "That can't be, because of what the neural substitution argument >>> demonstrates." >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:46 AM Stathis Papaioannou >>> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 at 08:24, Brent Allsop >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hi Stathis, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ?I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I am >>>>> sorry that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting through >>>>> to the other.? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> After I sent that last long one to you, I was thinking I should have >>>>> included a statement like this, with it. So, thanks and right back at >>>>> you. James Carroll finally gave up on me LONG ago. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I?m thinking this pretty much captures your view in a way I can >>>>> understand: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ?IF glutamate is responsible for associated with redness qualia, and >>>>> we replicate the objective behaviour of the glutamate (the qualia-blind >>>>> behaviour, in your terminology) by some non-glutamate means, then the >>>>> redness qualia will also be replicated. It's quite remarkable that we can >>>>> say this, but it is true.? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> But I still struggle with the way you talk about many things. You >>>>> haven?t mentioned the substitution argument, but I?m assuming this is the >>>>> only justification you have for making that last ?but it is true.? >>>>> Claim.? No thoughts on nothing being able to be redness, for the same >>>>> reasons? Would you not agree that if experimentalist were never able to >>>>> reproduce redness, without glutamate, it would falsify this claim? >>>>> >>>> >>>> If the experimentalist could reproduce all the behaviour associated >>>> with redness but not the redness, then that would mean qualia are >>>> meaningless. The subject would have altered or absent qualia, but they >>>> would not notice any difference, and communicate that everything was >>>> exactly the same. The most important thing about qualia is that we know we >>>> have them and we know if they change; if this is eliminated, what is there >>>> left? >>>> >>>> ?If the op amp configuration is changed but other circuitry is also >>>>> changed to compensate, the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so >>>>> will the redness qualia.? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> You never seem to acknowledge any other behavior than external >>>>> behavior (picking the strawberry). You seem to be ignoring the fact that a >>>>> qualia invert robot could have identical ?behavior?, and the qualia is NOT >>>>> the same. >>>>> >>>> >>>> If this is possible, then for the reason above it makes qualia >>>> meaningless. Behaviour does not mean just picking the strawberry, it means >>>> every type of behaviour that the subject can display, such as talking in >>>> detail about its experience of seeing strawberries. It will therefore have >>>> different qualia but declare that the strawberries are exactly the same >>>> shade of red as they were before the change. That would mean that your >>>> qualia might have become inverted in the last five minutes but you haven?t >>>> noticed. As far as you are concerned redness is still redness and greenness >>>> is still greenness. Or you might have gone completely blind in the last >>>> five minutes, but not noticed that you have no visual qualia at all any >>>> more. If you do notice, you are trapped in a nightmare, unable to >>>> communicate this information in any way. Does this make any sense? >>>> >>>> ?I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are >>>>> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and >>>>> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other >>>>> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many >>>>> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour >>>>> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could >>>>> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics >>>>> that is necessary for particular qualia.? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> You always ignore the binding functionality. For example, you >>>>> mentioned multiple ways to study epiphenomenal qualia in that closing >>>>> statement, but not once did you mention anything about using neural >>>>> ponytails to do the strongest form of effing the ineffable to directly >>>>> observe the physical qualia of others physical knowledge. Do you not agree >>>>> that your left hemisphere, knows absolutely, if your right hemisphere?s >>>>> knowledge is inverted? (for example, you use some special glasses and a >>>>> camera system to make everything in the right field of vision red/green >>>>> inverted from the information in your right hemisphere (from the left field >>>>> of vision)?. It seems to me that facts like this (and being necessarily >>>>> possible to do the same thing for 4 brain hemispheres [Is this not a fact >>>>> or not necessary if if qualia are epiphenomenal?]) should have some effect >>>>> on these closing remarks of yours? >>>>> >>>> >>>> Connecting brains together is not going to allow knowledge of qualia >>>> differences if even the original brain cannot notice qualia differences. >>>> >>>> On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 1:37 AM Stathis Papaioannou >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 16:13, Brent Allsop >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Hi Stathis, >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Brent. I appreciate the time you take in these communications and >>>>>> I am sorry that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting >>>>>> through to the other. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 4:12 PM Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>>>> stathisp at gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I don't think glutamate is sufficient for redness because it's too >>>>>>>> simple. You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is >>>>>>>> just an example to facilitate discussion. But I agree that glutamate might >>>>>>>> be sufficient as part of a component in a system. It cannot be necessary, >>>>>>>> because once we work out what physical interactions the component is >>>>>>>> involved in, we can substitute another component. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I always think you understand, especially when you say thing like: " >>>>>>> You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is just an >>>>>>> example to facilitate discussion." >>>>>>> But then you prove that you still don't understand, with the rest. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Let's back up a bit, and see if we can get this right. Start by >>>>>>> watching this video >>>>>>> up to the "inverting pixel" section where it goes into a loop (1 pixel >>>>>>> switching between red and green) till you press continue. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I'm talking about what is the necessary and sufficient set of >>>>>>> physics (or magic or spirit world stuff, or whatever) for that one pixel to >>>>>>> have a redness quality. And what are the changers, when only that one >>>>>>> pixel changes. >>>>>>> Implications being you can do this for every pixel you are >>>>>>> consciously aware of, and that being proof that there must be something >>>>>>> physical for everything you know, including every pixel of visual knowledge. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> If the pixel changes subjectively, then it must change objectively >>>>>> also. That is, there must be some test that can be done on the system which >>>>>> will reveal that there has been a change: the subject cannot distinguish >>>>>> between objects that are a different colour, or the subject says that the >>>>>> strawberry looks different, or something. If there is no such objective >>>>>> change, then there cannot be a subjective change. It is possible to change >>>>>> many parts of the system and produce no objective change. It is like a >>>>>> computer running a program: there are multiple different computers that >>>>>> will run the program exactly the same and give the same user experience. >>>>>> Thus it might be sufficient for a certain set of hardware to run Microsoft >>>>>> Word, but we can't state what is necessary to run Microsoft Word: in a >>>>>> thousand years time people may be running old computer programs on hardware >>>>>> based on dark matter, or other technologies that we can't even imagine now. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> When we abstractly describe glutamate, we have no idea the colorness >>>>>>> property of what we are objectively describing. Everything we get, >>>>>>> objectively, is necessary abstracted away from physical qualities and >>>>>>> necessary substrate independent. In other words, without a dictionary, you >>>>>>> can't know the colorness property you are describing or objectively >>>>>>> observing. Subjective experience is very different. Subjectively, we >>>>>>> directly experience the physical quality of what our abstract descriptions >>>>>>> are describing. In order to connect the two, you need a mapping like both >>>>>>> the objective word "glutamate" and the subjective word "redness" are labels >>>>>>> for the same physical thing. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> By examining glutamate objectively, we cannot know what redness is >>>>>> like. However, we do know that IF glutamate is responsible for associated >>>>>> with redness qualia, and we replicate the objective behaviour of the >>>>>> glutamate (the qualia-blind behaviour, in your terminology) by some >>>>>> non-glutamate means, then the redness qualia will also be replicated. It's >>>>>> quite remarkable that we can say this, but it is true. