[ExI] Just a simple question

[William Flynn Wallace]

There was a violinist named Eugene Fodor.  His technique was astounding.
He could play anything at any speed you wanted.  But he had no soul.  He
played Paganini's works at his concerts because they were difficult and
impressive.  He was just mechanical.

He could play anything but not anything well.  He got addicted to cocaine
and eventually suicided.  He knew what he was, and what he wasn't.
Expert?  No one would have claimed that he was a great violinist.  I asked
a world class violinist if what he lacked could be taught.  She said, in
essence, no way.  You have a soul for music or you don't.    bill w

On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 9:52 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 11:52 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> To be fair: fusion has been accomplished (just not commercially viable
>> yet), there are ways to mitigate cancer in at least some cases, and ants
>> are kept out of many kitchens.
>>
>
> "To be fair"
>
> So the fusion that has been accomplished makes which person the expert?
> The one who planned the device? The one who machined it to five-nines
> precision? The project manager who coordinated everyone else? Surely the
> one signing the check is the expert.  Oh, I'm being facetious.  Of course I
> am.
>
> Maybe our definition of "expert" differ between "someone who has done a
> thing" and "someone who knows how a thing is done."  Was Neil Armstrong the
> only expert to walk on the moon before Aldrin also did the thing?  I am of
> a mind to grant many other NASA folk the title of 'expert' on lunar landing
> despite the fact they have never done so.  There must be a few people who
> were on duty at mission control for more than one lunar landing project
> implementation - would that make them double-expert compared to Armstrong
> or Aldrin?  I know, the geniuses on this list will tell me how wrong I am
> because the type (you know there's a type) are so smart they don't need to
> listen.  I profess to be neither smart nor correct.
>
>  My point was not to claim there are no experts in the endeavor to keep
> ants out of the kitchen.  That was an absurd rhetorical device.  It might
> have made a reader laugh if he or she were familiar with the pattern of
> casual conversation.  I sometimes marvel at the voluminous prose expounded
> on this list, but it's rarely in a voice that I prefer to consume.  It may
> be the same with what and how I write. Hmm.
>
> Anyway, i guess we can have no experts in mind uploading until someone has
> been uploaded and their post-biological identity demands legal protection
> of selfhood with respect to autonomy and reasonable safety from the
> computing hardware being switched off.  Uploaded mice running robot bodies
> through mazes they trained on as mere flesh... not good enough to call the
> any of those scientists "expert"
>
> Is there any other field that we might agree has "experts" in a domain of
> knowledge despite themselves having not achieved the ultimate example of
> their profession/craft/art/etc?
>
> Ex: any pianist who flawlessy performs every note of the Minute Waltz in
> under sixty seconds can claim the "expert" title.  The one who knows how to
> shave three seconds from their personal best of 1m2s is just a
> wannabe/poseur.
>
> PS. I know the Minute Waltz isn't intended to be played in 60 seconds.
> Hyperbole is usually meant to amuse. :)
>
>> _______________________________________________
> 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: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20231218/08baed42/attachment.htm>