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> So, despite attempting to define glutamate that way, as you are >>>>>>> doing here, you think of glutamate in a completely different way than I was >>>>>>> attempting to describe. You reveal this misinterpretation of what I'm >>>>>>> trying to say with things like: "the component is involved in, we can >>>>>>> substitute another component." In other words you are assuming glutamate >>>>>>> is just some "component" of whatever it is that has redness. (Completely >>>>>>> changing what it actually says). Thankfully, in the past, after a >>>>>>> gazillion requests, you finally provided the "op amp" example. You pointed >>>>>>> out that you can replace all the neurons performing the op amp >>>>>>> functionality with neurons that can perform the same functionality, and it >>>>>>> would still result in redness. You think I disagree with this, but I >>>>>>> don't. You are just changing the conversion away from what I"m trying to >>>>>>> talk about. If glutamate is just a component of rendes, then you must >>>>>>> substitute glutamate for whatever it is glutamate is a component of that >>>>>>> performs the necessary and sufficient functionality that is redness for >>>>>>> that one pixel, THAT is what I'm talking about, and you continue to change >>>>>>> the subject. If that is true, I'm not talking about glutamate at all, as >>>>>>> you continue to think I am. Glutamate is just a stand in word for whatever >>>>>>> is the necessary and sufficient set of physics (or functionality. For your >>>>>>> sake, let's assume an addition op amp has the redness quality, and when >>>>>>> that pixel switches from redness to grenness, the op amp functionality >>>>>>> changes from addition to subtraction. I can completely agree with you that >>>>>>> you could implement both an addition and a subtraction op amp in either >>>>>>> neurons, or silicone, or anything else, but I"m not talking about >>>>>>> components of redness, I'm talking about redness. In this case it is the >>>>>>> the addition op amp functionality which can be implemented with either >>>>>>> silicon or neurons. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> You seem to be agreeing with me that if the op amp is involved in >>>>>> redness qualia, and it is changed for a functionally identical op amp in a >>>>>> different substrate, then the redness qualia will be preserved. If the op >>>>>> amp configuration is changed, say from inverting to non-inverting, while >>>>>> leaving everything else the same, the behaviour of the system will change >>>>>> and the redness qualia may also change. On the other hand, if the op amp >>>>>> configuration is changed but other circuitry is also changed to compensate, >>>>>> the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so will the redness >>>>>> qualia. This demonstrates that there can be no particular physical property >>>>>> of the op amp that is necessary and sufficient for redness qualia. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> The binding system is part of the required functionality. The >>>>>>> binding system makes you aware of the pixel that is changing from an >>>>>>> addition op amp, to a subtraction op amp (bound with all the other pixels >>>>>>> of color of yet different op amps that are not changing, while this one >>>>>>> pixel does change.) Anything else you present to that binding system, for >>>>>>> that pixel, the system must immediately be aware of the change, just as >>>>>>> when you see that pixel change from addition op amp ness to subtraction op >>>>>>> amp ness. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 3:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>>>>>> stathisp at gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Glutamate may be involved when red qualia are experienced, but >>>>>>>>>> this cannot be a unique property of glutamate, because if glutamate's >>>>>>>>>> physical effect in the brain, >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> It almost sounds like you think you have found a way arround my >>>>>>>>> "proof" that if it can't be glutamate, it can't be anything. Since you now >>>>>>>>> seem to be on board (a change?) with glutamate at least being sufficient >>>>>>>>> for redness, but not necessary? Is this new? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> changing the shape of glutamate receptors to which it binds, were >>>>>>>>>> replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia would continue. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> How is this not just saying redness isn't physically real, it is >>>>>>>>> just magic. There must be a very discoverable set of objectively >>>>>>>>> observable physics, that can result in a redness experience. This is just >>>>>>>>> up to nature. Either it is within that set or it isn't. We don't get to >>>>>>>>> specify when we do and do not want redness to arise so it will fit our >>>>>>>>> possible faulty thinking. Do you agree that even if there is some >>>>>>>>> "software functionality" (trying to imagine what a "non physical >>>>>>>>> functionality" might be), it is up to physics (or God?) as to whether >>>>>>>>> redness will "arize' from that, right? In other words, in all possible >>>>>>>>> cases, redness is a real physical quality? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I honestly can't see why you think that if the glutamate is >>>>>>>> replaced by another mechanism and everything works the same, that means >>>>>>>> qualia are magic. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Again, you are thinking completely incorrectly about what I think, >>>>>>> as I indicated above. If it is the entire mechanism that has the redness >>>>>>> quality, and glutamate is only a "component" of that mechanism. In that >>>>>>> case, you need to replace glutamate, with the entire mechanism, or whatever >>>>>>> it is that is the necessary and sufficient set of functionality required >>>>>>> for you to directly experience it as a pixel of redness. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Also, changing the shape of the glutamate receptor can't uniquely >>>>>>>>>> be the determinant of red qualia because if the physical effect in the >>>>>>>>>> brain of (one type of) glutamate receptor, opening sodium ion channels when >>>>>>>>>> glutamate binds, were replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia >>>>>>>>>> would continue. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I've repeatedly tried to show the error I think I see in this >>>>>>>>> logic (you are clearly thinking as if glutamate isn't the redness, that >>>>>>>>> redness is something higher up in the system) but you just continue to even >>>>>>>>> acknowledge what I'm trying to say, let alone point out some mistake in my >>>>>>>>> logic. You just keep saying this same old (clearly mistaken to me) >>>>>>>>> argument over and over again. There must be something that is the >>>>>>>>> redness. If this physically changes in any way, it will be physically >>>>>>>>> different than redness. The system only works if it is physical redness. >>>>>>>>> If the system can't tell when the redness has physical changed, resulting >>>>>>>>> in the entire system being aware that it has changed, physics, it isn't >>>>>>>>> functioning correctly. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Glutamate changes the shape of receptors that it binds to due to >>>>>>>> the electrostatic force, and this is how it causes other physical effects >>>>>>>> in the body, such as muscle movement. Therefore, if the shape of the >>>>>>>> receptors can be changed by some other means than glutamate, the other >>>>>>>> effects in the body will be the same. Your error is to assume that >>>>>>>> glutamate has some other physical effect, "redness", that can cause muscle >>>>>>>> movement, such as the muscle movement associated with saying "I see red". >>>>>>>> But there is no extra such effect; changing the shape of receptors that it >>>>>>>> binds to due to the electrostatic force is 100% of the relevant physical >>>>>>>> effect of every glutamate molecule in every human that has ever lived. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> More proof that you are completely misunderstanding what I"m trying >>>>>>> to say. Again, in the case you are talking about, glutamate is only a >>>>>>> "component". In that case I'm not talking about a "component" of redness, >>>>>>> I'm talking about whatever is the necessary and sufficient set of physics >>>>>>> that has the redness quality we directly experience for that one pixel. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> This analysis can be continued for the whole brain, replacing >>>>>>>>>> every part with a different part, but preserving all the qualia and >>>>>>>>>> consciousness. It cannot be any one component, or any one physical process, >>>>>>>>>> that is identified with qualia. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Again, as I've said, and demonstrated (remember the checkmate?) IF >>>>>>>>> this is true, then the result is that nothing can have redness, for the >>>>>>>>> same reason. It seems like you are completely ignoring that, and just >>>>>>>>> going back and replaying the old steps that lead to the checkmate, without >>>>>>>>> changing anything, yet expecting different results? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I misunderstood the "checkmate". Was it that qualia are >>>>>>>> epiphenomenal? I don't consider that "checkmate". >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> OH, yea. That was my bad. James Carroll, who is also a >>>>>>> functionalist (the guy that joined the conversation on Quora the other day, >>>>>>> he liking your "functionalists" responses, and hem adding additional >>>>>>> functionalist responses.) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> My recollection is that he would repeatedly say the neural >>>>>>> substitution argument proves that if it is glutamate that has the redness >>>>>>> quality, then redness must be "epiphenomenal", which we both agreed meant >>>>>>> redness would not be approachable via science, and we both agreed that >>>>>>> would be game over or something neither one of us could accept. Kind of >>>>>>> ironic, in a way. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> So, it was a big surprize to me to hear you say you believe qualia >>>>>>> are epiphenomenal. But anyway, that doesn't matter. What I was talking >>>>>>> about, was the second argument I was making that would also be a "check >>>>>>> mate", especially in your case. (in James' case, I think I have a double >>>>>>> check mate, but let's ignore that for now.) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> So, back to the op amp being the necessary and sufficient set of >>>>>>> functionality to experience a redness quality (including when you can >>>>>>> achieve the same addition op amp with various diverse sets of >>>>>>> "components") So, now, we need to replace glutamate, with this op amp (or >>>>>>> whatever it is, including magic) that is the necessary and sufficient set >>>>>>> of physics that have the redness quality you can experience for that one >>>>>>> pixel. For the same reason you are claiming it can't be glutamate, you >>>>>>> must also make the same claim for addition op amps. They can't have >>>>>>> redness, absolutely nothing, even magic, can have redness, and you can >>>>>>> prove that for anything that you try to substitute glutamate with. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> With that I'm thinking: And we all know, more than anything, that >>>>>>> we can experience redness. So if your so called "proof" "proves" we can't, >>>>>>> there is something wrong with your proof. >>>>>>> That seems to me to be Checkmate. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Does that help at all? >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are >>>>>> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and >>>>>> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other >>>>>> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many >>>>>> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour >>>>>> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could >>>>>> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics >>>>>> that is necessary for particular qualia. >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> Stathis Papaioannou >>>>>> >>>>> -- >>>> Stathis Papaioannou >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 05:43:16 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:43:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Frame dragging across the universe... Message-ID: Astronomers Have Caught a Star Literally Dragging Space-Time Around With It BY MATTHEW BAILES & VIVEK VENKATRAMAN KRISHNAN, THE CONVERSATION JANUARY 31, 2020 One of the predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity is that any spinning body drags the very fabric of space-time in its vicinity around with it. This is known as "frame-dragging". In everyday life, frame-dragging is both undetectable and inconsequential, as the effect is so ridiculously tiny. Detecting the frame-dragging caused by the entire Earth's spin requires satellites such as the US$750 million Gravity Probe B, and the detection of angular changes in gyroscopes equivalent to just one degree every 100,000 years or so. Luckily for us, the Universe contains many naturally occurring gravitational laboratories where physicists can observe Einstein's predictions at work in exquisite detail. Our team's research, published today in Science, reveals evidence of frame-dragging on a much more noticeable scale, using a radio telescope and a unique pair of compact stars whizzing around each other at dizzying speeds. The motion of these stars would have perplexed astronomers in Newton's time, as they clearly move in a warped space-time, and require Einstein's general theory of relativity to explain their trajectories. https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-caught-a-star-in-the-act-of-warping-the-fabric-of-space-and-time -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 31 07:03:17 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 23:03:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Frame dragging across the universe... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004d01d5d804$842e18e0$8c8a4aa0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Frame dragging across the universe... Astronomers Have Caught a Star Literally Dragging Space-Time Around With It >?. In everyday life, frame-dragging is both undetectable and inconsequential, as the effect is so ridiculously tiny. Detecting the frame-dragging caused by the entire Earth's spin requires satellites such as the US$750 million Gravity Probe B, and the detection of angular changes in gyroscopes equivalent to just one degree every 100,000 years or so. ? https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-caught-a-star-in-the-act-of-warping-the-fabric-of-space-and-time I was one of the very lucky ones: I was given a chance to work on Gravity Probe B back in about 1989 and 1990. That was the coolest project in history, but I sheepishly confess my own skepticism: I never thought it would work. I estimated the chances all that stuff would work at about 20%. Well, it worked. I was on that project during the earthquake on 17 October 1989. I was relieved to learn that the gyros were not damaged. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 07:10:01 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:10:01 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 at 14:06, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > OK, here are a few of the more important things you are missing. You said > I would say: > > ?Finally, there is the actual conscious experience, such as seeing the > redness of the strawberry.? I would not say: ?see the redness?. There > are two ways to know about the same physical facts. 1. To objectively > perceive them through a cause and effect chain of different physical > events. You don?t ?ignore? the different physical qualities of all these > intermediate things, you just think of all these different things in a > substrate independent way, thinking or interpreting each of them as if they > are only representing ?red? instead of modeling how they are physically > nothing like red. > Here I don't quite understand what you mean by 'thinking or interpreting each of them as if they are only representing ?red? instead of modeling how they are physically nothing like red'. If glutamate has a redness qualia property, and I only look at glutamate's chemical composition, solubility, density and so on, am I 'interpreting' glutamate as 'only representing "red"'? What I would like to do is consider all the properties of glutamate EXCEPT the postulated redness property. Let's say it's there, but we just ignore it, for the sake of the argument. > The second way to know about physics is to directly subjectively > experience them. The first is the ?objective? way, requiring lots of > interpretation, which can be mistaken or a seeming. The second is the > direct subjective way, which can?t be mistaken and there is no > interpretation. Physical redness is just a physical quality which we can > directly experience and are objectively describing, when we abstractly > describe glutamate reacting in a synapse, possibly including the way you > abstractly describe glutamate as changing the shape of the receptor. > The use of the word "interpretation" is confusing. If I say "glutamate has a density of 1.46 g/cm^3" is that an objective observation, and if so what am I "interpreting" when I make it? And when you say it could be "mistaken or a seeming" do you just mean that my scales might be calibrated incorrectly, and hence the real density might actually be 1.53 g/cm^3? The use of the word "abstract" is confusing. Do you just mean "objective"? The contrast of "objectively describing" and "abstractly describe" is confusing. It seems that by "objectively describing" you mean what I would call "subjectively describing", and what you call "abstractly describe" is what I would call "objectively describe". Next: ?from here on I get a bit lost. It seems to me that you are saying > that since redness is a physical property of glutamate, it must have > physical effects, and therefore it is not possible changing it would leave > the qualia and behavior `unchanged.? > > The thing that leads you astray, is you interpret what I?m trying to say > as if glutamate and redness are separate things. You are clearly saying it > here in a way that separates these two. They are not separate in any > way. Objectively, you see the glycine firing, instead of glutamate, > resulting in you saying: That is not red. Subjectively, you directly > experience this same physics as redness, or greenness, enabling you to say > what color they are. The objective and subjective facts are all the same > thing causing you to say: ?That is not red.? Saying redness causes you to > say: ?that is red? is the same thing as saying glutamate, (possibly > changing the shape of the receptor) causes you to say: ?That is red?. > I think you are saying: if glutamate in fact has redness as a fundamental property, then subjectively when glutamate is released in your own synapses you will see red, and objectively if you see glutamate released in someone else's synapses (without directly sharing their experiences) you can confidently say that they are experiencing redness; and analogously for glycine and greenness. I object to the statement that 'Saying redness causes you to say: ?that is red? is the same thing as saying glutamate, (possibly changing the shape of the receptor) causes you to say: ?That is red?'. This is because changing the shape of the receptor provides a complete causal explanation for saying "that is red". That is, an advanced scientist could examine the glutamate and associated systems without any understanding of what redness is, what qualia are, what human language is and so on, and predict that the sounds "that is red" will come out of the subject's mouth. Because redness is not necessary to predict what the system will do, it cannot be included in the list of causal properties. At a higher level of description it is true that the subject reported seeing red due to the redness, but not at the low level where the physical interactions occur. > And you completely missed the second necessary half of what I model > consciousness as being. This is strong evidence that you are completely > blind to this half. And it is THIS half that reveals all the problems in > the neural substitution argument. In my view, this is a necessary part of > having composite qualitative experience or consciousness which we > absolutely have. When you do the neural substitution in the way you do, it > completely leaves out this necessary half of the functionality and this is > part of the cause of all the craziness and ?hard problems? that don?t make > any sense. > I guess you are referring to the binding system, but I have said before that any function whatsoever of neurons can be substituted leaving behaviour exactly the same. > Oh, and you also completely left out the fact that when doing the neural > substitution without this necessary half of the functionality, you can > prove that nothing, not even ?functionality? nor ?magic? can have a redness > quality, for the same reasons glutamate can?t have redness. You just never > notice this, because no matter where I try to put redness to make you > happy, even if this is op amp functionality or magic, you change the > subject and redefine everything as if the redness is someplace else, in the > system. You never model what it is that has the redness quality, even if > it is functionality. Because, if you did, I could prove to you that it > can?t be that, for the same faulty logic causing you to think it can?t be > glutamate. > This may be hard to conceptualise, but the redness must be in the minimal system that is required for redness, and not localised in any part of the system. This might be clearer if we consider something like the understanding of language. The entire system needs to be working, not just one part of the system for a particular word. > What I?m trying to say is IF you include anything that could have a > redness quality we can directly experience, and if you would include the > second half of the necessary part of consciousness, and if you adequately > modeled both of these parts in your neural substitution, not only would > everything be obvious about what is going on, it would become clear how > various slight of hands can be done with this kind of substitution, to make > it appear that the neural substitution is doing one thing, when in reality > it could be physically or subjectively very different. > I don't recall you giving a yes or no answer when I have asked if you think replacing glutamate with an analogue that affects glutamate receptors in exactly the same way would result in: (1) a change to the behaviour an external observer would see, if he were free to do any tests or ask any questions; or (2) a change to the redness qualia. > I guess another part I?m not stressing enough (trying present things from > your point of view) is the prediction that no such neural substitution > would ever be remotely possible, except in only the most contrived and > absurd ways. Once you got to a pixel neuron, presenting glutamate to the > binding system, enabling you to be directly aware of it with all the other > physical pixels and their physical qualities as one composite experience, > the only way to do a switch, in a way that would even remotely behave the > same, is if you, in one atomic switching operation, rebound everything, > including all memories and names of things that are red with whatever you > substitute redness with. I?ve tried to describe exactly this, many times > in a neural substitution where the binding system is a single neuron ? > resulting in exactly all the switching being made, in one atomic swap > between the real and the simulated. In other words, when the binding > system was replaced, in one atomic switch, there would be dancing (between > red and green or absent) qualia. The only way it would work is if you > replaced everything, all at once, and remove any knowledge from the system > including that the word redness, before the switch, was bound to redness, > while after it is now bound to greenness (or the word red). To say nothing > of how hard it would be to get something that represented red things with > the word red, to behave as if it?s knowledge really was physical redness, > instead of an abstract word. > > > > Does any of this seem like evidence as to where the problem is, as it > seems like evidence of the problem to me? > I don't understand the problem here. If glutamate is replaced with a glutamate analogue then everything will work exactly the same, and if you do this with all the neurons in the brain, all the neurons will function exactly the same. I think you still imagine that removing the glutamate will somehow change the behaviour of the binding neurons, or the description of the qualia, or something; but it cannot, since that would be a logical contradiction given the initial assumptions. I am sure either you or I are missing something here. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 16:51:04 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 09:51:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Stathis, You continue to use the word: "See redness". The word "see" means using eyes to detect light. Seeing has a long chain of different physical causal things between the target and the knowledge. So, to me you are saying something like there is a homunculus inside my brain "seeing" this redness through some chain of different causal events. Seeing is an objective process, the final result of which is physical knowledge, which is very different than, or only a representation of the target being "seen". We don't 'see' this knowledge, it is the result of seeing. On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 12:14 AM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 at 14:06, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> OK, here are a few of the more important things you are missing. You >> said I would say: >> >> ?Finally, there is the actual conscious experience, such as seeing the >> redness of the strawberry.? I would not say: ?see the redness?. There >> are two ways to know about the same physical facts. 1. To objectively >> perceive them through a cause and effect chain of different physical >> events. You don?t ?ignore? the different physical qualities of all these >> intermediate things, you just think of all these different things in a >> substrate independent way, thinking or interpreting each of them as if they >> are only representing ?red? instead of modeling how they are physically >> nothing like red. >> > > Here I don't quite understand what you mean by 'thinking or interpreting > each of them as if they are only representing ?red? instead of modeling how > they are physically nothing like red'. If glutamate has a redness qualia > property, and I only look at glutamate's chemical composition, solubility, > density and so on, am I 'interpreting' glutamate as 'only representing > "red"'? What I would like to do is consider all the properties of glutamate > EXCEPT the postulated redness property. Let's say it's there, but we just > ignore it, for the sake of the argument. > Would you agree that if we consciously know something, there must be something that is that knowledge? In computers, we say there must be something that instantiates the 1s and 0s. But this "instantiates" is separating whatever physics we are thinking of as being 1s or 0s. The only way to get the 1s, from that particular set of physics, is if you have a working dictionary mechanism to reverse the "instantiation". With consciousness redness just is a quality of our conscious knowledge. We can think of this physics as "instantiating" red knowledge, but to get the word "red" from redness, just like getting a 1 from +5 volts, requires a working dictionary mechanism. You don't need a dictionary for redness, it is just a quality. You don't see redness, it is computationally bound in with other physical knowledge to make composite qualitative experiences like conscious knowledge of a strawberry. If we have an RGB video cable with 3 RCA connectors on each end. Each of the connectors are covered in black plastic, but has either an R, G, or B label. This is just a set of 3 copper wires, covered in black insulation/plastic, with gold connectors. The one with the R letter is in no way physically 'red'. We just think of it as being the one that caries the 'red' part of the signal.; And of course, the varying voltage in that wire, isn't anything like a red strawberry, nor is it anything like redness knowledge. We just think of the signal in the R wire, as "representing" red things in the video image. We can model the actual physical make up of the wire, and the redness signal, with an objective description of it. But the only thing important is modeling this wire as the one carrying the 'red' signal, and that some place down the line, we will end up interpreting this 'red' signal, by instantiating it with redness knowledge. > >> The second way to know about physics is to directly subjectively >> experience them. The first is the ?objective? way, requiring lots of >> interpretation, which can be mistaken or a seeming. The second is the >> direct subjective way, which can?t be mistaken and there is no >> interpretation. Physical redness is just a physical quality which we >> can directly experience and are objectively describing, when we abstractly >> describe glutamate reacting in a synapse, possibly including the way you >> abstractly describe glutamate as changing the shape of the receptor. >> > > The use of the word "interpretation" is confusing. If I say "glutamate has > a density of 1.46 g/cm^3" is that an objective observation, and if so what > am I "interpreting" when I make it? And when you say it could be "mistaken > or a seeming" do you just mean that my scales might be calibrated > incorrectly, and hence the real density might actually be 1.53 g/cm^3? > "has a density of 1.46 g/cm^3" is a set of abstract symbols objectively describing a physical property. Using abstract descriptions like this, we can fully describe and model and predict everything about glutamate. The prediction is, that we can do the same thing, fully abstractly describing redness. But these abstract descriptions of redness are not the glutamate, nor are they these descriptions redness. The only thing that has a color quality is subjective knowledge. There are two images in the camp statement of "Representational QUalia Theory ". The only thing in these images are the subjective knowledge. Everything else is in black and white, indicating all our subjective knowledge of it provides no color information. That is done with our brain, when it interprets the objective information and represents it with something that has a redness quality. Just like Frank Jackson's Mary, we can objectively know and describe and predict everything about 'red'. But until we directly experience what all the objective knowledge is knowledge of, we can't know which of it is redness or greenness. > The use of the word "abstract" is confusing. Do you just mean "objective"? > "Interpretation" (used earlier) is when you convert or transduce one physical representation into another different one. Our brain interprets an abstract word like "red' to the redness quality. All "objective" information is just something physical, representing something different than it is. "Abstract" is the way many people use the word 'red' to represent anything to do with the perception of red. Again, such an abstract description gives you no qualitative color information. > > The contrast of "objectively describing" and "abstractly describe" is > confusing. It seems that by "objectively describing" you mean what I would > call "subjectively describing", and what you call "abstractly describe" is > what I would call "objectively describe". > "abstractly describe", "objectively describe", "symbolically represent" are all synonyms. They are methods of modeling or representing things in symbolic ways. Without a dictionary defining these symbols or representations, there is no qualitative color information in any of it. > > Next: ?from here on I get a bit lost. It seems to me that you are saying >> that since redness is a physical property of glutamate, it must have >> physical effects, and therefore it is not possible changing it would leave >> the qualia and behavior `unchanged.? >> >> The thing that leads you astray, is you interpret what I?m trying to say >> as if glutamate and redness are separate things. You are clearly saying it >> here in a way that separates these two. They are not separate in any >> way. Objectively, you see the glycine firing, instead of glutamate, >> resulting in you saying: That is not red. Subjectively, you directly >> experience this same physics as redness, or greenness, enabling you to say >> what color they are. The objective and subjective facts are all the same >> thing causing you to say: ?That is not red.? Saying redness causes you to >> say: ?that is red? is the same thing as saying glutamate, (possibly >> changing the shape of the receptor) causes you to say: ?That is red?. >> > > I think you are saying: if glutamate in fact has redness as a fundamental > property, then subjectively when glutamate is released in your own synapses > you will see red, and objectively if you see glutamate released in someone > else's synapses (without directly sharing their experiences) you can > confidently say that they are experiencing redness; and analogously for > glycine and greenness. > I think this is accurate, if your sloppy terminology is interpreted correctly. As I said above, It would be less sloppy if you replace "see red" with "directly experience your redness." > > I object to the statement that 'Saying redness causes you to say: ?that is > red? is the same thing as saying glutamate, (possibly changing the shape of > the receptor) causes you to say: ?That is red?'. This is because changing > the shape of the receptor provides a complete causal explanation for saying > "that is red". That is, an advanced scientist could examine the glutamate > and associated systems without any understanding of what redness is, what > qualia are, what human language is and so on, and predict that the sounds > "that is red" will come out of the subject's mouth. Because redness is not > necessary to predict what the system will do, it cannot be included in the > list of causal properties. At a higher level of description it is true that > the subject reported seeing red due to the redness, but not at the low > level where the physical interactions occur. > "changing the shape of the receptor provides a complete causal explanation for saying 'that is red'." Again, though this is a "complete causal" description, you can't know the quality it is describing. "Because redness is not necessary to predict what the system will do," This is the part you erroneously continue to ignore. What the subjective experience is like is all important. In a future world we will discover which physics it is that has a redness quality (let's assume it is glutamate) resulting in a dictionary mapping subjective redness to conscious knowledge represented with glutamate. So the most important behavior is, what does it say when you ask the subject what it's redness is like? If the subject has this dictionary information, the subject will be able to eff the ineffable nature of his subjective experience and report it's knowledge has a glycine quality, which is what you represent greenness with. The behavior must include things like reporting on the quality of their subjective knowledge. No other behavior matters but this. "At a higher level of description it is true that the subject reported seeing red due to the redness, but not at the low level where the physical interactions occur." We must also think of things from a subjective point of view. Conscious visual knowledge includes thousands of individual pixel elements, each of which has an elemental colorness quality. So, for each pixel, there must be something you can objectively observe that is that particular subjectively elemental pixel of colorness. When that one pixel changes from redness to grenness, there will be an objective description of the physics, that is that subjective redness changing to greenness. Again, you keep eliminating these necessary elemental parts of consciousness from the neural substitution, resulting in all the problems. > And you completely missed the second necessary half of what I model >> consciousness as being. This is strong evidence that you are completely >> blind to this half. And it is THIS half that reveals all the problems in >> the neural substitution argument. In my view, this is a necessary part of >> having composite qualitative experience or consciousness which we >> absolutely have. When you do the neural substitution in the way you do, it >> completely leaves out this necessary half of the functionality and this is >> part of the cause of all the craziness and ?hard problems? that don?t make >> any sense. >> > > I guess you are referring to the binding system, but I have said before > that any function whatsoever of neurons can be substituted leaving > behaviour exactly the same. > This terse dismissal of the binding system, basically saying: "That isn't important, because of what the neural substitution argument demonstrates." is the core to what I see as our misunderstanding. I wouldn't mind if you ignored everything else and we just focused on this. The neural substitution, as you describe it, can't account for the necessary binding functionality making it possible to have composite qualitative conscious experiences. So doing any substitution on any system that lacks the functionality required to be conscious, is irrelevant. If you include a binding system in whatever you are substituting, it will all make sense. If you don't, that's when all the 'hard problems" arize. > Oh, and you also completely left out the fact that when doing the neural >> substitution without this necessary half of the functionality, you can >> prove that nothing, not even ?functionality? nor ?magic? can have a redness >> quality, for the same reasons glutamate can?t have redness. You just never >> notice this, because no matter where I try to put redness to make you >> happy, even if this is op amp functionality or magic, you change the >> subject and redefine everything as if the redness is someplace else, in the >> system. You never model what it is that has the redness quality, even if >> it is functionality. Because, if you did, I could prove to you that it >> can?t be that, for the same faulty logic causing you to think it can?t be >> glutamate. >> > > This may be hard to conceptualise, but the redness must be in the minimal > system that is required for redness, > This sounds right to me. > and not localised in any part of the system. > Again, you're ignoring some necessary facts about subjective experience, and trying to get out of objectively describing redness. (because if you did, it can't be that, for the same reason glutamate can't be glutamate.) Regardless of whether an individual pixel is localized to glutamate, or distributed across some kind of network, subjectively, it is isolated to that one elemental subjective pixel. > This might be clearer if we consider something like the understanding of > language. The entire system needs to be working, not just one part of the > system for a particular word. > Again, from a subjective point of view, it is the elemental colored pixels representing the surface of the strawberry that are the letters that make up the knowledge of the strawberry. Just as you can have a single letter of a single word, you can have a single pixel of redness, that is just redness. All you need is something that is objectively observable that is redness, there must be something that is objectively observable as being different, that is greenness, and there must be some mechanism that allows it to be computationally bound into one composite qualitative experience. The way you describe what you're neuro substiting, can't do these 3 simple things. What I?m trying to say is IF you include anything that could have a redness >> quality we can directly experience, and if you would include the second >> half of the necessary part of consciousness, and if you adequately modeled >> both of these parts in your neural substitution, not only would everything >> be obvious about what is going on, it would become clear how various slight >> of hands can be done with this kind of substitution, to make it appear that >> the neural substitution is doing one thing, when in reality it could be >> physically or subjectively very different. >> > > I don't recall you giving a yes or no answer when I have asked if you > think replacing glutamate with an analogue that affects glutamate receptors > in exactly the same way would result in: (1) a change to the behaviour an > external observer would see, if he were free to do any tests or ask any > questions; or (2) a change to the redness qualia. > It all depends on what the necessary and sufficient set of physics for redness is. Redness could be just the receptor response, which could be duplicated by either variant of glutamate. If it is the response of the receptor that is the redness quality, then we need to substitute all my usages of glutamate, with "glutamate receptor" as the objective description of redness. And you must be able to computationally bind this receptor with other colors to make a composite qualitative experience. I guess another part I?m not stressing enough (trying present things from >> your point of view) is the prediction that no such neural substitution >> would ever be remotely possible, except in only the most contrived and >> absurd ways. Once you got to a pixel neuron, presenting glutamate to the >> binding system, enabling you to be directly aware of it with all the other >> physical pixels and their physical qualities as one composite experience, >> the only way to do a switch, in a way that would even remotely behave the >> same, is if you, in one atomic switching operation, rebound everything, >> including all memories and names of things that are red with whatever you >> substitute redness with. I?ve tried to describe exactly this, many times >> in a neural substitution where the binding system is a single neuron ? >> resulting in exactly all the switching being made, in one atomic swap >> between the real and the simulated. In other words, when the binding >> system was replaced, in one atomic switch, there would be dancing (between >> red and green or absent) qualia. The only way it would work is if you >> replaced everything, all at once, and remove any knowledge from the system >> including that the word redness, before the switch, was bound to redness, >> while after it is now bound to greenness (or the word red). To say nothing >> of how hard it would be to get something that represented red things with >> the word red, to behave as if it?s knowledge really was physical redness, >> instead of an abstract word. >> >> >> >> Does any of this seem like evidence as to where the problem is, as it >> seems like evidence of the problem to me? >> > > I don't understand the problem here. If glutamate is replaced with a > glutamate analogue then everything will work exactly the same, and if you > do this with all the neurons in the brain, all the neurons will function > exactly the same. I think you still imagine that removing the glutamate > will somehow change the behaviour of the binding neurons, or the > description of the qualia, or something; but it cannot, since that would be > a logical contradiction given the initial assumptions. I am sure either you > or I are missing something here. > It is still the necessary binding system that you continue to ignore causing all the problems. The discrete set of neurons you are describing doing a neural substitution on, cannot accomplish the required ability to have lots of pixel qualities, computationally bound into one composite qualitative experience. So whatever you can or can't do to it, is irrelevant. Consciousness must be something which includes the required subjective binding functionality and qualities. If you can point to something in the system that is the redness quality, if you could describe how this could be different than the greenness quality, and how both of these can be computationally bound into a composite experience. Everything will just work and there will only be a color problem. You are not doing this, and that is the problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Jan 31 19:35:00 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:35:00 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5E348164.2060006@zaiboc.net> Brent Allsop wrote: >One of the important fundamentals is that knowledge of reality is different than reality. Knowledge of reality is simplified and optimized so we can survive more efficiently. It only focuses on and models what is important to us. Qualia blindness is simply having a model of reality that does not include qualia. If there is only one word being used for all things red, that is qualia blind language. Ah, so you're just talking about the models of the world we create in our heads being a different thing to the 'real' world outside. I suppose there must be people who don't think about that, but they will be the people who aren't interested in such things. Surely everyone who has any interest in how our minds work realises this? You're saying that it's important to use language that distinguishes between 'reality' (the world outside our heads) and our internal models of it. OK, fair enough, so I'm not qualia-blind after all, and never have been, since I started thinking about such things, a long time ago. I probably was before that. >All experimentalists, today, only use one word for all things red. If they detect any physical differences in the brains of people percieving red, they "correct" for this only thinking of all of it as red. Well, I can't speak for "all experimentalists, today", but I doubt if they fail to understand the difference between the red light entering the eye, and the internal representation of whatever red thing is seen, including the abstract mental category 'redness'. In fact, I can't see how they could fail to. Are you sure you understand /them/? I don't really see how anyone who studies the brain can really think of the representations of sensory information as being /the same thing/ as the external signals that drives them. That would imply they think there is red light inside the brain, everytime that brain thinks about red light. I'm certain nobody seriously thinks that. >And that is the only reason, today, nobody can tell is the colour of anything. I don't follow that. What do you mean by "nobody can tell the colour of anything"? >And that is the only reason people think there is a hard mind body problem Personally, I never thought the 'hard problem of consciousness' made any sense, if that's what you're referring to. But what has it got to do with what you're talking about? OK, tell you what, never mind. I've just read your exchanges with Stathis, and you seem to be telling him different things to what you're telling me. Does he understand, as you told me, that all this is a thought-experiment in a totally unrealistic, simplified made-up world? Because, you know, that's important! I thought, all this time, you were talking about one aspect of the real world, and when you said it's not, it made more sense. A bit more sense. But it seems clear that you still think there is such a 'thing in itself' as redness, even though you seem to accept that redness is a representation in the mind of something seen by the eyes. You seem incapable of understanding that this representation can be different in different minds and at different times, but still have the same meaning (e.g. 'redness'). I can experience redness, but there is no such 'thing' as redness. In other words, redness is an experience, a process, not a thing in its own right, independent of the brain that creates it. I think this is where we differ most. You think that 'redness' is a thing that has an existence independent of a mind. Am I right? -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 21:11:23 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 14:11:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: <5E348164.2060006@zaiboc.net> References: <5E348164.2060006@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hi Ben, On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 12:36 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Brent Allsop wrote: > > >One of the important fundamentals is that knowledge of reality is > different than reality. Knowledge of reality is simplified and optimized so > we can survive more efficiently. It only focuses on and models what is > important to us. Qualia blindness is simply having a model of reality that > does not include qualia. If there is only one word being used for all > things red, that is qualia blind language. > > Ah, so you're just talking about the models of the world we create in our > heads being a different thing to the 'real' world outside. I suppose there > must be people who don't think about that, but they will be the people who > aren't interested in such things. Surely everyone who has any interest in > how our minds work realises this? > > You're saying that it's important to use language that distinguishes > between 'reality' (the world outside our heads) and our internal models of > it. OK, fair enough, so I'm not qualia-blind after all, and never have > been, since I started thinking about such things, a long time ago. I > probably was before that. > Right, much of our problems are just communication issues, I think. >All experimentalists, today, only use one word for all things red. If > they detect any physical differences in the brains of people percieving > red, they "correct" for this only thinking of all of it as red. > > Well, I can't speak for "all experimentalists, today", but I doubt if they > fail to understand the difference between the red light entering the eye, > and the internal representation of whatever red thing is seen, including > the abstract mental category 'redness'. In fact, I can't see how they could > fail to. Are you sure you understand *them*? I don't really see how > anyone who studies the brain can really think of the representations of > sensory information as being *the same thing* as the external signals > that drives them. That would imply they think there is red light inside the > brain, everytime that brain thinks about red light. I'm certain nobody > seriously thinks that. > I challenge you to find (I've been searching for some time) any peer reviewed journal article on perception, which uses more than one word for all things "red". I haven't managed to find one, yet. >And that is the only reason, today, nobody can tell is the colour of > anything. > > I don't follow that. What do you mean by "nobody can tell the colour of > anything"? > When we look out at the world, we see a very colorful world. But as we've been talking about, none of those colors are properties of the world out there. And my redness could be like your greeness, so whos red? Those colors are a property of something, maybe some kind of process as you say, in our brain. But nobody can tell us which of all our descriptions of stuff in the brain, is a description of redness. As it indicates in both of the images in "Representational Qualia Theory " everything out side of the head is in black and white. This is because all objective information is abstract, devoid of any color information. The only thing of any color, is the color of our knowledge of the world. >And that is the only reason people think there is a hard mind body problem > > Personally, I never thought the 'hard problem of consciousness' made any > sense, if that's what you're referring to. But what has it got to do with > what you're talking about? > Right. > OK, tell you what, never mind. > > I've just read your exchanges with Stathis, and you seem to be telling him > different things to what you're telling me. > Does he understand, as you told me, that all this is a thought-experiment > in a totally unrealistic, simplified made-up world? > Because, you know, that's important! I thought, all this time, you were > talking about one aspect of the real world, and when you said it's not, it > made more sense. A bit more sense. > > But it seems clear that you still think there is such a 'thing in itself' > as redness, even though you seem to accept that redness is a representation > in the mind of something seen by the eyes. You seem incapable of > understanding that this representation can be different in different minds > and at different times, but still have the same meaning (e.g. 'redness'). > Redness must be a quality of some set of physics. We think it is a quality of the strawberry, but it's not. It's a quality of our knowledge of the strawberry. Of all our objective descriptions of stuff in the brain, one of those is a description of redness. > I can experience redness, but there is no such 'thing' as redness. > I would disagree with this. There must be something physical (even if some kind of process) which is what we directly experience as a single pixel of redness. And all of our pixels of colorness must be able to be computationally bound together into a composite qualitative experience of a strawberry, and such. Certainly you would agree that you could objectively observe, and fully describe, whatever this "process" is, and be able to objectively describe a change to this process, which we experienced as redness? In other words, redness is an experience, a process, not a thing in its own > right, independent of the brain that creates it. > This sounds like the popular consensus, that redness "arises" from some process. The problem is, I bet you can't give any actual objective falsifiable description of what kind of process would have a redness qulia, for a single pixel, and how this process, for this single pixel would change, when it changed to greenness. I think this is where we differ most. You think that 'redness' is a thing > that has an existence independent of a mind. Am I right? > Objective descriptions of stuff in the brain provide no information about the color they are describing. Al I"m saying is one of those descriptions, even if it is some kind of process, that is what we directly experience as redness. If you could provide a description of a kind of process, from which a redness quality would arize, I'd be happy to substitute that for 'glutamate' as an easily falsifiable candidate for what we directly experience as redness. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 21:58:11 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 14:58:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena In-Reply-To: References: <0fa1b5dc-a403-775f-c8c2-979bb4189655@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 1:34 PM Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On Sat, 1 Feb 2020 at 03:51, Brent Allsop wrote: > >> >> Hi Stathis, >> >> You continue to use the word: "See redness". The word "see" means using >> eyes to detect light. Seeing has a long chain of different physical causal >> things between the target and the knowledge. So, to me you are saying >> something like there is a homunculus inside my brain "seeing" this redness >> through some chain of different causal events. Seeing is an >> objective process, the final result of which is physical knowledge, which >> is very different than, or only a representation of the target being >> "seen". We don't 'see' this knowledge, it is the result of seeing. >> > > A fair point: I should have used the word perceive or experience rather > than ?see?. > If you only say experience, and especially perceive, many people are going assume you are talking about something like seeing. In my opinion, you need to say it in a way so people won't misunderstand what you are trying to say. So I say "Directly experience" > "changing the shape of the receptor provides a complete causal >> explanation for saying 'that is red'." Again, though this is a >> "complete causal" description, you can't know the quality it is describing. >> > > No, but you can know that whatever quality depends on this will be > preserved if this causal relationship and only this causal relationship is > preserved. > This sounds correct. The necessary and sufficient set of physics, could include multiple variants of glutamate, and possibly more.... "Because redness is not necessary to predict what the system will do," >> This is the part you erroneously continue to ignore. What the subjective >> experience is like is all important. In a future world we will discover >> which physics it is that has a redness quality (let's assume it is >> glutamate) resulting in a dictionary mapping subjective redness to >> conscious knowledge represented with glutamate. So the most important >> behavior is, what does it say when you ask the subject what it's redness is >> like? If the subject has this dictionary information, the subject will be >> able to eff the ineffable nature of his subjective experience and report >> it's knowledge has a glycine quality, which is what you represent greenness >> with. The behavior must include things like reporting on the quality of >> their subjective knowledge. No other behavior matters but this. >> > > But as I have explained numerous times ?the physics that has the redness > quality? is just the physics that allows the system to behave the same way, > without any localisation to a special substrate. > I'm guessing we'll just need to leave it up to the experimentalist and future historians. My prediction is that in the next 10 years, a scientist will discover which of all our descriptions of stuff in the brain is describing what we directly experience as redness, and that it will be substrate dependent. (i.e. nothing but that particular set of physics will result in redness) And future historians will look back on this "neural substitution" argument as an obvious and absurd terrible mistake, that lead a lot of philosophers and theoreticians in completely the wrong directly, for what will be obvious reasons, in hindsight. Had we not suffered this terrible misdirection, experimentalist could have discovered what it is that has a redness quality, far sooner. > > "At a higher level of description it is true that the subject reported >> seeing red due to the redness, but not at the low level where the physical >> interactions occur." We must also think of things from a subjective >> point of view. Conscious visual knowledge includes thousands of individual >> pixel elements, each of which has an elemental colorness quality. So, for >> each pixel, there must be something you can objectively observe that is >> that particular subjectively elemental pixel of colorness. When that one >> pixel changes from redness to grenness, there will be an objective >> description of the physics, that is that subjective redness changing to >> greenness. Again, you keep eliminating these necessary elemental parts of >> consciousness from the neural substitution, resulting in all the problems. >> > > If there is a change of subjective redness to greenness, there must be a > corresponding physical change. This is a requirement if qualia supervene on > physical activity. However, this does not mean that the qualia must be > specific to a certain substrate or a certain physical interaction. > Whatever it is "specific" to, whatever redness can "supervene" on, must be considered physics. Even if some kind of "functionality" results in a redness experience, this specific functionality must be considered the specific interface controlling the physics of a redness experience. I'm just so looking forward to once people discover what it is that has a redness quality, and in hindsight, they will see how laughable it is, to think that some kind of "functionality" can cause us to experience redness. If you could provide even one example of such, even that would be so obviously laughable. What is it going to be, the square root of 64 results in redness and the square root of 128 results in grenness. I mean anything even remotely close to anything like that just seem so completely absurd and laughable. My prediction is, future generations will view this kind of thinking the same way. Ben Zaibok is saying something very similar, in that redness is a "process" not a thing. You guys could go a long way towards converting me to your camp, if you could provide at least one example of such a 'process' or 'function' (Like I am offering glutamate as an example of a thing) from which a redness could arize, even if it was easily falsifiable. To me, all the above that you commented on is more or less fluff, compared to the binding problem. Yet you continue to assert that doesn't matter because: "any function whatsoever of neurons can be substituted leaving behaviour exactly the same". To me this is obviously a false claim. You can't get anywhere close to reproduce the "function" of a redness experience, and the "function" of a grenness experience, and the "function" of these two being computationally bound into a composite qualitative experience with only that kind of setup of discrete neurons. In such a discrete neural system, as I've repeatedly shown, NOTHING, even magic, can result in a redness experience, for the same reasons glutamate can't. You could easily falsify this claim of mine, by giving even one example (even if it is magic) which is redness, which could be bound with grenness, to make a composite qualitative experience. But of course, if you did, I could show you how, for the same reason that glutamate can't be redness (your magic) can't be redness. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 22:43:19 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 17:43:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Whitewash Message-ID: The grand whitewash has now been successfully completed. The US Senate, the so called "greatest deliberative body in the world" has cowardly made it clear that it doesn't want to know the truth and will do everything in its power to prevent you or any of the American people from knowing it. And so only one more step is needed for the march toward dictatorship to be complete, staying in power after January 20 2021 regardless of the November election results. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 23:22:45 2020 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 16:22:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Whitewash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I will bet anyone who wants to take it $100 USD that President Trump will obey the results of the elections of both 2020 and, if applicable, 2024. I have been hearing this ridiculous horse puckey my entire life - that [insert President here] will declare themselves Caesar and President-for-Life. It was implausible nonsense about Obama. It was implausible nonsense about Bush II. It was implausible nonsense about Clinton. It was implausible nonsense about Bush I. It was implausible nonsense about Reagan. It makes the otherwise reasonable, intelligent people who spout it, on bith sides of the aisle, sound like paranoid loons. There are many plausible failure modes of a complete breakdown of federal politics. Caesars are not one of them. I may have ti make this offer every election year - like your psychic research wager. Just stop this. It's silly. [Of the presidents in that list the most worrying was actually Bush I. Word-to-the-wise: don't elect former heads of the CIA to high office. They know where entirely too many bodies are buried, from direct involvement in the burial. Until we see a President normalizing wearing a high ranking service uniform and supplementing the Secret Service with mainline military units and/or private security forces, we're a long way from El Presidente.] On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:45 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The grand whitewash has now been successfully completed. The US Senate, > the so called "greatest deliberative body in the world" has cowardly made > it clear that it doesn't want to know the truth and will do everything in > its power to prevent you or any of the American people from knowing it. And > so only one more step is needed for the march toward dictatorship to be > complete, staying in power after January 20 2021 regardless of the November > election results. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 23:42:05 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:42:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Whitewash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You worry too much, John... On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 5:45 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > And so only one more step is needed for the march toward dictatorship to > be complete, staying in power after January 20 2021 regardless of the > November election results. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 23:42:49 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:42:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Whitewash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: +1. I will also offer this bet to any takers. On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 6:23 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I will bet anyone who wants to take it $100 USD that President Trump will > obey the results of the elections of both 2020 and, if applicable, 2024. > > I have been hearing this ridiculous horse puckey my entire life - that > [insert President here] will declare themselves Caesar and > President-for-Life. > > It was implausible nonsense about Obama. > It was implausible nonsense about Bush II. > It was implausible nonsense about Clinton. > It was implausible nonsense about Bush I. > It was implausible nonsense about Reagan. > > It makes the otherwise reasonable, intelligent people who spout it, on > bith sides of the aisle, sound like paranoid loons. > > There are many plausible failure modes of a complete breakdown of federal > politics. > > Caesars are not one of them. > > I may have ti make this offer every election year - like your psychic > research wager. > > Just stop this. It's silly. > > [Of the presidents in that list the most worrying was actually Bush I. > Word-to-the-wise: don't elect former heads of the CIA to high office. They > know where entirely too many bodies are buried, from direct involvement in > the burial. > > Until we see a President normalizing wearing a high ranking service > uniform and supplementing the Secret Service with mainline military units > and/or private security forces, we're a long way from El Presidente.] > > > On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:45 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> The grand whitewash has now been successfully completed. The US Senate, >> the so called "greatest deliberative body in the world" has cowardly made >> it clear that it doesn't want to know the truth and will do everything in >> its power to prevent you or any of the American people from knowing it. And >> so only one more step is needed for the march toward dictatorship to be >> complete, staying in power after January 20 2021 regardless of the November >> election results. >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 23:44:50 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:44:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Whitewash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 6:25 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *I will bet anyone who wants to take it $100 USD that President Trump > will obey the results of the elections * > I hope you're right, but the fact that he publicly said he would respect the results of the 2016 election IF HE WON does not exactly fill me with confidence. Do you think Trump trying to hang onto power would be out of character for the man? > *> of both 2020 and, if applicable, 2024.* > 2024? You think Trump will run for a third term? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 23:51:35 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:51:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Whitewash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 6:44 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *You worry too much, John..*. > We'll see. I admit it would give me a certain fleeting pleasure to be able to say on January 21 "I told you so", but I would much rather say "you were right and I was wrong". John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: