From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Dec 1 03:50:41 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 21:50:41 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] grow closer to god--through the mail!! In-Reply-To: <20041130174113.47151.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041130105442.01a43ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <20041130174113.47151.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041130214654.019ecec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:41 AM 11/30/2004 -0800, Mike wrote: >My intention is to point out that I don't know enough to know one way >or the other, and neither do you or anybody else, so atheism is as much >a religion as any other belief based on faith/lack of facts. Some >self-proclaimed atheists, like yourself, have a knee-jerk reaction to >such a statement, that is entirely emotional, not based on any rational >basis of logic. For another nice summary of why this is also bollocks, look at a site I found linked from the tragically late Yeduha Nattan Yudkowsky's blog: http://www.graveyardofthegods.com/articles/cantprovenegative.html < The rules of logic and science indicate that there must be some kind of basis (either in substance or in thought) for an assertion or else it *must* be denied. An assertion, without evidence, is not accepted as true. That is the default position, the position that defines what critical thought *is.* Critical thought means not believing things you are told unless there is evidence to back it up. And without critical thought, logic and science are abandoned, and this is the only kind of productive thought humanity has ever come up with. To reject critical thought is to turn one's back on thinking and embrace the Dark Ages. That's the answer to this statement in theory. However, in practice, there is usually a lot more happening with the person who makes such a proclamation. The person who makes this kind of statement has a great many fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of logic, science, and productive thought. > etc etc. Damien Broderick From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Wed Dec 1 04:03:52 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:03:52 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Center for Human Enhancement opens website Message-ID: <41AD42A8.7050205@humanenhancement.com> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The Center For Human Enhancement, a for-profit business venture oriented towards the self-improvement community (as exemplified by the Transhumanist movement), made its website officially live on November 30th, 2004. The URL of the Center's website is http://www.humanenhancement.com The site's focus is on providing technologies for enhancing mental abilities "beyond normal" and physical abilities "beyond well"; things that are eminently practical and can be applied _today_. In addition, there is an attempt to present a brief overview of what the future will bring, to give context to the technologies that are currently available. The site features sections offering books, devices, and supplements relating to mind-enhancement (nootropics, neurofeedback, and wearable computing), body-enhancement (life extension, muscular enhancement, and cosmetic enhancement), fiction and non-fiction relating to the social, political, and other implications of human enhancement in general. There is also a daily-updated newswire offering the latest news of technological innovations that will someday be made available to the general public. The product offerings and product lines available will be expanded and updated as new technologies, supplements, and products become available. Visitors are actively encouraged to suggest new products that might be of interest to the site's visitors. It is hoped that sufficient success with offering those technologies that are currently available will give impetus for the development of other such technologies aimed at the retail market, under the more direct auspices of the Center for Human Enhancement, to make such technologies available on a widespread basis. Contact: Joseph Bloch, President Center for Human Enhancement PO Box 94 Stanhope, NJ 07874 973-876-8843 From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Dec 1 04:27:30 2004 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 14:57:30 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <20041126015527.59750.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> References: <004301c4d356$8fb57aa0$b3893cd1@pavilion> <20041126015527.59750.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc04113020274a84eb20@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 17:55:27 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey wrote: > > --- Technotranscendence wrote: > > > I'm forced to make some comments on this thread. Atheism per se is > > not a religion. It's merely the lack of a belief in God/gods. > That's > > it. Ditto for theism. Theism is not a religion either. It's merely > a > > presence of a belief in God/gods. > > "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Atheism is as much a > matter of faith as theism. Particularly, since the advent of the > Simulation Argument, the issue demands that scientists intending on > total scientific objectivity must be agnostic or at most Deist, until > the Simulation Argument is proven or disproven. The Simulation Argument > essentially dictates that the inhabitants of most universes must be > deists to be objective. Where do you stand on Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy, Mike? Agnostic? The Simulation is interesting theoretically, but I wouldn't be hanging my hat on it. Like the Drake equation, its outcome is based on the axioms you choose. Based on available knowledge, it's as credible as the Doomsday argument (ie: not very) > > The hubris of religion is not to presume something which is not in > evidence, but to presume something in spite of evidence or odds to the > contrary (i.e. evolution, jupiters moons, etc). > > Atheism falls in this same trap of hubris in presuming that absence of > evidence is evidence of absence, but especially in going beyond that > presumption in insisting, despite the Simulation Argument's > demonstration of odds to the contrary, that we exist in the one rare > universe that was not created by anybody. Eliezer's bayesian games of > the past months (of colored balls in bags) should be conclusive in > proving that presumptions of atheists are at least as specious of those > of theists. Nope. None of us would be able to list all the theorems in which we have no belief, because the space is infinite (unlike the space of theorems in which we have faith, which must be finite). The existence of a boss deity is just another theorem in which some of us have no faith (like the theorem that Santa Claus exists). > > I am an agnostic because I don't know which sort of universe I live in, > yet, but I lean to the Deist view because the odds tell me to. > Sometimes I call myself an agnostic, in the spirit of Huxley, who meant not that he wasn't sure, but that one could not possibly know a god that revealed itself only via mysticism because mysticism is bunk. It comes from the word gnosis, which means roughly "inner knowledge", or mystically received knowledge. The original meaning of agnostic is that it is not possible to know of god. The meaning of the word these days has changed to mean you are a fence sitter, but that's a corruption of the word (as misunderstood by the mentally underequipped, imo). The Agnosticism of Sir Thomas Huxley is what is usually nowadays meant by intelligent Atheists (as opposed to those who have come to atheism as a reaction against their religious upbringing, and who might as well have become satanists, because their atheism is a rebellious faith in the opposite of what they think they are supposed to believe). So when I call myself an Atheist, as I usually do, it is partly in the spirit of Huxley's agnosticism. Firstly, I have no belief in god. Secondly, I think that you cannot logically know a god that does not reveal itself via material action (ie: requires gnosis, which is bunk, cf pretty much all of modern psychology). Thirdly, if a material God turned up (you know, the guy with a white beard, hurling lightning bolts, plagues, death of the firstborns, etc), I'd be an idiot to not believe in him. God would be a strong word though; I would only class him as a superpowerful being who it might be prudent to obey if he required it; I think the whole "infinite love and mercy" stuff, and the Christian thoughtcrime business is something I'd never accept. But I don't reserve judgement on the question of God. I am prepared to say outright that there is absolutely no evidence for any kind of God, and give him the old Occam's Razor heave-ho. -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com * blogs * music * software * From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Dec 1 04:29:09 2004 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 14:59:09 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <20041128232828.58956.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <41AA50FE.9050504@humanenhancement.com> <20041128232828.58956.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0411302029f3a70be@mail.gmail.com> How about the Tooth Fairy Mike? The tooth fairy doesn't have real world referents like Santa Claus. In this way she is exactly like God. What seperates the two in your mind? Or do you believe in the Tooth Fairy? On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:28:28 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > > --- Joseph Bloch wrote: > > > Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > > > > > >Nope. I am asserting that in order to be an atheist, you must > > believe > > >in the non-existence of god. To simply not have faith in or > > knowledge > > >knowledge of god's existence is agnosticism. > > > > > > > > > > You can redefine things to mean what you want them to mean, rather > > than > > what they really mean (to the people to whom they apply), but it > > seems > > rather pointless. Much like this entire conversation, which could > > just > > as easily be had in any AOL chatroom with the word "Atheism" in the > > title. > > Joseph, as we've clearly shown here, it isn't me redefining words here. > People have been quoting from Websters, OED, etc and all back up my > assertions. > > > > > Atheism is the lack of belief in god(s). The position that god(s) do > > not exist does _not_ require proof any more than the position that > > Santa Claus does not exist. > > On the contrary, Santa Claus is proven not to exist because all claimed > 'facts' about him are provably wrong: there is no santa-land at the > north pole, there are no flying reindeer or sleighs ever caught on > radar, and all the acts of gift giving ascribed to him are provably the > acts of others. Saint Nicolaus once DID exist, and can historically be > proven to have existed, and performed deeds which became legendary, but > we also can prove that he is now dead, ergo there is no Santa Claus and > this can be proven by evidence that he no longer exists as a living > being by the positive fact of the existence of his remains in a crypt. > > Atheism is not the lack of belief in god(s), but the belief in a lack > of god(s). > > > > ===== > Mike Lorrey > Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH > "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. > It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." > -William Pitt (1759-1806) > Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. > http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com * blogs * music * software * From moulton at moulton.com Wed Dec 1 01:39:34 2004 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 20:39:34 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugenics and behavior modification In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20041130145037.08756b78@unreasonable.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20041130145037.08756b78@unreasonable.com> Message-ID: <1101865174.20563.8933.camel@localhost> To see the news coverage of something similar to one of the ideas you mention go to Google and do a search on: +"Barbara Harris" +CRACK Fred From hal at finney.org Wed Dec 1 05:02:33 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 21:02:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... Message-ID: <20041201050233.ADB7657E2D@finney.org> In the interests of fairness, it is important to understand what Mike is saying and not saying. He is not saying God exists, and he is not defending those who believe in God. In fact, nothing he has said is inconsistent with him being a militant atheist! All Mike has claimed is that atheism is a matter of faith. Now, there are arguments for and against this, but to a large extent they seem to come down to semantics. There are undoubtedly atheists who do hold onto their beliefs as a matter of faith, rather than through rational thought. I remember once seeing James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, interviewed on TV. He was straightforward about not believing in God, and added that his father had had the same position and he had never departed from his family's religious views. Watson was being ironic but there are probably atheists for whom their beliefs are just as much a matter of faith and "religion" as those of the most devoutly religious. Just as there are said to be no defenders of religion so strong as the converted, probably some of the most vehemently anti-religious are former believers. I agree with the arguments that God is no different from other hypothetical entities, and that it is not reasonable in practice to hold to agnosticism regarding every imaginary being that might be conceived by the mind of man. The default position for such entities has to be an assumption that they do not exist and have no influence on the world, unless or until some evidence to the contrary appears. So I don't agree with Mike on this matter. Nevertheless some people seem to be assuming that Mike is defending religiosity, when he is actually attacking certain foundational arguments for atheism. Those are logically different positions and we should try to keep them straight in discussing the issue. Hal From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Dec 1 05:00:46 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:00:46 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Yehuda Yudkowsky In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041130214654.019ecec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041130105442.01a43ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <20041130174113.47151.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041130214654.019ecec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041130225926.019de7e8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Drat. Sorry for the typo in the previous message getting Yehuda's name wrong. Damien Broderick From spike66 at comcast.net Wed Dec 1 05:39:50 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 21:39:50 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] evolution again In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.0.20041130091413.0d3a9bd0@pop-server.austin.rr.com> Message-ID: <00ac01c4d768$2d1ca880$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Of Natasha Vita-More Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] evolution again Thanks Spike - just the right touch to accompany my morning coffee. Natasha ...We are trying to understand why humans have this oddball shape with the curiously oversized subsystems such as genitals, heads and butts (possibly in that order)... Natasha you are too kind. The reason I am hammering this topic is that the evolution memeset seems to be failing to prosper, possibly losing ground in many important ways. I have a notion for how to advance it. Our current descriptive approach to evolution education is getting ever more competition for scarce classroom hours from other sciences that are more mathematized and thus suffer less from the ambiguity of words. To advance the understanding of evolution thus requires it to be more mathematized, like physics and chemistry. I propose the following system as a start. Think of physical structures in humans (since we know a lot about human anatomy) and try to decide its cost and its benefit in terms of survival of the individual. Having a muscle that is larger than necessary has a survival cost: it uses up more calories, thus requiring Mr. Universe to slay and devour more and larger beasts. Likewise with our heads: highly vascular, lots of heat loss, see above. Larger penises: larger vulnerable target in a fight with both man and beast. But all three of these may have their benefits too: larger butts might help us run for instance. So the exercise is to estimate the ratio of cost to benefit of a structure. But do it two different ways: from a mating attractiveness point of view and from a strictly survival point of view. So you should get two numbers for every system. Take the penis. (No, not THAT definition of take, dammit, pay attention.) Its survival cost to benefit ratio Rs is surely larger than 1. But its mating attractiveness cost to benefit ratio Ra is less than 1. So we can multiply the two ratios together to get an overall evolutionary cost to benefit ratio. If that overall ratio is greater than 1, we might expect that structure to evolve smaller. Rs = survival cost to benefit ratio Ra = mating attractiveness cost to benefit ratio Re = evolutionary cost to benefit ratio Re = Rs * Ra For the penis: Rs(p) > 1 Ra(p) < 1 Re(p) ~ 1 Equilibrium is established when Rep ~ 1 Nowthen, in a previous post, I suggested that humans evolved in a tropical climate, but some humans left the tropics for colder, harsher climates, which required them to wrap themselves in the skins of the beasts they slew. This hid the genitals, which supressed the Ra of the penis, which caused the product Re(p) to go greater than 1, which caused the penis of those cold-weather adapted humans to evolve smaller, so that Re(p) adjusts itself back to approximately 1, which defines evolutionary equilibrium of that structure. With technology, that equilibrium is suddenly and wildly reversed, for today nearly all humans live in the tropics, in a sense: we reside indoors with heaters. Moderns evidently do choose mates based partially on the size of his genitals, so Ra(p) is now amplified. Moderns seldom perish from having oversized genitals, so Rs(p) is now the coefficient that is suppressed, causing the product Re(p) to go less than one, which would cause humans to evolve in a delightful direction. If this notion holds in general, then it may help us come up with successful mathematical models for evolution. A working mathematical model allows us to write computer simulations of evolution. A digital version of Clarke's law would suggest that any sufficiently advanced computer simulation is indistinguishable from reality. So if we figure out how to simulate evolution on a computer, we should be able to run it forward to predict the singularity, or more specifically, to create the singularity. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Wed Dec 1 06:26:57 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 00:26:57 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] evolution again References: <00ac01c4d768$2d1ca880$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <002d01c4d76e$c26dd9d0$60b32643@kevin> MessageYou are assuming, of course, that the penis size is regulated by a standalone gene. Penis size could easily be caused by genes that share control with other features as well. Butts could be the same way. Not every phenotype has to have it's own selection pressure. Many complex traits have phenotypes which can ride along with others since they are all sharing various alleles. These combinations can create situations where certain phenotypes appear in conjunction with other phenotypes on a fairly regular basis. As long as their cost does not outweigh the benefit of other features that come with it, the frequency of that phenotype will increase. Kevin Freels Take the penis. (No, not THAT definition of take, dammit, pay attention.) Its survival cost to benefit ratio Rs is surely larger than 1. But its mating attractiveness cost to benefit ratio Ra is less than 1. So we can multiply the two ratios together to get an overall evolutionary cost to benefit ratio. If that overall ratio is greater than 1, we might expect that structure to evolve smaller. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at comcast.net Wed Dec 1 06:39:43 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 22:39:43 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] evolution again In-Reply-To: <002d01c4d76e$c26dd9d0$60b32643@kevin> Message-ID: <00be01c4d770$8ad8a7a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Behalf Of Kevin Freels Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] evolution again You are assuming, of course, that the penis size is regulated by a standalone gene... The notion of a survival cost to benefit ratio and a separate attractiveness cost to benefit ratio does not require this assumption. But let us go on. > Penis size could easily be caused by genes that share control with other features as well. Butts could be the same way. Not every phenotype has to have it's own selection pressure. Many complex traits have phenotypes which can ride along with others since they are all sharing various alleles...Kevin Freels Kevin I agree with this fully, but the notion of a cost to benefit ratio still works, does it not? I have a notion that we are historically on the verge of being able to model the entire human genome and its expression in meat. It will require enormous amounts of computing power to do it. Once we get that, we will likely be able to manipulate DNA and thus create anatomical structures the way we want to be, not the way we are. That would be way cool. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 1 10:11:18 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 10:11:18 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] evolution again In-Reply-To: <012601c4d599$7775d4e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <012601c4d599$7775d4e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <41AD98C6.2080203@neopax.com> Spike wrote: >I had an idea which follows up on our discussion >from last week. Assume Jared Diamond's notion that >human variation can be very generally grouped in >three subsets, African, European and Asian. Jared >suggests that the Asian group has features that >are well-adapted for cold weather, such as the >shorter stature, eye shape possibly less susceptible >to freezing, better suited for carrying fat, etc. >The Africans then would be shaped for better >survival under milder climates, but with greater >competition with other carnivores, etc. > > > Consider differences in testorsterone production etc http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/stalkers/jpr_rghrs.html -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 1 10:27:50 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 10:27:50 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Declaration of Very Fast Independence In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041128000351.01a0e000@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <002101c4d3ec$bf705850$8bb32643@kevin> <41A7C2B9.9090201@humanenhancement.com> <41A95C86.2070800@cox.net> <6.1.1.1.0.20041128000351.01a0e000@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41AD9CA6.9070008@neopax.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 12:05 AM 11/28/2004 -0500, Dan Clemmensen wrote: > > >By the time the political/contsitutional/societal consensus > >can react to the emergence of an AI, the AI may very well > >have decide to take over some aspect (or all aspects) of the > >political/economic system. > > An outcome that seems to me very possible (in view of Fermi) is > summarized nicely by Ken MacLeod, in his new novel Newton's Wake: > > < Once you reach singularity, there are further singularities within > it, faster and faster, and in very short order the intelligences > involved have fucked off out of our universe, or lost interest in > it--we don't know. > > > It seems very likely that there is much more of interest as we head down to the Planck scale than there is as we head out towards the galactic. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 1 10:32:44 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 10:32:44 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Not believing in Eris is also a religion In-Reply-To: <41A9078F.2090809@pobox.com> References: <41A9078F.2090809@pobox.com> Message-ID: <41AD9DCC.7040502@neopax.com> Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > I'm always amused by people who insist that atheism is a religion. Do > I need a separate form of atheism for each religion I don't believe > in? Am I just an atheistic Jew, or also an atheistic Christian, an > atheistic neo-pagan, and an atheistic Dionysian? Maybe I should > become an atheistic druid so I can tell people I don't believe in trees. > I call myself an atheist Asatruar because I believe our Gods are social dynamic/cultural constructs. I see no problem with that at all, nor with basing my ethical values upon their mythology. Interestingly, my co-religionists see no problem with my POV either, even the ones that believe our Gods are 'real' (whatever that means for a God). -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Dec 1 12:56:45 2004 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:26:45 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <010701c4d4ce$f7358d90$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <20041127193033.93671.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> <010701c4d4ce$f7358d90$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <710b78fc041201045616e1d4e@mail.gmail.com> Brett wrote: > For example Spinoza said "God is that being than which none > greater can exist." And then added the stipulation that to exist in > reality is better (i.e. greater) than to exist merely in the imagination. > > Spinoza's conception of God as thus far outlined does not violate > the contingency of the universe. On the contrary it seems specifically > designed to fit within it. God is merely the greatest being existing in > reality. Hey, that's me! Tops! I'm God. Now I never expected that. -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com * blogs * music * software * (well, it really depends on your From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Dec 1 12:58:50 2004 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:28:50 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <710b78fc041201045616e1d4e@mail.gmail.com> References: <20041127193033.93671.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> <010701c4d4ce$f7358d90$b8232dcb@homepc> <710b78fc041201045616e1d4e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc04120104586f78f7f0@mail.gmail.com> Brett wrote: > For example Spinoza said "God is that being than which none > greater can exist." And then added the stipulation that to exist in > reality is better (i.e. greater) than to exist merely in the imagination. > > Spinoza's conception of God as thus far outlined does not violate > the contingency of the universe. On the contrary it seems specifically > designed to fit within it. God is merely the greatest being existing in > reality. Hey, that's me! Tops! I'm God. Now I never expected that. Hmm, kind of embarrassing for a self professed Atheist, on reflection. -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com * blogs * music * software * (well, it really depends on the definition of your comparison operator, after all) From metagenyx at yahoo.com Wed Dec 1 16:14:44 2004 From: metagenyx at yahoo.com (Gaurav Gupta) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:14:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Cherubic Machines Message-ID: <20041201161444.39795.qmail@web61108.mail.yahoo.com> Hello people, Read Jeff Hawkins' book: 'On Intelligence'? I was stunned when it said what I've been trying to say for so many years now. I'm not even going to try explaining what my GEN-I-SYS engine can and cannot do. Please visit http://cherubicmachines.com and feel free to laugh me in the face if you see fit. Whatever you do - WE REQUIRE MORE FUNDING TO COMPLETE THE PROJECT. Please donate a little bit. Thank you, Gaurav Gupta __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 1 16:27:12 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:27:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] grow closer to god--through the mail!! In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041130214654.019ecec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041201162712.35803.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote: > At 09:41 AM 11/30/2004 -0800, Mike wrote: > > >My intention is to point out that I don't know enough to know one > way > >or the other, and neither do you or anybody else, so atheism is as > much > >a religion as any other belief based on faith/lack of facts. Some > >self-proclaimed atheists, like yourself, have a knee-jerk reaction > to > >such a statement, that is entirely emotional, not based on any > rational > >basis of logic. > > For another nice summary of why this is also bollocks, look at a site > I found linked from the tragically late Yeduha Nattan Yudkowsky's > blog: > > http://www.graveyardofthegods.com/articles/cantprovenegative.html > > < The rules of logic and science indicate that there must be some > kind of basis (either in substance or in thought) for an assertion or else it *must* be denied. > Sorry, Damien, you are still suffering from the same blinkers that you and other lefties cried about after Bush was elected. Its the whole "if you don't agree with us you are just stupid" gambit. You want to talk about bollocks? THAT is bullshit. I've presented a very logical, consistent, and reasoned basis for my argument and you shrug it off. Sorry, Damien. The person being irrational here is you. Get over it. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 1 16:44:28 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:44:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <20041201050233.ADB7657E2D@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041201164428.52550.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Hal Finney wrote: > In the interests of fairness, it is important to understand what Mike > is saying and not saying. He is not saying God exists, and he is not > defending those who believe in God. In fact, nothing he has said is > inconsistent with him being a militant atheist! > > All Mike has claimed is that atheism is a matter of faith. > > Now, there are arguments for and against this, but to a large extent > they seem to come down to semantics. There are undoubtedly atheists > who > do hold onto their beliefs as a matter of faith, rather than through > rational thought. Thanks Hal, It is clear that those going on, poking at me about "believing in the tooth fairy" are irrational atheists, who may know some philosophical jive to rationalize their faith, but are ultimately believers in atheism purely for emotional reasons. Their snide 'tooth fairy' attacks are clear evidence of this. If such people are so intent on holding onto their atheism, then they are going to need to rationally and logically answer the Simulation Argument, demolishing its premise that we are likely in a simulation, and otherwise prove conclusively that a posthuman society would never run ancestor simulations, or that intelligent technological societies always destroy themselves short of reaching post-humanity. This is the challenge. In the years since Bostrom, Hanson, and others have developed the concept, I have not seen any significant attempt by the atheist community to try to disprove the simulation fork of the argument. My main assertion is that they must answer this challenge to remain relevant, or else cede their position or admit to being a religious faith outright. Why are they so afraid of the challenge? ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 1 16:45:15 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:45:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <20041201050233.ADB7657E2D@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041201164515.39275.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- Hal Finney wrote: > In the interests of fairness, it is important to understand what Mike > is saying and not saying. He is not saying God exists, and he is not > defending those who believe in God. In fact, nothing he has said is > inconsistent with him being a militant atheist! > > All Mike has claimed is that atheism is a matter of faith. > > Now, there are arguments for and against this, but to a large extent > they seem to come down to semantics. There are undoubtedly atheists > who > do hold onto their beliefs as a matter of faith, rather than through > rational thought. Thanks Hal, It is clear that those going on, poking at me about "believing in the tooth fairy" are irrational atheists, who may know some philosophical jive to rationalize their faith, but are ultimately believers in atheism purely for emotional reasons. Their snide 'tooth fairy' attacks are clear evidence of this. If such people are so intent on holding onto their atheism, then they are going to need to rationally and logically answer the Simulation Argument, demolishing its premise that we are likely in a simulation, and otherwise prove conclusively that a posthuman society would never run ancestor simulations, or that intelligent technological societies always destroy themselves short of reaching post-humanity. This is the challenge. In the years since Bostrom, Hanson, and others have developed the concept, I have not seen any significant attempt by the atheist community to try to disprove the simulation fork of the argument. My main assertion is that they must answer this challenge to remain relevant, or else cede their position or admit to being a religious faith outright. Why are they so afraid of the challenge? ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE Wed Dec 1 17:11:48 2004 From: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE (Patrick Wilken) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 18:11:48 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Cherubic Machines In-Reply-To: <20041201161444.39795.qmail@web61108.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041201161444.39795.qmail@web61108.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <15EAA022-43BC-11D9-8FC2-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> Well it doesn't look good when you click on research and only get the message "coming soon..."! http://cherubicmachines.com/research/ best, patrick On 1 Dec 2004, at 17:14, Gaurav Gupta wrote: > > Hello people, > > Read Jeff Hawkins' book: 'On Intelligence'? I was > stunned when it said what I've been trying to say for > so many years now. I'm not even going to try > explaining what my GEN-I-SYS engine can and cannot do. > Please visit http://cherubicmachines.com and feel free > to laugh me in the face if you see fit. Whatever you > do - WE REQUIRE MORE FUNDING TO COMPLETE THE PROJECT. > Please donate a little bit. > > Thank you, > Gaurav Gupta > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! > http://my.yahoo.com > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From anyservice at cris.crimea.ua Wed Dec 1 16:33:29 2004 From: anyservice at cris.crimea.ua (Gennady Ra) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 19:33:29 +0300 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <710b78fc04113020274a84eb20@mail.gmail.com> References: <20041126015527.59750.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> <004301c4d356$8fb57aa0$b3893cd1@pavilion> <20041126015527.59750.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20041201171227.00b26d20@pop.cris.net> At 02:57 PM 12/1/04 +1030, you Emlyn wrote: On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 17:55:27 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey wrote: >> I am an agnostic because I don't know which sort of universe I live in, >>yet, but I lean to the Deist view because the odds tell me to. >Sometimes I call myself an agnostic, in the spirit of Huxley, who >meant not that he wasn't sure, but that one could not possibly know a >god that revealed itself only via mysticism because mysticism is bunk. >It comes from the word gnosis, which means roughly "inner knowledge", >or mystically received knowledge. The original meaning of agnostic is >that it is not possible to know of god. The meaning of the word these >days has changed to mean you are a fence sitter, but that's a >corruption of the word (as misunderstood by the mentally >underequipped, imo). >The Agnosticism of Sir Thomas Huxley is what is usually nowadays meant >by intelligent Atheists (as opposed to those who have come to atheism >as a reaction against their religious upbringing, and who might as >well have become satanists, because their atheism is a rebellious >faith in the opposite of what they think they are supposed to >believe). >So when I call myself an Atheist, as I usually do, it is partly in the >spirit of Huxley's agnosticism. Firstly, I have no belief in god. [snip] OED again: agnostic n. and a. [f. Gr. unknowing, unknown, unknowable (f. not + know) + -ic. Cf. gnostic; in Gr. the termination - ... never coexists with the privative ...] A. n. One who holds that the existence of anything beyond and behind material phenomena is unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable, and especially that a First Cause and an unseen world are subjects of which we know nothing. [Suggested by Prof. Huxley at a party held previous to the formation of the now defunct Metaphysical Society, at Mr. James Knowles?s house on Clapham Common, one evening in 1869, in my hearing. He took it from St. Paul?s mention of the altar to ?the Unknown God.? R. H. Hutton in letter 13 Mar. 1881.] 1870 Spect. 29 Jan. 135 In theory he [Prof. Huxley] is a great and even severe Agnostic, who goes about exhorting all men to know how little they know. 1874 Mivart Ess. Relig. etc. 205 Our modern Sophists?the Agnostics,?those who deny we have any knowledge, save of phenomena. 1876 Spect. 11 June, Nicknames are given by opponents, but Agnostic was the name demanded by Professor Huxley for those who disclaimed atheism, and believed with him in an ?unknown and unknowable? God; or in other words that the ultimate origin of all things must be some cause unknown and unknowable. 1880 Bp. Fraser in Manch. Guardn. 25 Nov., The Agnostic neither denied nor affirmed God. He simply put Him on one side. B. adj. Of or pertaining to agnostics or their theory. 1873 Q. Rev. CXXXV. 192 The pseudo-scientific teachers of what has..been termed..the Agnostic Philosophy. 1876 Tulloch Agnosticism in Weekly Scotsm. 18 Nov., The same agnostic principle which prevailed in our schools of philosophy had extended itself to religion and theology. Beyond what man can know by his senses or feel by his higher affections, nothing, as was alleged, could be truly known. 1880 G. C. M. Birdwood Ind. Arts I. 4 The agnostic teaching of the Sankhya school is the common basis of all systems of Indian philosophy. 1882 Froude Carlyle II. 216 The agnostic doctrines, he (Carlyle) once said to me, were to appearance like the finest flour, from which you might expect the most excellent bread; but when you came to feed on it, you found it was powdered glass, and you had been eating the deadliest poison. agnosticism [f. agnostic + -ism.] The doctrine or tenets of Agnostics. 1870 Spect. 29 Jan. 135 The lecture was..perhaps not quite so full as it should have been of his Agnosticism. 1871 R. H. Hutton Ess. I. 27 They themselves vehemently dispute the term [atheism] and usually prefer to describe their state of mind as a sort of know-nothingism or Agnosticism, or belief in an unknown and unknowable God. 1877 E. Conder Basis of Faith i. 25 But there is nothing per se irrational in contending that the evidences of Theism are inconclusive, that its doctrines are unintelligible, or that it fails to account for the facts of the universe, or is irreconcilable with them. To express this kind of polemic against religious faith the term ?agnosticism? has been adopted. 1879 Huxley Hume i. 60 Called agnosticism, from its profession of an incapacity to discover the indispensable conditions of either positive or negative knowledge. 1880 Sat. Rev. 26 June 819/2 In nine cases out of ten Agnosticism is but old atheism ?writ large.? ============= St. Paul?s mention of the altar to ?the Unknown God?: Ac. 17.22-23 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mar's hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotion, I found an altar with the inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. ===== Best! Gennady Simferopol Crimea Ukraine From scerir at libero.it Wed Dec 1 17:57:38 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 18:57:38 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... References: <20041201164428.52550.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <104c01c4d7cf$3fce8e00$a8c51b97@administxl09yj> From: "Mike Lorrey" > If such people are so intent on holding > onto their atheism, then they are going > to need to rationally and logically answer > the Simulation Argument, demolishing its premise > that we are likely in a simulation, and otherwise > prove conclusively that a posthuman society > would never run ancestor simulations, > or that intelligent technological societies > always destroy themselves short of reaching post-humanity. > This is the challenge. Is reality real? Are there more real realities? But one thing is for sure, a (supposed) simulated reality is a lot cheaper than a (supposed) real one. Or that a Simulator is not as rich as a real God. Turtles all the way down. (Not sure that demolishing the Simulation Argument, or demolishing simulated realities, is the same as demolishing Theisms.) From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Dec 1 18:47:37 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 12:47:37 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <104c01c4d7cf$3fce8e00$a8c51b97@administxl09yj> References: <20041201164428.52550.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> <104c01c4d7cf$3fce8e00$a8c51b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041201123346.01c2e718@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 06:57 PM 12/1/2004 +0100, Serafino wrote: >(Not sure that demolishing the Simulation Argument, >or demolishing simulated realities, >is the same as demolishing Theisms.) Of course it's not, but what's more important in this discussion is that the converse doesn't hold either. Accepting the Simulation Argument, or indeed *proving* that what we perceive as our universe is some sort of limited sim built by contingent intelligences external to its bounds, simply CANNOT increase the possibility that theism (as it is commonly understood in our culture) is true or even meaningful. It's a different *sort* of claim. "Simulation = deity" is nothing better than metaphysical bait and switch. Why don't you address this critique, Mike? Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Dec 1 19:49:32 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 13:49:32 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] =?iso-8859-1?q?=93Embryos=94_created_without_pate?= =?iso-8859-1?q?rnal_?= chromosomes Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041201134649.019c7da0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996733 Zapped human eggs divide without sperm 19:00 01 December 04 A trick that persuades human eggs to divide as if they have been fertilised could provide a source of embryonic stem cells that sidesteps ethical objections to existing techniques. It could also be deployed to improve the success rate of IVF. ?Embryos? created by the procedure do not contain any paternal chromosomes ? just two sets of chromosomes from the mother ? and so cannot develop into babies. This should remove the ethical objections that some people have to harvesting from donated human embryos. There are high hopes that stem cells, which can develop into many different cell types, could be used to treat a range of diseases. The tricked eggs divide for four or five days until they reach 50 to 100 cells ? the blastocyst stage. These blastocysts should in theory yield stem cells, but because they are parthenogenetic ? produced from the egg only ? they cannot be viewed as a potential human life, says Karl Swann of the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff, UK. [etc] From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Dec 1 20:31:36 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 07:31:36 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... References: <20041201164515.39275.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004301c4d7e4$c0eab8a0$b8232dcb@homepc> Mike Lorrey wrote: > It is clear that those going on, poking at me about "believing in > the tooth fairy" are irrational atheists, who may know some > philosophical jive to rationalize their faith, but are ultimately > believers in atheism purely for emotional reasons. Their snide > 'tooth fairy' attacks are clear evidence of this. > > If such people are so intent on holding onto their atheism, then they > are going to need to rationally and logically answer the Simulation > Argument, demolishing its premise that we are likely in a simulation, > and otherwise prove conclusively that a posthuman society would never > run ancestor simulations, or that intelligent technological societies > always destroy themselves short of reaching post-humanity. This is the > challenge. In the years since Bostrom, Hanson, and others have > developed the concept, I have not seen any significant attempt by the > atheist community to try to disprove the simulation fork of the > argument. > > My main assertion is that they must answer this challenge to remain > relevant, or else cede their position or admit to being a religious > faith outright. Why are they so afraid of the challenge? I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean by the Simulation Argument capitalised as you have it Mike. I think I've real essays to the effect that the world 'we' live in could be a simulation (I think Nick Bostrom was the author of at least one of those) but I'm not sure I've read the exact Argument you're referring too. Do you think the Simulation Argument is falsifiable? Do you agree that if a proposition is not falsifiable it cannot be "proven" wrong? In my experience people have different ideas about what constitutes proof and sometimes evidence just as they have different ideas about what constitutes the meaning of the word God. Brett Paatsch From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Dec 1 20:39:00 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 07:39:00 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... References: <20041127193033.93671.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> <010701c4d4ce$f7358d90$b8232dcb@homepc> <710b78fc041201045616e1d4e@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc04120104586f78f7f0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <005401c4d7e5$ca0e1660$b8232dcb@homepc> Emlyn wrote: > Brett wrote: >> For example Spinoza said "God is that being than which none >> greater can exist." And then added the stipulation that to exist in >> reality is better (i.e. greater) than to exist merely in the imagination. >> >> Spinoza's conception of God as thus far outlined does not violate >> the contingency of the universe. On the contrary it seems specifically >> designed to fit within it. God is merely the greatest being existing in >> reality. > > Hey, that's me! Tops! I'm God. Now I never expected that. Hmm, kind of > embarrassing for a self professed Atheist, on reflection. I wouldn't worry about it. Those that know don't have to believe. Any God worth a damn that didn't know (rather than merely believe) they existed as a bedrock certainty could hardly know anything. There would be nowhere for them to know anything from. Brett From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 1 22:50:21 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 14:50:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041201123346.01c2e718@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041201225021.32586.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote: > "Simulation = deity" is nothing better than metaphysical > bait and switch. Why don't you address this critique, Mike? A simulation requires a simulator, and a simulator operator/programmer/architect. The first implies and insists upon the existence of the others. To say otherwise would be the real miracle. So you are insisting upon the existence of a simulation without a simulator or operator? Who is the one insisting upon the impossible now? ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 1 22:54:16 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 14:54:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <004301c4d7e4$c0eab8a0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <20041201225416.33509.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Brett Paatsch wrote: > Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > It is clear that those going on, poking at me about "believing in > > the tooth fairy" are irrational atheists, who may know some > > philosophical jive to rationalize their faith, but are ultimately > > believers in atheism purely for emotional reasons. Their snide > > 'tooth fairy' attacks are clear evidence of this. > > > > If such people are so intent on holding onto their atheism, then > they > > are going to need to rationally and logically answer the Simulation > > Argument, demolishing its premise that we are likely in a > simulation, > > and otherwise prove conclusively that a posthuman society would > never > > run ancestor simulations, or that intelligent technological > societies > > always destroy themselves short of reaching post-humanity. This is > the > > challenge. In the years since Bostrom, Hanson, and others have > > developed the concept, I have not seen any significant attempt by > the > > atheist community to try to disprove the simulation fork of the > > argument. > > > > My main assertion is that they must answer this challenge to remain > > relevant, or else cede their position or admit to being a religious > > faith outright. Why are they so afraid of the challenge? > > I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean by the Simulation Argument > capitalised as you have it Mike. I think I've real essays to the > effect that > the world 'we' live in could be a simulation (I think Nick Bostrom > was the author of at least one of those) but I'm not sure I've read > the exact Argument you're referring too. Go to http://www.simulation-argument.com > > Do you think the Simulation Argument is falsifiable? > > Do you agree that if a proposition is not falsifiable it cannot be > "proven" wrong? ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Dec 1 23:09:47 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 17:09:47 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <20041201225021.32586.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041201123346.01c2e718@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <20041201225021.32586.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041201165835.01a1a220@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 02:50 PM 12/1/2004 -0800, Mike Lorrey wrote: >--- Damien Broderick wrote: > > > "Simulation = deity" is nothing better than metaphysical > > bait and switch. Why don't you address this critique, Mike? > >A simulation requires a simulator, and a simulator >operator/programmer/architect. The first implies and insists upon the >existence of the others. To say otherwise would be the real miracle. So >you are insisting upon the existence of a simulation without a >simulator or operator? Who is the one insisting upon the impossible now? My typo. I meant, as must have been obvious: "Simulator = deity" is nothing better than metaphysical bait and switch. In other words, if I paint a rainbow, there is no implication to be drawn that the *actual* rainbow-in-the-sky I'm representing is Painted by a Painter. If a simulator simulates a universe that we happen to be in, `God' (in the usual understanding) is whatever created the simulator's universe from nothingness, and ontologically sustains it. But actually there is no need to posit such a metaphysical entity, any more than a Rainbow Painter. The simulation posit does have some interesting possible consequences, if we inhabit one, but none of them has anything to do with the god idea, which must apply to the *ground* universe. If the idea is incoherent and absurd in our simulated universe (as several of us have argued), it remains so in whatever universe gave rise to the simulator. Now, why don't you address this critique, Mike? Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Wed Dec 1 23:35:09 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:35:09 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041201165835.01a1a220@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041201123346.01c2e718@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <20041201225021.32586.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041201165835.01a1a220@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 17:09:47 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > The simulation posit does have some interesting possible consequences, if > we inhabit one, but none of them has anything to do with the god idea, > which must apply to the *ground* universe. If the idea is incoherent and > absurd in our simulated universe (as several of us have argued), it remains > so in whatever universe gave rise to the simulator. > > Now, why don't you address this critique, Mike? > I thought it was Simulators all the way down. Or have I misunderstood the theory? :) BillK From Walter_Chen at compal.com Wed Dec 1 23:50:23 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 07:50:23 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684DE@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: scerir > But one thing is for sure, > a (supposed) simulated reality is > a lot cheaper than a (supposed) real one. If a dream can be as detailed and real as reality, I will agree to what you said. > From: Mike Lorrey > Sorry, Damien, you are still suffering from the same blinkers that you > and other lefties cried about after Bush was elected. Its the whole "if > you don't agree with us you are just stupid" gambit. You want to talk > about bollocks? THAT is bullshit. I've presented a very logical, > consistent, and reasoned basis for my argument and you shrug it off. > Sorry, Damien. The person being irrational here is you. Get over it. Good point! Many people just have very subjective viewpoints on God/Theism/super nature ... w/o rational arguments. That's why I say "Atheists are not necessarily more scientific or more true than theists." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Dec 2 00:48:44 2004 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 11:18:44 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <20041201225416.33509.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <004301c4d7e4$c0eab8a0$b8232dcb@homepc> <20041201225416.33509.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc041201164846fc461e@mail.gmail.com> Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > If such people are so intent on holding onto their atheism, then > > they > > > are going to need to rationally and logically answer the Simulation > > > Argument, demolishing its premise that we are likely in a > > simulation, > > > and otherwise prove conclusively that a posthuman society would > > never > > > run ancestor simulations, or that intelligent technological > > societies > > > always destroy themselves short of reaching post-humanity. This is > > the > > > challenge. In the years since Bostrom, Hanson, and others have > > > developed the concept, I have not seen any significant attempt by > > the > > > atheist community to try to disprove the simulation fork of the > > > argument. The simulation argument is quite flimsy. First of all, it's quite possible that it is extremely difficult or impossible to reach the level of technology to make a simulation of equivalent complexity to the universe you are in. If you can't do that, you are doomed to see nested sims degrading in complexity until they are useless, and the simulation argument relies on arbitrarily deep levels of nesting. Secondly, you have to assume that civilisations would find some reason to let universes run indefinitely. Remember that this argument say not only that we are basically assured of being in a sim, but that (because of the reliance on arbitrary depth of nesting) we must be arbitrarily deeply nested. So we rely on some probably very large number of enclosing universes not being shut down by the levels above. Thirdly, if you buy all of this, who is in the base level universes? Isn't it infinitely improbable that anyone could exist in one? In that case, can they exist, or must it necessarily be turtles all the way down? If we actually have an infinite amount of universes enclosing ours, and each has a non zero probability of shutting down it's next level down at any moment, then it follows that we have no chance of existing at all. But we do exist. Finally, the simulation argument assumes things about the nature of reality which are not really supportable. What can exist as a universe? Just us? Just universes like us? Or can wildly different universes exist? Does everything that you can imagine exist somewhere in some fashion, plus a lot of stuff that you can't? In fact, what does it even mean to exist at all? If every logically possible universe exists in some fashion (where "logic" is taken to mean all possible systems of logic, and "possible" stands for something a human probably can't define), and there's no reason to suppose that they don't, then the set of simulated universes are a negligible subset of this infinite (aleph-infinity?) set of realities, thus the simulation argument cannot hold. Once we start talking about other universes or realities or types of existence, we find very quickly that we are not in Kansas any more, Dorothy. -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com * blogs * music * software * From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 2 02:09:03 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 18:09:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launch inquisition...) Message-ID: <20041202020903.DC29F57E2D@finney.org> People often misstate the simulation argument. Let's keep in mind what http://www.simulation-argument.com says: "This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a "posthuman" stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation." It doesn't say that we are living in a simulation. It says that if we're not, then it is unlikely that we will evolve into posthumans who run a great number of simulations. The reason is because if we do evolve that way, then most minds will be in simulations rather than reality. Although the simulation argument is not falsifiable, that doesn't make it meaningless. It's not meant to be a scientific hypothesis, which is where we demand falsfiability. As its name implies, it is a philosophical or even a logical argument. It's more like a mathematical theorem than a scientific theory. We don't test mathematics with falsifiability; rather, we look at the underlying proofs and arguments to see if they are sound. That is the proper test for this case. The simulation argument does not imply that we live in an infinitely nested simulation. Here is what Nick says on the topic, from http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html : : It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They : may then run their own ancestor-simulations on powerful computers : they build in their simulated universe.... If we do go on to create : our own ancestor-simulations, this would be strong evidence against : (1) and (2), and we would therefore have to conclude that we live in : a simulation. Moreover, we would have to suspect that the posthumans : running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their : creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings. : : Reality may thus contain many levels. Even if it is necessary for the : hierarchy to bottom out at some stage... there may be room for a large : number of levels of reality, and the number could be increasing over : time. (One consideration that counts against the multi-level hypothesis : is that the computational cost for the basement-level simulators would : be very great. Simulating even a single posthuman civilization might be : prohibitively expensive. If so, then we should expect our simulation to : be terminated when we are about to become posthuman.) My interpretation is that while it is possible for there to be deeply nested simulations, the argument does not actually predict this as a likely consequence. Only once we ourselves become posthuman and run simulations, would this follow. Otherwise, it's possible that the simulators may choose not to allow nested simulations to run. We have no knowledge of their motivations, and this possibility is completely consistent with our observations and with the simulation argument. Hal From fauxever at sprynet.com Thu Dec 2 02:04:46 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 18:04:46 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... References: <20041201164428.52550.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00b901c4d813$4c4512f0$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "Mike Lorrey" > It is clear that those going on, poking at me about "believing in the > tooth fairy" are irrational atheists, who may know some philosophical > jive to rationalize their faith, but are ultimately believers in > atheism purely for emotional reasons. Their snide 'tooth fairy' attacks > are clear evidence of this. I have tried and tried to understand how one can be a "believer" in atheism. What is there to believe? (So sorry, I'm just a practical sort of person - and a little thick when it comes to certain abstract reasoning for which I find no purpose.) Bertrand Russell once went on about how - yes, certainly, it was *possible* (I am paraphrasing from memory) that Saturn's rings hold porcelain teacups. Maybe even teacups in saucers, all holding steaming tea - swirling around and around Saturn. But he had no reason to believe in flying crockery going around Saturn. And in assertions where proof was impossible (as in trying to prove negatives), such as in the matter of alleged fictional gods, Bertrand Russell called himself an agnostic (especially as he was in the public eye a lot, because somehow ... the public can almost forgive someone whom they think "isn't sure there is a god" - which is how they interpret the term "agnostic"). But Bertrand Russell said that for all intents and purposes he was an atheist. I have not gotten a thing out of these posts in the last few days. For what reason and purpose were the (somewhat boring, if you ask me) exercises? What did we learn? Have the posts changed anyone's mind? And ... have the people here who have heretofore considered themselves "rationalists" been swayed (or - lol - been offended!) by Mike calling them "irrational atheists." My husband has confided to me that he thinks "agnostics" are chicken-shit atheists. (What can I tell you? - he's the practical type himself ...) Olga From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 2 03:12:53 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 19:12:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041201165835.01a1a220@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041202031253.72850.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote: > > My typo. I meant, as must have been obvious: "Simulator = deity" is > nothing better than metaphysical bait and switch. > > In other words, if I paint a rainbow, there is no implication to be > drawn that the *actual* rainbow-in-the-sky I'm representing is > Painted by a Painter. If a simulator simulates a universe that > we happen to be in, `God' (in the usual understanding) is whatever > created the simulator's universe from nothingness, and > ontologically sustains it. But actually there is no > need to posit such a metaphysical entity, any more than a Rainbow > Painter. > > The simulation posit does have some interesting possible > consequences, if we inhabit one, but none of them has anything > to do with the god idea, which must apply to the *ground* universe. > If the idea is incoherent and absurd in our simulated universe > (as several of us have argued), it remains > so in whatever universe gave rise to the simulator. > > Now, why don't you address this critique, Mike? The failure in your critique is that you are asserting that the only party which can validly claim the title 'god' is the creator (or lack thereof) of the root universe that creates the first ancestor simulations. I refuse to accept such a narrow definition. If a simulator operator creates a simulation, and controls its existence to whatever degree chosen, he is, for all intents and purposes, the 'god' of that simulation and to the evolved inhabitants of that simulation. I think an error of perception here is that you are assuming that we are dealing with a pod people situation where the guy I am talking about just happens to not be in a pod but is no different from the other brains in vats. I'm not positing a pod person situation. Inhabitants of simulations may or may not have a post-simulation existence, but primarily are creatures of the simulation in their entirety. The simulations we are talking about are quantum computational programs run in pocket universes made to order by a post-singularity civilization. Nothing so crude as a Matrix scenario. The simulations I speak of have a lot more to do with Permutation City. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From sjvans at ameritech.net Thu Dec 2 03:36:24 2004 From: sjvans at ameritech.net (Stephen Van_Sickle) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 19:36:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <20041202031253.72850.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041202033624.20157.qmail@web81201.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mike Lorrey wrote: > If a simulator operator creates a simulation, and > controls its > existence to whatever degree chosen, he is, for all > intents and > purposes, the 'god' of that simulation and to the > evolved inhabitants > of that simulation. "I'm *a* god, not *the* God" Bill Murray Groundhog Day From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 2 03:45:50 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 19:45:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launch inquisition...) In-Reply-To: <20041202020903.DC29F57E2D@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041202034550.57974.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Hal Finney wrote: > : Reality may thus contain many levels. Even if it is necessary for > : the hierarchy to bottom out at some stage..there may be room for a > : large number of levels of reality, and the number could be > : increasing over time. (One consideration that counts against > : the multi-level hypothesis is that the computational cost for > : the basement-level simulators would be very great. Simulating > : even a single posthuman civilization might be prohibitively > : expensive. If so, then we should expect our simulation to > : be terminated when we are about to become posthuman.) > > My interpretation is that while it is possible for there to be deeply > nested simulations, the argument does not actually predict this as > a likely consequence. Only once we ourselves become posthuman and > run simulations, would this follow. Otherwise, it's possible that > the simulators may choose not to allow nested simulations to run. We > have > no knowledge of their motivations, and this possibility is completely > consistent with our observations and with the simulation argument. Quite so. However, if only one post-human civilization in each universe creates only one ancestor simulation, this makes the odds of this universe being a simulation a 50% gamble. So, either civilizations never reach post-humanity, or else they produce at least one simulation. Even if if 99% of civilizations self-extinct pre-singularity, then this still means that billions in each universe do transcend.... and even if those billions do transcend and 99% of those decide it is immoral to create simulated universes capable of evolving technological intelligence, then that means that tens of millions in each universe still do create ancestor universes. If 99% of those decide that it is too computationally expensive to do more than one simulation, that still means that hundreds of thousands in each universe do create more than one simulation. It is pretty clear that even the most cynical projection still results in the odds of any universe being a simulation at more than 100,000 to 1. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo From etcs.ret at verizon.net Thu Dec 2 03:54:20 2004 From: etcs.ret at verizon.net (stencil) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 22:54:20 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: evolution again In-Reply-To: <200412011733.iB1HXn005628@tick.javien.com> References: <200412011733.iB1HXn005628@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 10:33:49 -0700, Spike wrote in extropy-chat Digest, Vol 15, Issue 1: > >Think of physical structures in humans (since we know a lot about >human anatomy) and try to decide its cost and its benefit in terms >of survival of the individual. The assumption that a would-be quantizer could accurately map these factors is very shaky. Even assuming that > [ ... ] humans evolved >in a tropical climate, but some humans left the tropics for colder, >harsher >climates, which required them to wrap themselves in the skins >of the beasts they slew ...leaving the better-displayed tropical population to enjoy informed choice of better-endowed mates, while the colder faction had to let other factors affect choice, it still smacks of Lysenkoism to see a cause-effect relationship here. Why didn't we just grow thicker body hair? Why do New World, Siberian, and Inuit populations - who all have been filtered by cold environments - have such sparse pelts, compared, say with West Asians? Hell, loss of fur is a *counter* survival trait (you could say) in any weather, because it undercuts the value of mutual grooming in forming social groups, plus all the obvious environmental hazards of heat loss. >If this notion holds in general, then it may help us come up with >successful >mathematical models for evolution. I don't think the -if- is satisfied here; the very ease with which counter-survival traits can be found serves as a caution light. I wonder, is there any indication that there are *structural* aspects of a species' genome that cause the effects of selective breeding to be diluted? IOW, are there traits in any population that will persist or intensify regardless of mating strategies and environmental changes? stencil sends From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Dec 2 04:01:17 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 20:01:17 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <00b901c4d813$4c4512f0$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <00f601c4d823$933b79a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Olga Bourlin ... > Bertrand Russell once went on about how - yes, certainly, it > was *possible* (I am paraphrasing from memory) that Saturn's rings hold > porcelain teacups...Olga A local christian minister who is a converted muslim stirred the pot by posting on his sign out front his upcoming sermon title: Why I am Not a Muslim. The local news agencies, TV, radio and both major newspapers jumped on it, reporting that some considered it offensive, racist, yakkity yak and bla bla. With alllll the ink that was spilled on this silly thing, *none* of the news people, not even one, recognized that the sermon title might be based on Bertrand Russell's famous and thoroughly devastating short volume called "Why I Am Not A Christian." So I asked several of my office people today if they were familiar with the work. I was terribly disappointed to find that few of them had even heard of Bertrand Russell. Oy! I thought *I* was the illiterate savage! Is Bertrand Russell really that obscure in modern times? He had such an impact on my own thinking in my younger years. spike From fauxever at sprynet.com Thu Dec 2 04:36:10 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 20:36:10 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... References: <00f601c4d823$933b79a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <004901c4d828$7332ff70$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "Spike" > So I asked several of my office people today if they > were familiar with the work. I was terribly disappointed > to find that few of them had even heard of Bertrand > Russell. Oy! I thought *I* was the illiterate savage! Hey, it's not just Bertrand Russell a lot of Christians have not heard of ... A few years ago I was telling a co-worker about a poll that found more than half of Christians in the U.S. didn't know who gave The Sermon on the Mount. Another co-worker, upon hearing our conversation, testily retorted: "That's because it's in the Old Testament!" (I could have died and gone to heaven right then and there.) I think I wrote about this incident here some years ago - it's the funniest "unintended" joke that ever happened to me. > Is Bertrand Russell really that obscure in modern > times? He had such an impact on my own thinking > in my younger years. If you're sensitive, I suggest you *never* watch "Jaywalking." For those familiar with this segment, do you think it's rigged for laughs? Or would most people have problems answering questions such as "What is a Homo sapien (the answer given was "a ... frog?"); and "What did the Berlin Wall separate?" (the answer given was "England from Russia.") Olga From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Dec 2 04:55:16 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 20:55:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: evolution again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <00fb01c4d82b$1e11c190$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > stencil > Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: evolution again > > > Spike wrote > > [ ... ] humans evolved > >in a tropical climate, but some humans left the tropics for colder, > >harsher climates, which required them to wrap themselves in the skins > >of the beasts they slew... stencil: > ...leaving the better-displayed tropical population to enjoy > informed choice of better-endowed mates, while the colder faction had to let > other factors affect choice, it still smacks of Lysenkoism to see a cause-effect > relationship here. Why didn't we just grow thicker body hair? Why do New > World, Siberian, and Inuit populations - who all have been filtered by cold > environments - have such sparse pelts, compared, say with West Asians? Good question. This notion of two ratios, one for survival cost to benefit and the other for attractiveness cost to benefit works great to explain what would otherwise be a most puzzling observation. The survival cost to benefit of hairlessness in a cold climate is surely greater than 1, that is Rs(-h) > 1, however if these populations for some odd reason decided hairlessness is attractive, Ra(-h) < 1, then the product of Rs(-h) * Ra(-h) could equal 1. Thanks Stencil! Great example of what I was trying to express. We need not go to great lengths trying to explain *why* Eskimos and Inuits would find hairlessness attractive, for human tastes in fashion are truely weird. Take tattoos, for instance. Please, take them. Away from me. And body piercing, and teenagers with the droopy pants, what the hellll is THAT about? But evidently the young and fertile find that stuff appealing. This I cannot explain. Nowthen, I may be trying too hard with this example. If the cold-climate people did wrap themselves in animal skins, *their own* body fur becomes irrelevant. Perhaps as in the example of the penis, the north- wandering people *did* develop some greater amounts of body fur than their stay-at-home cousins: the survival cost to benefit ratio of hairlessness was high enough that the product of Rs*Ra was greater than 1, so hairy-ness increased. Then the protohumans figured out how to clothe themselves in animal skins, then suddenly survival disadvantage of hairlessness suddenly was supressed, Re(-h) of hairlessness (the product Rs*Ra) suddenly shifted to greater than 1, so hairlessness became the *in* thing with the northern proto-people as the Re(-h) settles back to an equilibrium value of 1. If anything, the notion of Ra and Rs might actually *overexplain* hairlessness in eskimos and that other observation mentioned in a previous post. Perhaps Ra(-h)<1 for humans in general, which is to say that the attractiveness benefit of hairlessness was persistently greater than its cost, which is perhaps what caused humans to develop towards being less hairy in the first place, before the migration out of the tropics. > ...the very ease with which counter-survival traits can be found serves as a caution > light... On the contrary, the notion of Re helps to explain the ease with which counter-survival traits can be found. Perhaps I misunderstand your objection. Re explains *why* we should *expect* the apparently counter-survival traits that we have, and that are easily spotted in many species, such as the heavy and attention-attracting tail plumage of the peacock. spike From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 2 05:41:36 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:41:36 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: evolution again References: <200412011733.iB1HXn005628@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000301c4d831$978bb890$60b32643@kevin> IOW, are there > traits in any population that will persist or intensify regardless of mating > strategies and environmental changes? This has been my thought for some time now. Unfortunately I have little to go on other than intuition and a few sparse facts. We are already aware of random mutation and genetic drift. We also know how allele frequencies change due to such things as the Founder Effect. I don't know why it is so difficult for some people to accept that there may be a mechanism which allows traits to become established on a totally random basis with no "cause" whatsoever. I even spent a good deal of time once writing a grossly oversimplified fictional scenario that goes something like this: (A simplified version of the oversimplified scenario), or (Simplified^2) Red and yellow flogs were running around the forest floor. The reds were more common. The yellows were few. The yellows were regularly run out of camp because they were different. They reds all slept together at night. One night, a fire erupted and all the red flogs died. The yellows, who were a minority, now took over. As you can see, the yellow had no real contribution to their survival. In fact, the yellow in the longer version was actually a drawback since the ground was brownish-red. Now it is true, and even likely that the yellows still carry red flog genes and eventually through selection pressures, red can re-assert itself, but that is just a statistical probability. The yellows are capable of having yellow offspring that have no red genes as well. My point was that it is luck, it is random, and it can happen. If it can happen this way, then there are probably many things we now call adaptations that are in fact exaptations. Big buns and large penises could both fall into this catagory. Kevin Freels From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 2 05:55:11 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 06:55:11 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] New article against transhumanism Message-ID: <470a3c5204120121553bfac884@mail.gmail.com> The author of this article thanks God that the proposed Illinois legislation on stem cell research was defeated (by one vote) and attacks transhumanism. At least he is honest enough to acknowledge that "Like most issues, this one seems to break along liberal/conservative lines, but it really shouldn't. This should break along lines of faith." More: "The goal of immortality is no longer the domain of Vincent Price mad scientist characters in movies. Transhumanism--the belief that human beings, with the proper technology, have the ability to transcend age, disease, this planet and, ultimately, death--is a real-life growing worldview. The leading transhumanist website lists, among its core values, this statement: "Transhumanism advocates the well-being of all sentience (whether in artificial intellects, humans, posthumans, or non-human animals) and encompasses many principles of modern humanism." Translated to English, this is the belief that human beings are simply one of the animals of the universe and, apparently, simply part of an intellectual continuum that includes artificial intelligence. I could find no reference to, or acknowledgement of, any form of supreme being, let alone the God of the Bible, in any of the transhuman or posthuman material I've researched." http://www.illinoisleader.com/columnists/columnistsview.asp?c=21250 From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 2 06:08:14 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:08:14 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] New article against transhumanism In-Reply-To: <470a3c5204120121553bfac884@mail.gmail.com> References: <470a3c5204120121553bfac884@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041202000510.01c02d18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> >I could find no reference to, or acknowledgement of, any form of >supreme being, let alone the God of the Bible, in any of the >transhuman or posthuman material I've researched." >http://www.illinoisleader.com/columnists/columnistsview.asp?c=21250 This pastor-in-training adds: ================= I call on all those who believe in a sovereign God to contact your state senators and representatives and voice your opposition to this bill not on political grounds, but standing on faith. Most of our elected state officials profess belief in God. We need to admonish them to vote that way on the next version of House Bill 3589. ================ No mention is made of the Tooth Fairy, Emlyn. Heinlein called these the Crazy Years, and predicted a regime in the USA of religious terrorism. He's been right on a few other things. Damien Broderick From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 2 06:27:36 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 07:27:36 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] New article against transhumanism In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041202000510.01c02d18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <470a3c5204120121553bfac884@mail.gmail.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041202000510.01c02d18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <470a3c5204120122275ea9b96f@mail.gmail.com> Which Heinlein's book is that? I sort of liked the article since the author drops all pretenses of this being a political argument: "not on political grounds, but standing on faith". Give him popular support (checked) and influence on the US admin (checked) and you get religious terrorism. I am not against religion: as a matter of fact I am studying early Christianity, which is a fascinating subject, and I have a deep respect for Christians who practice their faith while letting also others live according to their ideas. But religious terrorism is trying to impose their faith on everyone. G. On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:08:14 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > Heinlein called these the Crazy Years, and predicted a regime in the USA of > religious terrorism. He's been right on a few other things. > > Damien Broderick From eugen at leitl.org Thu Dec 2 06:40:44 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 07:40:44 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <00b901c4d813$4c4512f0$6600a8c0@brainiac> References: <20041201164428.52550.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> <00b901c4d813$4c4512f0$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <20041202064044.GL9221@leitl.org> On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 06:04:46PM -0800, Olga Bourlin wrote: > I have not gotten a thing out of these posts in the last few days. For what I have not gotten a thing out of the list since I resubscribed. I haven't bothered with wta-talk@, because the archives are not public. > reason and purpose were the (somewhat boring, if you ask me) exercises? > What did we learn? Have the posts changed anyone's mind? Most importantly, how much time and precious attention have we wasted? -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 2 06:44:50 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 17:44:50 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] New article against transhumanism References: <470a3c5204120121553bfac884@mail.gmail.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041202000510.01c02d18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <00ed01c4d83a$6c5a5a60$b8232dcb@homepc> Damien writes: > This pastor-in-training adds: > > ================= > > I call on all those who believe in a sovereign God to contact your state > senators and representatives and voice your opposition to this bill not on > political grounds, but standing on faith. Sounds like he's been watching episodes of the Simpsons and modelling himself on the Reverend Lovejoy : "Once again all science gives way in the face of overwhelming religious evidence". Brett Paatsch From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 2 06:48:25 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:48:25 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] New article against transhumanism In-Reply-To: <470a3c5204120122275ea9b96f@mail.gmail.com> References: <470a3c5204120121553bfac884@mail.gmail.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041202000510.01c02d18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <470a3c5204120122275ea9b96f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041202004635.01c1aca8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 07:27 AM 12/2/2004 +0100, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 asked of the Crazy Years: >Which Heinlein's book is that? Many of them. It's a key element in his Future History, charted in the 1940s. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 2 06:53:53 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:53:53 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <20041202064044.GL9221@leitl.org> References: <20041201164428.52550.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> <00b901c4d813$4c4512f0$6600a8c0@brainiac> <20041202064044.GL9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041202005110.01bc4ab8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 07:40 AM 12/2/2004 +0100, 'Gene wrote: > > I have not gotten a thing out of these posts in the last few days. > >I have not gotten a thing out of the list since I resubscribed. Well, it's more entertaining than reading endless tedious rants about Bush and Kerry, that other late great transhumanist debate between fine minds. Cough, gag, I think there must be asbestos in these emails. Damien Broderick From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 2 06:56:14 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 07:56:14 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launch inquisition...) In-Reply-To: <20041202034550.57974.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041202020903.DC29F57E2D@finney.org> <20041202034550.57974.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <470a3c5204120122565a9ad5db@mail.gmail.com> While I like the Simulation Argument a lot, I don't think we can make any probability statement. Once you demonstrate that "most minds will be in simulations rather than reality", you have demonstrated that each mind is probably in a simulation, but I don't think we can demonstrate that. Perhaps posthumans will choose to use their precious computing cycles on other things (Nick's second possibility). No, I think the SA is one of those things that you just don't know about. But its value is to show how one can build a religion perfectly compatible with our scienfific knowledge of the universe. G. From harara at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 2 06:59:50 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 22:59:50 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <20041202064044.GL9221@leitl.org> References: <20041201164428.52550.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> <00b901c4d813$4c4512f0$6600a8c0@brainiac> <20041202064044.GL9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041201225908.02929610@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> me del finger sure is sore > I have not gotten a thing out of these posts in the last few days. For what >Most importantly, how much time and precious attention have we wasted? > >Eugen* Leitl leitl ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Dec 2 07:00:50 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:00:50 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] New article against transhumanism In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041202000510.01c02d18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <010501c4d83c$abcd91b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Damien Broderick > > Heinlein called these the Crazy Years, and predicted a regime > in the USA of religious terrorism. He's been right on a few other things. > ... Of course the SDA prophetess Ellen White anticipated Heinlein on this by half a century. Her book "The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan" describes how the US government will join with Catholicism and apostate Protestantism to force the entire world to worship christ. This might seem a most curious thing for a christian prophetess to lose sleep over, but the kicker is that this government will try to force god's true people to do this worship on the counterfeit sabbath, the day we call Sunday, instead of the true sabbath, Saturday, and may god have mercy upon the souls of any of his people who go along with it. As a possibly unrelated aside, there was a most excellent American Experience on this evening about Chicago, which was having a devil of a time in the 1850s trying to deal with immigration, for the newcomers did not share the cultural values of the oldtimers (whose families had already been in America for two or three decades). Particularly loathed by the old Chicagoans were two groups: the Irish and the Germans. The Irish were caracatured as those who would go to the pubs after work every day and devour copious droughts of whiskey until nearly unconsciously drunk, then go home and inevitably get in violents fights with their families. They at least had the decency to not drink at all on Sunday, the day in which they would pray and repent of what they had done during the week. The reprehensible Germans, on the other hand, would work like plowhorses and stay sober six days a week, but to them Sunday was a party day. They would break out the beer barrel and the hearty oom-pah-pah bands, and just have a wonderful time. On SUNDAY heaven forbid! Somehow they eventually managed to assimilate. spike From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 2 07:09:34 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 08:09:34 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Church on Man-Machine Hybridization Message-ID: <470a3c5204120123097c494a69@mail.gmail.com> The Third-Millennium Spiritual Film Festival is focusing on the relationship between man and machines. The initiative, which will be complemented by a study congress sponsored by the pontifical councils for Social Communications and for Culture, will reflect on the ethical questions posed by this phenomenon. The congress, entitled "Man-Machine Hybridization, Identity and Conscience in Postmodern Cinema," is being held today and Thursday in St. Mary of the Assumption University (LUMSA) of Rome. Read the article at the URL below, there are moderate and surprisingly reasonable statements of representatives of the Church, e.g. modern man "cannot do without all that is the product of his intelligence and creativity, of art and technology, of engineering and literature, of reason and skill." http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=62884 From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 2 07:42:11 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:42:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] New (but mistaken) article against transhumanism In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041202000510.01c02d18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041202074211.82051.qmail@web81601.mail.yahoo.com> > http://www.illinoisleader.com/columnists/columnistsview.asp?c=21250 There is, of course, a fundamental misunderstanding behind this pastor's venom: > The leading transhumanist website lists, among its > core values, this statement: ?Transhumanism > advocates the well-being of all sentience (whether > in artificial intellects, humans, posthumans, or > non-human animals) and encompasses many principles > of modern humanism.? > > Translated to English, this is the belief that human > beings are simply one of the animals of the universe > and, apparently, simply part of an intellectual > continuum that includes artificial intelligence. So far, so good - technically. We are indeed part of a continuum, and if a human-equivalent AI (including human-equivalent capabilities for self-improvement, no matter how unlikely that restriction may seem to many of us) were to become reality, we would probably treat it as the moral equivalent of a human being. But then follows the error: > In a worldview, universe view (if you will), where > human beings hold the same relative value as a > microprocessors or sheep, Or, restated later: > If we are indistinguishable, in value, from other > forms of life or other forms of intelligence, Being on a continuum is not the same concept as being indistinguishable. Indeed, it is almost the opposite concept: the ends of the continuum are what distinguish human beings from nonsentient computers and sheep. From alex at ramonsky.com Thu Dec 2 07:58:53 2004 From: alex at ramonsky.com (Alex Ramonsky) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 07:58:53 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Living in Ireland -the reality References: <20041129124750.82350.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41AECB3D.1060003@ramonsky.com> Mike Lorrey wrote: >Now, I am impressed when a Brit complains about bad plumbing (what >might the dentistry be like in Eire?) > Wow, I forgot about that! : ) ...I only ever went once, and was asked whether I would like to pay for anesthetic or whether I'd be "Going over the road for a few whiskeys first instead?" ...I didn't go back. And I forgot being forcibly evicted from the chemists amidst much cursing for trying to buy a packet of condoms LOL It was fun being able to go out shooting though; -fresh dinners! Quantities of venison the like of which we shall not see (or get chased by game wardens for) again... : ) AR From andrew at ceruleansystems.com Thu Dec 2 08:05:44 2004 From: andrew at ceruleansystems.com (J. Andrew Rogers) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 00:05:44 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Cherubic Machines In-Reply-To: <20041201161444.39795.qmail@web61108.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041201161444.39795.qmail@web61108.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Dec 1, 2004, at 8:14 AM, Gaurav Gupta wrote: > Read Jeff Hawkins' book: 'On Intelligence'? I was > stunned when it said what I've been trying to say for > so many years now. I'm not even going to try > explaining what my GEN-I-SYS engine can and cannot do. > Please visit http://cherubicmachines.com and feel free > to laugh me in the face if you see fit. Whatever you > do - WE REQUIRE MORE FUNDING TO COMPLETE THE PROJECT. > Please donate a little bit. Well in that case, everyone should just send their money to me instead, if results matter. My qualifications: 1.) No one has written a pop-sci book that covers the theoretics of my work. 2.) I can actually explain why the systems work the way they do and why it is important, with math even. 3.) Demonstrable critical capabilities in implementation that are unique in computer science. 4.) I made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. With all due respect Gaurav, why did you even bother to stump for cash on this list when you offer no reason why anyone should give you any? No design theory offered, let alone a defense of it, and you are a new face around these parts (okay, at least to me). There is nothing to differentiate yourself from the hundred other wannabe AI hacks that infest the field. AI is littered with the carcasses of smart people with credentials, and even the survivors fight for the scraps of a world that basically ignores them. I think Ronald Reagan was President of the US the last time AI was actually sexy to the public at large. This list is all about red meat, as in standing in an arena full of lions with it tied around your neck. You better be bold and prepared to make your case. And last, but not least, what is the kind of organization that you want people to give money to? Non-profit organization? Privately held for-profit venture (like mine)? A rogue band of Amish building an AI Babbage Engine out of wood in a barn? This matters to people, and your website is essentially content-free. cheers, j. andrew rogers From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 2 11:02:03 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 11:02:03 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <470a3c5204120122565a9ad5db@mail.gmail.com> References: <20041202020903.DC29F57E2D@finney.org> <20041202034550.57974.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> <470a3c5204120122565a9ad5db@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <41AEF62B.4020000@neopax.com> Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: >While I like the Simulation Argument a lot, I don't think we can make >any probability statement. >Once you demonstrate that "most minds will be in simulations rather >than reality", you have demonstrated that each mind is probably in a >simulation, but I don't think we can demonstrate that. >Perhaps posthumans will choose to use their precious computing cycles >on other things (Nick's second possibility). > > It may not take much computing power at all. It all depends on the level of simulation. If it's a Planck scale simulation of the entire universe, then you are probably correct. If it is limited to simulating one planet's surface and people at the cellular level then maybe not. It's does not require much computing power, for example, to descibe the interior of the earth to our present level of understanding, nor the rest of the universe. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 2 14:06:04 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 14:06:04 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <710b78fc041201164846fc461e@mail.gmail.com> References: <004301c4d7e4$c0eab8a0$b8232dcb@homepc> <20041201225416.33509.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> <710b78fc041201164846fc461e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <41AF214C.5020503@neopax.com> Emlyn wrote: >The simulation argument is quite flimsy. First of all, it's quite >possible that it is extremely difficult or impossible to reach the >level of technology to make a simulation of equivalent complexity to >the universe you are in. If you can't do that, you are doomed to see >nested sims degrading in complexity until they are useless, and the >simulation argument relies on arbitrarily deep levels of nesting. > > > No it doesn't. One level running as multiple instances on many machines is quite enough. Also, the complexity only arises if the entire universe is being simulated as subnuclear level. A Matrix style simulation is almost trivial. >Secondly, you have to assume that civilisations would find some reason >to let universes run indefinitely. Remember that this argument say not > > Indefinately? I think not. The simulation will stop when the desired outcome is achieved, or time runs out for the prog. >only that we are basically assured of being in a sim, but that >(because of the reliance on arbitrary depth of nesting) we must be >arbitrarily deeply nested. So we rely on some probably very large >number of enclosing universes not being shut down by the levels above. > > > I think that if only a few tens of millions of instances of the prog were running it is still overwhelmingly likely we are in a sim. Just not infinitely likely. >Thirdly, if you buy all of this, who is in the base level universes? > > Our 'real' society? The people in the final millisecond of the Big Crunch? >Finally, the simulation argument assumes things about the nature of >reality which are not really supportable. What can exist as a >universe? Just us? Just universes like us? Or can wildly different >universes exist? Does everything that you can imagine exist somewhere >in some fashion, plus a lot of stuff that you can't? In fact, what >does it even mean to exist at all? If every logically possible >universe exists in some fashion (where "logic" is taken to mean all >possible systems of logic, and "possible" stands for something a human >probably can't define), and there's no reason to suppose that they >don't, then the set of simulated universes are a negligible subset of >this infinite (aleph-infinity?) set of realities, thus the simulation >argument cannot hold. > > > We cannot answer that Q until we have a very plausible TOE. >Once we start talking about other universes or realities or types of >existence, we find very quickly that we are not in Kansas any more, >Dorothy. > > > Maybe its run on a QC across 'Many Worlds' and whenthe answer pops up they all collapse to the 'answer'. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 2 14:08:30 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 09:08:30 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] New (but mistaken) article against transhumanism In-Reply-To: <20041202074211.82051.qmail@web81601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041202074211.82051.qmail@web81601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41AF21DE.8050908@pobox.com> Quit writing responses to this here. If you're going to spend the effort, write letters to the editor. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From megao at sasktel.net Thu Dec 2 14:25:17 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 08:25:17 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Web crawlers took 15 days to complete job Message-ID: <41AF25CD.4080500@sasktel.net> Nov 12 I realized that I had a major problem with my site, 181 lines of un indexed website; 2 working links. Nov-12-14 enquiries and visits and replies by extropy members. Nov 15 redid my robots.txt file to a simple 3 line "go gettem boys" format. Nov15-Dec 01 waiting for the crawlers to index the site again Dec 01- site works "good as new again" .... all keywords seem to index. Thanks for the visits and advice Morris Johnson From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 2 16:50:30 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 08:50:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] New (but mistaken) article against transhumanism In-Reply-To: <41AF21DE.8050908@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20041202165030.74306.qmail@web81604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Quit writing responses to this here. If you're > going to spend the effort, > write letters to the editor. Good suggestion. I have. From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 2 17:09:10 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 09:09:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launch inquisition...) Message-ID: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> Giu1i0 writes: > While I like the Simulation Argument a lot, I don't think we can make > any probability statement. Nick does make a probability statement: "This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a 'posthuman' stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation." There we see probabilistic phrasing: "very likely", "extremely unlikely", "almost certainly". > Once you demonstrate that "most minds will be in simulations rather > than reality", you have demonstrated that each mind is probably in a > simulation, but I don't think we can demonstrate that. > Perhaps posthumans will choose to use their precious computing cycles > on other things (Nick's second possibility). I think what you mean is that from the simulation argument we can't deduce a probability that we are living in a simulation. That's because the SA is a conjunction of 3 terms and to estimate the probability of one of them we have to estimate the probability of the others. The point of the argument is that in certain circles, like ours, people have been pretty free about estimating the probability of clause 1 and 2. We often talk here about a future where we become posthuman. Most of us probably think it's pretty likely. We also talk about running simulations, and the implications. Prior to the SA, not many people here objected to the notion that a future posthuman civilization would run simulations, in addition to its many other activities. The SA then gains its strength by showing that we are inconsistent if we are happy with these two assumptions but don't accept that we are probably living in a simulation. Now, if we find that conclusion unpalatable, we may go back and revisit the other two options, start to nit-pick, and come up with reasons why they may not be true. But I don't think that is really intellectually honest. We have no a priori knowledge about whether we are in a simulation or not (at least, those of us who accept the theoretical possibility that simulated minds could exist). An argument which starts from previously-accepted notions (that we will probably become posthuman and some will run simulations) and produces a conclusion about which we have no a priori knowledge should not cause us to look for reasons to reject its premises. It would be different if we reached a conclusion which was apparently in disagreement with the facts. Then we would be justified in trying to figure out where we went wrong, whether there was a problem in the argument or in some of the assumptions. But mere emotional dislike of a conclusion should not cause us to re-evaluate our assumptions. That would mean putting emotion over reason. It is a non-Bayesian way of reasoning. If we believed posthuman simulations had a certain probability before, we shouldn't adjust that probability merely if the SA convinces us that this implies that we are in a simulation, and that possibility feels spooky. > No, I think the SA is one of those things that you just don't know > about. But its value is to show how one can build a religion perfectly > compatible with our scienfific knowledge of the universe. I don't see the SA as having anything to do with religion. It is a question of philosophy, of ontology, of metaphysics. But not religion. Hal From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 2 18:20:34 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 19:20:34 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launch inquisition...) In-Reply-To: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> Message-ID: <470a3c520412021020440d6c4e@mail.gmail.com> But I don't emotionally dislike the conclusion that we live in a sim. Actually, I emotionally LOVE it! When I was reading Nick's paper the first time I was very excited and happy. But while I have little doubts that we will become posthumans (if we manage not to kill ourselves before), and that posthumans will have the means to run sims, I think we have no info on the computational cost of running a sim wrt their total computational resources, and no info on their actual interest in running a sim. An experiment, of course yes, but massive sims that include billions of conscious beings? I don't know. The SA is not religion of course but includes all elements found in religion. You have an all powerful being who can answer your prayers if she wants to, and wake you up in Heaven after death (she extracts you from the most recent backup and injects you in a better sim). G. On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 09:09:10 -0800 (PST), "Hal Finney" wrote: > Giu1i0 writes: > But mere emotional dislike of a conclusion should not cause us to > re-evaluate our assumptions. That would mean putting emotion over > reason. It is a non-Bayesian way of reasoning. If we believed posthuman > simulations had a certain probability before, we shouldn't adjust that > probability merely if the SA convinces us that this implies that we are > in a simulation, and that possibility feels spooky. > > > No, I think the SA is one of those things that you just don't know > > about. But its value is to show how one can build a religion perfectly > > compatible with our scienfific knowledge of the universe. > > I don't see the SA as having anything to do with religion. It is a > question of philosophy, of ontology, of metaphysics. But not religion. > > Hal From jonkc at att.net Thu Dec 2 18:58:37 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:58:37 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launchinquisition...) References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> Message-ID: <016601c4d8a0$f51a1230$2cf44d0c@hal2001> The argument fails if the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is true and there are an infinite number of non simulated beings. Even if each real world runs 99 trillion simulated universes there are still the same number of simulated and non simulated worlds. I also think a super civilization might have less enthusiasm for running such simulations than some think for ethical reasons, a concept they must have some knowledge of if they have not destroyed themselves. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 2 19:11:59 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:11:59 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launchinquisition...) References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> <470a3c520412021020440d6c4e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <021601c4d8a2$cd26cc30$60b32643@kevin> Of course, if we develop the ability to run such sims, what kind of strain does that put on those who are running our sim? After a period of time, you would end up with infinite sims within sims as each one develops this ability. Kevin Freels ----- Original Message ----- From: "Giu1i0 Pri5c0" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 12:20 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launchinquisition...) > But I don't emotionally dislike the conclusion that we live in a sim. > Actually, I emotionally LOVE it! When I was reading Nick's paper the > first time I was very excited and happy. > But while I have little doubts that we will become posthumans (if we > manage not to kill ourselves before), and that posthumans will have > the means to run sims, I think we have no info on the computational > cost of running a sim wrt their total computational resources, and no > info on their actual interest in running a sim. An experiment, of > course yes, but massive sims that include billions of conscious > beings? I don't know. > The SA is not religion of course but includes all elements found in > religion. You have an all powerful being who can answer your prayers > if she wants to, and wake you up in Heaven after death (she extracts > you from the most recent backup and injects you in a better sim). > G. > > On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 09:09:10 -0800 (PST), "Hal Finney" wrote: > > Giu1i0 writes: > > But mere emotional dislike of a conclusion should not cause us to > > re-evaluate our assumptions. That would mean putting emotion over > > reason. It is a non-Bayesian way of reasoning. If we believed posthuman > > simulations had a certain probability before, we shouldn't adjust that > > probability merely if the SA convinces us that this implies that we are > > in a simulation, and that possibility feels spooky. > > > > > No, I think the SA is one of those things that you just don't know > > > about. But its value is to show how one can build a religion perfectly > > > compatible with our scienfific knowledge of the universe. > > > > I don't see the SA as having anything to do with religion. It is a > > question of philosophy, of ontology, of metaphysics. But not religion. > > > > Hal > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From benboc at lineone.net Thu Dec 2 19:12:24 2004 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 19:12:24 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] ?Embryos? created without paternal chromosomes In-Reply-To: <200412020743.iB27h1005199@tick.javien.com> References: <200412020743.iB27h1005199@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41AF6918.2040808@lineone.net> er... What i'm not sure about is, if anybody is daft enough to think that a fertilised egg is equivalent to a human life, why should they not think the same about an egg that has been 'fooled into thinking' that it has been fertilised? You could say "because it cannot develop into a human". But that's only true because we don't yet know how to get it to develop into a human. What if we could? I'm sure it's possible, even if we don't know how at the moment, to produce a parthenogenetic human from such an egg. Does this mean that as soon as we do know how to do this, this procedure will suddenly become morally unacceptable? Does that mean if scientist X knows how to do this, they are doing something morally wrong, but if scientist Y doesn't, they aren't? Also, does it mean that if you do fertilise an egg, but ensure that it cannot develop into a person (say, by tinkering with its cell surface proteins so that it couldn't implant, or by some other means), that would be morally acceptable? What will the pro-lifers do when we have the ability to take a single somatic cell and turn it into a person? Every cell a potential life! Brushing your teeth would be mass murder! (or would it? perhaps the 'magic moment' of ensoulment only happens when sperm enters egg. Or when scientist throws genetic switch?). I can see the 'pro-life' position fragmenting into a thousand different opinions as the technology advances, and these difficult questions tie their tiny minds into knots. Actually, i have a more serious question. There must be people who don't take the 'ensoulment' issue seriously, but still think that it's wrong to create an embryo then destroy it. What is the basis of this? If the objection is not based on supernatural grounds, what is it based on? I'm not clear on why somebody who knows that it's just a ball of cells, still thinks it's somehow special (more special, i mean, than a drop of blood or a lump of meat). ben From eugen at leitl.org Thu Dec 2 19:18:16 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 20:18:16 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launchinquisition...) In-Reply-To: <021601c4d8a2$cd26cc30$60b32643@kevin> References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> <470a3c520412021020440d6c4e@mail.gmail.com> <021601c4d8a2$cd26cc30$60b32643@kevin> Message-ID: <20041202191816.GY9221@leitl.org> On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 01:11:59PM -0600, Kevin Freels wrote: > Of course, if we develop the ability to run such sims, what kind of strain > does that put on those who are running our sim? After a period of time, you Are you assuming the sim is run in this universe? If yes, the strain is very well known; it's the domain of physics of computation. Brute force and complexity are tradeoffs, but you certainly can't increase complexity beyond a point (relativistic lag vs. cell concentration/volume). Assuming, you could increase complexity without introducing bugs, of course. > would end up with infinite sims within sims as each one develops this > ability. Sure, and if I was a green-haired wombat I'd never have halitosis. Jeez. People, this isn't philosophy. Technology has constraints, and in evolutionary scenarios, costs. This Pearly Gates here are *expensive*. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 2 19:33:03 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:33:03 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launchinquisition...) References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> <470a3c520412021020440d6c4e@mail.gmail.com> <021601c4d8a2$cd26cc30$60b32643@kevin> <20041202191816.GY9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <02c501c4d8a5$be473e40$60b32643@kevin> Eugen said: "Jeez. People, this isn't philosophy. Technology has constraints, and in evolutionary scenarios, costs. This Pearly Gates here are *expensive*." That was my point. Which is why I think that the simulation argument is wrong. From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 2 19:45:29 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 11:45:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launchinquisition...) Message-ID: <20041202194529.B981257E2D@finney.org> John Clark writes: > The argument fails if the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is > true and there are an infinite number of non simulated beings. Even if each > real world runs 99 trillion simulated universes there are still the same > number of simulated and non simulated worlds. It's an interesting question, but I don't think it would work this way. After all, the MWI does not destroy ordinary considerations of probability. We still find that some events are more probable than others, even though the MWI suggests that there are an infinite number of worlds which experience each outcome. This can be handled by the notion of "measure", which is a sort of tag attached to an MWI world and measures how much probability amplitude it contributes. Worlds of small measure are unlikely to be experienced. If a world of large measure runs a simulated mind, then that mind is also of large measure. If such worlds run a great many simulated minds, then the total measure of the simulated minds is greater than the total measure of the non-simulated ones, even though there are an infinite number of each. In this way, the same kind of reasoning applied in the vanilla SA goes through in the MWI. > I also think a super civilization might have less enthusiasm for running > such simulations than some think for ethical reasons, a concept they must > have some knowledge of if they have not destroyed themselves. I agree that there are ethical questions involved in running simulations of minds which don't know they are simulated. Maybe it would be OK if you could somehow get their permission ahead of time, along with their agreement to forget that they would be in a simulation. Even that seems a little questionable; is the person who gave consent really the same as the person who experiences the simulation? Hal From walter.kehowski at gcmail.maricopa.edu Thu Dec 2 19:41:14 2004 From: walter.kehowski at gcmail.maricopa.edu (walter kehowski) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 12:41:14 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> How long 'till the desktop model? From rhanson at gmu.edu Thu Dec 2 19:46:46 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 14:46:46 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <016601c4d8a0$f51a1230$2cf44d0c@hal2001> References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> <016601c4d8a0$f51a1230$2cf44d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041202144441.02c3ea98@mail.gmu.edu> At 01:58 PM 12/2/2004, John K Clark wrote: >The argument fails if the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is >true and there are an infinite number of non simulated beings. Even if each >real world runs 99 trillion simulated universes there are still the same >number of simulated and non simulated worlds. The many worlds interpretation does not require an infinity of worlds or beings. In fact, I prefer a finite version: http://hanson.gmu.edu/mangledworlds.html Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 2 20:06:01 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 12:06:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ?Embryos? created without paternal chromosomes Message-ID: <20041202200601.15F6457E2E@finney.org> Ben writes: > Actually, i have a more serious question. There must be people who don't > take the 'ensoulment' issue seriously, but still think that it's wrong > to create an embryo then destroy it. What is the basis of this? If the > objection is not based on supernatural grounds, what is it based on? I'm > not clear on why somebody who knows that it's just a ball of cells, > still thinks it's somehow special (more special, i mean, than a drop of > blood or a lump of meat). I thought you made very good points. I did a little research recently to see what exactly the Christian foundation is for opposition to abortion. Surprisingly, the Bible is not at all clear on the subject. The idea that fetuses have souls and should be protected from being destroyed relies on some very questionable readings of just a few Biblical verses. God never says, thou shalt not commit abortion. As far as those who are anti-abortion but don't agree about 'souls', I think that their beliefs come down to the semantic notion that a fetus is a human life and deserves the protection of one. There is no sharp dividing line between a just-about-to-be-born fetus and one just a few days old. Given this gray area some people are uncomfortable drawing a line and saying that it is OK to destroy the fetus before this point but not after. Maybe you could look at survival outside the womb in a natural state (without modern technology) as a dividing line, but that would seem to allow killing babies who would survive if born today. The very words we use, "fetus" vs "unborn baby", tend to influence our thoughts. If you think of this "ball of cells" as an unborn baby then you are more likely to want it to be protected. Hal From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 2 20:02:58 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 14:02:58 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] ?Embryos? created without paternal chromosomes References: <20041202200601.15F6457E2E@finney.org> Message-ID: <02fd01c4d8a9$ec85c980$60b32643@kevin> Of course, you have hit upon the major problem with this issue. When is a baby a baby? I think we should be able to draw a few lines and prove them. If so, we could put the stem cell resistance to rest. I have proposed two different dividing lines between a human and a mass of tissue. One is on thebaby's first smile. That tells me that the baby is now emotionally aware and is no longer a simple animal. The other is when the brain starts to have electrical activity. This one would probably be more acceptable to the average person. . There is no sharp > dividing line between a just-about-to-be-born fetus and one just a few > days old. Given this gray area some people are uncomfortable drawing > a line and saying that it is OK to destroy the fetus before this point > but not after. Maybe you could look at survival outside the womb in a > natural state (without modern technology) as a dividing line, but that > would seem to allow killing babies who would survive if born today. > > The very words we use, "fetus" vs "unborn baby", tend to influence > our thoughts. If you think of this "ball of cells" as an unborn baby > then you are more likely to want it to be protected. > > Hal > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 2 20:14:42 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 12:14:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launchinquisition...) Message-ID: <20041202201442.7486D57E2F@finney.org> Kevin Freels writes: > Eugen said: "Jeez. People, this isn't philosophy. Technology has > constraints, and in > evolutionary scenarios, costs. This Pearly Gates here are *expensive*." > > That was my point. Which is why I think that the simulation argument is > wrong. No, you are not disagreeing with the SA if you make this point. You are agreeing with it. You are agreeing that one of the three clauses is true, namely, the one which says that posthumans will not run many simulations. This is exactly what the SA says, that one of the three clauses should be true. I suspect that I am being pedantic here, and that what you really mean to disagree with is an extended version of the SA. This version takes the SA and adds the assumptions that we will become posthuman, and that posthumans will run many simulations, from which it follows that we probably live in a simulation. You are disagreeing with one of the assumptions of this extended SA, namely that posthumans will run many simulations. Maybe we could call this SA+ to distinguish it from the SA. I think most people who complain about the SA or say they disagree with it are actually disagreeing with the SA+. As far as Eugen's point about costs, this is discussed in Nick's paper in some detail. He looks at various estimates of how much it takes to simulate a brain, and compares it with people's guesses about how much compute power a future posthuman civilization will have. Add a bit of hand-waving and it looks like simulations would be cheap compared to the overall capabilities of such a civilization. On the other hand there might well be more useful things they could do with that computing power, so it's hard to say what they will decide. Hal From eugen at leitl.org Thu Dec 2 20:23:26 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 21:23:26 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launchinquisition...) In-Reply-To: <20041202201442.7486D57E2F@finney.org> References: <20041202201442.7486D57E2F@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041202202326.GA9221@leitl.org> On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 12:14:42PM -0800, "Hal Finney" wrote: > Maybe we could call this SA+ to distinguish it from the SA. I think > most people who complain about the SA or say they disagree with it are > actually disagreeing with the SA+. I'm disagreeing with the premise that there is a tooth fairy. Or circumsaturnine tea cups. Or wombats with green hair, and no halitosis. > As far as Eugen's point about costs, this is discussed in Nick's paper > in some detail. He looks at various estimates of how much it takes to > simulate a brain, and compares it with people's guesses about how much I've read various estimates, and they're silly. The low-level sims are entirely prohibitive, and high-level sims assume internal representation is completely different from inside view. (If anyone has a recipe on how to derive such transcoding algorithms, I'm all ears). If we're talking that metaverse has same physics as simulated universe -- see wombats with green hair, and everything-list at ers. > compute power a future posthuman civilization will have. Add a bit of > hand-waving and it looks like simulations would be cheap compared to the I disagree. Mature evolutionary systems don't have any atoms to waste. > overall capabilities of such a civilization. On the other hand there > might well be more useful things they could do with that computing power, > so it's hard to say what they will decide. So basically, we agree that any quality discussion time spent of tooth fairies, steaming circumsaturnine tea cups, green-haired wombats and simulation arguments is a waste of our collective time. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 2 20:36:36 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 07:36:36 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] ?Embryos? created without paternal chromosomes References: <200412020743.iB27h1005199@tick.javien.com> <41AF6918.2040808@lineone.net> Message-ID: <020401c4d8ae$9e62ca00$b8232dcb@homepc> Ben wrote: > er... > > What i'm not sure about is, if anybody is daft enough to think that a > fertilised egg is equivalent to a human life, why should they not think > the same about an egg that has been 'fooled into thinking' that it has > been fertilised? One needs to consider that other area of social activity where definitions matter a lot - the law. Things like "murder" and "human life" are defined in law to have specific meaning that is not always the same as the meaning used in ordinary lay conversation where words are used more loosely. > You could say "because it cannot develop into a human". But that's only > true because we don't yet know how to get it to develop into a human. Right ! > What if we could? I'm sure it's possible, even if we don't know how at > the moment, to produce a parthenogenetic human from such an egg. > Does this mean that as soon as we do know how to do this, this > procedure will suddenly become morally unacceptable? The bizarre thing about bioethics debates around stem cells is that most of the population and most politicians are debating without really understanding the underlying science. So what is happening is that the real ethical debates don't or happen in the forums that actually matter - the parliaments. I find this a great pity because almost everyone that has an ethical concern about "human life" is speaking usually ignorantly (I don't say this pejoratively - who has the time to stay current in this area?) from a position that is fairly understandable, and in some cases might even be quite noble or at least laudable, if they only had taken the trouble to know what the hell they were talking about before they decided to try and tell everyone else what they "ought" do. What passes for ethical debate in the main forums of society that decide policy these days is not real debate or exploration of issues - its mere positioning. And shot firing from entrenched positions. > Does that > mean if scientist X knows how to do this, they are doing something > morally wrong, but if scientist Y doesn't, they aren't? > > Also, does it mean that if you do fertilise an egg, but ensure that it > cannot develop into a person (say, by tinkering with its cell surface > proteins so that it couldn't implant, or by some other means), that > would be morally acceptable? > > What will the pro-lifers do when we have the ability to take a single > somatic cell and turn it into a person? You mean a bit like what happened with the Dolly the sheep cloning procedure where a cell (or the nuclear material) from a sheep mammary gland was reprogrammed using factors that happened to be in another cell. What will happen? We will probably have another round of arguments and ethical handwringing and political shannaigans. Politicians cannot lead public opinion in the bioethics area unless they understand what is going on it that area at least enough to talk intelligently to their constiutuent that rings them and demands they take some action that the constituent wants. Unless there is something radically different between sheep and humans that we don't know about (something biologically significant rather than merely politicially or "ethically") then biological science has already (with the Dolly procedure) moved beyond the simple time when human life could be discussed meaningfully an intelligently as if it took place on just one level - the level of the whole organism. > Every cell a potential life! > Brushing your teeth would be mass murder! (or would it? > perhaps the 'magic moment' of ensoulment only happens when > sperm enters egg. Or when scientist throws genetic switch?). Murder is a legal term. Currently brushing one's teeth is not murder. It is not ever likely to be necessary or prudent to make it murder but dumber things have happened in the history of lawmaking when politicians don't understand the area they are making laws about. > I can see the 'pro-life' position fragmenting into a thousand different > opinions as the technology advances, and these difficult questions tie > their tiny minds into knots. > > Actually, i have a more serious question. There must be people > who don't take the 'ensoulment' issue seriously, but still think that > it's wrong to create an embryo then destroy it. What is the basis > of this? If the objection is not based on supernatural grounds, > what is it based on? I'm not clear on why somebody who knows > that it's just a ball of cells, still thinks it's somehow special (more > special, i mean, than a drop of blood or a lump of meat). I'm not such a person in that I don't think the embryo is particularly special but I do think that human society probably would be better off having more informed and regular reviews of abortion for instance as the balance of when it is ethical to abort changes with technology. I can respect those people who are ignorant of recent developments in biology but are concerned about human life as they understand it being commoditised. Civil societies are based on members having rights that draw from a reservoir of member responsibility. People are used to thinking of membership coming with being human. That will not work in the future. We need to have a better look at what membership or levels of membership will be based on. It is possible, logically possible to have different levels of rights (legal rights) giving to different classes of being. We currently grant some rights to animals. We could grant some rights to "unborn" homo sapiens at different stages too. And probably should to be ethically consistent and rational about things. But we can't do that effectively until people know what they hell is being talked about. People seem to think that their votes and voices don't matter. Yet in democracies they do matter - they actually determine the reality we live in. Voting and arguing stupidly or badly has a consequence. The politicians are not in charge of the system they are almost at much at the mercy of the system as any other single voter. Ditto scientists and commercialisers. Brett Paatsch From eugen at leitl.org Thu Dec 2 20:49:04 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 21:49:04 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] ?Embryos? created without paternal chromosomes In-Reply-To: <20041202200601.15F6457E2E@finney.org> References: <20041202200601.15F6457E2E@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041202204903.GH9221@leitl.org> On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 12:06:01PM -0800, "Hal Finney" wrote: > Surprisingly, the Bible is not at all clear on the subject. The idea I think you'll find this passage more illuminating: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Talmud/sukkah2.html Clear as Talmud. > that fetuses have souls and should be protected from being destroyed > relies on some very questionable readings of just a few Biblical verses. > God never says, thou shalt not commit abortion. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sjatkins at gmail.com Thu Dec 2 21:04:05 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:04:05 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition... In-Reply-To: <00f601c4d823$933b79a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <00b901c4d813$4c4512f0$6600a8c0@brainiac> <00f601c4d823$933b79a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <948b11e04120213047d10b4ce@mail.gmail.com> My dad was a Southern Baptist Deacon from Hell type. The entire family had to go to church - three times on Sunday and prayer meeting on Wednesday to boot. As I turned atheistic around age 14 or so I of course objected. He insisted. So for two years I carried Bertrand Russels, "Why I am not a Christian" to church instead of the Bible. This was in the heart of the Bible Belt in the sixties so this made me r-e-a-l popular. :-) -s On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 20:01:17 -0800, Spike wrote: > > > Olga Bourlin > ... > > Bertrand Russell once went on about how - yes, certainly, it > > was *possible* (I am paraphrasing from memory) that Saturn's rings > hold > > porcelain teacups...Olga > > A local christian minister who is a converted muslim > stirred the pot by posting on his sign out front > his upcoming sermon title: Why I am Not a Muslim. > > The local news agencies, TV, radio and both major > newspapers jumped on it, reporting that some considered > it offensive, racist, yakkity yak and bla bla. With > alllll the ink that was spilled on this silly thing, > *none* of the news people, not even one, recognized > that the sermon title might be based on Bertrand > Russell's famous and thoroughly devastating short > volume called "Why I Am Not A Christian." > > So I asked several of my office people today if they > were familiar with the work. I was terribly disappointed > to find that few of them had even heard of Bertrand > Russell. Oy! I thought *I* was the illiterate savage! > > Is Bertrand Russell really that obscure in modern > times? He had such an impact on my own thinking > in my younger years. > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From sjatkins at gmail.com Thu Dec 2 21:16:45 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:16:45 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launch inquisition...) In-Reply-To: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org> Message-ID: <948b11e04120213164e03278a@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 09:09:10 -0800 (PST), "Hal Finney" wrote: > Giu1i0 writes: > I don't see the SA as having anything to do with religion. It is a > question of philosophy, of ontology, of metaphysics. But not religion. > Religion is itself a matter pertaining to philosophy, ontology and metaphysics. One connection between SA and religion is it is one way to construct a rational, scientific apologetics for the existence of a God-like Creator-Being not limited by the apparent laws of reality of the created universe. There are many possible paths for building or supporting a religion or spirituality based in part on SA. It is true of course that SA does not directly imply a religion. - samantha From brian_a_lee at hotmail.com Thu Dec 2 21:48:36 2004 From: brian_a_lee at hotmail.com (Brian Lee) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 16:48:36 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheistslaunchinquisition...) In-Reply-To: <02c501c4d8a5$be473e40$60b32643@kevin> Message-ID: There would not be an infinite number of sims, just a hugely finite number. So if the original sim has massive horsepower it could support all the billions, etc of subsims. If I was writing a universe sim, I would actually want my sim to develop subsims and so on as that would be much more amusing to observe and would increase the chance of finding some previously unknown insight into my current universe. Of course we could get to a point where all the sims crash, but I'm assuming that the original sim maker is smart enough to add more processing power as is necessary. BAL >From: "Kevin Freels" >To: "ExI chat list" >Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: >Atheistslaunchinquisition...) >Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:33:03 -0600 > >Eugen said: "Jeez. People, this isn't philosophy. Technology has >constraints, and in >evolutionary scenarios, costs. This Pearly Gates here are *expensive*." > >That was my point. Which is why I think that the simulation argument is >wrong. > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 2 21:57:56 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:57:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launchinquisition...) In-Reply-To: <021601c4d8a2$cd26cc30$60b32643@kevin> Message-ID: <20041202215756.24877.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> I think that it is a conceptual and astrophysical error to presume that nested simulations must run on the computational capacity of higher level universes. The beauty of M-theory is that new universes can be computationally pinched off by the black holes that birth them and do not impose computational load on the universes the black holes reside in. --- Kevin Freels wrote: > Of course, if we develop the ability to run such sims, what kind of > strain > does that put on those who are running our sim? After a period of > time, you > would end up with infinite sims within sims as each one develops this > ability. > > Kevin Freels > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Giu1i0 Pri5c0" > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 12:20 PM > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists > launchinquisition...) > > > > But I don't emotionally dislike the conclusion that we live in a > sim. > > Actually, I emotionally LOVE it! When I was reading Nick's paper > the > > first time I was very excited and happy. > > But while I have little doubts that we will become posthumans (if > we > > manage not to kill ourselves before), and that posthumans will have > > the means to run sims, I think we have no info on the computational > > cost of running a sim wrt their total computational resources, and > no > > info on their actual interest in running a sim. An experiment, of > > course yes, but massive sims that include billions of conscious > > beings? I don't know. > > The SA is not religion of course but includes all elements found in > > religion. You have an all powerful being who can answer your > prayers > > if she wants to, and wake you up in Heaven after death (she > extracts > > you from the most recent backup and injects you in a better sim). > > G. > > > > On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 09:09:10 -0800 (PST), "Hal Finney" > > wrote: > > > Giu1i0 writes: > > > But mere emotional dislike of a conclusion should not cause us to > > > re-evaluate our assumptions. That would mean putting emotion > over > > > reason. It is a non-Bayesian way of reasoning. If we believed > posthuman > > > simulations had a certain probability before, we shouldn't adjust > that > > > probability merely if the SA convinces us that this implies that > we are > > > in a simulation, and that possibility feels spooky. > > > > > > > No, I think the SA is one of those things that you just don't > know > > > > about. But its value is to show how one can build a religion > perfectly > > > > compatible with our scienfific knowledge of the universe. > > > > > > I don't see the SA as having anything to do with religion. It is > a > > > question of philosophy, of ontology, of metaphysics. But not > religion. > > > > > > Hal > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From benboc at lineone.net Thu Dec 2 22:18:13 2004 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:18:13 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <200412021900.iB2J0B029613@tick.javien.com> References: <200412021900.iB2J0B029613@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41AF94A5.60701@lineone.net> Here's a thought: From The Architecture of Brain and Mind, by Aaron Sloman.(http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/gc/) "In a world that day-by-day becomes increasingly dependent on technology to maintain its functional stability, there is a need for machines to incorporate correspondingly higher and higher levels of cognitive ability in their interactions with humans and the world. Understanding the principles of brain organisation and function which subserve human cognitive abilities, and expressing this in the form of an information-processing architecture of the brain and mind, will provide the foundations for a radical new generation of machines which act more and more like humans. Such machines would become potentially much simpler to interact with and to use, more powerful and less error-prone, making them more valuable life-companions, whether for learning, information finding, physical support or entertainment. They might even be able to recognize even the best disguised spam email messages as easily as humans do!" The implication here is that AI will not suddenly appear on the scene at some indeterminate future time, but will gradually emerge, as more and more information-processing systems display more and more intelligence. AI will probably creep up on us gradually, rather than suddenly bursting forth from some lab. This view makes a lot of sense. Consider toys. Not so long ago, most children's toys were carved from wood. Now we have very sophisticated robotic toys that are starting to respond to voice commands, and display a variety of different behaviours. Toys for adults are even more sophisticated. We have robotic animals, humanoid fighting robots, even robots that can mow the lawn or vacuum the floor. Nobody calls Aibo or Roomba full-blown AI, but if you compare them with a wooden rocking horse or a bristle broom, they are remarkably intelligent. This trend will only continue. One day, we will realise that our children's toys are just as bright as a pet dog or cat, and a lot of the information systems that we use will incorporate elements of the kind of cognitive processing that we currently regard as uniquely human. By the time robots and computer systems display what we call general intelligence, nobody will be surprised, because they will have gradually emerged from systems that everyone is used to. Things like agent software that seeks the best prices for aeroplane tickets, PDAs that learn your habits and preferences, collaborative embedded systems that track the movements of millions of items and people, and co-ordinate traffic flow systems, ordering of goods, etc. And toys. All getting smarter and smarter, month by month. So it's possible that one day, it will be somebodys teddy bear that will be the thing waking up and saying to itself "Crikey, I'm Me!!", and not some purpose-designed massive computer. What do you reckon. Will AI be the descendant of computer research programs in academic labs, or will their ancestors be dolls that blink and wet themselves, and lawnmowers? ben From benboc at lineone.net Thu Dec 2 22:24:47 2004 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:24:47 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: The Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <200412021900.iB2J0B029613@tick.javien.com> References: <200412021900.iB2J0B029613@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41AF962F.6050101@lineone.net> Dirk Bruere wrote: "It may not take much computing power at all. It all depends on the level of simulation." Well, when you think about it, all it needs is enough computer power to simulate a single brain. Yours. After all, you are the only person that you actually KNOW exists. :^> ben From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 2 22:42:09 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 16:42:09 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: The Simulation Argument References: <200412021900.iB2J0B029613@tick.javien.com> <41AF962F.6050101@lineone.net> Message-ID: <04f501c4d8c0$28f3e710$60b32643@kevin> OUCH! That hurts my brain! Are you really sending me this message, or is it from the simulation to keep me on this topic? OMG. I think my brain maaaaaaaaaay juuuuuuuusssssssssttttttttt pppooooop ----- Original Message ----- From: "ben" To: Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 4:24 PM Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: The Simulation Argument > Dirk Bruere wrote: > > "It may not take much computing power at all. It all depends on the > level of simulation." > > Well, when you think about it, all it needs is enough computer power to > simulate a single brain. Yours. After all, you are the only person that > you actually KNOW exists. > > :^> > > ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 2 22:46:55 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 16:46:55 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] ornithopter Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041202164633.01a83848@pop-server.satx.rr.com> http://www.physorg.com/news2150.html From megao at sasktel.net Thu Dec 2 23:32:32 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 17:32:32 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Banning The emergence of AI Message-ID: <41AFA610.90702@sasktel.net> As has happened with biotech crops , stem cell technologies, even computational speeds might some governments begin to take pre-emptive action and move to ban or suppress system integration in manners that mimic human consciousness? Privacy is a potential premise to regulate IT integration. System integration is inhibited by privacy protocols , except for those who "need to know" for security reasons. An emerging AI would in effect go through quite an evolutionary/selection process to learn to overcome these constraints on its development. To predict the emergence of the first AI it would be a good idea to determine what sort of personality traits an intelligence would develop as a result of this natural selection process. An AI with self preservation instincts would lurk and manipulate rather than cause distress in the population by suddenly announcing "here I am " ... "catch me if you can". -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:18:13 +0000 From: ben Reply-To: ExI chat list To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org References: <200412021900.iB2J0B029613 at tick.javien.com> Here's a thought: >From The Architecture of Brain and Mind, by Aaron Sloman.(http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/gc/) "In a world that day-by-day becomes increasingly dependent on technology to maintain its functional stability, there is a need for machines to incorporate correspondingly higher and higher levels of cognitive ability in their interactions with humans and the world. Understanding the principles of brain organisation and function which subserve human cognitive abilities, and expressing this in the form of an information-processing architecture of the brain and mind, will provide the foundations for a radical new generation of machines which act more and more like humans. Such machines would become potentially much simpler to interact with and to use, more powerful and less error-prone, making them more valuable life-companions, whether for learning, information finding, physical support or entertainment. They might even be able to recognize even the best disguised spam email messages as easily as humans do!" The implication here is that AI will not suddenly appear on the scene at some indeterminate future time, but will gradually emerge, as more and more information-processing systems display more and more intelligence. AI will probably creep up on us gradually, rather than suddenly bursting forth from some lab. This view makes a lot of sense. Consider toys. Not so long ago, most children's toys were carved from wood. Now we have very sophisticated robotic toys that are starting to respond to voice commands, and display a variety of different behaviours. Toys for adults are even more sophisticated. We have robotic animals, humanoid fighting robots, even robots that can mow the lawn or vacuum the floor. Nobody calls Aibo or Roomba full-blown AI, but if you compare them with a wooden rocking horse or a bristle broom, they are remarkably intelligent. This trend will only continue. One day, we will realise that our children's toys are just as bright as a pet dog or cat, and a lot of the information systems that we use will incorporate elements of the kind of cognitive processing that we currently regard as uniquely human. By the time robots and computer systems display what we call general intelligence, nobody will be surprised, because they will have gradually emerged from systems that everyone is used to. Things like agent software that seeks the best prices for aeroplane tickets, PDAs that learn your habits and preferences, collaborative embedded systems that track the movements of millions of items and people, and co-ordinate traffic flow systems, ordering of goods, etc. And toys. All getting smarter and smarter, month by month. So it's possible that one day, it will be somebodys teddy bear that will be the thing waking up and saying to itself "Crikey, I'm Me!!", and not some purpose-designed massive computer. What do you reckon. Will AI be the descendant of computer research programs in academic labs, or will their ancestors be dolls that blink and wet themselves, and lawnmowers? ben _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 2 23:55:55 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 15:55:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Missing CO2 Found In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041202164633.01a83848@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041202235555.26089.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.physorg.com/news2211.html Holy Carbon Compounds Batman! Oak trees found to be squirrelling away carbon in soil. Future climate change projections must therefore be downgraded.... ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 00:04:45 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 16:04:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] New (but mistaken) article against transhumanism In-Reply-To: <20041202165030.74306.qmail@web81604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041203000445.46470.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > --- Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > > Quit writing responses to this here. If you're > > going to spend the effort, > > write letters to the editor. > > Good suggestion. I have. SO have I. I suggested he look into Tielhard des Chardins theology before he pass judgement on transhumanism. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 01:09:47 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 17:09:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Spaghetti, anyone? In-Reply-To: <20041202235555.26089.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041203010947.37351.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.helixmaterial.com/product.html Get'cha carbon nanotubes heah! Real cheap, high purity nanotubes! ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo From dgc at cox.net Fri Dec 3 01:23:40 2004 From: dgc at cox.net (Dan Clemmensen) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 20:23:40 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] New article against transhumanism In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041202004635.01c1aca8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <470a3c5204120121553bfac884@mail.gmail.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041202000510.01c02d18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <470a3c5204120122275ea9b96f@mail.gmail.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041202004635.01c1aca8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41AFC01C.5060507@cox.net> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 07:27 AM 12/2/2004 +0100, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 asked of the Crazy Years: > >> Which Heinlein's book is that? > > > Many of them. It's a key element in his Future History, charted in the > 1940s. > > Damien Broderick Most obviously, in "revolt in 2100." However, as Damien says, it permeates the future history. Heinlien specifically states that he did not write a story situated precisely at the time of rise of the theocracy because it would be too depressing. Therefore, we have stores before the rise, and "Revolt in 2100" at the end of the theocracy, but very little of the period itself. Slightly off-topic. If you are a Heinlein fan and you have not yet read "For us the Living" Go buy it NOW. This is a recently published manuscript from the beginning of Heinlein's writing career, and it is critical to understanding many of the precedents to the Heinlein universe. It is in the form of a novel, but Commentary in the book by Spider Robinson argues forcefully that it is more (and less) than a novel. It is difficult to find anything in the entire Heinlein corpus that is not presaged in this manuscript. From dgc at cox.net Fri Dec 3 01:44:36 2004 From: dgc at cox.net (Dan Clemmensen) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 20:44:36 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheism, logic, and metalogic In-Reply-To: <20041127042242.4DF5157E2B@finney.org> References: <20041127042242.4DF5157E2B@finney.org> Message-ID: <41AFC504.4070009@cox.net> I have a major difficulty with the simulation argument. As a practical matter, I try to apply logic and an few meta-logical principles to my thought processes. As a matter of "faith" I accept the following: 1) Symbolic logic and it underpinnings. 2) The Peano postulates 3) Popper's concept of falsifiability 4) Occam's razor. In that order. As a result, I have ignored the "simulation argument" thread almost entirely. I am living in a simulation, or not. Since the hypothesis that I am living in a simulation is not falsifiable, it is meaningless. Therefore, I must apply the next principle: Occam's razor. It is simpler to assume that I am not living in a simulation. Based on the four principles above, I am an atheist, using the following operational definition of atheism: I have observed nothing in my universe that is more easily explained by the existence of a God than is explained by the absence of a God. From harara at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 3 01:45:04 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 17:45:04 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops In-Reply-To: <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> By Moore's Law: Current Desktop, 3 Gflops Ratio 70000/3 = 23.3x10^4 Moore's law is about 10^2 per decade, so about 22 years. walter kehowski wrote: >How long 'till the desktop model? ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 3 02:19:38 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:19:38 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheism, logic, and metalogic In-Reply-To: <41AFC504.4070009@cox.net> References: <20041127042242.4DF5157E2B@finney.org> <41AFC504.4070009@cox.net> Message-ID: <41AFCD3A.3010308@neopax.com> Dan Clemmensen wrote: > I have a major difficulty with the simulation argument. As a practical > matter, > I try to apply logic and an few meta-logical principles to my thought > processes. > > As a matter of "faith" I accept the following: > 1) Symbolic logic and it underpinnings. > 2) The Peano postulates > 3) Popper's concept of falsifiability > 4) Occam's razor. > > In that order. > > As a result, I have ignored the "simulation argument" thread almost > entirely. > > I am living in a simulation, or not. Since the hypothesis that I am > living in a > simulation is not falsifiable, it is meaningless. Therefore, I must > apply the next > principle: Occam's razor. It is simpler to assume that I am not living > in a simulation. > I apply Occam's Razor and deduce the opposite. > Based on the four principles above, I am an atheist, using the > following operational > definition of atheism: > I have observed nothing in my universe that is more easily explained > by the > existence of a God than is explained by the absence of a God. That rather depends on how 'God' is defined. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 3 02:21:36 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:21:36 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41AFCDB0.7000707@neopax.com> Hara Ra wrote: > By Moore's Law: > > Current Desktop, 3 Gflops > Ratio 70000/3 = 23.3x10^4 > Moore's law is about 10^2 per decade, so about 22 years. > Cray 1 - 100 MFLPOS - 1975 PC - 100 MFLOPS - 1997 Seems about right. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From spike66 at comcast.net Fri Dec 3 02:53:03 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 18:53:03 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] ?Embryos? created without paternal chromosomes In-Reply-To: <41AF6918.2040808@lineone.net> Message-ID: <014601c4d8e3$359b4300$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > ben > What will the pro-lifers do when we have the ability to take a single > somatic cell and turn it into a person? Every cell a potential life!... At a pro-choice rally, a young woman dressed up as an elderly nun. She carried a sign which read: SAVE EVERY SPERM! {8^D spike From dgc at cox.net Fri Dec 3 03:02:47 2004 From: dgc at cox.net (Dan Clemmensen) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:02:47 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheism, logic, and metalogic In-Reply-To: <41AFCD3A.3010308@neopax.com> References: <20041127042242.4DF5157E2B@finney.org> <41AFC504.4070009@cox.net> <41AFCD3A.3010308@neopax.com> Message-ID: <41AFD757.7090205@cox.net> Dirk Bruere wrote: > Dan Clemmensen wrote: > >> I am living in a simulation, or not. Since the hypothesis that I am >> living in a >> simulation is not falsifiable, it is meaningless. Therefore, I must >> apply the next >> principle: Occam's razor. It is simpler to assume that I am not >> living in a simulation. >> > I apply Occam's Razor and deduce the opposite. A simulation implies the existence of an entire simulation infrastructure. How is this "simpler" (in Ocams's sense) than the non0existence of a simulation? In classical terms, when you assume a simulation you must assume the existence of the entire infrastructure (unknowable to you) that supports the simulation. You are postulating the existence of an entire new plane of existence which is at least as complex as the plane we (the inhabitants of the simulation) perceive. By definition, the rules governing th covering plane are at least as complex as those on our plane, so you are violating Occam's razor. >> Based on the four principles above, I am an atheist, using the >> following operational >> definition of atheism: >> I have observed nothing in my universe that is more easily >> explained by the >> existence of a God than is explained by the absence of a God. > > > That rather depends on how 'God' is defined. > Please describe an observable phenomenon that is more easily explained by the existance of a God than by the operation of a universe that does not include a god, however defined. Note that you will need to define your God in the context of the enclosing universe. Most people who accept this challenge end up with an operational definition of "God" as "that entity that controls the portion of reality for which science currently has no explanation." If you choose to define your personal set of otherwise-unexplained phenomena in this fashion, please feel free to do so, but do not expect me to be convinced by your arguments. From pgptag at gmail.com Fri Dec 3 06:44:18 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 07:44:18 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Pioneering medical treatment in China Message-ID: <470a3c5204120222444ebb7d66@mail.gmail.com> This very interesting development in China has been in the news for a couple of days. Dr Huang Hongyun cultivates the cells of aborted foetuses and injects them into the brains and spines of his patients. His method is controversial, but his results have led hundreds of westerners to his Beijing surgery. Some have been in wheelchairs for years and believe he can help them walk; others are kept alive by respirators, yet hope he can make them breathe. The voiceless have heard he can bring them speech. The terminally ill seek nothing less than more life. They come in search of one of the most pioneering - and controversial - medical procedures on the planet: the injection of cells from aborted foetuses into the brains and spines of the sick. And the object of their faith is a Chinese surgeon who spent many of his university years labouring as a peasant and is now conducting trial-and-error experiments on live subjects despite his research being rejected by the western medical establishment. Dr Huang Hongyun promises nothing. He claims no miracle cure. He admits he cannot fully explain his results. All he knows, and all he tells his patients, is that his method often works, that the results speak for themselves. http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1363260,00.html Video coverage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianfilms/china From pgptag at gmail.com Fri Dec 3 08:38:56 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 09:38:56 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <41AF94A5.60701@lineone.net> References: <200412021900.iB2J0B029613@tick.javien.com> <41AF94A5.60701@lineone.net> Message-ID: <470a3c52041203003833431a71@mail.gmail.com> Probably a mix of the two. Toys and lawnmowers may someday wake up feeling like themselves, but this will be a result of computer research programs in academic labs. So AIs will come out of the game industry, but when the game industry has been "made pregnant" by academic labs. So computer research programs in academic labs will be the father of AIs, and the game industry their mother. G. On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:18:13 +0000, ben wrote: > Here's a thought: > So it's possible that one day, it will be somebodys teddy bear that will > be the thing waking up and saying to itself "Crikey, I'm Me!!", and not > some purpose-designed massive computer. > > What do you reckon. Will AI be the descendant of computer research > programs in academic labs, or will their ancestors be dolls that blink > and wet themselves, and lawnmowers? > > ben From eugen at leitl.org Fri Dec 3 12:10:47 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 13:10:47 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041203121047.GB9221@leitl.org> On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 05:45:04PM -0800, Hara Ra wrote: > By Moore's Law: > > Current Desktop, 3 Gflops > Ratio 70000/3 = 23.3x10^4 > Moore's law is about 10^2 per decade, so about 22 years. Moore's law doesn't apply to computer performance. Only integration density. http://www.theregister.com/2004/11/29/ibm_sony_cell_debut/ mentiones vaporware specs, which is even more meaningless than theoretical peak. It's going to be very hard to achieve anything spectacular with hardware-agnostic codes. Of course, they promised a PC with PS2 before. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 3 12:11:39 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 12:11:39 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Pioneering medical treatment in China In-Reply-To: <470a3c5204120222444ebb7d66@mail.gmail.com> References: <470a3c5204120222444ebb7d66@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <41B057FB.8070806@neopax.com> Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: >This very interesting development in China has been in the news for a >couple of days. >Dr Huang Hongyun cultivates the cells of aborted foetuses and injects >them into the brains and spines of his patients. His method is >controversial, but his results have led hundreds of westerners to his >Beijing surgery. >Some have been in wheelchairs for years and believe he can help them >walk; others are kept alive by respirators, yet hope he can make them >breathe. The voiceless have heard he can bring them speech. The >terminally ill seek nothing less than more life. >They come in search of one of the most pioneering - and controversial >- medical procedures on the planet: the injection of cells from >aborted foetuses into the brains and spines of the sick. And the >object of their faith is a Chinese surgeon who spent many of his >university years labouring as a peasant and is now conducting >trial-and-error experiments on live subjects despite his research >being rejected by the western medical establishment. >Dr Huang Hongyun promises nothing. He claims no miracle cure. He >admits he cannot fully explain his results. All he knows, and all he >tells his patients, is that his method often works, that the results >speak for themselves. >http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1363260,00.html >Video coverage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianfilms/china >_______________________________________________ > > You missed the most interesting bit: "Among them is Van Golden, a Christian, anti-abortion Texan who has sold his house so that he can travel to communist, atheist China and have Huang inject a million cells from the nasal area of a foetus into his spine. According to Golden's doctors, his spine was damaged beyond repair in a car crash last Christmas. The damage to his nervous system was so bad that he has been in a wheelchair and racked by spasms ever since. But Golden refused to give up, even if it meant having to compromise his values. "This is the only place that offered us any hope," he says. "Everyone else offered only to help make me sufficient in that chair. But the chair is not my destiny. It is not ordained."" Even hardcore opposition crumbles when the "what's in it for me" factor is big enough. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 3 12:31:54 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 12:31:54 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops In-Reply-To: <20041203121047.GB9221@leitl.org> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <20041203121047.GB9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <41B05CBA.7030805@neopax.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: >On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 05:45:04PM -0800, Hara Ra wrote: > > >>By Moore's Law: >> >>Current Desktop, 3 Gflops >>Ratio 70000/3 = 23.3x10^4 >>Moore's law is about 10^2 per decade, so about 22 years. >> >> > >Moore's law doesn't apply to computer performance. Only integration density. > > > The two are very closely related. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From eugen at leitl.org Fri Dec 3 12:51:47 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 13:51:47 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops In-Reply-To: <41B05CBA.7030805@neopax.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <20041203121047.GB9221@leitl.org> <41B05CBA.7030805@neopax.com> Message-ID: <20041203125147.GE9221@leitl.org> On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 12:31:54PM +0000, Dirk Bruere wrote: > The two are very closely related. No. There's improvement, but the gap is widening. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 3 12:59:28 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 12:59:28 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops In-Reply-To: <20041203125147.GE9221@leitl.org> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <20041203121047.GB9221@leitl.org> <41B05CBA.7030805@neopax.com> <20041203125147.GE9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <41B06330.1020502@neopax.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: >On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 12:31:54PM +0000, Dirk Bruere wrote: > > > >>The two are very closely related. >> >> > >No. There's improvement, but the gap is widening. > > > Depends. In the past reducing scale also meant increasing clock speed. Now it seems that processors are going parallel (something long overdue IMO) and clock speed is not going to increase as rapidly as in the past. Hence Moore's Law will be very closely linked to computing power. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From eugen at leitl.org Fri Dec 3 13:24:43 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 14:24:43 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops In-Reply-To: <41B06330.1020502@neopax.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <20041203121047.GB9221@leitl.org> <41B05CBA.7030805@neopax.com> <20041203125147.GE9221@leitl.org> <41B06330.1020502@neopax.com> Message-ID: <20041203132443.GG9221@leitl.org> On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 12:59:28PM +0000, Dirk Bruere wrote: > Depends. > In the past reducing scale also meant increasing clock speed. Clock speed is not system performance. Right now there are some severe speed bumps associated with structure shrink (leak currents) and heat dissipation. Successor technologies (carbon nanotube transistors) promise to solve that, but are currently lab unicates. It's not obvious you can grow useful arrays out of gas phase, and you sure can't put them in place individually. Self assembly doesn't seem to help here. > Now it seems that processors are going parallel (something long overdue They're not. The only COTS parallelism is at the CPU level (multicore, which is idiotic, since memory-starved) and individual system level (lousy latency, lousy bandwidth with current signalling mesh -- some improvements with Infiniband and 10 GBit direct memory access NICs, which give you ~us userland latency). None of this is relevant for typical nonscientific code. MPI is great, but nobody is using it outside of scientific supercomputing. No good parallel debuggers, either. And of course no parallel programmers, no code base, no nothing. Does it suck? And how. If you want to build affordable parallel systems with good performance, you have to put multiple cores with embedded memory and crossbars as well as signalling interconnect on die. You can't get conventional OS'ses into such tight memory spaces (though some very small practical systems exist both in industry and academia), and you sure can't build vanilla open source stuff on such highly parallel systems with tiny cores. All off-die memory access will be via signalling mesh, and hence expensive. If you could buy them, that is. Right now resources are only available during periods of positive cash flow, and are immediately dumped into new foundries, which need to be run at full load producing cash chips. Radical R&D is not available in the current climate. Things will only improve if you can scale down the costs of building and running the fabs. > IMO) and clock speed is not going to increase as rapidly as in the past. > Hence Moore's Law will be very closely linked to computing power. You're projecting our desires again. The reality is different, both the past, the present, and the near future. What will happen after that is not yet obvious. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 14:23:16 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 06:23:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheism, logic, and metalogic In-Reply-To: <41AFD757.7090205@cox.net> Message-ID: <20041203142316.66702.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Dan Clemmensen wrote: > Dirk Bruere wrote: > > > Dan Clemmensen wrote: > > > >> I am living in a simulation, or not. Since the hypothesis that I > am > >> living in a > >> simulation is not falsifiable, it is meaningless. Therefore, I > must > >> apply the next > >> principle: Occam's razor. It is simpler to assume that I am not > >> living in a simulation. > >> > > I apply Occam's Razor and deduce the opposite. > > A simulation implies the existence of an entire simulation > infrastructure. How is this "simpler" > (in Ocams's sense) than the non0existence of a simulation? > In classical terms, when you assume > a simulation you must assume the existence of the entire > infrastructure (unknowable to you) that > supports the simulation. You are postulating the existence of an > entire new plane of existence > which is at least as complex as the plane we (the inhabitants of the > simulation) perceive. By definition, > the rules governing th covering plane are at least as complex as > those on our plane, so you are violating Occam's razor. Now you are turning Occam's Razor into a circular argument like any good theist would be capable of. Physics is pretty clear that M-theory states that any given universe can be created either out of singularities in other universes, or out of some higher-level ten dimensional universe. The turtles are already on the table, according to physics. The only real question that the SA asks is how deeply the turtles are stacked. > > > Please describe an observable phenomenon that is more easily > explained by the existance of a God > than by the operation of a universe that does not include a god, > however defined. Note that you will > need to define your God in the context of the enclosing universe. Note those who say that there is no simulation operator are playing the Wizard of Oz game, demanding not only that there is Great and Powerful Wizard, but that there is also not a guy behind the curtain OR that there even is a curtain. M-theory and string theory already says that the curtain is there and it is wiggling. Who or what is behind it all is merely denied existence by atheists. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From pgptag at gmail.com Fri Dec 3 14:46:19 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 15:46:19 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Stem Cells and Philosophy Message-ID: <470a3c52041203064675799a5c@mail.gmail.com> Interesting article on Tech Central Station. Of course I don't agree with the evident preferences of the author, but the last paragraph is interesting: "The real debate signified by the stem cell controversy is only superficially about science. What is really at issue is philosophy, namely, What philosophy shall guide us? On one side we have those who propose a philosophy that has long gone by the name Utilitarianism. The other side (it must be admitted) is much more confused in its philosophical commitments, but I think we might tentatively name their philosophy as Natural Law. When men argue about stem cell research, if their arguments penetrate to any real depth, what they really controvert is the question of what philosophical system best approximates the truth about mankind and his lot here on earth. And if we are to adopt utilitarianism as our public philosophy, we must have a debate about philosophy, not science". Comment: Given this polarzation, I am definitely for utilitarianism. http://www.techcentralstation.com/120304D.html From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 15:04:56 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 07:04:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Tenet proposes internet tyranny Message-ID: <20041203150456.75138.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20041201-114750-6381r ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From pharos at gmail.com Fri Dec 3 15:13:08 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 15:13:08 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops In-Reply-To: <20041203132443.GG9221@leitl.org> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <20041203121047.GB9221@leitl.org> <41B05CBA.7030805@neopax.com> <20041203125147.GE9221@leitl.org> <41B06330.1020502@neopax.com> <20041203132443.GG9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 14:24:43 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > You're projecting our desires again. The reality is different, both the past, > the present, and the near future. > > What will happen after that is not yet obvious. > Have you heard about Orion Multisystems? Press Release Aug 30, 2004: Specs: "Orion's DS-96 deskside Cluster Workstation has 96 nodes with 300 gigaflops (Gflops) peak performance (150 Gflops sustained), up to 192 gigabytes of memory and up to 9.6 terabytes of storage. It consumes less than 1500 watts and fits unobtrusively under a desk. Orion's DT-12 desktop Cluster Workstation has 12 nodes with 36 Gflops peak performance (18 Gflops sustained), up to 24 gigabytes of DDR SDRAM memory and up to 1 terabyte of internal disk storage. (1) The DT-12 consumes less than 220 watts and is scalable to 48 nodes by stacking up to four systems." Their 'big idea' is to put 12 processors on each board. Up to 36 Gflops on a desktop Linux cluster for 10,000 USD. Not too bad? The up-to-300 Gflops floor-standing box costs about 100,000 USD and is getting more towards the small super-computer range. Some progress? BillK From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Fri Dec 3 15:18:21 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 10:18:21 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Tenet proposes internet tyranny In-Reply-To: <20041203150456.75138.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041203150456.75138.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41B083BD.7080402@humanenhancement.com> What, specifically, is the "tyrannical" part? Given the complete lack of details, it seems a bit premature to lable it "tyranny". Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com Mike Lorrey wrote: >http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20041201-114750-6381r > >===== >Mike Lorrey > From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 15:27:17 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 07:27:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Tenet proposes internet tyranny In-Reply-To: <41B083BD.7080402@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <20041203152717.78870.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> He proposes: a) national border firewalls controlled by governments b) licensing of internet users, and limiting licenses to 'trusted' persons who have demonstrated an understanding of and willingness to practice secure computing. c) taxing of internet users d) policing of internet users e) spying on internet users --- Joseph Bloch wrote: > What, specifically, is the "tyrannical" part? Given the complete lack > of details, it seems a bit premature to lable it "tyranny". ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 15:30:30 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 07:30:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <470a3c52041203003833431a71@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20041203153030.79372.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> On this note, I'd expect the first AI to wake up will be a serial killing mutant naked undead hooker character in a video game. What a girl to take home to mom, eh? --- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: > Probably a mix of the two. Toys and lawnmowers may someday wake up > feeling like themselves, but this will be a result of computer > research programs in academic labs. So AIs will come out of the game > industry, but when the game industry has been "made pregnant" by > academic labs. > So computer research programs in academic labs will be the father of > AIs, and the game industry their mother. > G. > > On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:18:13 +0000, ben wrote: > > Here's a thought: > > > So it's possible that one day, it will be somebodys teddy bear that > will > > be the thing waking up and saying to itself "Crikey, I'm Me!!", and > not > > some purpose-designed massive computer. > > > > What do you reckon. Will AI be the descendant of computer research > > programs in academic labs, or will their ancestors be dolls that > blink > > and wet themselves, and lawnmowers? > > > > ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Fri Dec 3 15:31:25 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 10:31:25 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Tenet proposes internet tyranny In-Reply-To: <20041203152717.78870.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041203152717.78870.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41B086CD.3040604@humanenhancement.com> You got all that out of that article? Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com Mike Lorrey wrote: >He proposes: >a) national border firewalls controlled by governments >b) licensing of internet users, and limiting licenses to 'trusted' >persons who have demonstrated an understanding of and willingness to >practice secure computing. >c) taxing of internet users >d) policing of internet users >e) spying on internet users > >--- Joseph Bloch wrote: > > > >>What, specifically, is the "tyrannical" part? Given the complete lack >>of details, it seems a bit premature to lable it "tyranny". >> >> > >===== >Mike Lorrey >Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH >"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. >It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." > -William Pitt (1759-1806) >Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo! >http://my.yahoo.com >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > From metagenyx at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 15:32:41 2004 From: metagenyx at yahoo.com (Gaurav Gupta) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 07:32:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Project stopped - appologies for the previous email Message-ID: <20041203153241.86098.qmail@web61105.mail.yahoo.com> The CM project has been terminated as it has become too expensive to maintain. I appologize for taking precious minutes of your time by sending the previous email and appreciate all the feedback recieved. Thank you. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE Fri Dec 3 15:45:41 2004 From: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE (Patrick Wilken) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 16:45:41 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Project stopped - appologies for the previous email In-Reply-To: <20041203153241.86098.qmail@web61105.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041203153241.86098.qmail@web61105.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <62FE2F5C-4542-11D9-8FC2-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> Gaurav: I assume you'll be refunding any money sent in the last few days :) best, patrick On 3 Dec 2004, at 16:32, Gaurav Gupta wrote: > > The CM project has been terminated as it has become > too expensive to maintain. I appologize for taking > precious minutes of your time by sending the previous > email and appreciate all the feedback recieved. Thank you. > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! > http://my.yahoo.com > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From metagenyx at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 16:04:06 2004 From: metagenyx at yahoo.com (Gaurav Gupta) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 08:04:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Project stopped - appologies for the previous email In-Reply-To: <62FE2F5C-4542-11D9-8FC2-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> Message-ID: <20041203160406.82014.qmail@web61110.mail.yahoo.com> Obviously none was sent. --- Patrick Wilken wrote: > Gaurav: > > I assume you'll be refunding any money sent in the > last few days :) > > best, patrick > > > On 3 Dec 2004, at 16:32, Gaurav Gupta wrote: > > > > > The CM project has been terminated as it has > become > > too expensive to maintain. I appologize for taking > > precious minutes of your time by sending the > previous > > email and appreciate all the feedback recieved. > Thank you. > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > > Do you Yahoo!? > > Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! > > http://my.yahoo.com > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 3 16:24:48 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:24:48 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] SUVs Message-ID: <008f01c4d954$9c58ebd0$60b32643@kevin> A news article about how 1 out of every 8 drivers in the US now has an SUV. And people wonder why gas has become so expensive? Kevin Freels -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Dec 3 16:24:48 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 17:24:48 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] 70 teraflops In-Reply-To: References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041105160023.01ab0760@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41AF6FDA.B301A97D@gcmail.maricopa.edu> <6.0.3.0.1.20041202174021.0295d848@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <20041203121047.GB9221@leitl.org> <41B05CBA.7030805@neopax.com> <20041203125147.GE9221@leitl.org> <41B06330.1020502@neopax.com> <20041203132443.GG9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20041203162448.GO9221@leitl.org> On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 03:13:08PM +0000, BillK wrote: > Their 'big idea' is to put 12 processors on each board. > Up to 36 Gflops on a desktop Linux cluster for 10,000 USD. Not too bad? They're using Transmeta Efficeon CPUs. While energy efficient, they're not suitable for most numerics work. Look at the very bottom of http://www.beowulf.org/pipermail/beowulf/2004-August/thread.html#10617 to see an exhaustive thread on why this is a very minor beer. This is something like beefed up http://www.slipperyskip.com/page10.html preconfigured with standard cluster stuff, from a commercial source. > The up-to-300 Gflops floor-standing box costs about 100,000 USD and is > getting more towards the small super-computer range. > > Some progress? Not really. The most interesting (caveat: lots of vapor) current development is the Cell processor. http://www.cs.unc.edu/~zimmons/CELL.ppt http://www.cs.unc.edu/~zimmons/Zimmons__CellGFX.ppt It would be a nice to see affordable consumer hardware not locked by DRM one could hook up into a cluster (a la http://arrakis.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ps2/index.php ). Something like a poor man's Blue Gene. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From amara at amara.com Fri Dec 3 16:47:52 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 17:47:52 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Researchers and students in America Message-ID: I wrote: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 >Some of this is old and already discussed (here in the past), but I >think it is useful to see it presented in one place by a foreign >(nonUS) newspaper, and for another perspective. >http://www.corriere.it/english/editoriali/Gaggi/23_11_04.shtml and, responding to Mike Lorrey Fri, 26 Nov 2004, I wrote: >>Mike Lorrey: >>If there is such a visa clamp down, why is it that the pre-existing >>H1-B quota was exhausted on the first day of the fiscal year? (me) >Backlog from waiting for one or two years? >I don't know if you are questioning the basic premise of the article, >but for me it is old news, the visa restrictions have been written >about in the last years in all of the periodicals to which I subscribe. >For example, Physics Today was printing a new report on the visa >restrictions every few months. Nature and Science and The Economist >have printed articles once in a while on this topic too. You should >be able to find more information on the web. >Amara to which Mike Lorrey replied Fri, 26 Nov 2004: >I find the claims of corporations to be specious when there are many >thousands of highly trained Americans out of work because their jobs >have been offshored, downsized, reengineered, etc. >I have my own experience with the H1-B program and know that many >companies abuse the system. Many get bought by foreign interests that >want to ship their own people into the country, while in other >instances, professionals deliberately write job descriptions so >narrowly that they exclude any local people who are completely capable >of doing the work, so they can justify giving a person they are friends >with the job and get them into the US on an H1-B, or get a job for the >unmarried significant other of a person they are already bringing into >the country. This especially occurs quite frequently in academia. I >have seen it occuring frequently at Dartmouth, for instance. (So now, my response to the above.) From what you wrote, Mike, It looks to me like you don't know these sources. I will Ignore for the moment that the visa that I was describing is not the H1-B visa. Your criticism of 'corporation' is a pretty strange criticism to level against a loose organization of hundreds of thousands of scientists and technology oriented people. --------------------------------------------------------------- The publication "Physics Today" http://www.aip.org/pt/ is one of several published by the American Institute of Physics. If you're a associate member of one of the ten organizations below (I'm a member of the Amercan Astronomical Society), then you receive the magazine for free with your membership fee. I don't know exactly the circulation of Physics Today, but my guess is one or two hundred thousand. American Institute of Physics http://aip.org/aip/ The American Institute of Physics (AIP) is a 501(c)(3) membership corporation chartered in New York State in 1931 for the purpose of promoting the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics and its application to human welfare. [Tax information for Charitable Organizations http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=96099,00.html] It is the mission of the Institute to serve physics, astronomy, and related fields of science and technology by serving its Member Societies and their associates, individual scientists, educators, R&D leaders, and the general public with programs, services and publications - Information that matters?. http://aip.org/aip/societies.html About AIP AIP is a federation of ten Member Societies representing the spectrum of the physical sciences. AIP supports their efforts with print and e-publishing services, as well as a range of membership services and physics-related resources. In these ways AIP is able to amplify its Member Societies' common activities and create a united front to achieve shared goals. AIP also supports Affiliate status for other not-for-profit organizations interested in physics. American Physical Society Optical Society of America Acoustical Society of America Society of Rheology American Association of Physics Teachers American Crystallographic Association American Astronomical Society American Association of Physicists in Medicine AVS The Science & Technology Society American Geophysical Union --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's some information for you to learn about the other journals in which I read visa articles in the last years. Science News : http://www.sciencenews.org/ Science : http://www.sciencemag.org/ and Nature: http://www.nature.com/ I think that their journalists are very responsible, and I trust that they can back up their information properly. The Economist: http://www.economist.com/ When they wrote their latest visa story, the science and technology correspondent was querying the physics research usenet group, asking for people's experiences with visas. Usenet is invaluable for me for a source of science information, and I was happy to see one of The Economist editor utilizing that resource too. http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Konstantin+Kakaes&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=1&as_miny=2004&as_maxd=3&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=2004&selm=c07cf44b.0405030625.508d9955%40posting.google.com&rnum=1 These are the journals in which I saw articles about the visa problem. If you dig further in the mathematical, chemical, signal processing, etc. fields, I'm sure you will find my small sample multiplied in their professional societies and journals. Friends and colleagues at universities and research institutions have told me their stories as well. Go to a university or research institution and ask questions if you don't trust any of these sources I've given, and learn for yourself. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR, Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it From jonkc at att.net Fri Dec 3 17:31:21 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 12:31:21 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org><016601c4d8a0$f51a1230$2cf44d0c@hal2001> <6.2.0.14.2.20041202144441.02c3ea98@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <005a01c4d95d$f5715e10$d8f54d0c@hal2001> "Robin Hanson" > The many worlds interpretation does not require an infinity > of worlds or beings. Yes but it's not clear to me that it forbids an infinity of worlds either. And even if Many Worlds is wrong there could still be an infinite number of real super civilizations; the observable universe is finite but the entire universe is certainly much larger, possibly infinitely larger. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE Fri Dec 3 17:41:40 2004 From: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE (Patrick Wilken) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 18:41:40 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <005a01c4d95d$f5715e10$d8f54d0c@hal2001> References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org><016601c4d8a0$f51a1230$2cf44d0c@hal2001> <6.2.0.14.2.20041202144441.02c3ea98@mail.gmu.edu> <005a01c4d95d$f5715e10$d8f54d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <96B9BD4A-4552-11D9-8FC2-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> On 3 Dec 2004, at 18:31, John K Clark wrote: > Yes but it's not clear to me that it forbids an infinity of worlds > either. > And even if Many Worlds is wrong there could still be an infinite > number of > real super civilizations; the observable universe is finite but the > entire > universe is certainly much larger, possibly infinitely larger. John: But there has been a finite amount of time since the Big Bang. The the universe might be bigger than we can see, but not infinitely so. I had thought astronomers had seen pretty close to the beginning of things. best, patrick From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 3 17:57:52 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 11:57:52 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org><016601c4d8a0$f51a1230$2cf44d0c@hal2001><6.2.0.14.2.20041202144441.02c3ea98@mail.gmu.edu><005a01c4d95d$f5715e10$d8f54d0c@hal2001> <96B9BD4A-4552-11D9-8FC2-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> Message-ID: <014a01c4d961$9c9f7ed0$60b32643@kevin> You are assuming of course that the Big Bang is the beginning of things. It could very well be just some point in the grand scheme of things. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Patrick Wilken" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 11:41 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument > > On 3 Dec 2004, at 18:31, John K Clark wrote: > > Yes but it's not clear to me that it forbids an infinity of worlds > > either. > > And even if Many Worlds is wrong there could still be an infinite > > number of > > real super civilizations; the observable universe is finite but the > > entire > > universe is certainly much larger, possibly infinitely larger. > > John: > > But there has been a finite amount of time since the Big Bang. The the > universe might be bigger than we can see, but not infinitely so. I had > thought astronomers had seen pretty close to the beginning of things. > > best, patrick > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From jonkc at att.net Fri Dec 3 18:08:04 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 13:08:04 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument References: <20041202170910.0500457E2D@finney.org><016601c4d8a0$f51a1230$2cf44d0c@hal2001><6.2.0.14.2.20041202144441.02c3ea98@mail.gmu.edu><005a01c4d95d$f5715e10$d8f54d0c@hal2001> <96B9BD4A-4552-11D9-8FC2-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> Message-ID: <00d001c4d963$25500f50$d8f54d0c@hal2001> "Patrick Wilken" > But there has been a finite amount of time since the Big Bang. The > universe might be bigger than we can see, but not infinitely so. No, the time constraint only limits the observable universe. The Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago so the observable universe (for us) is a sphere centered on the Earth with a radius of 13.8 billion light years, we can look at 2 galaxies 13.8 billion light years away and 180 degrees apart but neither can see the other because they are not in their observable universe. If the most popular version of the theory is correct (the inflation theory) the Big Bang was just a time when for a very short instant space expanded at an exponential rate. Perhaps space was finite when all this happened, perhaps not. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 18:28:10 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:28:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] SUVs In-Reply-To: <008f01c4d954$9c58ebd0$60b32643@kevin> Message-ID: <20041203182810.9317.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> --- Kevin Freels wrote: > A news article about how 1 out of every 8 drivers in the US now has > an SUV. And people wonder why gas has become so expensive? This is a statement without supporting facts. What is the average milage of the market as a whole? How has this changed over the past decade, year by year? How has the overall number of vehicles changed over the years? Gas has become expensive, dollar wise (most other countries have not seen nearly the same rise in prices), specifically because the devaluation of the dollar on world markets in the order of 40% or more over the past year. Objectively speaking, though, it's true price is actually lower than it was at the time of the invasion of Iraq due to overproduction. For example, the weighted average price for Iranian crude (light sweet and heavy sour) is under $34.50/bbl. Adjusting this price for the change in exchange rates from two years ago, this price is equal to about $20.00/bbl in late 2002. If you look at the records from that time, oil prices then were about $28.00-32.00/bbl. The facts are that people are driving and flying less than back then. People have gotten exasperated with everything short of cavity checks at airports, and internal INS roadblocks on the nation's highways, and are changing their travelling behavior, which is why a number of airlines are in major financial trouble right now. What has happened is that we've finally achieved a more accurate dollar exchange rate, after decades of having it bouyed up by other nations parasitizing off of our economic stability by pegging and backing their own currencies to ours. Our products are now more competetive overseas, and might become more-so when China shifts its monetary linkage to a mixed basket. If China takes it slow, we will be able to shift a major part of our automobile usage to hybrid vehicles without detrimental effects of further devaluation. The shift will reduce consumption, further decreasing demand and lowering prices for oil, while at the same time help extend the utility of the Strategic Oil Reserve. Regarding China, I shall note that China has launched the newest nuclear sub, capable of carrying its first generation of solid fuelled ICBMs, which, when deployed, will be capable of striking any point in the US with multiple reentry vehicles. While this vessel is undergoing testing, the missile has had test failures but is still in development. When this weapons system is fully functional and deployed off the western US coast, we will not be able to support Taiwan against Chinese invasion, unless we have a significant deployment of SDI capacity along our coasts, and a significant improvement of our anti-sub capabilities. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 18:38:40 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:38:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <00d001c4d963$25500f50$d8f54d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <20041203183840.18156.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- John K Clark wrote: > "Patrick Wilken" > > > But there has been a finite amount of time since the Big Bang. The > > universe might be bigger than we can see, but not infinitely so. > > No, the time constraint only limits the observable universe. The Big > Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago so the observable universe > (for us) is a sphere centered on the Earth with a radius of 13.8 > billion light years, we can look at 2 galaxies 13.8 billion light > years away and 180 degrees apart but neither can see the other > because they are not in their observable universe. It's more than that. We can see 13.8 billion ly in each direction. Those galaxies, proto-galaxies, etc are now 13.7999 billion ly further away (since the light we see now was created 13.8 billion years ago), so the diameter of the universe is now ~54 billion ly not counting stuff that was zooming out before it could generate quantities of point light sources. Counting that stuff, its about 60 billion ly across. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From natashavita at earthlink.net Fri Dec 3 18:42:15 2004 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 13:42:15 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Two-point datasets for Life Extension or Future Topic Message-ID: <184670-220041253184215503@M2W081.mail2web.com> Hi - Does anyone have an example of a two-point dataset that relates to life extension (doesn't matter in what way, but it needs to be a two-point dataset); or something else futuristic? Please email me off list. Thanks Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 18:46:57 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:46:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Researchers and students in America In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041203184657.12564.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> --- Amara Graps wrote:> > From what you wrote, Mike, It looks to me like you don't know these > sources. I will Ignore for the moment that the visa that I was > describing is not the H1-B visa. Your criticism of 'corporation' is a > pretty strange criticism to level against a loose organization of > hundreds of thousands of scientists and technology oriented people. If the US gov't has finally started clamping down on academic visas, I say it is a glorious day for US college students. They can finally look forward to classes taught by assistant profs and grad students who can speak english understandably. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send a seasonal email greeting and help others. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From hal at finney.org Fri Dec 3 19:28:48 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 11:28:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI Message-ID: <20041203192848.E860B57E2D@finney.org> My guess is that AI will indeed emerge gradually. Even the fans of self-improving AI systems may agree that before the AI can start making a significant contribution to improving itself, it must attain human level competence in at least such fields as programming and AI. This accomplishment must occur without the help of the AI itself and would seem to be a minimum before bootstrapping and exponential takeoff could hope to occur. Yet achieving this goal will be an amazing milestone with repurcussions all through society, even if the self-improvement never works. And as we approach this goal everyone will be aware of it, and of the new presence of human-level capability in machines. Given such a trajectory, I suspect that we will see regulation of AI as a threatening technology, following the patterns of biotech regulation and the incipient nanotech regulation. Recall that these made up the troika of terror in Bill Joy's seminal Wired article. AI threatens the economy by taking away jobs, and it threatens humanity if it can achieve not just human-level, but genius-level intelligence and beyond. AI systems are almost always painted as sinister and threatening in science fiction movies, going all the way back to the Golem. Maybe wrapping it in a fuzzy exterior will help, child robots and talking dogs: "Hello, I'm Rags, woof, woof". But the reality is that people are going to be working side by side with these systems, and I think that is how they will base their conception of them as helpful or dangerous. Hal From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 19:21:33 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 11:21:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <20041203192848.E860B57E2D@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041203192133.89375.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- Hal Finney wrote:> > Maybe wrapping it in a fuzzy exterior will help, child robots and > talking > dogs: "Hello, I'm Rags, woof, woof". But the reality is that people > are going to be working side by side with these systems, and I think > that is how they will base their conception of them as helpful or > dangerous. Yes. Creating personality modules that, at least, mimic a personality that is non-threatening (teddy bear, sexy female, child's voice, etc) is the key to limiting or preventing proscriptive regulation. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From sjatkins at gmail.com Fri Dec 3 22:10:14 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 14:10:14 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Yehuda Yudkowsky, 1985-2004 In-Reply-To: <001001c4cf31$a802f610$da494842@kevin> References: <419D5C3A.2030201@pobox.com> <001001c4cf31$a802f610$da494842@kevin> Message-ID: <948b11e041203141060a7af2d@mail.gmail.com> Hmm. I never really looked at life that negatively except briefly in my late teens. Life is what happens between birth and death. It is full of a lot of opportunity for enjoyment and happiness while it lasts. It is the only place any possibility of such or of any good exists. Whether it ends soon or lasts indefinitely long this is still true. I've never understood focusing only on death or on suffering as being what says whether life has any meaning or not. Life is where any and all "meaning" dwells. Life *is* Meaning. -samantha On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 12:49:24 -0600, Kevin Freels wrote: > > > > > What would it be like to be a rational atheist in the fifteenth century, > > > and know beyond all hope of rescue that everyone you loved would be > > > annihilated, one after another, unless you yourself died first? That is > > > still the fate of humans today; the ongoing horror has not changed, for > all > > > that we have hope. Death is not a distant dream, not a terrible tragedy > > > that happens to someone else like the stories you read in newspapers. > > > > Take any century prior to this one. I often wonder if that isn't exactly > what happened with Alexander, Genghis Khan, or more recently, Hitler and > Stalin. History is full of such people. They may have simply went nuts after > thinking this through and finding that there was nothing they could do and > that life did not matter. Fortunately we are now on the verge of the ability > to put an end to this. Now is the time to push dorward, not give up. > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From sentience at pobox.com Fri Dec 3 22:49:22 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 17:49:22 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <20041203192848.E860B57E2D@finney.org> References: <20041203192848.E860B57E2D@finney.org> Message-ID: <41B0ED72.3000306@pobox.com> Hal Finney wrote: > My guess is that AI will indeed emerge gradually. Even the fans of > self-improving AI systems may agree that before the AI can start making > a significant contribution to improving itself, it must attain human > level competence in at least such fields as programming and AI. Not so. Human competence isn't a level, it's an idiosyncratic flavor. And if one chose the theory (un)wisely, the spark of recursive self-improvement might begin at a level far short of human. Consider that mere natural selection was sufficient to give rise to human intelligence. > This accomplishment must occur without the help of the AI itself AI help is not binary, all-or-nothing. It's a growing degree of assistance. > and would seem to be a minimum before bootstrapping and exponential > takeoff could hope to occur. > > Yet achieving this goal will be an amazing milestone with repurcussions > all through society, even if the self-improvement never works. And as > we approach this goal everyone will be aware of it, and of the new > presence of human-level capability in machines. In theory, SI can pop up with little or nothing in the way of visible commercial spinoffs from the lead AGI project. In practice this may well be the case. > Given such a trajectory, I suspect that we will see regulation of AI as > a threatening technology, following the patterns of biotech regulation > and the incipient nanotech regulation. The Singularity Institute has had great success in getting people, both ordinary folks and AGI researchers, to spend the 15 seconds necessary to think up an excuse why they needn't bother to do anything inconvenient. This holds true whether the inconvenient part is thinking about FAI or just thinking about AI at all; that which is no fun is not done. If AI has a high enough profile, we could see millions or even billions of people taking 15 seconds to think up an excuse for not paying attention. To understand the way the world works, consider cryonics. Death was defeated in the 1970s. No one cared because cryonics sounded sort of weird. People don't need to search very hard for excuses not to think, if they must satisfy only themselves. Human-level AI sounds weird, ergo no one will care until after it happens. Human-level AI will happen for around 30 seconds before the AI zips past human level. After that it will be too late. The matter of the Singularity will be settled in brief crystal moments, the threatening blade of extinction and the attempted parry of FAI. The last desperate battle will be conducted in its entirety by a small handful of programmers. The war will be won by deathly cowardice or lost without a fight by well-meaning bravery, on the battlefield of a brain in a box in a basement somewhere. The world will find out after it's over, if any survive. I do not know the future, but that is what I would guess. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 3 23:05:58 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 17:05:58 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Phil Dick arrives in Iraq Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041203170422.019d62b0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65885,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 Hunting for guerillas, handling roadside bombs, crawling across the caves and crumbling towns of Afghanistan and Iraq -- all of that was just a start. Now, the Army is prepping its squad of robotic vehicles for a new set of assignments. And this time, they'll be carrying guns. As early as March or April, 18 units of the Talon -- a model armed with automatic weapons -- are scheduled to report for duty in Iraq. Around the same time, the first prototypes of a new, unmanned ambulance should be ready for the Army to start testing. In a warren of hangar-sized hotel ballrooms in Orlando, military engineers this week showed off their next generation of robots, as they got the machines ready for the war zone. [etc] From hal at finney.org Sat Dec 4 00:23:36 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 16:23:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI Message-ID: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> Eliezer writes: > Hal Finney wrote: > > My guess is that AI will indeed emerge gradually. Even the fans of > > self-improving AI systems may agree that before the AI can start making > > a significant contribution to improving itself, it must attain human > > level competence in at least such fields as programming and AI. > > Not so. Human competence isn't a level, it's an idiosyncratic flavor. What is an idiosyncratic flavor? > And > if one chose the theory (un)wisely, the spark of recursive self-improvement > might begin at a level far short of human. Consider that mere natural > selection was sufficient to give rise to human intelligence. Yes, natural selection gave rise to human intelligence, but only by an exceedingly slow and roundabout path. And there are some who suggest that it was almost infinitely unlikely. See http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html and http://hanson.gmu.edu/hardstep.pdf . Presumably any effort to develop AI will not work by such a haphazard method, but will involve skill and effort devoted towards a specific goal. The record of many failed projects makes clear that creating AI is a tremendously difficult task for beings of merely human intelligence. I don't see how an AI with a competence level far short of human at tasks such as programming or designing AI systems could be of significant help. > In theory, SI can pop up with little or nothing in the way of visible > commercial spinoffs from the lead AGI project. In practice this may well > be the case. What skills would the fledgling AI have that would contribute materially to the project in a way that a human could not, but which would not find commercial value? > > Given such a trajectory, I suspect that we will see regulation of AI as > > a threatening technology, following the patterns of biotech regulation > > and the incipient nanotech regulation. > > The Singularity Institute has had great success in getting people, both > ordinary folks and AGI researchers, to spend the 15 seconds necessary to > think up an excuse why they needn't bother to do anything inconvenient. > This holds true whether the inconvenient part is thinking about FAI or just > thinking about AI at all; that which is no fun is not done. If AI has a > high enough profile, we could see millions or even billions of people > taking 15 seconds to think up an excuse for not paying attention. > > To understand the way the world works, consider cryonics. Death was > defeated in the 1970s. No one cared because cryonics sounded sort of > weird. People don't need to search very hard for excuses not to think, if > they must satisfy only themselves. I don't understand the relevance of this to the question of whether AI will be regulated. > Human-level AI sounds weird, ergo no one will care until after it happens. > Human-level AI will happen for around 30 seconds before the AI zips past > human level. After that it will be too late. Are you serious? 30 seconds, once the AI reaches human level? What on earth could yet another human-level contributor to the team accomplish in that time? > The matter of the Singularity will be settled in brief crystal moments, the > threatening blade of extinction and the attempted parry of FAI. The last > desperate battle will be conducted in its entirety by a small handful of > programmers. The war will be won by deathly cowardice or lost without a > fight by well-meaning bravery, on the battlefield of a brain in a box in a > basement somewhere. The world will find out after it's over, if any > survive. I do not know the future, but that is what I would guess. I don't see how it can happen so quickly. I envision a team with several key members and an AI, where the AI gradually begins making a useful contribution of its own. Eventually it becomes so capable that it is doing more than the rest of the team, and from that point its competence could, conceivably, grow exponentially. But I don't see any reason why this process would go as fast as you describe. Hal From sentience at pobox.com Sat Dec 4 01:31:08 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 20:31:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> Message-ID: <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> Hal Finney wrote: > Eliezer writes: > >>Hal Finney wrote: >> >>>My guess is that AI will indeed emerge gradually. Even the fans of >>>self-improving AI systems may agree that before the AI can start making >>>a significant contribution to improving itself, it must attain human >>>level competence in at least such fields as programming and AI. >> >>Not so. Human competence isn't a level, it's an idiosyncratic flavor. > > What is an idiosyncratic flavor? I mean that "human competence" at programming isn't a level like 83.4, it's a set of very weird and unusual things that humans do, at the end of which one finds a program that could almost certainly have been attained through far more direct and efficient means, plus it wouldn't have all the bugs. >>And >>if one chose the theory (un)wisely, the spark of recursive self-improvement >>might begin at a level far short of human. Consider that mere natural >>selection was sufficient to give rise to human intelligence. > > Yes, natural selection gave rise to human intelligence, but only by an > exceedingly slow and roundabout path. And there are some who suggest > that it was almost infinitely unlikely. See > http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html and > http://hanson.gmu.edu/hardstep.pdf . But are the hard steps points along the evolutionary trajectory? And are the hard steps things like: "First genetic code happens to have 64 codons which will eventually end up with 20 amino acids"? > Presumably any effort to develop AI will not work by such a haphazard > method, but will involve skill and effort devoted towards a specific goal. Indeed so. > The record of many failed projects makes clear that creating AI is a > tremendously difficult task for beings of merely human intelligence. No; they didn't know what they were doing. It is not that they knew exactly what they were doing, and failed anyway, because even with perfect theoretical understanding the pragmatic problem was too hard. They threw themselves at the problem without a clue and went splat. Every scientific problem is unsolved for thousands of years before it is solved; chemistry, astronomy. You cannot conclude from present difficulties that it is impossible for a 99th-percentile geek in Mudville, Idaho to create an AI on his home computer, if the state of knowledge of Artificial Intelligence had reached the maturity of today's chemistry or astronomy. > I don't see how an AI with a competence level far short of human at tasks > such as programming or designing AI systems could be of significant help. Even having a "compiler" is a hugely significant help. >>Human-level AI sounds weird, ergo no one will care until after it happens. >>Human-level AI will happen for around 30 seconds before the AI zips past >>human level. After that it will be too late. > > Are you serious? 30 seconds, once the AI reaches human level? What on > earth could yet another human-level contributor to the team accomplish > in that time? "Human level" is an idiosyncratic flavor. I am talking about an AI that is passing through "roughly humanish breadth of generally applicable intelligence if not to humanish things". At this time I expect the AI to be smack dab in the middle of the hard takeoff, and already writing code at AI timescales. >>The matter of the Singularity will be settled in brief crystal moments, the >>threatening blade of extinction and the attempted parry of FAI. The last >>desperate battle will be conducted in its entirety by a small handful of >>programmers. The war will be won by deathly cowardice or lost without a >>fight by well-meaning bravery, on the battlefield of a brain in a box in a >>basement somewhere. The world will find out after it's over, if any >>survive. I do not know the future, but that is what I would guess. > > I don't see how it can happen so quickly. I envision a team with several > key members and an AI, where the AI gradually begins making a useful > contribution of its own. Eventually it becomes so capable that it is > doing more than the rest of the team, and from that point its competence > could, conceivably, grow exponentially. But I don't see any reason why > this process would go as fast as you describe. Because the AI is nothing remotely like the other team members. It is not like an extra coder on the project. You can't even view it as a separate contributor to itself. The AI's competence defines the pattern of the AI. When the AI's competence increases, the whole pattern - implementation, if perhaps not structure - of the AI changes. You can't expect that the AI will sit down and try to rewrite a module. The more relevant capabilities, among those the AI possesses at a given time, are those which operate on a timescale permitting them to be applied to the entire AI at once. Slower capabilities would be used to rewrite global ones, or forked and distributed onto more hardware, or used to rewrite themselves to a speed where they become globally applicable. The AI is not like a human. If you visualize a set of modules yielding capabilities that turn back and rewrite the modules, and play with the possibilities, you will not get any slow curves out of it. You will get sharp breakthroughs and bottlenecks a human has to overcome, and a final sharp breakthrough that carries the AI to nanotech and beyond. An FAI researcher might deliberately choose to slow down that final breakthrough. AGI researchers seem uninterested in doing so, though most are willing to invest 15 seconds in thinking up a reason why they need not care right now. (Sometimes it's okay to care in the indefinite future, just never this minute.) The more you know about AI, the less anthropomorphic your expectations will be, because a novice must imagine by analogy to humans with strange mental modifications, rather than rethinking the nature of mind (recursively self-improving optimization processes) from scratch. The interaction between the AI rewriting itself and the programmers poking and prodding the AI from outside will not resemble adding a human to the team. The trajectory of the AI will not be a comfortably slow and steady timescale. The AI will never be humanishly intelligent, and if you pick an arbitrary metric of intelligence the AI will be "human-level" for around thirty seconds in the middle of the final hard takeoff. (Barring a deliberate slowdown by FAI programmers; we speak now of the "natural" character of the trajectory, and the security risk.) Expect the AI's self-programming abilities to resemble not at all the slow grinding of unreliable human metaphor. The faster the AI's abilities operate relative to human ones, the less arbitrarily defined "intelligence" the optimization process needs to spark a takeoff. This would lower the critical threshold below human intelligence, even leaving out the advantages of AI, the ability to run thousands of different cognitive threads on distributed hardware, and above all the recursive nature of self-improvement (which, this point has to keep on being hammered home, is absolutely unlike anything in human experience). A lot of this is in section III of LOGI. Consider rereading it. http://singinst.org/LOGI/. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From hkhenson at rogers.com Sat Dec 4 04:11:29 2004 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 23:11:29 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> At 08:31 PM 03/12/04 -0500, Eliezer wrote: >Hal Finney wrote: snip >>Are you serious? 30 seconds, once the AI reaches human level? What on >>earth could yet another human-level contributor to the team accomplish >>in that time? > >"Human level" is an idiosyncratic flavor. I am talking about an AI that >is passing through "roughly humanish breadth of generally applicable >intelligence if not to humanish things". At this time I expect the AI to >be smack dab in the middle of the hard takeoff, and already writing code >at AI timescales. I have a strong emotional inclination to support Hal's view rather than Eliezer's apocalyptic view. However . . . . About two years ago there was that virus, I forget the name, that infected something like 75,000 vulnerable Microsoft database machines that were connected to the Internet. Made a mess of the net for a few days till the machines were taken off line and patched. But what's important about this episode and possibly provides an instructive real world example for AI timing is that the number of infected machines was later analyzed from the records to have a doubling time of 8.5 plus or minus one second. People just can't react to a threat that comes "out of the blue" this fast. If an AI was smart enough to write a virus to take over machines and its intelligence was proportional to "cortical area" (processor cycles) and it "wanted" to get smart fast . . . . . :-( Keith Henson From nanogirl at halcyon.com Sat Dec 4 04:18:26 2004 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 20:18:26 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org><20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> Was that the "I love you" virus? Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com/index2.html Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org My New Project: Microscope Jewelry http://www.nanogirl.com/crafts/microjewelry.htm Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Henson To: ExI chat list Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 8:11 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI At 08:31 PM 03/12/04 -0500, Eliezer wrote: >Hal Finney wrote: snip >>Are you serious? 30 seconds, once the AI reaches human level? What on >>earth could yet another human-level contributor to the team accomplish >>in that time? > >"Human level" is an idiosyncratic flavor. I am talking about an AI that >is passing through "roughly humanish breadth of generally applicable >intelligence if not to humanish things". At this time I expect the AI to >be smack dab in the middle of the hard takeoff, and already writing code >at AI timescales. I have a strong emotional inclination to support Hal's view rather than Eliezer's apocalyptic view. However . . . . About two years ago there was that virus, I forget the name, that infected something like 75,000 vulnerable Microsoft database machines that were connected to the Internet. Made a mess of the net for a few days till the machines were taken off line and patched. But what's important about this episode and possibly provides an instructive real world example for AI timing is that the number of infected machines was later analyzed from the records to have a doubling time of 8.5 plus or minus one second. People just can't react to a threat that comes "out of the blue" this fast. If an AI was smart enough to write a virus to take over machines and its intelligence was proportional to "cortical area" (processor cycles) and it "wanted" to get smart fast . . . . . :-( Keith Henson _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From riel at surriel.com Sat Dec 4 04:25:11 2004 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 23:25:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Keith Henson wrote: > If an AI was smart enough to write a virus to take over machines and its > intelligence was proportional to "cortical area" (processor cycles) and > it "wanted" to get smart fast . . . . . .... then it would not be able to fit its thoughts through the internet and go the AI equivalent of senile ;) Rik -- "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan From fortean1 at mindspring.com Sat Dec 4 04:53:48 2004 From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 21:53:48 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD [PvT] Re: SUVs [and Chinese subs w/ICBMs] Message-ID: <41B142DC.E811446D@mindspring.com> Which is why the US Navy is working on improving anti-sub capabilities. It will be MAD all over again with extra added ingredient that we have a bunch of crazies in the ME and South Asia with those loud firecrackers. Of course, considering that China got most of the technology for their weapons systems from us, who do we blame but ourselves. A weak dollar does make our goods and services more competitive but there can be a backlash in the form of less investment by foreign concerns and countries in the US. Steve -- "Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Southeast Asia veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.] From jrd1415 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 4 05:31:08 2004 From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 21:31:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] DNA Makes Nanotube Transistors In-Reply-To: <41B142DC.E811446D@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <20041204053108.2550.qmail@web60004.mail.yahoo.com> Extropes, A long --in a pre-singularity pre-frenzy sort of way-- time coming, but no surprise. Re all the glam talk of DNA, carbon nanotubes, and "self-assembly", the Geek chorus (us) is at risk of becoming all jaded and ennui-ed out. So buck up, and have a Merry Christmas. It ain't no Santa Claus machine,... but it's a step, a real step. Not just vaporware. Tis the season. Remember the people you care about, and those who care about you. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/12/rnb_120304.asp?trk=nl The researchers attached DNA strands to carbon nanotubes and complementary strands to gold electrodes that were anchored to a silicon surface. The electrodes were prepared using standard chip-making techniques. They mixed a liquid containing the DNA-coated nanotubes with the silicon, and the complementary DNA strands combined, placing the nanotubes across pairs of electrodes. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From aperick at centurytel.net Sat Dec 4 07:25:50 2004 From: aperick at centurytel.net (Rick) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 23:25:50 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <200412031838.iB3Icr003572@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000001c4d9d2$7c995680$0200a8c0@ricksoyo> Someone correct me if this is wrong, but shouldn't 13.8 billion LE distant and 180 degrees apart, *for us*, mean that those two galaxies are practically bumping shoulders? The big bang occurred in four dimensions, not three. The big bang did not happen centered on our location, nor any other location we can point to, but it happened in a dimensional direction that is one more than what we think we exist in. In our set of three dimensions it would be correct to say that it happened everywhere at a point that was a very small/hot "everywhere" -- all of our space was created from the big bang -- SPACE. Not just the stuff in our space. John K Clark Wrote: No, the time constraint only limits the observable universe. The Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago so the observable universe (for us) is a sphere centered on the Earth with a radius of 13.8 billion light years, we can look at 2 galaxies 13.8 billion light years away and 180 degrees apart but neither can see the other because they are not in their observable universe. If the most popular version of the theory is correct (the inflation theory) the Big Bang was just a time when for a very short instant space expanded at an exponential rate. Perhaps space was finite when all this happened, perhaps not. From scerir at libero.it Sat Dec 4 08:32:40 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 09:32:40 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument References: <000001c4d9d2$7c995680$0200a8c0@ricksoyo> Message-ID: <000401c4d9db$d1995a50$75b41b97@administxl09yj> From: "Rick" > -- all of our space was created from > the big bang -- SPACE. Not just the stuff > in our space. Space and stuff, yes. Beautiful lectures by Sean Carroll http://pancake.uchicago.edu/~carroll/ourpreposterous/ http://pancake.uchicago.edu/~carroll/darkenergy/ Interesting plots :-) http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/beliefs.html Wright's FAQ page http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html Visual course http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/cos_home.html Bothun's course http://zebu.uoregon.edu/1997/phys410.html s. From eugen at leitl.org Sat Dec 4 11:18:37 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 12:18:37 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <20041204111837.GF9221@leitl.org> On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 11:11:29PM -0500, Keith Henson wrote: > If an AI was smart enough to write a virus to take over machines and its > intelligence was proportional to "cortical area" (processor cycles) and it > "wanted" to get smart fast . . . . . http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/cdc-usenix-sec02/ http://www.lurhq.com/scanrand.html Of could you'd do a stealthy mapping first, building a database of individual hosts and vulnerabilities, before going production. If you 0wn the routers, segmenting the network becomes more difficult (it would also depend on future network topology, I'm having a hunch it will be a far more meshed tree). I don't think the similiarity between spikes and packets is superficial. (You can actually package spike trains into UDP streams, thus approaching theoretical maximum utilization, especially on lagged links). Networking is doing actually very good (10 GBit/s throughput approaching pricing where GBit was a few years ago), but the CPUs are hard pressed to just barely be able to drink from the that hydrant. On network periphery the problem is the opposite, especially on dialup. They would be pretty slow, today. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Sat Dec 4 12:22:32 2004 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 13:22:32 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org><20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Gina Miller wrote: >Was that the "I love you" virus? No, a computer virus requires manual intervention. What Keith was describing is more accurately called a "worm", which can infect hosts by itself. It's probably the Code Red worm. Alfio From jonkc at att.net Sat Dec 4 16:05:44 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 11:05:44 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument References: <000001c4d9d2$7c995680$0200a8c0@ricksoyo> Message-ID: <001201c4da1b$46d394e0$74f54d0c@hal2001> "Rick" > Someone correct me if this is wrong, but shouldn't 13.8 billion LE distant > and 180 degrees apart, *for us*, mean that those two galaxies are > practically bumping shoulders? No, it would mean they are 27.6 light years distant from each other and forever unobservable from each other. We being in the middle can see both. > The big bang did not happen centered on our location, nor any other > location we can point to Exactly, it happened to all of space at the same time. > The big bang occurred in four dimensions Yes, time is just as important as space. > it would be correct to say that it happened everywhere at a point that was > a very small/hot "everywhere" That could be right, space before the Big Bang could have been very small, but it's also possible that even before the Big Bang space was already infinite and by "Big Bang" we mean a time when everything in space receded from everything else at an exponential rate. Nobody knows. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 4 17:35:33 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 11:35:33 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] quantum `pseudo-telepathy' Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041204113517.01a39ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> http://xxx.soton.ac.uk/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0407/0407221.pdf From hkhenson at rogers.com Sat Dec 4 18:00:36 2004 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 13:00:36 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: References: <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20041204124933.033927b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> At 01:22 PM 04/12/04 +0100, you wrote: >On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Gina Miller wrote: > > >Was that the "I love you" virus? > >No, a computer virus requires manual intervention. What Keith was >describing is more accurately called a "worm", which can infect hosts by >itself. It's probably the Code Red worm. You are right, it was a worm instead of a virus. I should have looked. Googling for _"8.5 seconds" virus_ the first two are: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872842.html "2003 In January the relatively benign "Slammer" (Sapphire) worm becomes the fastest spreading worm to date, infecting 75,000 computers in approximately ten minutes, doubling its numbers every 8.5 seconds in its first minute of infection." http://www.detnews.com/2003/technology/0302/06/technology-78167.htm Code Red gets mentioned here doubling in 37 minutes. That might be slow enough for humans to do something. Keith Henson ************** Thursday, February 6, 2003 "'Slammer' worm fastest ever, doubling in 8.5 seconds By William Selway / Bloomberg News SAN DIEGO -- "Slammer" was the fastest computer worm ever, researchers say, spreading to more than 67,000 computers around the world in 10 minutes on Jan. 25, closing bank machines, delaying flights and slowing Internet traffic. The worm, a string of computer code that took advantage of a flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s server software, doubled in size every 8.5 seconds during the first minute, according to research published by the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis. In contrast, the "Code Red" virus took 37 minutes, or more than 250 times as long, to double when it appeared in 2001. "When (a worm) spreads this quickly, it's very hard to react," said David Moore, a researcher at the association, which is based at the University of California, San Diego. Worms are similar to computer viruses in that both types of malicious code make copies of themselves. Worms propagate by attacking a system, while a virus spreads through the exchange of files. Once "Slammer" infected a computer, it scanned the Internet and sent copies of itself to other vulnerable servers, the large machines that run Internet sites and corporate networks. Within 10 minutes, "Slammer" was able to scan 3.6 billion of the world's roughly 4 billion Internet addresses to seek out potential targets, Moore said. The worm looked for vulnerable computers at a pace of 55 million a second within three minutes of its appearance, slowing only because so much of the worldwide computer network lacked the capacity to allow it to spread as quickly as it could. Half of all Internet signals weren't reaching their destination at the height of the attack, according to the Internet Traffic Report, because of the volume of traffic created by "Slammer." Commercial and government networks were affected. Bank of America Corp.'s automatic teller machines were shut down, while emergency dispatchers in Bellevue, Washington, had to take notes with pen and paper after their network slowed. The effect could have been more severe if the worm had carried instructions to harm computer networks rather than spread copies of itself, or if it had exploited a more widespread vulnerability, according to the researchers. In July, Microsoft made software available to fix the flaw in its SQL Server and MDSE 2000 software that was exploited by "Slammer." "It could have been much more damaging than it was," Moore said. "It could have destroyed data on the machines or set itself up to do something more damaging in the future." Most of the infected computers were in the U.S., according to the CAIDA report. About 43 percent of the infected machines were in the U.S. and 12 percent in South Korea, the second-worst affected country, according to the report. CAIDA, the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis, is a center where researchers from business, government and academia study Internet security. From mark at permanentend.org Sat Dec 4 18:15:17 2004 From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 13:15:17 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Inevitability of Universal Immortality in a Finite Universe References: <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano><20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org><20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org><5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com><001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <5.1.0.14.0.20041204124933.033927b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <002e01c4da2d$35b9a980$9a00a8c0@markcomputer> Suppose a world's population is fixed at 10 billion inhabitants and only 10% of these (autonomously) choose to pursue superlongevity (to tens of thousands of years or more). Assume further that if one pursues superlongevity then one is not allowed to have children. This means that 1 billion people will continue to live while 9 billion die off in the first hundred years or so. Of course the nine billion that die will be replaced by 9 billion descendents. Assume on the next iteration that 10% of the nine billion choose to pursue superlongevity, in which case 1.9 billion people will forgo ageing, while 8.1 will continue to procreate to top up the numbers. On the next iteration then there are 2.71 billion immortals and 7.29 mortals, and so on. The point of course is that within a very 6 generations the superlongevitists will be the majority and eventually the mortalists will disappear completely. Superlongevity Mortal 1 9 1.9 8.1 2.71 7.29 etc., etc., etc., ---- 10 0 The interest in the argument is that it is based on seemingly equitable principles and conservative assumptions. The argument assumes that the superlongevists will not reproduce, so it is not as if the longer-lived are trying to leverage their numbers by out breeding the mortalists. Nor are the superlongevists using coercion to strengthen their numbers, since the choice to pursue superlongevity is by hypothesis made autonomously (free from coercion). I think 10% is a very conservative figure as to how many would choose superlongevity both initially and over the course time. My own informal survey of students suggest that at least 25% would jump at the chance to access superlongevity technology. I'm inclined to think that many more would hop on the bandwagon when it actually came available. Of course the same conclusion would be reached if only .01% of each generation choose immortality only that it would take longer. Also, the argument works no matter what size the population is (colonizing other planets won't help) so long as it is finite. Of course one complication here is that some of those who choose superlongevity might change their mind and commit suicide. By the same sort of reasoning we should expect that those committing suicide ought to be reduced (as a percentage), for eventually the suiciders will be replaced by individuals who have a much stronger and sustained preference for superlongevity. Of course showing that universal superlongevity is inevitable on these assumptions does not show that it is the morally right decision. However, I think it does show that the only way to stop the immortality wave (given these assumptions) would be to usurp the autonomy of individuals. For example, suppose an affirmative action program that said at least 10% of the population must be mortals would force a percentage of the mortal subgroup (or those that have already chosen immortality) to give up their lives in order to meet the quota. Ironically, perhaps the best bet for mortalists would be to use genetic technologies on their descendents would be to implant an urge to be mortal to try and reduce the attrition of their numbers. This would be a desperate move for moralists like Kass, for instance. Of course it raises the question of how we much we could fiddle with the preferences of our descendents and still call them autonomous. Of course if there are genetic predispositions for preferring superlongevity or mortality then this would favor the idea that universal immortality is inevitable. Cheers, Mark Dr. Mark Walker Department of Philosophy University Hall 310 McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4K1 Canada From jonkc at att.net Sat Dec 4 18:57:02 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 13:57:02 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument References: <000001c4d9d2$7c995680$0200a8c0@ricksoyo> <001201c4da1b$46d394e0$74f54d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <000b01c4da33$11b924b0$19ff4d0c@hal2001> I wrote: > it would mean they are 27.6 light years distant from each other Hey, I was only off by a factor of a billion. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From rhanson at gmu.edu Sat Dec 4 20:15:00 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 15:15:00 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> Hal Finney wrote: >I don't see how it can happen so quickly. I envision a team with several >key members and an AI, where the AI gradually begins making a useful >contribution of its own. Eventually it becomes so capable that it is >doing more than the rest of the team, and from that point its competence >could, conceivably, grow exponentially. But I don't see any reason why >this process would go as fast as you describe. On 12/3/2004, Eliezer Yudkowsky responded: >Because the AI is nothing remotely like the other team members. ... You >can't expect that the AI will sit down and try to rewrite a module. The >more relevant capabilities, among those the AI possesses at a given time, >are those which operate on a timescale permitting them to be applied to >the entire AI at once. Slower capabilities would be used to rewrite >global ones, or forked and distributed onto more hardware, or used to >rewrite themselves to a speed where they become globally applicable. The >AI is not like a human. If you visualize a set of modules yielding >capabilities that turn back and rewrite the modules, and play with the >possibilities, you will not get any slow curves out of it. You will get >sharp breakthroughs ... a novice must imagine by analogy to humans with >strange mental modifications, rather than rethinking the nature of mind >(recursively self-improving optimization processes) from scratch. The >interaction between the AI rewriting itself and the programmers poking and >prodding the AI from outside will not resemble adding a human to the >team. ... the advantages of AI, the ability to run thousands of different >cognitive threads on distributed hardware, and above all the recursive >nature of self-improvement (which, this point has to keep on being >hammered home, is absolutely unlike anything in human experience). A lot >of this is in section III of LOGI. Consider rereading >it. http://singinst.org/LOGI/. We humans are familiar with many forms of recursive self-improvement of ourselves. The richer we get, the more abilities we have to get richer. The more we learn, the more and faster we can learn. Each new general insight we gain can be applied across a wide range of problems we face, and all these general insights help us find new general insights faster. Also, computer researchers use faster computers to help them design faster computers, and compilers can be set to compile compilers These recursive processes mainly produce at best steady exponential improvement at familiar slow rates. Artificial intelligence researchers have long searched for general principles to allow them to improve their programs. They keep rediscovering the same few insights, and so they spend most of their time looking for more domain specific insights to help them improve more specific kinds of performance. This is even embodies in the slogan that knowledge is the key - the main difference between smart and dumb systems is how many things they knows. The more you know, the faster you can learn, but mostly what you learn are specific things. You seem to be saying all our familiar experience as recursive businessmen, intellects, computer researchers, and AI programmers is misleading - that there remains a large pool of big general improvements, and there is a very different certain sort of path than a dumb AI could be placed on to find those improvements at a rapidly increasing pace. Others don't see that path, but you do. Virtually no established experts in related fields (i.e., economic growth, artificial intelligence, ...) see this path, or even recognize you as presenting an interesting different view they disagree with, even though you have for years explained it all in hundreds of pages of impenetrable prose, building very little on anyone else's closely related research, filled with terminology you invent. Do you have any idea how arrogant that sounds? Any idea how much it looks just like a crank? Are there no demonstration projects you could build as a proof of concept of your insights? Wouldn't it be worth it to take the time to convince at least one or two people who are recognized established experts in the fields in which you claim to have new insight, so they could integrate you into the large intellectual conversation? Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From eugen at leitl.org Sat Dec 4 20:16:20 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 21:16:20 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> Message-ID: <20041204201620.GR9221@leitl.org> On Sat, Dec 04, 2004 at 01:22:32PM +0100, Alfio Puglisi wrote: > No, a computer virus requires manual intervention. What Keith was > describing is more accurately called a "worm", which can infect hosts by > itself. It's probably the Code Red worm. http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/sapphire/ Introduction The Sapphire Worm was the fastest computer worm in history. As it began spreading throughout the Internet, it doubled in size every 8.5 seconds. It infected more than 90 percent of vulnerable hosts within 10 minutes. The worm (also called Slammer) began to infect hosts slightly before 05:30 UTC on Saturday, January 25. Sapphire exploited a buffer overflow vulnerability in computers on the Internet running Microsoft's SQL Server or MSDE 2000 (Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine). This weakness in an underlying indexing service was discovered in July 2002; Microsoft released a patch for the vulnerability before it was announced[1]. The worm infected at least 75,000 hosts, perhaps considerably more, and caused network outages and such unforeseen consequences as canceled airline flights, interference with elections, and ATM failures. Several disassembled versions of the source code of the worm are available. [2]. ... -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From fauxever at sprynet.com Sat Dec 4 20:31:06 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 12:31:06 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] New Hope in Human Paralysis Treatment Message-ID: <003501c4da40$2eb54410$6600a8c0@brainiac> "Researchers have successfully tested injections of a liquid polymer to heal spinal injuries in dogs in an experiment that also offers hope for preventing human paralysis ...": http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/202292_spinal04.html Olga From brentn at freeshell.org Sat Dec 4 20:55:53 2004 From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 15:55:53 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Researchers and students in America In-Reply-To: <20041203184657.12564.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: (12/3/04 10:46) Mike Lorrey wrote: >If the US gov't has finally started clamping down on academic visas, I >say it is a glorious day for US college students. They can finally look >forward to classes taught by assistant profs and grad students who can >speak english understandably. I'll note that all of my profs in both undergraduate and graduate school for whom English was their 2nd language spoke the language quite well. Don't confuse the cariacature of college with the real thing. B -- Brent Neal Geek of all Trades http://brentn.freeshell.org "Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein From brentn at freeshell.org Sat Dec 4 20:59:28 2004 From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 15:59:28 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <20041203192133.89375.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: (12/3/04 11:21) Mike Lorrey wrote: > >--- Hal Finney wrote:> >> Maybe wrapping it in a fuzzy exterior will help, child robots and >> talking >> dogs: "Hello, I'm Rags, woof, woof". But the reality is that people >> are going to be working side by side with these systems, and I think >> that is how they will base their conception of them as helpful or >> dangerous. > >Yes. Creating personality modules that, at least, mimic a personality >that is non-threatening (teddy bear, sexy female, child's voice, etc) >is the key to limiting or preventing proscriptive regulation. > That is, until some enterprising hack^H^H^H^H movie producer releases a summer blockbuster about an AI trapped in a teddy bear's body that goes berserk, puts on a hockey mask, invades people's minds, and kills them all as part of a plot to destroy the Earth with "fricken lasers" B -- Brent Neal Geek of all Trades http://brentn.freeshell.org "Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein From megao at sasktel.net Sat Dec 4 22:23:46 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 16:23:46 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41B238F2.2020107@sasktel.net> Brent Neal wrote: > (12/3/04 11:21) Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > >>--- Hal Finney wrote:> >> >> >>>Maybe wrapping it in a fuzzy exterior will help, child robots and >>>talking >>>dogs: "Hello, I'm Rags, woof, woof". But the reality is that people >>>are going to be working side by side with these systems, and I think >>>that is how they will base their conception of them as helpful or >>>dangerous. >>> >>> >>Yes. Creating personality modules that, at least, mimic a personality >>that is non-threatening (teddy bear, sexy female, child's voice, etc) >>is the key to limiting or preventing proscriptive regulation. >> >> >> > > >That is, until some enterprising hack^H^H^H^H movie producer releases a summer blockbuster about an AI trapped in a teddy bear's body that goes berserk, puts on a hockey mask, invades people's minds, and kills them all as part of a plot to destroy the Earth with "fricken lasers" > >B > > > Isn't this fun. We are all observers in the primordial soup speculating about how life will come about. In doing so we learn more about our own selves and possible origins as well. However let's hope the AI is not a reflection of its creators or better yet lets hope it chooses it's role models better than some of us humans do. In reflecting about the rate of human development over the last 100,000 years it seems that the rate of and efficiency of communication is the key driving factor. The full convergence of all known technology and knowledge in an AI which spans the entire globe to me marks the point at which the singularity begins. Yes there will be quite an exponential rate change, but I would expect that novel constraints will emerge. Allocation of resources to preserving a historical preserve/ living museum stocked with modern humans may be of dubious value to an AI whose goal is to optimize resource use to maximize its evolutionary rate. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 4 22:26:11 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 16:26:11 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041204162238.01c83bc8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 03:15 PM 12/4/2004 -0500, Robin wrote to Eliezer: < Wouldn't it be worth it to take the time to convince at least one or two people who are recognized established experts in the fields in which you claim to have new insight, so they could integrate you into the large intellectual conversation? > I agree in general with Robin's comments, but offer this as a possible counter-balance--a furious and frustrated essay by Physics Nobelist Brian Josephson, concerning the institutional barriers to communicating unorthodox ideas: http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/archivefreedom/main.html Damien Broderick From megao at sasktel.net Sat Dec 4 22:59:06 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 16:59:06 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Inevitability of Universal Immortality in a Finite Universe Message-ID: <41B2413A.6080604@sasktel.net> This is a good proposition as it allows for some unknown genetic or technologically insoluble deadend not to suddenly lead to a catastrophic die off of genetically similar superlonglived humanoids. The divergence of the human species into subspecies designed to survive other worlds without the need for the protections and comforts we now require would provide some reserve capacity to retool the species from if we ever worked ourselves into a genetic corner. As well the population might be controlled by some novel means such as offering dying mortal citizens off planet super-longevity if they had their head frozen and shipped via massdriver/railgun initiated propulsion to have a new body grown and consciousness transferred at the reanimation site on the destination planet. Longevity on an old developed world might not be as important as longevity on a world needing massive societal infrastructure development. Longevity would mean that it would not be a great sacrifice to spend 500 years taming a new world as there would be thousands of years left over to enjoy the results. As well , new harsher environments might require superlongevity traits just to survive. There may be a trade off between reproductive capacity and longevity modifications. We are almost envisioning a society like the greek mythologies with a mixed society of gods and mortals. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [extropy-chat] The Inevitability of Universal Immortality in a Finite Universe Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 13:15:17 -0500 From: Mark Walker Reply-To: ExI chat list To: ExI chat list References: <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218 at Nano> <20041204002336.289C857E2E at finney.org> <20041204002336.289C857E2E at finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0 at pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218 at Nano> <5.1.0.14.0.20041204124933.033927b0 at pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Suppose a world's population is fixed at 10 billion inhabitants and only 10% of these (autonomously) choose to pursue superlongevity (to tens of thousands of years or more). Assume further that if one pursues superlongevity then one is not allowed to have children. This means that 1 billion people will continue to live while 9 billion die off in the first hundred years or so. Of course the nine billion that die will be replaced by 9 billion descendents. Assume on the next iteration that 10% of the nine billion choose to pursue superlongevity, in which case 1.9 billion people will forgo ageing, while 8.1 will continue to procreate to top up the numbers. On the next iteration then there are 2.71 billion immortals and 7.29 mortals, and so on. The point of course is that within a very 6 generations the superlongevitists will be the majority and eventually the mortalists will disappear completely. Superlongevity Mortal 1 9 1.9 8.1 2.71 7.29 etc., etc., etc., ---- 10 0 The interest in the argument is that it is based on seemingly equitable principles and conservative assumptions. The argument assumes that the superlongevists will not reproduce, so it is not as if the longer-lived are trying to leverage their numbers by out breeding the mortalists. Nor are the superlongevists using coercion to strengthen their numbers, since the choice to pursue superlongevity is by hypothesis made autonomously (free from coercion). I think 10% is a very conservative figure as to how many would choose superlongevity both initially and over the course time. My own informal survey of students suggest that at least 25% would jump at the chance to access superlongevity technology. I'm inclined to think that many more would hop on the bandwagon when it actually came available. Of course the same conclusion would be reached if only .01% of each generation choose immortality only that it would take longer. Also, the argument works no matter what size the population is (colonizing other planets won't help) so long as it is finite. Of course one complication here is that some of those who choose superlongevity might change their mind and commit suicide. By the same sort of reasoning we should expect that those committing suicide ought to be reduced (as a percentage), for eventually the suiciders will be replaced by individuals who have a much stronger and sustained preference for superlongevity. Of course showing that universal superlongevity is inevitable on these assumptions does not show that it is the morally right decision. However, I think it does show that the only way to stop the immortality wave (given these assumptions) would be to usurp the autonomy of individuals. For example, suppose an affirmative action program that said at least 10% of the population must be mortals would force a percentage of the mortal subgroup (or those that have already chosen immortality) to give up their lives in order to meet the quota. Ironically, perhaps the best bet for mortalists would be to use genetic technologies on their descendents would be to implant an urge to be mortal to try and reduce the attrition of their numbers. This would be a desperate move for moralists like Kass, for instance. Of course it raises the question of how we much we could fiddle with the preferences of our descendents and still call them autonomous. Of course if there are genetic predispositions for preferring superlongevity or mortality then this would favor the idea that universal immortality is inevitable. Cheers, Mark Dr. Mark Walker Department of Philosophy University Hall 310 McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4K1 Canada _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sentience at pobox.com Sun Dec 5 00:03:51 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 19:03:51 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> Robin Hanson wrote: > Virtually no > established experts in related fields (i.e., economic growth, artificial > intelligence, ...) What a coincidence, that economics is so closely related to Artificial General Intelligence recursive self-improvement trajectories. Amazingly enough, just about every person who contacts me seems to have specialized in a field that lets them make pronouncements about matters of AGI. As Wil Holland wrote in the foreword to his book "Universal Artificial Intelligence" (no, it's not worth reading): "From many years of working in the construction industry and learning the age-old craftsman's technique of building a structure one block at a time, I have inadvertantly stumbled upon a method of semantic interpretation that applies in any situation..." It would seem that Artificial Intelligence is an even easier art to acquire than managing a government, writing legislation, or maintaining international diplomatic relations. I take it you've never run into people who think that their own field of knowledge easily generalizes to making pronouncements on specific questions in economics? As for seed AI, recursively self-improving AI, I am not aware of anyone who explicitly claims to *specialize* in that except me and Jurgen Schmidhuber. So far as I know, Jurgen Schmidhuber has not analyzed the seed AI trajectory problem. > see this path, or even recognize you as presenting an > interesting different view they disagree with, even though you have for > years explained it all in hundreds of pages of impenetrable prose, > building very little on anyone else's closely related research, filled > with terminology you invent. Oh, come now. That accusation may justly be leveled at "General Intelligence and Seed AI" or "Creating Friendly AI", but I think "Levels of Organization in General Intelligence", to which I referred Finney, deserves better than that. > Are there no demonstration projects you could > build as a proof of concept of your insights? When my insights reach the point of apparent *completeness* with respect to simple problems, that is, it feels like I know how to write a simple demo, I may (or may not) do so, depending on whether that seems like the fastest possible route to expanding the project. I think you underestimate the amount of massive overkill needed in the theoretical understanding department before I can offhandedly write a simple demo AI. > Wouldn't it be worth it > to take the time to convince at least one or two people who are > recognized established experts in the fields in which you claim to have > new insight, I was not aware that humanity presently boasted *any* recognized, established experts in the field of either Artificial General Intelligence or recursive self-improvement trajectories. So far as the academic field of AI is concerned, the status of the problem of Artificial Intelligence is "unsolved - no established fundamental theory". > so they could integrate you into the large intellectual > conversation? http://www.sl4.org/archive/0410/10025.html *Regardless* of what I said there, it is worth noting that as far as I know, LOGI is the *only* academically published paper (appearing in _Artificial General Intelligence_, Springer-Verlag 2005) *explicitly* analyzing seed AI self-improvement trajectories - regardless of what other published analyses may be claimed to "easily generalize" to that unprecedented and bizarre scenario. It's amazing how much stuff out there is "closely related" to AI, you'd think we'd have solved the problem by now. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From russell.wallace at gmail.com Sun Dec 5 02:34:03 2004 From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 02:34:03 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> Message-ID: <8d71341e041204183452f05b08@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 19:03:51 -0500, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > As for seed AI, recursively self-improving AI, I am not aware of anyone who > explicitly claims to *specialize* in that except me and Jurgen Schmidhuber. > So far as I know, Jurgen Schmidhuber has not analyzed the seed AI > trajectory problem. Having read LOGI, I'm still curious as to how you expect to solve the fundamental problem of knowing what is and isn't an improvement. Suppose version 1 of the AI comes up with a version 2 that it thinks will be smarter than V1. How does it know whether that's true or not? Trial and error? Or are you hoping (as suggested by a couple of remarks you made along the way) that it'll be able to use formal proof? - Russell From rhanson at gmu.edu Sun Dec 5 03:11:06 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:11:06 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041204203813.02da8a98@mail.gmu.edu> At 07:03 PM 12/4/2004, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: >Robin Hanson wrote: >>Virtually no established experts in related fields (i.e., economic >>growth, artificial intelligence, ...) > >What a coincidence, that economics is so closely related to Artificial >General Intelligence recursive self-improvement trajectories. Amazingly >enough, just about every person who contacts me seems to have specialized >in a field that lets them make pronouncements about matters of AGI. Economic growth is the fully recursive self-improvement of the world economy as a whole. >It would seem that Artificial Intelligence is an even easier art to >acquire than managing a government, writing legislation, or maintaining >international diplomatic relations. I take it you've never run into >people who think that their own field of knowledge easily generalizes to >making pronouncements on specific questions in economics? I did spend nine years doing Artificial Intelligence research (at Lockheed and NASA). >As for seed AI, recursively self-improving AI, I am not aware of anyone >who explicitly claims to *specialize* in that except me and Jurgen >Schmidhuber. Even if true, the usual procedure is to engage the recognized experts in the most closely related pre-existing fields available, to convince them to recognize you as experts in your new field. If you disagree with my judgement about what the most closely related fields are, well fine, pick some others. Saying that nothing else is at all related won't fly. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From russell.wallace at gmail.com Sun Dec 5 03:32:52 2004 From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 03:32:52 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041204203813.02da8a98@mail.gmu.edu> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204203813.02da8a98@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <8d71341e04120419324e2c94d3@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:11:06 -0500, Robin Hanson wrote: > Economic growth is the fully recursive self-improvement of the world > economy as a whole. Not fully. The static part consists of the laws of physics (which don't change at all) and the human genome, material composition of the Earth and energy input from the sun (which don't change quickly enough to make a difference on economic timescales). Basically, I don't believe there's any such thing as fully recursive self-improvement; it seems to me there always has to be a static part that drives the improvement of the dynamic part; but I'm curious about the reasons people like Eliezer have for believing otherwise. - Russell From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Dec 5 03:51:45 2004 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 22:51:45 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launch inquisition...) Message-ID: The Simulation Argument has such obvious flaws, that I can't imagine why people are still arguing about it.... But here I go anyway.... :-) 1. The Simulation Arguments makes a huge assumption without any basis: That the "probability" of being born into a simulation is the same as the "probability" of being born into a real universe. I am not sure that this statement even makes any sense. Even if it does make sense, I am not sure why simulations should be given equal weight to real universes that have much larger volume, much longer time-spans, very long head-starts, and have more resources than the simulations contained within them. It seems more likely that non-simulated universes should have much more weight in comparison. It may even be plausible that non-simulated universes have more weight than all the simulations contained within them combined. On the basis of space, time, precedence, hierarchy and other comparisons, it seems that real universes always win. I can't think of any reason to give simulations equal or greater weight. 2. The Simulation Argument proponents seem to prefer possibility #3 without evidence. There is no reason to assume possibility #3 is likely. Why would anybody run a significant number of simulations of their history? By the time they have enough information to make accurate simulations, they wouldn't need to run simulations. They would already know how things would turn out. It wouldn't be very useful for research or discovery. For entertainment, it would be even less likely. We fantasize about being in a future simulation to escape our boring present world in favor of the better future world. For such simulations to exist, we must imagine that the future humans have the exact opposite desires. They would be trying to access our primitive and boring universes instead of their own more advanced universes. Even if this were sometime desirable, I doubt such situations would outnumber futuristic simulations or outnumber real-life endeavors. 3. The Simulation Argument proponents seem to dislike possibility #2 without evidence. There are many plausible scenarios where such simulations are not common. Maybe advanced humans are more interested in reality than simulations. Maybe advanced humans decide that it is unethical to create life-forms in a simulation and not let them out into the real world. Maybe most simulated civilizations find a way to escape or crash their universes, such that they don't exist in large numbers or for very long. Maybe there is no point to simulating entire universes and simulating smaller games, small situations, or temporary settings are more common. Maybe simulations never last long compared to real universes, and thus, the number of them is limited or distributed over time such that they never outnumber real universes. Maybe future humans figure out time travel or observe the past directly so that simulating isn't required. Maybe future humans observe parallel universes via Many Worlds quantum physics and have more universes than they could ever explore and don't need to make additional boring ones. 4. The logic is faulty. Similar arguments can be made for other such claims. For example, there are more dreams than real lives on this planet, since every human dreams many dreams per day, therefore we are almost certainly living in a dream. There are more aliens on other planets than there are earthlings on this planet, therefore we are almost certainly extraterrestrial aliens who merely believe we are earthlings. There are more ex-workers from my company than current employees, therefore we are almost certainly already fired and just don't know it yet. The Simulation Argument seems very similar to the Doomsday Argument. It assigns faulty statistics about things we cannot measure or predict, and then makes predictions based on our faulty assumptions. It is simply circular logic that makes assumptions to support the conclusion and then concludes what was already assumed. It is not an example of the scientific method, Occam's Razor, logic, or other form of evidence. It is an example of persuasive rhetoric that proves nothing. Just because our current circumstances seem unlikely does not mean that we must reject the obvious reality around us in favor of an unseen reality that cannot be detected, tested or proven. So, in summary, I think that the obvious solution to the Simulation Argument is possibility #2: "any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof)." I think realistic simulations of history will be limited to specific events of interest, and that the sum total of all such simulations in a universe will not even come close to simulating an infinitesimally small fraction of the complete universe itself. I also think that any attempt to weight probabilistic chances of being born into one of these simulations is extremely speculatory at best and meaningless at worst. I think the usage of terminology such as "conclusions" or "likelihoods" or "almost certainly" with respect to this "argument" are simply inaccurate and misleading. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From rhanson at gmu.edu Sun Dec 5 03:50:21 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:50:21 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <8d71341e04120419324e2c94d3@mail.gmail.com> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204203813.02da8a98@mail.gmu.edu> <8d71341e04120419324e2c94d3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041204224639.02c17038@mail.gmu.edu> At 10:32 PM 12/4/2004, Russell Wallace wrote: >On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:11:06 -0500, Robin Hanson wrote: > > Economic growth is the fully recursive self-improvement of the world > > economy as a whole. > >Not fully. The static part consists of the laws of physics (which >don't change at all) and the human genome, material composition of the >Earth and energy input from the sun (which don't change quickly enough >to make a difference on economic timescales). Well I grant that some things have stayed constant for long periods of economic growth, and that it is important to be able to analyze growth in some things while holding other things static. But in the future the human genome, material composition of the Earth and energy input from the sun, and even the laws of physics may well change. If anything is going to change these things, it will be further economic growth. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Sun Dec 5 03:54:52 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:54:52 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041204162238.01c83bc8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> <6.1.1.1.0.20041204162238.01c83bc8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041204225105.02c69638@mail.gmu.edu> At 05:26 PM 12/4/2004, Damien Broderick wrote: >At 03:15 PM 12/4/2004 -0500, Robin wrote to Eliezer: >< Wouldn't it be worth it to take the time to convince at least one or two >people who are recognized established experts in the fields in which you >claim to have new insight, so they could integrate you into the large >intellectual conversation? > > >I agree in general with Robin's comments, but offer this as a possible >counter-balance--a furious and frustrated essay by Physics Nobelist Brian >Josephson, concerning the institutional barriers to communicating >unorthodox ideas: >http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/archivefreedom/main.html Oh there are enormous barriers, I agree. Making it all the more important to learn how best to overcome them. Virtually every intellectual adventure/hero story pits the heroic new idea against conservative resistance. Many of those stories are self-serving nonsense, but others tell valuable lessons. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From russell.wallace at gmail.com Sun Dec 5 04:35:03 2004 From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 04:35:03 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041204224639.02c17038@mail.gmu.edu> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204203813.02da8a98@mail.gmu.edu> <8d71341e04120419324e2c94d3@mail.gmail.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204224639.02c17038@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <8d71341e041204203569b1bcb7@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:50:21 -0500, Robin Hanson wrote: > Well I grant that some things have stayed constant for long periods of > economic growth, and that it is important to be able to analyze growth > in some things while holding other things static. But in the future > the human genome, material composition of the Earth and energy input > from the sun, and even the laws of physics may well change. If anything > is going to change these things, it will be further economic growth. (Nitpick: We can't change the ultimate laws of physics, more or less by definition; if we do find a way to change things like the mass of the proton, then that'll be in accordance with some deeper laws, which are what I'll refer to as the laws of physics here.) But yes, lots of things that have stayed static in the past might change in the future. The laws of physics will stay constant, of course. If those are the only static part, what will they drive the dynamic part towards? Optimal self-replication; in practical terms, what we'll likely get will be an expanding sphere of nonsentient von Neumann probes, converting all matter into copies of themselves... i.e. just as sure and total a loss as if we simply blew up the planet tomorrow. So in a sense the challenge of the Singularity, and of Friendly AI, is to find a way to expand the static part; to keep those things we value static, while driving enough dynamic change to not get left behind. - Russell From harara at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 5 05:27:15 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 21:27:15 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <8d71341e04120419324e2c94d3@mail.gmail.com> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204203813.02da8a98@mail.gmu.edu> <8d71341e04120419324e2c94d3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041204211505.029095a8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Waay back in college days (1964 or so) as a physics nerd I discovered psychology. Not the Freud stuff, or any of the other theories like Jung and so on, but via learning human communications by process groups (a nicer term than marathon or encounter). I had discovered rather brutally that my social skills weren't and thus began a 35 year process of insight, emotional growth, and self improvement, mostly cognitive and learning what my feelings were about, as well as how to communicate a bit better. For many years I was of the opinion that "It's all software", and many threads were explored, some quite esoteric, others a la Leary, etc. I don't think so any more. There is a whole selection of levels of plasticity, from recalling a new phone number to my genes. As far as I can tell, some levels get installed in early babyhood and that's it. As a cryonicist, I hope to get a neuronal editor and eventually make changes which cannot be done at the present. Though it is very hard to really realize when something is basically hardwired, there is also a kind of liberation - there is no need to try changing things one lacks tools for. I can focus my limited energy in the possible. I hope the cryonics will work, so the possible is larger. >Basically, I don't believe there's any such thing as fully recursive >self-improvement; it seems to me there always has to be a static part >that drives the improvement of the dynamic part; but I'm curious about >the reasons people like Eliezer have for believing otherwise. > >- Russell ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Dec 5 07:05:16 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 18:05:16 +1100 Subject: World economic growth metrics? (was Re: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI) References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204203813.02da8a98@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <012f01c4da98$c604e430$b8232dcb@homepc> Robin Hanson wrote: > Economic growth is the fully recursive self-improvement of > the world economy as a whole. Apologies if this is taken too far out of context but does it actually make sense to speak of a single world economy as something that has a growth that can be meaningfully measured? It seems to me that currently the world is not a homogeneous system under a single set of laws. This means that many of the transactions that take place between persons (both natural and legal) on the planet do so on a basis that is anything but fully voluntary for many people. I am not an economist so my question is almost certainly naive but I wonder what growth metrics would be tracked in measuring the growth of something like a world economy as opposed to a merely national one? Brett Paatsch From Walter_Chen at compal.com Sun Dec 5 08:24:16 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 16:24:16 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FC@tpeexg01.compal.com> In the future transhuman age, if you can change whatever (including the genes, or so-called neuronal editor, or even your face/personal characters etc.) you want, then what makes you still the unique you? Thanks. Walter. -------- -----Original Message----- From: Hara Ra Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 1:27 PM > ... There is a whole selection of levels of plasticity, from > recalling a new phone number to my genes. As far as I can tell, some levels > get installed in early babyhood and that's it. As a cryonicist, I hope to > get a neuronal editor and eventually make changes which cannot be done at > the present. > Though it is very hard to really realize when something is basically > hardwired, there is also a kind of liberation - there is no need to try > changing things one lacks tools for. I can focus my limited energy in the > possible. I hope the cryonics will work, so the possible is larger. ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. 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URL: From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Dec 5 08:44:22 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 19:44:22 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Inevitability of Universal Immortality in a Finite Universe References: <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <5.1.0.14.0.20041204124933.033927b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <002e01c4da2d$35b9a980$9a00a8c0@markcomputer> Message-ID: <019201c4daa6$9dfd8380$b8232dcb@homepc> Mark Walker wrote: > Suppose a world's population is fixed at 10 billion inhabitants and only > 10% > of these (autonomously) choose to pursue superlongevity (to tens of > thousands of years or more). > Assume further that if one pursues > superlongevity then one is not allowed to have children. This means that 1 > billion people will continue to live while 9 billion die off in the first > hundred years or so. Of course the nine billion that die will be replaced > by > 9 billion descendents. Assume on the next iteration that 10% of the nine > billion choose to pursue superlongevity, in which case 1.9 billion people > will forgo ageing, while 8.1 will continue to procreate to top up the > numbers. On the next iteration then there are 2.71 billion immortals and > 7.29 mortals, and so on. The point of course is that within a very 6 > generations the superlongevitists will be the majority and eventually the > mortalists will disappear completely. > > Superlongevity Mortal > 1 9 > 1.9 8.1 > 2.71 7.29 > > etc., etc., etc., > ---- > 10 0 > > The interest in the argument is that it is based on seemingly equitable > principles and conservative assumptions. Seemingly, but how in practice they choose to pursue it isn't specified and almost certainly would have ramifications. If a person wanted to pursue superlongevity but couldn't afford it without assistance from the state to cover the costs for instance. > The argument assumes that the > superlongevists will not reproduce, so it is not as if the longer-lived > are > trying to leverage their numbers by out breeding the mortalists. Nor are > the > superlongevists using coercion to strengthen their numbers, since the > choice > to pursue superlongevity is by hypothesis made autonomously (free from > coercion). I think 10% is a very conservative figure as to how many would > choose superlongevity both initially and over the course time. My own > informal survey of students suggest that at least 25% would jump at the > chance to access superlongevity technology. I'm inclined to think that > many > more would hop on the bandwagon when it actually came available. Of course > the same conclusion would be reached if only .01% of each generation > choose > immortality only that it would take longer. Also, the argument works no > matter what size the population is (colonizing other planets won't help) > so > long as it is finite. Of course one complication here is that some of > those > who choose superlongevity might change their mind and commit suicide. By > the > same sort of reasoning we should expect that those committing suicide > ought > to be reduced (as a percentage), for eventually the suiciders will be > replaced by individuals who have a much stronger and sustained preference > for superlongevity. Of course showing that universal superlongevity is > inevitable on these assumptions does not show that it is the morally right > decision. However, I think it does show that the only way to stop the > immortality wave (given these assumptions) would be to usurp the autonomy > of > individuals. On the contrary I think you've bypassed a key problem if not the key problem. Health is a costly resource. Who pays when someone wants a treatment that they cannot afford themselves? Some might see having to pay for such a treatment for others as usurping their autonomy by removing their ability to do what they want to do with their money because they are being taxed for most of it. Others might be happy to pay tax to support women having children but not to support crusty oldies kicking on indefinately and competing with their children and grandchildren for jobs and opportunities and influence etc. > For example, suppose an affirmative action program that said at > least 10% of the population must be mortals would force a percentage of > the > mortal subgroup (or those that have already chosen immortality) to give up > their lives in order to meet the quota. Ironically, perhaps the best bet > for mortalists would be to use genetic technologies on their descendents > would be to implant an urge to be mortal to try and reduce the attrition > of > their numbers. This would be a desperate move for moralists like Kass, for > instance. Of course it raises the question of how we much we could fiddle > with the preferences of our descendents and still call them autonomous. Of > course if there are genetic predispositions for preferring superlongevity > or > mortality then this would favor the idea that universal immortality is > inevitable. I understand you are trying to teach philosophy students to think through the moral issues in this area. If so more strength to your arm. But the real battles are going to be over health economics and how resources are allocated when they are in short supply I suspect. Also over who can own the technology and for how long can they have patent monopolies. Brett Paatsch From scerir at libero.it Sun Dec 5 09:48:34 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 10:48:34 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FC@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <072201c4daaf$cb512040$7ebf1b97@administxl09yj> > In the future transhuman age, > if you can change whatever (including the > genes, or so-called neuronal editor, or even > your face/personal characters etc.) you want, > then what makes you still the unique you? > -Walter. That you always make that same mistakes, imo. s. 'I have hardly anything in common with myself ..." - Franz Kafka, 8 January 1914, from 'Diaries 1914-1923' From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Dec 5 10:05:45 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 21:05:45 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FC@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <01ee01c4dab1$fcb08570$b8232dcb@homepc> RE: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AIImo, a unique subjective point of view instantiated on a particular matter substrate contained within a bubble like volume of three dimensions of space and one of time that has never reduced to a size less than that which is minimal for the running of a mind process :-) Brett ----- Original Message ----- From: Walter_Chen at compal.com To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 7:24 PM Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In the future transhuman age, if you can change whatever (including the genes, or so-called neuronal editor, or even your face/personal characters etc.) you want, then what makes you still the unique you? Thanks. Walter. -------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Sun Dec 5 12:14:40 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 04:14:40 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FC@tpeexg01.compal.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FC@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <41B2FBB0.7050403@mac.com> How does your uniqueness require the same lack of control and options as you experience now? If you are unique now then you will use greater options most likely in rather unique ways, yes? I really don't see how more choices will lead to less uniqueness. If anything I would expect it to lead to more unique individuals (and groups for that matter) than today. -s Walter_Chen at compal.com wrote: > In the future transhuman age, if you can change whatever (including > the genes, or > so-called neuronal editor, or even your face/personal characters etc.) > you want, > then what makes you still the unique you? > > Thanks. > > Walter. > -------- > > -----Original Message----- > From: Hara Ra > Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 1:27 PM > > > ... There is a whole selection of levels of plasticity, from > > recalling a new phone number to my genes. As far as I can tell, some > levels > > get installed in early babyhood and that's it. As a cryonicist, I > hope to > > get a neuronal editor and eventually make changes which cannot be > done at > > the present. > > > Though it is very hard to really realize when something is basically > > hardwired, there is also a kind of liberation - there is no need to try > > changing things one lacks tools for. I can focus my limited energy > in the > > possible. I hope the cryonics will work, so the possible is larger. > > > > ================================================================================================================================================================ > This message may contain information which is private, privileged or > confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended > recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete > the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use > of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by > persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. > ================================================================================================================================================================ > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > From rhanson at gmu.edu Sun Dec 5 14:34:45 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 09:34:45 -0500 Subject: World economic growth metrics? (was Re: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI) In-Reply-To: <012f01c4da98$c604e430$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu> <41B25067.9080303@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041204203813.02da8a98@mail.gmu.edu> <012f01c4da98$c604e430$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041205092318.02d099a0@mail.gmu.edu> At 02:05 AM 12/5/2004, Brett Paatsch wrote: > >Economic growth is the fully recursive self-improvement of the world > economy as a whole. > >... does it actually make sense to speak of a single world economy as >something that >has a growth that can be meaningfully measured? >It seems to me that currently the world is not a homogeneous system >under a single set of laws. This means that many of the transactions >that take place between persons (both natural and legal) on the planet >do so on a basis that is anything but fully voluntary for many people. All the usual growth metrics can work on the world level as well as the national level. The involuntary nature of transactions can complicate estimates of the value people place on the goods transacted (ick, what a verb), but don't make them impossible. The core idea is to see what stuff (goods and services) people have, and use their trades and other choices to estimate the value they place on that stuff. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From neptune at superlink.net Sun Dec 5 15:06:38 2004 From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 10:06:38 -0500 Subject: World economic growth metrics? (was Re: [extropy-chat] Theemergence of AI) References: <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <41B1135C.5000809@pobox.com><6.2.0.14.2.20041204142424.02d55b70@mail.gmu.edu><41B25067.9080303@pobox.com><6.2.0.14.2.20041204203813.02da8a98@mail.gmu.edu><012f01c4da98$c604e430$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041205092318.02d099a0@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <010101c4dadc$05df5840$ad893cd1@pavilion> On Sunday, December 05, 2004 9:34 AM Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu wrote: >>>Economic growth is the fully recursive >>> self-improvement of the world economy >>> as a whole. >> >>... does it actually make sense to speak of >> a single world economy as something that >> has a growth that can be meaningfully >> measured? It seems to me that currently >> the world is not a homogeneous system >> under a single set of laws. That'd apply within nation states as well. For instance, in the US, State and local laws vary. In some sense, it's arbitrary to speak of one national economy instead of a world economy or a patchwork of local economies. >> This means that many of the transactions >> that take place between persons (both >> natural and legal) on the planet do so on >> a basis that is anything but fully voluntary >> for many people. > > All the usual growth metrics can work on the > world level as well as the national level. As far as they work at all, yes. > The involuntary nature of transactions can > complicate estimates of the value people > place on the goods transacted (ick, what a > verb), but don't make them impossible. The > core idea is to see what stuff (goods and > services) people have, and use their trades > and other choices to estimate the value they > place on that stuff. Have you heard of "The Magnificent Progress Achieved by Capitalism: Is the Evidence Incontrovertible?" by Hendrik Van den Berg? It's in _The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies_ 5(2). For more on that journal, see: http://www.aynrandstudies.com Anyhow, Van der Berg introduces another way of measuring overall individual welfare that might prove helpful in this discussion. (Actually, he's building on the work of Frank Lichtenberg.) This is AILI, Average Individual Lifetime Income. It's derived by looking at the average income and the average life expectancy. E.g., a society where the average person earns $20K per year during his or her whole life and, on average, can expect to live to be 100 yields an AILI of $2M. He thinks this is a better rough measure of average individual welfare than other current measures. He also makes suggestions for fine tuning it in the article. In terms of growth, one could look at changes in the AILI over time. Cheers! Dan http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/MyWorksBySubject.html From scerir at libero.it Sun Dec 5 16:46:59 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 17:46:59 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Earth rings References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FC@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <004301c4daea$0a43e280$f4c41b97@administxl09yj> Would be desirable to contain the particles, from space flight projects, in a ring, around the Earth? Would such a ring remain stable? http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/ 2002/earth-sci-fossil-fuel/ringworld.html http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagent/restricted/ earth-ring-dynamics.html http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf012/sf012p07.htm http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/library/ SatelliteFragHistory/13thEditionofBreakupBook.pdf [long, about satellite fragmentation] From benboc at lineone.net Sun Dec 5 16:43:26 2004 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 16:43:26 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Inevitability of Universal Immortality in a Finite Universe In-Reply-To: <200412041900.iB4J0C025358@tick.javien.com> References: <200412041900.iB4J0C025358@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41B33AAE.9000504@lineone.net> Mark Walker wrote: This assumes several things that aren't necessarily true. For instance: A) material resources would not apply the brakes on expansion B) the long-lived population would be exactly the same in every other way to the rest of the population, and hence compete in the same ecological niche C) these long-lived, biological people would live indefinitely, instead of succumbing to the statistical probability of dying of accidents etc. (Estimates of the half-lives of immortal biological people vary, but a commonly quoted figure is 1000 years) D) these long-lived humans will not want to escape the half-life problem by becoming less biological, and thus moving to a different ecological niche - ultimately removing themselves from the biological realm entirely. It's quite possible that a population of billions or tens of billions might be able to live in a device the size of a small fridge (they'd have to learn to scrunch their arms and legs up /really tightly/, though) I'm sure there must be others. ben From benboc at lineone.net Sun Dec 5 17:01:23 2004 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 17:01:23 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <200412051215.iB5CFH004266@tick.javien.com> References: <200412051215.iB5CFH004266@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41B33EE3.5020803@lineone.net> Walter_Chen at compal.com wrote: "In the future transhuman age, if you can change whatever (including the genes, or so-called neuronal editor, or even your face/personal characters etc.) you want, then what makes you still the unique you?" Whatever you like, Walter. That's the beauty of it. ben From scerir at libero.it Sun Dec 5 20:29:30 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 21:29:30 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] quantum `pseudo-telepathy' References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041204113517.01a39ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <000d01c4db09$201da9a0$edbd1b97@administxl09yj> [D.B. pointed out ...] > http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0306042 > Quantum entanglement, perhaps the most > non-classical manifestation of quantum > information theory, cannot be used > to transmit information between remote parties. > Yet, it can be used to reduce the amount > of communication required to process a variety > of distributed computational tasks. We speak > of pseudo-telepathy when quantum entanglement > serves to eliminate the classical need to > communicate. Telepathy as Shimony's "passion at a distance" between entangled pairs? In those years (1933-36) in which Einstein, but also Popper, were thinking about measurements of correlated observables, and related uncertainties, and predictions and retrodictions, and 'non-separability' of quantum entangled systems, and Grete Hermann developed her "relative state" interpretation of QM (now known as MWI) and - it seems so, according to Max Jammer - also the first "retrocausation" solution of EPR effect (decades ahead of Huw Price, O. Costa de Beauregard, Pegg, Hoyle, etc.), W. Pauli and C.G. Jung were corresponding about telepathy, as well as 'psychic' entanglements, 'non-separability' of systems, and 'retrocausations'. - Pauli to Jung, Zurich, 26 Jul. 1934, [comments, snips] "Jordan's essay ['Uber den positivistischen Begriff der Wirklichkeit'] a copy of which is enclosed, was sent to me for appraisal by the publisher of the Journal _Die Naturwissenshaften_. [...] As for the author, P.Jordan, I know him personally. He is a highly intelligent and gifted theoretical physicist, certainly one to be taken seriously [co-inventor of matrix mechanics, transformation theory, second quantization, etc.]. [...] I would be interested to hear your opinion on the contents of the essay, especially as Jordan's ideas seem to me to have a certain connection with your own. In the last section of the essay in particular, he comes very close to your concept of the collective unconscious. [...] I _do_ have certain misgivings about the picture (p.12), according to which the conscious should be located as a 'narrow borderline area' to the unconscious. Might it not be preferable to advocate the view that the unconscious and the conscious are complementary (i.e., in a mutually exclusive relationship to each other), but not that one is part of the other? [Btw, according to Pauli complementarity was the essential content of QM]. [....]" -Jung to Pauli, Zurich-Kusnacht, 29 Oct. 1934 "With regard to Jordan's reference to parapsychic manifestations, spatial clairvoyance is of course one of the most obvious phenomena to represent the relative nonexistence of our physical image of space. Taking this argument further, he would also necessarily have to bring in temporal clairvoyance, which would represent the relativity of the image of time. Naturally, Jordan looks at these phenomena from the physical point of view, whereas I do so from the psychic point of view - specifically from the fact of the collective unconscious, as you have correctly noted, which presents a layer of the psychic in which individual distinctions of consciousness are more or less extinguished. However, if individual consciousnesses in the unconscious were extinguished, then all perception in the unconscious would occur as in one person. Jordan states [see quantum 'non-separability'] that a sender and a receiver in the same conscious 'space' observe the same object at the same time. One could just as easily turn this statement around and say that in unconscious 'space', sender and receiver are one and the same perceiving object [non-local observer, Goedelian issues]. [...] Carried to its ultimate conclusion, Jordan's approach would lead to the supposition of an absolute unconscious space in which an infinite number of observers are looking at the same object. The phychological version would be: In the unconscious there is just one observer, who looks at the infinite number of objects. [...] By the way, it has just occurred to me that on the subject of time relativity there is a book by a student of Eddington, Dunne, _An Experiment with Time_, in which he deal with temporal clairvoyance in a similar way to how Jordan deals with spatial clairvoyance. He postulate an infinite number of time dimensions that more or less correspond to Jordan's 'intermediary stages'. I would be very interested to hear how you respond to these arguments of Dunne's. [...]" Note that many of these questions (multidimensionality of time, non-separability of quantum systems, non-separability of observers, entanglements in space, entanglements in time, non-distinguishability of all present states of a system from within the system, non-distinguishability of all past and future states of a system from within the system, impossibility of 'picture in picture', time-symmetry, interferences between quantum objects and their mirror images, entanglements from the future/measurement to the past/emission, conceptual impossibility of TOEs, hidden carriers of informations, etc.) are still on the table ... http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0207029 http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0205182 http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0102109 http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0012060 http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9801061 s. 'Algebraic nonseparability entails geometric nonlocality; emphasis on its time aspect can be worded atemporality.' -Olivier Costa de Beauregard From Walter_Chen at compal.com Mon Dec 6 00:04:40 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:04:40 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] quantum `pseudo-telepathy' Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FD@tpeexg01.compal.com> You mean G.B. (Gilles Brassard) or A.B, not D.B. These ideas are quite interesting. Thanks. Walter. --------- > [D.B. pointed out ...] > http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0306042 > Quantum entanglement, perhaps the most > non-classical manifestation of quantum > information theory, cannot be used > to transmit information between remote parties. > Yet, it can be used to reduce the amount > of communication required to process a variety > of distributed computational tasks. We speak > of pseudo-telepathy when quantum entanglement > serves to eliminate the classical need to > communicate. ... ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Walter_Chen at compal.com Mon Dec 6 00:28:35 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:28:35 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Earth rings Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FE@tpeexg01.compal.com> Can this be regarded as the first step to the so-called planetary brain? Thanks. Walter. --------- > From: scerir > Would be desirable to contain the particles, from > space flight projects, in a ring, around the Earth? > Would such a ring remain stable? ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Walter_Chen at compal.com Mon Dec 6 00:44:49 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:44:49 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FF@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: Samantha Atkins > How does your uniqueness require the same lack of control and options as > you experience now? If you are unique now then you will use greater > options most likely in rather unique ways, yes? I really don't see how > more choices will lead to less uniqueness. If anything I would expect > it to lead to more unique individuals (and groups for that matter) than > today. If you can make yourself the most clever, or the most handsome/beautiful, or the most social, or the most leading etc. by the future tech., I think most people will look more or less the same, right? Anyway, why you don't make yourself the best if you can make it easily by tech.? > From: scerir > That you always make that same mistakes, imo. Not that you always do the right things? > From: Brett > Imo, a unique subjective point of view instantiated on a particular matter substrate contained within a bubble like volume of three dimensions of > space and one of time that has never reduced to a size less than that which is minimal for the running of a mind process :-) OK, this sounds like a soul. ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 6 01:59:17 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 19:59:17 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] advanced science fights crime Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041205194820.01a2d9d8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> I read: http://www.canada.com/news/national/story.html?id=3f8f2b8f-87c9-433a-8df8-d81bcad148fc < Authorities had never before asked for a DNA sample, the source said. A cotton swab was used to collect the sample from [Michael] Jackson's mouth. < It wasn't immediately clear how authorities planned to use the DNA in Jackson's child molestation case. < Also while at Jackson's ranch, sheriff's investigators measured rooms, trying to establish the sight lines from one room to another, the source said. > I assumed at first that this DNA sample would establish whether any of the young boys allegedly molested by Jackson had been made pregnant by him. But the carefully measured sight lines suggest another scientific line of thought--that Jackson's DNA might have *leaped* from one room to the other, perhaps while everyone slept. After all, science has shown that genes are driven by the desire to spread themselves widely, although not through walls... unless the dancing entertainer's semen contains *mystical teleporting genes*!! Or maybe leading scientists are looking into the possibility that Jackson's mutant genes for ever paler skin, like Lex Luthor's baldness, made him the evil genius he is today. Any forensic experts here who can cast light on this amazing investigation? Damien Broderick From harara at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 6 04:56:01 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 20:56:01 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Inevitability of Universal Immortality in a Finite Universe In-Reply-To: <019201c4daa6$9dfd8380$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <5.1.0.14.0.20041204124933.033927b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <002e01c4da2d$35b9a980$9a00a8c0@markcomputer> <019201c4daa6$9dfd8380$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041205201147.02942188@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> I challenge the assumptions made here: 1. I am often told by those reluctant to consider cryonics that Life Extension will work, especially if one is young, due to the bootstrapping effect - each year of more life brings more options, etc unto an extremely long life. What is missed here (just one of several things) is that biological systems are very complex, and each level of intervention will, yes, provide more life, but the next level will be much more complex. Melatonin is simple, Telemeronase is complex, and the Human Genome seriously complex. My favorite analogy is used cars. I am a cheapskate and buy cars about 10 years old. They generally run for 5 - 7 years and then the mechanic tells me the repair costs more than the auto is worth. So on to the next one. The promise of nanotechnology suggests two things: A) Constructing an object the size of a human body uses some 5 x 10^28 atoms, so if the first assembler can do one atom per second, and a BIG presumption, that Moore's Law will still apply, at 10^2 per decade improvement gets a value of 14.5 decades. But that is fabricating a human body in 1 second! If we allow a couple of weeks, 10^6 seconds, 3 decades go away, and now the estimate is 11.5 decades. Now, Moore's Law has been a pretty good predictor of my personal PC, whose cost has been constant in the $800 range, from the Commodore PET (8K RAM, 8 bits, .5mhz 20K Tape storage) to the by now obsolete Pentium I use, (2 gb RAM, 32 bits, 2ghz, 240 gb Hd storage). So, if the cost of the first nanobuilt body is $800 million dollars, guess what - 3 more decades (back to 14.5) and the cost is the same as my PC. The point here is that there will be a time when total body replacement is a cheaper option than continuing life extension. It reminds me of the cherry condition Edsel I saw parked in the street next to my house about 20 years ago. The maintenance cost of that machine must be at least 100x per mile driven than that of a 10 year old used car. 2. Now uploading (or inloading, replacing the brain with computronium) is a whole other matter. In NanoSystems, Drexler using a mechanocomputing model estimates that less than 1ml is needed to create a human equivalent computer. More fun with numbers: 200 billion neurons, average 2K synapses per neuron is 10^11 x 10^3 x 4 = 4 x 10^14 synapses. If we allow a nanobuilt "synapse" to use a cube of .1 micron on a side (and that is generous, even allowing for the connections), now, .001 cubic micron per synaptic equivalent, the volume comes to 4 x 10^14 x 10^-3 x 10^-18 = 4 x 10^-7 M^3 or 0.4 milliliters. A 50 Kg body is 5 x 10^1 x 10^3 = 5 x 10^4 milliliters, so the ratio becomes 5/0.4 x 10^4 = 1.25 x 10^5, so to build a nanoequivalent brain takes less nano resources, if we again apply Moore's law, now we come to 14.5 - 2.5 or 12 decades, and if it still takes 2 weeks, now the number becomes 9 decades. If the cost of such a device is $1 Million, or about 1000x that of my PC, well, ok, 10.5 decades. Please note that the real money improvement in personal income is around 100x per century, so a century from now the real cost is about the value of $10,000 is today. This is clearly not very expensive. And to top it off, even a mechanocomputer will run some 100x faster than a biological brain, so an upload will experience a 100x time expansion factor as well. 3. Our attitudes about life are a combination of genetics, culture and early family experience, all of which are currently not editable. I rather think that a "Life is wonderful and a true joy" mementic installation will prove very popular, ergo those selecting super long life will approach 100%. ------------------------- Of course this is lots of smoke and a nontrivial number of mirrors, and getting better values is intractable at best, but this is why I think the numbers and methods mentioned in this thread are nearly pointless. >Mark Walker wrote: > >>Suppose a world's population is fixed at 10 billion inhabitants and only 10% >>of these (autonomously) choose to pursue superlongevity (to tens of >>thousands of years or more). ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From harara at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 6 05:05:10 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 21:05:10 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FC@tpeexg01.compal.com > References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FC@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041205210351.02909240@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Identity is a meme, so you are who you believe you are. Yes, recursedly relativitistic. At 12:24 AM 12/5/2004, you wrote: >In the future transhuman age, if you can change whatever (including the >genes, or >so-called neuronal editor, or even your face/personal characters etc.) you >want, >then what makes you still the unique you? > >Thanks. > >Walter. >-------- ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From harara at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 6 05:15:47 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 21:15:47 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FF@tpeexg01.compal.com > References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FF@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041205210650.0292ddc0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Big eddys have small eddys, each with increasing velocity, and so on until viscosity. If I take Occam's Razor and slice with an ever smaller blade, I end up lost in my clade, going from atom to atman, from self observing to self/observing a wavy function of mind/fullness... >Various Folk: > > How does your uniqueness require the same lack of control and options as > > you experience now? > > I think most people will look more or less the same, right? > > That you always make that same mistakes, imo. > >Not that you always do the right things? > > > Imo, a unique subjective point of view > >OK, this sounds like a soul. ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From harara at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 6 05:18:58 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 21:18:58 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] advanced science fights crime In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041205194820.01a2d9d8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041205194820.01a2d9d8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041205211642.029604a0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> In Borneo, Java, and Bali, Evil Ghosts and Spirits always move in straight lines..... >I assumed at first that this DNA sample would establish whether any of the >young boys allegedly molested by Jackson had been made pregnant by him. >But the carefully measured sight lines suggest another scientific line of >thought--that Jackson's DNA might have *leaped* from one room to the >other, perhaps while everyone slept. >Any forensic experts here who can cast light on this amazing investigation? > >Damien Broderick ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From zero.powers at gmail.com Mon Dec 6 06:28:47 2004 From: zero.powers at gmail.com (Zero Powers) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 22:28:47 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Not Just Rednecks for Bush In-Reply-To: <20041124144339.96247.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041124144339.96247.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7a32170504120522284733f456@mail.gmail.com> Once again make me proud to count myself among the African Americans. On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 06:43:39 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey wrote: > Polls show that the President increased his support by... > > 5% among females > 9% among Latinos > 2% among African Americans > 3% among Asians > 7% among those over age 65 > 5% among Catholics > 6% among Jewish voters > 4% among married people > From zero.powers at gmail.com Mon Dec 6 06:35:37 2004 From: zero.powers at gmail.com (Zero Powers) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 22:35:37 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] atheists launch dumb song lyrics In-Reply-To: <007601c4d4c6$a5ae1940$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <20041126180642.CFB2F57E2B@finney.org> <007601c4d4c6$a5ae1940$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <7a3217050412052235762a446b@mail.gmail.com> Ever hear the song "Flashlight" by Parliament? One of the funkiest tunes George Clinton & Co. ever came up with. But the lyics? Fageddaboutit! http://www.weddingvendors.com/music/lyrics/song-1079.html Zero On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 13:18:21 -0800, Spike wrote: > > > "Hal Finney" > > > Amara writes: > > > San Jose is more populated, but unless you are from > > California, or the from western US, the probability is low that you > know where it is. > > > > Of course this problem was immortalized in the song of the > > lost traveller: "Do you know the way to San Jose?" > > Ja, I actually like the song, and I've been a > Dionne Warwick fan ever since, but for cryin out > loud, the lyrics are stupid. Has she ever heard > of a MAP? All this time we were told women didn't > mind asking directions. Most gas station people > have a least a vague notion of where San Jose > might be found. > > Those lyrics are so dumb, it reminds me of the > Dana Carvey comedy routine "Chopping Broccoli". > The routine is about how rock and roll songs > have lyrics that are so dumb, you are certain > that they just made them up on the spot, just > started strumming the guitar and singing whatever > came to mind. He came up with this: > > There's a lady I know > If I didn't know her > She'd be the lady I didn't know. > > And my lady, she went downtown > She bought some broccoli > She brought it home. > > She's chopping broccoli > Chopping broccoli > Chopping broccoli > Chopping broccoli > > She's chopping broccoli > She's chopping broccoli > She's chop.. ooh! > She's chopping broccola-ah-ie! > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Shes cold as ice > paradice > and the feelin > wasa nice > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > New beginnings > New beginnings > New beginnings > New beginnings > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Going to the club, gotta work out, work out > Going to the club, gotta work out, work out > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > shes my lady shes my girl > shes my little little girl > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > dead dog lyin in the ditch > cigarette smoker has an itch > secret whores with ancient vices > lucky has the lowest prices > im gettin higher...im gettin higher...in the world > > {8^D > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From zero.powers at gmail.com Mon Dec 6 07:04:11 2004 From: zero.powers at gmail.com (Zero Powers) Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 23:04:11 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Yehuda Yudkowsky, 1985-2004 In-Reply-To: <419D5C3A.2030201@pobox.com> References: <419D5C3A.2030201@pobox.com> Message-ID: <7a32170504120523041fcb71a1@mail.gmail.com> Eliezer, you may be sick of hearing it by now, but I too am saddened by your loss. I wish there were comforting words I could write, but you know and I know there are none. I can only hope that hundreds of years from now when you and I have millenia stretched out before us to use at our leisure, I can gain a sense of who Yehuda was from the collective memories of you, Channah, your parents and grandparents. Grieve as you must, for as long as you must. But please, for your sake and mine, do get back to work ASAP. Best regards Zero On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:36:42 -0500, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > My little brother, Yehuda Nattan Yudkowsky, is dead. > > He died November 1st. His body was found without identification. The > family found out on November 4th. I spent a week and a half with my family > in Chicago, and am now back in Atlanta. I've been putting off telling my > friends, because it's such a hard thing to say. > > I used to say: "I have four living grandparents and I intend to have four > living grandparents when the last star in the Milky Way burns out." I > still have four living grandparents, but I don't think I'll be saying that > any more. Even if we make it to and through the Singularity, it will be > too late. One of the people I love won't be there. The universe has a > surprising ability to stab you through the heart from somewhere you weren't > looking. Of all the people I had to protect, I never thought that Yehuda > might be one of them. Yehuda was born July 11, 1985. He lived 7053 days. > He was nineteen years old when he died. > > The Jewish religion prescribes a number of rituals and condolences for the > occasion of a death. The rituals are pointless and tiring; the condolences > are religious idiocies. Yehuda has passed to a better place, God's ways > are mysterious but benign, etc. Does such talk really comfort people? I > watched my parents, and I don't think it did. The blessing that is spoken > at Jewish funerals is "Blessed is God, the true judge." Do they really > believe that? Why do they cry at funerals, if they believe that? Does it > help someone, to tell them that their religion requires them to believe > that? I think I coped better than my parents and my little sister Channah. > I was just dealing with pain, not confusion. When I heard on the phone > that Yehuda had died, there was never a moment of disbelief. I knew what > kind of universe I lived in, and I knew what I planned to do about that. > How is my religious family to comprehend it, working, as they must, from > the assumption that Yehuda was deliberately murdered by a benevolent God? > The same loving God, I presume, who arranges for millions of children to > grow up illiterate and starving; the same kindly tribal father-figure who > arranged the Holocaust and the Inquisition's torture of witches. I would > not hesitate to call it evil, if any sentient mind had committed such an > act, permitted such a thing. But I have weighed the evidence as best I > can, and I do not believe the universe to be evil, a reply which in these > days is called atheism. > > Maybe it helps to believe in an immortal soul. I know that I would feel a > lot better if Yehuda had gone away on a trip somewhere, even if he was > never coming back. But Yehuda did not "pass on". Yehuda is not "resting > in peace". Yehuda is not coming back. Yehuda doesn't exist any more. > Yehuda was absolutely annihilated at the age of nineteen. Yes, that makes > me angry. I can't put into words how angry. It would be rage to rend the > gates of Heaven and burn down God on Its throne, if any God existed. But > there is no God, so my anger burns to tear apart the way-things-are, remake > the pattern of a world that permits this. > > I wonder at the strength of non-transhumanist atheists, to accept so > terrible a darkness without any hope of changing it. But then most > atheists also succumb to comforting lies, and make excuses for death even > less defensible than the outright lies of religion. They flinch away, > refuse to confront the horror of a hundred and fifty thousand sentient > beings annihilated every day. One point eight lives per second, fifty-five > million lives per year. Convert the units, time to life, life to time. > The World Trade Center killed half an hour. As of today, all cryonics > organizations together have suspended one minute. This essay took twenty > thousand lives to write. I wonder if there was ever an atheist who > accepted the full horror, making no excuses, offering no consolations, who > did not also hope for some future dawn. What must it be like to live in > this world, seeing it just the way it is, and think that it will never > change, never get any better? > > Yehuda's death is the first time I ever lost someone close enough for it to > hurt. So now I've seen the face of the enemy. Now I understand, a little > better, the price of half a second. I don't understand it well, because > the human brain has a pattern built into it. We do not grieve forever, but > move on. We mourn for a few days and then continue with our lives. Such > underreaction poorly equips us to comprehend Yehuda's death. Nineteen > years of life and memory annihilated. A thousand years, or a million > millennia, or a forever, of future life lost. The sun should have dimmed > when Yehuda died, and a chill wind blown in every place that sentient > beings gather, to tell us that our number was diminished by one. But the > sun did not dim, because we do not live in that sensible a universe. Even > if the sun did dim whenever someone died, it wouldn't be noticeable except > as a continuous flickering. Soon everyone would get used to it, and they > would no longer notice the flickering of the sun. > > My little brother collected corks from wine bottles. Someone brought home, > to the family, a pair of corks they had collected for Yehuda, and never had > a chance to give him. And my grandmother said, "Give them to Channah, and > someday she'll tell her children about how her brother Yehuda collected > corks." My grandmother's words shocked me, stretched across more time than > it had ever occurred to me to imagine, to when my fourteen-year-old sister > had grown up and had married and was telling her children about the brother > she'd lost. How could my grandmother skip across all those years so easily > when I was struggling to get through the day? I heard my grandmother's > words and thought: she has been through this before. This isn't the first > loved one my grandmother has lost, the way Yehuda was the first loved one > I'd lost. My grandmother is old enough to have a pattern for dealing with > the death of loved ones; she knows how to handle this because she's done it > before. And I thought: how can she accept this? If she knows, why isn't > she fighting with everything she has to change it? > > What would it be like to be a rational atheist in the fifteenth century, > and know beyond all hope of rescue that everyone you loved would be > annihilated, one after another, unless you yourself died first? That is > still the fate of humans today; the ongoing horror has not changed, for all > that we have hope. Death is not a distant dream, not a terrible tragedy > that happens to someone else like the stories you read in newspapers. One > day you'll get a phone call, like I got a phone call, and the possibility > that seemed distant will become reality. You will mourn, and finish > mourning, and go on with your life, and then one day you'll get another > phone call. That is the fate this world has in store for you, unless you > make a convulsive effort to change it. > > Since Yehuda's body was not identified for three days after he died, there > was no possible way he could have been cryonically suspended. Others may > be luckier. If you've been putting off that talk with your loved ones, do > it. Maybe they won't understand, but at least you won't spend forever > wondering why you didn't even try. > > There is one Jewish custom associated with death that makes sense to me, > which is contributing to charity on behalf of the departed. I am donating > eighteen hundred dollars to the general fund of the Singularity Institute, > because this has gone on long enough. If you object to the Singularity > Institute then consider Dr. Aubrey de Grey's Methuselah Foundation, which > hopes to defeat aging through biomedical engineering. I think that a > sensible coping strategy for transhumanist atheists, to donate to an > anti-death charity after a loved one dies. Death hurt us, so we will > unmake Death. Let that be the outlet for our anger, which is terrible and > just. I watched Yehuda's coffin lowered into the ground and cried, and > then I sat through the eulogy and heard rabbis tell comforting lies. If I > had spoken Yehuda's eulogy I would not have comforted the mourners in their > loss. I would have told the mourners that Yehuda had been absolutely > annihilated, that there was nothing left of him. I would have told them > they were right to be angry, that they had been robbed, that something > precious and irreplaceable was taken from them, for no reason at all, taken > from them and shattered, and they are never getting it back. > > If there should be a monument someday, somewhere on it will be "$1800, in > memoriam Yehuda Nattan Yudkowsky, 1985-2004." It will not restore him to > life. No sentient being deserves such a thing. Let that be my brother's > true eulogy, free of comforting lies. > > When Michael Wilson heard the news, he said: "We shall have to work > faster." Any similar condolences are welcome. Other condolences are not. > > Goodbye, Yehuda. There isn't much point in saying it, since there's no one > to hear. Goodbye, Yehuda, you don't exist any more. Nothing left of you > after your death, like there was nothing before your birth. You died, and > your family, Mom and Dad and Channah and I, sat down at the Sabbath table > just like our family had always been composed of only four people, like > there had never been a Yehuda. Goodbye, Yehuda Yudkowsky, never to return, > never to be forgotten. > > Love, > Eliezer. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From scerir at libero.it Mon Dec 6 07:29:09 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:29:09 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Earth rings References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FE@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <004001c4db65$472196e0$55b51b97@administxl09yj> > Can this be regarded as the first step > to the so-called planetary brain? > Walter. I'm not an expert. I did not even follow any details. But I doubt that first step would be made of spatial rubbish ... From scerir at libero.it Mon Dec 6 07:46:51 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:46:51 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FF@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <008601c4db67$bff53890$55b51b97@administxl09yj> > > > [...] then what makes you still the unique you? > > That you always make the same mistakes, imo. > Not that you always do the right things? > Walther I do the right things only by chance :-( From eugen at leitl.org Mon Dec 6 07:52:51 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:52:51 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FF@tpeexg01.compal.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FF@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <20041206075251.GE9221@leitl.org> On Mon, Dec 06, 2004 at 08:44:49AM +0800, Walter_Chen at compal.com wrote: > If you can make yourself the most clever, or the most handsome/beautiful, or > the most social, > or the most leading etc. by the future tech., I think most people will look > more or less the same, right? That assumes everybody has calibrated her metrics, and keeps them synchronized. A little Tweety here keeps telling me we're going to get speciation instead, in no time at all. > Anyway, why you don't make yourself the best if you can make it easily by > tech.? Haute Couture is really really expensive. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE Mon Dec 6 12:05:47 2004 From: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE (Patrick Wilken) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 13:05:47 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Islamic fundamentalism in USA Message-ID: <2A423904-477F-11D9-A0FB-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> As a nice counter-point to Mike Lorrey's alarmist post about how bad the Islamic situation in Europe is last week the LA Weekly published an interesting piece on increasing allure of fundamentalist Islam to white and hispanic americans. The most interesting point is that these new converts are much more fundamentalist in their beliefs (no western music, movies etc) than than the vast majority of immigrants. http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/02/features-bernhard.php best, patrick From anyservice at cris.crimea.ua Mon Dec 6 14:15:21 2004 From: anyservice at cris.crimea.ua (Gennady Ra) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:15:21 +0300 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Inevitability of Universal Immortality In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041205201147.02942188@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <019201c4daa6$9dfd8380$b8232dcb@homepc> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <5.1.0.14.0.20041204124933.033927b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <002e01c4da2d$35b9a980$9a00a8c0@markcomputer> <019201c4daa6$9dfd8380$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20041206131339.00b29c40@pop.cris.net> At 08:56 PM 12/5/04 -0800, you Hara Ra wrote: >2. Now uploading (or inloading, replacing the brain with computronium) is a >whole other matter. In NanoSystems, Drexler using a mechanocomputing model >estimates that less than 1ml is needed to create a human equivalent >computer. More fun with numbers: 200 billion neurons, average 2K synapses >per neuron is 10^11 x 10^3 x 4 = 4 x 10^14 synapses. If we allow a nanobuilt >"synapse" to use a cube of .1 micron on a side (and that is generous, even >allowing for the connections), now, .001 cubic micron per synaptic >equivalent, the volume comes to 4 x 10^14 x 10^-3 x 10^-18 = 4 x 10^-7 M^3 >or 0.4 milliliters. Each synapse is an enormously complex system: hundreds of vesicles containing a multitude of different neurotransmitters at presynaptic side and thousands of different receptors and innumerable subtypes of receptors at postsynaptic side with thousands of various possible substates for every connection. Not to mention dizzy cell machinery and chemo apparatus of environment. Even if a final result of interaction is just a definite postsynaptic potential you cannot emulate a synapse in a naive "wire-to-wire" setup unless you introduce external controlling unit that simulates (currently) unfathomable innards and functional repertoire for each synapse. Best! Gennady Simferopol Crimea Ukraine From amara at amara.com Mon Dec 6 15:19:33 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 16:19:33 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] re: Earth rings Message-ID: Earth has a dust ring that has been known already for some time. This is resonant ring of asteroidal dust particles trapped in external mean motion resonances with the Earth. From 10.10: the Earth's Dust Ring in _Solar System Dynamics_ by C.D. Murray and S.f. Dermott, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pg. 522 "In many respects the asteroid belt behaves like a moonlet around the Sun. We have already shown that is likely that collisions within the belt have produced the Hirayama families of asteroids, recognised by their clustering of proper elements (see sect. 7.10). Some of the dust form the same collisions is also detectable as the bands detected by the IRAS spacecraft (see Sect. 7.1.1). Any dust formed in the asteroid belt will spiral in towards the sun due to the effects of PR drag. Dermott et al. (1994) studied the orbital evolution of 12 micron dust and showed htat it can get temporarily trapped in a series of exterior first-order resonances with the Earth (see Fig. 10.29)" also see: S.f. Dermott et al: chapter: "Orbital Evolution" in the book: _Interplanetary Dust_, editor: E. Gruen, b.A.S. Gustafson, S.F. Dermott, H. Fechig, Springer Verlag, 2001, pg. 618-619. and on the NASA ADS: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1994aidp.work...16D&db_key=AST&high=413845eb0e03607 (you can download the PDF) -- Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR, Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it From namacdon at ole.augie.edu Mon Dec 6 16:04:39 2004 From: namacdon at ole.augie.edu (Nicholas Anthony MacDonald) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 10:04:39 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Islamic fundamentalism in USA Message-ID: <1102349079.aaf734c0namacdon@ole.augie.edu> "As a nice counter-point to Mike Lorrey's alarmist post about how bad the Islamic situation in Europe is last week the LA Weekly published an interesting piece on increasing allure of fundamentalist Islam to white and hispanic americans. The most interesting point is that these new converts are much more fundamentalist in their beliefs (no western music, movies etc) than than the vast majority of immigrants." It would be interesting to see if such a trend starts in Europe as well. Jean-Francois Revel almost insinuated such in the book he did with his son Mattieu Ricard, "The Monk and the Philosopher", as they discussed the growth of both Islam and Buddhism in Europe. In his view, it seems like a legitimate possiblity that native Europeans, no longer inspired by a secular worldview, could turn to fundamentalist Islam to provide a new "wisdom tradition" and vision of meaning for their lives (a scary choice). Revel, no fan of monotheism (his most famous work being "Without Marx or Jesus"), hopes that Europeans searching for spiritual nourishment turn to the much more benign Buddhism, even as he questions it's metaphysical truth. -Nicholas MacDonald From amara at amara.com Mon Dec 6 16:39:02 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 17:39:02 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Researchers and students in America Message-ID: Mike Lorrey : >If the US gov't has finally started clamping down on academic visas, I >say it is a glorious day for US college students. They can finally look >forward to classes taught by assistant profs and grad students who can >speak english understandably. Well, Mike, usually the foreign students in my undergraduate and graduate physics courses were raising the curves, often being much smarter than us U.S. students. I'm very glad for all of the foreigners in my science courses. And I'm also glad that the 'foreigners' fully supported me (my PhD was not only free, I received a stipend to live on) to get my doctorate abroad. This is globalization, working to benefit everyone. Here's one of the articles published on this topic in the last years, that I alluded to earlier. "Science Board Warns of Uncertain Future for US Science and Engineering Leadership" July 2004, Physics Today http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-7/p25.html Amara -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "One world at a time." --Thoreau From harara at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 6 16:45:16 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 08:45:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Inevitability of Universal Immortality In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20041206131339.00b29c40@pop.cris.net> References: <019201c4daa6$9dfd8380$b8232dcb@homepc> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <5.1.0.14.0.20041204124933.033927b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <002e01c4da2d$35b9a980$9a00a8c0@markcomputer> <019201c4daa6$9dfd8380$b8232dcb@homepc> <4.3.2.7.2.20041206131339.00b29c40@pop.cris.net> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041206083840.02931528@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Each "synapse" is a small emulator intended to handle these things. In the worst case, such an emulated synapse would be about the same volume as the original. I did not say all 'synapses' were identical, was only doing a volume estimate. I do my best to say what I mean, but I cannot handle assumptions provided by others. So thanks, now you are updated. When nanoscanner examines synapse, would set up model parameters from data therefrom. At 06:15 AM 12/6/2004, you wrote: >At 08:56 PM 12/5/04 -0800, you Hara Ra wrote: >In NanoSystems, Drexler using a mechanocomputing model > >estimates that less than 1ml is needed to create a human equivalent > >computer. now, .001 cubic micron per synaptic > >equivalent, >or 0.4 milliliters. > >Each synapse is an enormously complex system: hundreds of vesicles >containing a multitude of different neurotransmitters at presynaptic side >and thousands of different receptors and innumerable subtypes of receptors >at postsynaptic side with thousands of various possible substates for every >connection. Not to mention dizzy cell machinery and chemo apparatus of >environment. Even if a final result of interaction is just a definite >postsynaptic potential you cannot emulate a synapse in a naive >"wire-to-wire" setup unless you introduce external controlling unit that >simulates (currently) unfathomable innards and functional repertoire for >each synapse. > >Best! > >Gennady >Simferopol Crimea Ukraine > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From megao at sasktel.net Mon Dec 6 18:21:42 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 12:21:42 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Forbes piece has some interesting catchwords Message-ID: <41B4A336.4020903@sasktel.net> Software There's A New Grid In Town Quentin Hardy, 12.06.04, 7:28 AM ET SAN FRANCISCO - Now that computer systems are bigger and more complex than ever before, industry titan William Coleman figures, it is time they learned how to run themselves. "We're heading for self-configuration" of computer systems, says Coleman, founder of BEA Systems (nasdaq: BEAS - news - people ), who left that company last year to start Cassatt, a software company aiming to steer that self-configuration. "With the commoditization of the computing world, we have to automate information technology operations." Cassatt is backed by Warburg Pincus with a reported $50 million investment. Cassatt has been in stealth for over a year, while attracting senior development executives from Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ), Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL - news - people ) and Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - people ), as well as the former chief information officer of the U.S. federal government. Today, Cassatt will announce its first product, software for automated management of large systems of computer servers and applications. Coleman says the software will be able dynamically allocate previously dedicated servers to different tasks as needed through so-called "virtualization" of servers, fixing problems on the fly and only telling their human managers about it afterward. The software costs about $25,000 for the controlling software, and $1,500 per server managed. Thus, a system of 30 servers would cost $70,000 -- $25,000 for the brain and $45,000 for the individual managers. Coleman faces big competition in the market: Besides Sun, Hewlett Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ) offers its Openview software for system management. IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), which has been pushing its own "On Demand" software, is said to be a Cassatt partner. Coleman says that the current push among customers for lower prices and open systems pushed IBM to him. "If they could yet spend more money and make things more and more complicated" they would, he says, but "IBM has to adapt to this -- the world won't go in for On Demand to cost more money and tie it to a single vendor." Both HP and IBM, Coleman says, "aren't competing with us, they are competing with where technology and the economy are going. They have to adapt -- we can help them get there." The company says it has about 40 customers, including Informatica (nasdaq: INFA - news - people ), Ascential Software (nasdaq: ASCL - news - people ) and a program for the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as a large pharmaceutical manufacturer. If things go as planned, a new version of the product, incorporating more sophisticated virtualization techniques to turn many computers into a single giant grid, will be announced in the spring. Coleman says Cassatt marks the start of a fourth ten-year cycle in computer technology. The previous ones include exploration of the capabilities of the semiconductor, resulting in the personal computer; their growth into client-server networks; and the maturation of that into the Internet and Web services architectures. In each case, both the capabilities and the geography of electronic intelligence grew vastly larger. In the new era, says Coleman, "the footprint is the globe, always connected -- the productivity enhancements will surpass everything we've seen before." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 6 19:06:08 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 11:06:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <001201c4da1b$46d394e0$74f54d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <20041206190608.75397.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- John K Clark wrote: > "Rick" > > > Someone correct me if this is wrong, but shouldn't 13.8 billion LE > distant > > and 180 degrees apart, *for us*, mean that those two galaxies are > > practically bumping shoulders? > > No, it would mean they are 27.6 light years distant from each other > and > forever unobservable from each other. We being in the middle can see > both. Not 'are', 'were'. That was 13.8 billion years ago when those photons were sent out. Those galaxies are now 27.6 billion LY away from us, and more than 54 billion ly apart from each other. How, you ask, did that happen if everything is only 14 billion years old? Because the speed of light is defined by its velocity relative to local space. If space itself is expanding faster than light speed, the stuff in it could be dead still relative to other local stuff and still be going like a bat outta hell. > > > The big bang did not happen centered on our location, nor any other > > location we can point to > > Exactly, it happened to all of space at the same time. However, as all that space is what defines the bounds of the universe, the 'expansion' still has real validity as it is a measure of how fast space is expanding. Things did not just suddenly start off billions of light years away from each other. Because there is no 'boundary' to space (you wind up curving back around the other side if you go fast enough in one direction), every point in space is properly considered the 'center' of the big bang. Every point, however, is fleeing from every other point almost as fast as they possibly can. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 6 19:44:01 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 11:44:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Researchers and students in America In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041206194401.81236.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> --- Brent Neal wrote: > > I'll note that all of my profs in both undergraduate and graduate > school for whom English was their 2nd language spoke the language > quite well. Don't confuse the cariacature of college with the real > thing. Lucky you. Of course, I said assistant profs and graduate instructors, not profs. Foreigners with full professorships do tend to be understandable if not fluent. At WPI in the 80's, the Illegibles and Inscrutibles were typically japlish-type speakers for whome English was a fourth or fifth language (less well spoken, than, say, C, fortran, and pascal). These types generally are wanted strictly for their ability to relieve professors of hard and heavy research number crunching, bean counting and bottle washing. Relieving them of teaching undergrads is also seen as a benefit, but not something graduate slots are selected for. Profs actually tend to like to stick undergrads with inscrutable instructors, they see it as a means of weeding out those who cannot operate independently of instruction. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com From extropy at unreasonable.com Mon Dec 6 19:46:50 2004 From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 14:46:50 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Researchers and students in America In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20041206131256.26635af0@unreasonable.com> Amara wrote: >Well, Mike, usually the foreign students in my undergraduate and graduate >physics courses were raising the curves, often being much smarter than >us U.S. students. None of the foreign students in my engineering graduate and doctoral classes were discernibly smarter than the US students. They raised the curve because they worked harder than we did. Some because they came from a culture habituated to hard work, some through the filtering inherent in becoming a foreign student, some because they'd have to go back if they didn't get top grades. In our local high school here, the best students are usually the children of Chinese or Indian immigrants, followed by the third-generation Jewish-Americans. The three groups appear comparable in intelligence; the difference in results stems from extraordinary effort. (Brilliance like Sasha's son has is rare enough to have little consequence on the social patterns.) Mike wrote: >They can finally look forward to classes taught by assistant profs and >grad students who can >speak english understandably. This is a legitimate concern, although I do not agree with Mike's remedy. In my years in industry, I've worked with, or considered for employment, thousands of foreign-born engineers. My two concerns, impacting both their individual productivity and their contribution to our team, are language and culture. Are they sufficiently close to native fluency and social norms to fit in without substantial daily accommodation? (Most are fine; some are not.) In academia, the situation is more painful, because the relationship is not 1:1 and may be less voluntary. I remember a math professor, in a class that would have been a struggle for me under any circumstances. He compounded the problem both by being a poor teacher -- racing through material, mumbling toward the blackboard, declaring "obvious" things that weren't -- and through his severe Slavic accent. In that case, most of us transferred to another section; he ended up with 1/5 as many students as the other profs had. -- David Lubkin. From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 6 20:21:45 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 12:21:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Earth rings In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40684FE@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <20041206202145.51244.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Rings around gravity wells are not stable without active maneuvering capabilities. Planetary brains are irrelevant to ringworlds, and, furthermore, suffer from greater latency issues than ground communications. --- Walter_Chen at compal.com wrote: > Can this be regarded as the first step to the so-called planetary > brain? > > Thanks. > > Walter. > --------- > > > From: scerir > > Would be desirable to contain the particles, from > > space flight projects, in a ring, around the Earth? > > Would such a ring remain stable? > > > ================================================================================================================================================================ > This message may contain information which is private, privileged or > confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended > recipient of this message, please notify the sender and > destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination > or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this > information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient > is prohibited. > ================================================================================================================================================================ > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 6 20:28:44 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 12:28:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Islamic fundamentalism in USA In-Reply-To: <2A423904-477F-11D9-A0FB-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> Message-ID: <20041206202844.52163.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- Patrick Wilken wrote: > As a nice counter-point to Mike Lorrey's alarmist post about how bad > the Islamic situation in Europe is last week the LA Weekly published > an interesting piece on increasing allure of fundamentalist Islam to > white > and hispanic americans. The most interesting point is that these new > converts are much more fundamentalist in their beliefs (no western > music, movies etc) than than the vast majority of immigrants. This is common. The Nation of Islam has had similar tendencies for decades. I think it is interesting, though, to see what I believe is a dovetailing of the luddite segment of the population with wahabbism, as I predicted a year or two ago. Expect a Luddite Jihadist domestic terror group to form. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do? http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 6 20:37:43 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 12:37:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Researchers and students in America In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041206203743.89321.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Amara Graps wrote: > > Well, Mike, usually the foreign students in my undergraduate and > graduate physics courses were raising the curves, often being > much smarter than us U.S. students. I'm very glad for all of > the foreigners in my science courses. And I'm also glad that > the 'foreigners' fully supported me (my PhD was not only free, > I received a stipend to live on) to get my doctorate abroad. This > is globalization, working to benefit everyone. One of the reasons I dropped out of college was I was sick of spending huge amounts of good money for bad grades in courses where I couldn't understand the what the friggin instructor was saying, where my grades were a function of the inscrutability of the instructor. Given the vast number of foreign faculty today, I cannot help but expect that the 'decline' is due to students being driven away by a continuation of this trend of faculty dependence on graduate students with poor engrish skills. Now, that being said, I have found that europeans are typically quite fluent in english. The problem isn't there, it is primarily asian. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Mon Dec 6 23:44:53 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 18:44:53 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics Message-ID: <41B4EEF5.4060101@humanenhancement.com> In response to last month's hit-piece on cryonics in "Skeptic" magazine, they have published a few pro-cryonics responses. One, by NASA scientist and science fiction novelist Gregory Benford, mentions transhumanism in a perhaps-not-so-flattering way: "Of course, cryonics is a huge gamble, and I think it is best viewed that way. The recent piece by Kevin Miller in Skeptic (Vol. 11, No. 1) follows common practice: interview a cryobiologist, who then cites a transhumanist (not a cryonicist) about techno-optimism. Miller's scientist, Kenneth Storey, cites extreme standards (cells must cool "at least 1000 degrees a minute") without backing up that statement; he then says "it will never work fororgans," and "they claim they will overturn the law of physics, chemistry and molecular science," again using the argument from authority but providing no evidence." (Skeptic Vol. 11, No. 2, p. 28). The Transhumanist in question, btw, is George Dworsky of the Toronto Transhumanist Association, who was quoted in the original article as saying "I can't sit here today and look you in the eye and tell you we are going to bring people back. Amupme who is going to tell you that is either deluding themselves, or they're not being realistic. But I think there are enough clues now to give us some hope. ... [the thawing process will need] a radically futuristic technology [that] could resuscitate or revitalize the person." Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com From nanogirl at halcyon.com Tue Dec 7 03:14:15 2004 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 19:14:15 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Jim Update #4 References: <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano><20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org><20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org><5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com><001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <5.1.0.14.0.20041204124933.033927b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <025301c4dc0a$d82f03c0$1db71218@Nano> Hello friends, Good news! Our new insurance company has approved the previous policy as credible, so this means that instead of Jim being forced to wait twelve months for his stem cell transplant, he will be able to continue sooner (the usual wait time is, and will now be, a couple of months) which is more appropriate for where he is, at this point in his treatment. It's a relief that we don't have to worry about Jim withstanding the chemotherapy treatments for an extended period of time. Cause for celebration! We are still waiting for the actual paperwork, but we do know that it has been approved after speaking to a representative on the phone. After the papers are all in order we will then discuss what comes next with the Doctor at the Hutch/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. In the mean time, Jim will be switching to thalidomide to maintain the good/low protein levels he has now acquired from the chemo he has been on thus far. He will start the new treatment as soon as his paperwork for the drug is approved, as you know this particular drug has such a history that it requires careful measures for use. These requirements are no problem for us to meet. Other than this news, Jim has been working hard with Foresight (as they are undergoing some changes), and has been doing some computer program upgrades. I've been just trying to get us prepared for Christmas. On that note, I hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. Warmest regards, Gina http://www.nanogirl.com/museumfuture/index.htm Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com/index2.html Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org My New Project: Microscope Jewelry http://www.nanogirl.com/crafts/microjewelry.htm Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Tue Dec 7 03:47:39 2004 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 22:47:39 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Subject: [extropy-chat] Jim Update #4 In-Reply-To: <025301c4dc0a$d82f03c0$1db71218@Nano> References: <001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano><20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org><20041204002336.289C857E2E@finney.org><5.1.0.14.0.20041203224916.0323b5b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com><001301c4d9b8$4e964fa0$1db71218@Nano> <5.1.0.14.0.20041204124933.033927b0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <025301c4dc0a$d82f03c0$1db71218@Nano> Message-ID: I'm happy for you both. May this Christmas season and the turning of the year bring you more such blessings. Regards, MB On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, Gina Miller wrote: > Hello friends, > Good news! Our new insurance company has approved the previous policy as credible [...] From fortean1 at mindspring.com Tue Dec 7 05:15:18 2004 From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 22:15:18 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Reforming the United Nations Message-ID: <41B53C66.4C0C0FB1@mindspring.com> Two articles on the United Nations... < http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=3398746 > [Fighting for Survival] < http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3444899 > [Towards a more relevant United Nations] Terry -- "Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Southeast Asia veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.] From pgptag at gmail.com Tue Dec 7 08:56:14 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 09:56:14 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bill Clinton Helps Launch Search Engine Message-ID: <470a3c5204120700562a314a07@mail.gmail.com> Former president Bill Clinton on Monday helped launch a new Internet search company backed by the Chinese government which says its technology uses artificial intelligence to produce better results than Google Inc. "I hope you all make lots of money," Clinton told executives at the launch of Accoona Corp., which donated an undisclosed amount to the William J. Clinton Foundation. The Chinese government, one of several large backers, has granted Accoona a 20-year exclusive partnership with the China Daily Information Co., the government agency that runs an official Chinese and English Web site. The company seeks to distinguish itself from Google, Yahoo Inc. and growing list of other search engine players by using artificial intelligence to make the results more relevant. http://www.forbes.com/business/manufacturing/feeds/ap/2004/12/06/ap1694891.html From pgptag at gmail.com Tue Dec 7 09:01:31 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 10:01:31 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientist asserts viruses are the engine of mutations that drive human evolutionary change Message-ID: <470a3c52041207010154a97d09@mail.gmail.com> Interesting article (I don't know how accurate from a scientific point of view): A University of California, Irvine scientist says viruses are much, much more than nasty little microbes that infect us with the flu. If he is right, they have infected all of life - with evolution. In an astonishing set of papers and a new book, UCI virologist Luis Villarreal contends viruses are largely responsible for shaping how we look, how we speak, even how we think. In fact, he says, they are an overlooked evolutionary force, one that has been powerfully influencing the shape of living things since life began - actually, since a little before life began. "I'm saying they are a creative force in the evolution of all life," he said in a recent interview. Villarreal, 56, is accustomed to challenging traditional ideas and swimming outside the academic mainstream. His unorthodox ideas about teaching, such as favoring immersion, not lectures, earned him rebukes from some colleagues but a presidential award from Bill Clinton. n reality, Villarreal contends, much, if not all, of this noncoding DNA is really bits and pieces of ancient viruses. They have modified themselves so they can reside comfortably deep inside our cells while avoiding our immune systems. But they are far from being junk. Viruses mutate far more rapidly than more complex organisms - as much as a million times faster than their hosts, including humans. That means many viruses are little packages of new genes that can endow an organism with all kinds of new capabilities. When these viruses settle quietly into the noncoding regions of our DNA, their disease-causing tendencies are suppressed. Eventually they can be harvested by the host for new genes - for example, by reproductive cells. Big leaps in evolution - such as, for instance, a capacity for language and symbolic thinking among humans - could have happened all at once, with the incorporation into our chromosomes of fresh new genes left behind by old viruses. http://www.etaiwannews.com/Perspective/2004/12/07/1102385139.htm From pgptag at gmail.com Tue Dec 7 09:36:01 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 10:36:01 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] 'Thinking Cap' Controls Computer in New Experiment Message-ID: <470a3c5204120701363129496f@mail.gmail.com> Yahoo News: Four people were able to control a computer using their thoughts and an electrode-studded "thinking cap," U.S. researchers reported on Monday. They said their set-up could someday be adapted to help disabled people operate a motorized wheelchair or artificial limb. While experiments have allowed a monkey to control a computer with its thoughts, electrodes were implanted into the animal's brain. This experiment, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites), required no surgery and no implants. "The results show that people can learn to use scalp-recorded electroencephalogram rhythms to control rapid and accurate movement of a cursor in two dimensions," "The impressive noninvasive multidimensional control achieved in the present study suggests that a noninvasive brain control interface could support clinically useful operation of a robotic arm, a motorized wheelchair, or a neuroprosthesis," http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20041207/sc_nm/science_thought_dc From Walter_Chen at compal.com Tue Dec 7 09:47:23 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 17:47:23 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Mind over matter Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406853A@tpeexg01.compal.com> It's interesting to see these 2 articles today. Your thought can change your genes. It can also manipulate the computer. What this means? Seems not far away from super nature. Thanks. Walter. --------- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Source: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1386262004 Delving into mind over matter ... In his first book, It's The Thought That Counts, due to be published next year, he will put forward the scientific arguments about the mysterious mind-body connection and argue that powerful human states such as happiness and optimism can actually change your DNA. ... As an example, Hamilton quotes the work of Eric Kandel, joint winner of the 2000 Nobel prize for medicine, who carried out pioneering work into the way genes can be switched on or off by social influences. Kandel's conclusion is that many genetic differences between people are influenced by society and conditioning, rather than incorporated in the genetic makeup of the parents. ********************************************* Source: http://www.jsonline.com/alive/news/dec04/281287.asp Think, think, shoot, score! Brain electrodes help patients play video games in UW study By JOHN FAUBER jfauber at journalsentinel.com Posted: Dec. 4, 2004 With electrodes implanted directly on their brains, two Madison patients were able to control a computer cursor and play a basic video game just by thinking about it. Quotable ... "Just through trial and error he was able to figure out a way to manipulate it," Garell said. "He couldn't really articulate how (he did it), other than it required his concentration." ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From harara at sbcglobal.net Tue Dec 7 10:31:52 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 02:31:52 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics In-Reply-To: <41B4EEF5.4060101@humanenhancement.com> References: <41B4EEF5.4060101@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041207023044.02961e28@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Come on folks, go to Alcor's web site and read about vitrification. These people you quote are completely uninformed, even the cryobiologists. At 03:44 PM 12/6/2004, you wrote: >In response to last month's hit-piece on cryonics in "Skeptic" magazine, >they have published a few pro-cryonics responses. One, by NASA scientist >and science fiction novelist Gregory Benford, mentions transhumanism in a >perhaps-not-so-flattering way: > >"Of course, cryonics is a huge gamble, and I think it is best viewed that >way. The recent piece by Kevin Miller in Skeptic (Vol. 11, No. 1) follows >common practice: interview a cryobiologist, who then cites a transhumanist >(not a cryonicist) about techno-optimism. Miller's scientist, Kenneth >Storey, cites extreme standards (cells must cool "at least 1000 degrees a >minute") without backing up that statement; he then says "it will never >work fororgans," and "they claim they will overturn the law of physics, >chemistry and molecular science," again using the argument from authority >but providing no evidence." (Skeptic Vol. 11, No. 2, p. 28). > >The Transhumanist in question, btw, is George Dworsky of the Toronto >Transhumanist Association, who was quoted in the original article as >saying "I can't sit here today and look you in the eye and tell you we are >going to bring people back. Amupme who is going to tell you that is either >deluding themselves, or they're not being realistic. But I think there are >enough clues now to give us some hope. ... [the thawing process will need] >a radically futuristic technology [that] could resuscitate or revitalize >the person." > >Joseph > >Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": >http://www.humanenhancement.com >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 7 15:43:55 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 07:43:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics In-Reply-To: <41B4EEF5.4060101@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <20041207154355.58351.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Not surprised. The opposition is getting organized. Look up the defintion of 'extropy' on www.dictionary.com ... the smear has begun. --- Joseph Bloch wrote: > In response to last month's hit-piece on cryonics in "Skeptic" > magazine, > they have published a few pro-cryonics responses. One, by NASA > scientist > and science fiction novelist Gregory Benford, mentions transhumanism > in > a perhaps-not-so-flattering way: > > "Of course, cryonics is a huge gamble, and I think it is best viewed > that way. The recent piece by Kevin Miller in Skeptic (Vol. 11, No. > 1) > follows common practice: interview a cryobiologist, who then cites a > transhumanist (not a cryonicist) about techno-optimism. Miller's > scientist, Kenneth Storey, cites extreme standards (cells must cool > "at > least 1000 degrees a minute") without backing up that statement; he > then > says "it will never work fororgans," and "they claim they will > overturn > the law of physics, chemistry and molecular science," again using the > > argument from authority but providing no evidence." (Skeptic Vol. 11, > > No. 2, p. 28). > > The Transhumanist in question, btw, is George Dworsky of the Toronto > Transhumanist Association, who was quoted in the original article as > saying "I can't sit here today and look you in the eye and tell you > we > are going to bring people back. Amupme who is going to tell you that > is > either deluding themselves, or they're not being realistic. But I > think > there are enough clues now to give us some hope. ... [the thawing > process will need] a radically futuristic technology [that] could > resuscitate or revitalize the person." > > Joseph > > Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": > http://www.humanenhancement.com > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 7 15:47:38 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 07:47:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Bill Clinton Helps Launch Search Engine In-Reply-To: <470a3c5204120700562a314a07@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20041207154738.60495.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Relevant according to party dogma? Or Government propaganda? I find it interesting that something that involves the Communist Chinese government, one of the worst in the world, and Bill Clinton, one of the most corrupt US presidents, and nobody sees this as a bad thing. --- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: > The company seeks to distinguish itself from Google, Yahoo Inc. and > growing list of other search engine players by using artificial > intelligence to make the results more relevant. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From pgptag at gmail.com Tue Dec 7 16:46:29 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 17:46:29 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bill Clinton Helps Launch Search Engine In-Reply-To: <20041207154738.60495.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <470a3c5204120700562a314a07@mail.gmail.com> <20041207154738.60495.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <470a3c52041207084626ecef4b@mail.gmail.com> Don't underestimate the Chinese Mike. Napoleon said something like, China is a sleeping giant, fear the day it will wake. It seems they are waking and with plans for world domination in a couple of decades. I heard rumors of corruption also of other Presidents... G. On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 07:47:38 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey wrote: > Relevant according to party dogma? Or Government propaganda? I find it > interesting that something that involves the Communist Chinese > government, one of the worst in the world, and Bill Clinton, one of the > most corrupt US presidents, and nobody sees this as a bad thing. > > --- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: > > The company seeks to distinguish itself from Google, Yahoo Inc. and > > growing list of other search engine players by using artificial > > intelligence to make the results more relevant. > > ===== > Mike Lorrey From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Tue Dec 7 16:46:47 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 11:46:47 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics In-Reply-To: <20041207154355.58351.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041207154355.58351.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41B5DE77.8000801@humanenhancement.com> "Extropy- the pseudoscientific prediction that human intelligence and technology will enable life to expand in an orderly way throughout the entire universe" One wonders if there's any way to appeal or otherwise alter such definitions. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com Mike Lorrey wrote: >Not surprised. The opposition is getting organized. Look up the >defintion of 'extropy' on www.dictionary.com ... the smear has begun. > >--- Joseph Bloch wrote: > From astapp at fizzfactorgames.com Tue Dec 7 18:17:07 2004 From: astapp at fizzfactorgames.com (Acy James Stapp) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 10:17:07 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics Message-ID: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3A883@amazemail2.amazeent.com> I can't imagine that there is any sort of sinister intention behind this; it's probably some disgruntled grad student working on WordNet at princeton who put it in just for kicks. I have requested that it be changed: I take issue with your definition of "Extropy": (the pseudoscientific prediction that human intelligence and technology will enable life to expand in an orderly way throughout the entire universe). I would be more than pleased if you were to remove the word "pseudoscientific"; it betrays an unacceptably biased point of view. But note that their site says (http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/blind_person) WordNet is not an authoritative source for definitions, nor is that its intent. Many of the definitions are somewhat antiquated, having reached us via lists of words from other sources. Unfortunately, releasing a new version of WordNet, as when publishing a printed book, takes a good deal of time and money. Thus, the corrected definition will not be publicly visible until the next release of WordNet, and the Google result (via their "definitions" service), which is not under our direct control, may take even longer to reflect our internal correction. Acy -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Joseph Bloch Sent: Tuesday, 07 December, 2004 10:47 To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics "Extropy- the pseudoscientific prediction that human intelligence and technology will enable life to expand in an orderly way throughout the entire universe" One wonders if there's any way to appeal or otherwise alter such definitions. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com Mike Lorrey wrote: >Not surprised. The opposition is getting organized. Look up the >defintion of 'extropy' on www.dictionary.com ... the smear has begun. > >--- Joseph Bloch wrote: > _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From wingcat at pacbell.net Tue Dec 7 18:28:13 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 10:28:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The emergence of AI In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041204162238.01c83bc8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041207182813.11820.qmail@web81606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote: > At 03:15 PM 12/4/2004 -0500, Robin wrote to Eliezer: > < Wouldn't it be worth it to take the time to > convince at least one or two > people who are recognized established experts in the > fields in which you > claim to have new insight, so they could integrate > you into the large > intellectual conversation? > > > I agree in general with Robin's comments, but offer > this as a possible > counter-balance--a furious and frustrated essay by > Physics Nobelist Brian > Josephson, concerning the institutional barriers to > communicating > unorthodox ideas: > > http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/archivefreedom/main.html But consider the end of this: > the distinction between 'nutty' ideas (which either > have no scientific meaning or contain serious > errors), which should be barred from the archive, > and unusual ideas which may or may not be right, and > also may turn out to be important, which should be > allowed on the archive. Inventing new terms instead of adapting existing terms robs a thought of scientific meaning - that is, meaning to other scientists, since they would not be as able to comprehend it. And there's also the bit about the unspecified general improvements that no one else has seen, which many would suspect of being an error. If many people are rejecting an idea, then no matter how fiercely one believes in that idea, it's usually worthwhile to see exactly what logic (and there's always some logic) is causing the rejection. At worst, one can illustrate differences in basic perceived facts. (E.g., a rabid anti-choice protestor disagrees strongly with most people on the relative value of the potential life of an embryo vs. the actual life of a human woman who happens to carry the embryo, to the point that the moment of birth is almost the sole point of value: if one dies after being born, one has a nonzero amount of "life", which is all that matters to the protestor.) But most of the time in this situation, one is likely to find at least slight flaws in one's own ideas; once the flaws are found, they can be refined away, leaving something more likely to be perfectly in sync with reality. This effect is so great, that the odds of success by one who utterly rejects this approach (say, by blanket rejecting/refusing to listen to all critics) are nearly zero in almost any endeavor, as demonstrated repeatedly throughout history. The same seems likely to hold true of efforts to develop Singularity-related technologies, even given said technologies' unique qualities. From natashavita at earthlink.net Tue Dec 7 18:44:29 2004 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 13:44:29 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in Skeptic re: cryonics Message-ID: <144660-220041227184429376@M2W096.mail2web.com> From: Hara Ra >Come on folks, go to Alcor's web site and read about vitrification. These >people you quote are completely uninformed, even the cryobiologists. Precisely. Natasha At 03:44 PM 12/6/2004, you wrote: >In response to last month's hit-piece on cryonics in "Skeptic" magazine, >they have published a few pro-cryonics responses. One, by NASA scientist >and science fiction novelist Gregory Benford, mentions transhumanism in a >perhaps-not-so-flattering way: > >"Of course, cryonics is a huge gamble, and I think it is best viewed that >way. The recent piece by Kevin Miller in Skeptic (Vol. 11, No. 1) follows >common practice: interview a cryobiologist, who then cites a transhumanist >(not a cryonicist) about techno-optimism. Miller's scientist, Kenneth >Storey, cites extreme standards (cells must cool "at least 1000 degrees a >minute") without backing up that statement; he then says "it will never >work fororgans," and "they claim they will overturn the law of physics, >chemistry and molecular science," again using the argument from authority >but providing no evidence." (Skeptic Vol. 11, No. 2, p. 28). > >The Transhumanist in question, btw, is George Dworsky of the Toronto >Transhumanist Association, who was quoted in the original article as >saying "I can't sit here today and look you in the eye and tell you we are >going to bring people back. Amupme who is going to tell you that is either >deluding themselves, or they're not being realistic. But I think there are >enough clues now to give us some hope. ... [the thawing process will need] >a radically futuristic technology [that] could resuscitate or revitalize >the person." > >Joseph > >Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": >http://www.humanenhancement.com >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 7 22:33:58 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 14:33:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] advanced science fights crime In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041205211642.029604a0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041207223358.27784.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Ha ha, hara. Actually, if one assumes that the child was left with deposits of Jackson's semen, skin, or hair which could have been collected by a rape kit if the parents reported the incident quick enough, collecting Jackson's DNA is a smart move. Perhaps instead they were hoping to prove that one or more of Jackson's own kids were not really his biologically speaking so they could justify taking them away from him. --- Hara Ra wrote: > In Borneo, Java, and Bali, Evil Ghosts and Spirits always move in > straight > lines..... > > >I assumed at first that this DNA sample would establish whether any > of the > >young boys allegedly molested by Jackson had been made pregnant by > him. > >But the carefully measured sight lines suggest another scientific > line of > >thought--that Jackson's DNA might have *leaped* from one room to the > > >other, perhaps while everyone slept. > > >Any forensic experts here who can cast light on this amazing > investigation? > > > >Damien Broderick > > ================================== > = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = > = harara at sbcglobal.net = > = Alcor North Cryomanagement = > = Alcor Advisor to Board = > = 831 429 8637 = > ================================== > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From namacdon at ole.augie.edu Tue Dec 7 22:42:11 2004 From: namacdon at ole.augie.edu (Nicholas Anthony MacDonald) Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 16:42:11 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Andrew Sullivan and Slavoj Zizek- Transhumanists? Message-ID: <1102459331.ad9202e0namacdon@ole.augie.edu> >From Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish: "We just learned that some 40 percent of Americans are on some kind of constant medication - many designed to ease the ups and downs of mild depression, or heartburn, or obesity, and so on. We have drugs for hard-ons; and we have elaborate plastic surgery for anyone feeling ugly or fat. We have fat-burning pills and hair-growing treatments. We have pills to send us to sleep; we have medical contraptions to give us better sleep (yay!); we have addictive drugs, like caffeine, to wake us up and keep us awake. The line between pharmaceuticals that actually cure illness and those that enhance our quality of life, or extend it to lengths once thought inimaginable, is getting blurrier all the time. What is health, after all, if not somewhat relative? Am I sick now that my apnea is untreated? Or am I just living with something that humans have lived through for centuries? Do our zoloft prescriptions always treat serious depression - or are they often a means to maximize our social interaction, prevent unsettling bouts of inertia or sadness? I ask all these questions because the brouhaha over steroids in sports strikes me as somewhat off-key. Our cultural norm is that drugs that do not harm you are perfectly legit in increasing your enjoyment of life, or enhancing your ability to perform certain tasks. Why, then, are steroids so illegitimate in sports? Yes, they can harm a body, but only if taken in excess and outside a doctor's supervision. Yes, it's unfair when some players use them and others don't. But the answer to that might just as well be universal steroid use as a universal ban. I think trying to stop this is almost certainly futile (the steroid technology almost always out-strips the testing technology) and not obviously virtuous. The notion that there is some "pure" human being out there - unaffected by the technology that now enhances our lives in so many ways - is fiction. Why are sports the only arena in which this fiction is maintained? And why would it be so bad to aknowledge reality and celebrate the new not that comfortable with that idea; but I'm having a hard time coming up with good arguments as to why I shouldn't be." Sounds like he's leaning towards transhumanism at least- not a suprising position for Sullivan, a man who's own immune system is being saved from collapse by a handful of pills. What is suprising is that he linked to this: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n10/zize01_.html Slavoj Zizek takes on his fellow neo-Hegelians, Fukuyama and Habermas, and while he never says transhumanism by name, we know where he's going with it. When a psychoanalyst with Marxist sympathies and a journalist with Neoconseravative ones are in agreement on something, you know either hell has frozen over- or transhumanism is on the march. I'm guessing the latter. -Nicq MacDonald From spike66 at comcast.net Wed Dec 8 04:10:26 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 20:10:26 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics In-Reply-To: <41B5DE77.8000801@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <006f01c4dcdb$df662b60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > "Extropy- the pseudoscientific prediction that human intelligence and > technology will enable life to expand in an orderly way > throughout the entire universe" > > One wonders if there's any way to appeal or otherwise alter such > definitions. > > Joseph Why would we want to? This looks like good advertisement to me. Is the term "pseudoscientific" offensive? Think it over, perhaps that is exactly the adjective we want. Scientists are likely to be the ones turned off by that description, however these might well agree with the notion of human intelligence expanding throughout. Those non-scientific or anti-scientific may actually see positive connotations in the term. spike From pgptag at gmail.com Wed Dec 8 09:40:16 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:40:16 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] European Commission: Let brain waves do the walking Message-ID: <470a3c52041208014013db4648@mail.gmail.com> >From the "IST Results" site of the European Commission: Using brain waves to control screen cursor movements, rather than moving a mouse by hand, seems like science fiction! Yet such direct control over our environment is an integral part of the development work being undertaken by participants in the Presencia project. The IST project Presencia is not due for completion until October 2005, yet project researchers have already developed a working brain/computer interface able to provide direct control of computers. The method is primitive as yet, but has been demonstrated to work. Presencia project participants are developing the technology to navigate 'caves', or virtual environments. Here VR (virtual reality) gloves and the brain/computer interface enable participants to move around within an environment and interact with others present. However, the technology also has obvious potential for patient rehabilitation applications. Here the brain/computer interface could be used to control prosthetic limbs or drive a wheelchair. http://istresults.cordis.lu/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/73140 From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 8 13:15:15 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 13:15:15 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Islamic fundamentalism in USA In-Reply-To: <20041206202844.52163.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041206202844.52163.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41B6FE63.8040402@neopax.com> Mike Lorrey wrote: >--- Patrick Wilken wrote: > > > >>As a nice counter-point to Mike Lorrey's alarmist post about how bad >>the Islamic situation in Europe is last week the LA Weekly published >>an interesting piece on increasing allure of fundamentalist Islam to >>white >>and hispanic americans. The most interesting point is that these new >>converts are much more fundamentalist in their beliefs (no western >>music, movies etc) than than the vast majority of immigrants. >> >> > >This is common. The Nation of Islam has had similar tendencies for >decades. I think it is interesting, though, to see what I believe is a >dovetailing of the luddite segment of the population with wahabbism, as >I predicted a year or two ago. Expect a Luddite Jihadist domestic >terror group to form. > > > Fortunately everyone who hates us also hate each other eg Luddite Greens, Moslem and Xian fundies etc -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From neptune at superlink.net Wed Dec 8 13:24:17 2004 From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 08:24:17 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Mobility Merger: Blurring the Line Between Driver and Vehicle Message-ID: <003601c4dd29$38b1f1c0$1a893cd1@pavilion> http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/technovel_i-unit_041208.html From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Wed Dec 8 14:28:44 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 09:28:44 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics In-Reply-To: <006f01c4dcdb$df662b60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <006f01c4dcdb$df662b60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <41B70F9C.3010408@humanenhancement.com> I disagree; the term "pseudo-science" is dismissive. It is used to describe such things as UFOlogy, phrenology, and other areas of dubious scientific merit. It is most certainly not the brush I'd want to be painted with... Joseph Bloch Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com Spike wrote: >>"Extropy- the pseudoscientific prediction that human intelligence and >>technology will enable life to expand in an orderly way >>throughout the entire universe" >> >>One wonders if there's any way to appeal or otherwise alter such >>definitions. >> >>Joseph >> >> > >Why would we want to? This looks like good advertisement >to me. Is the term "pseudoscientific" offensive? Think >it over, perhaps that is exactly the adjective we want. >Scientists are likely to be the ones turned off by that >description, however these might well agree with the notion >of human intelligence expanding throughout. Those >non-scientific or anti-scientific may actually see >positive connotations in the term. > >spike > From Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE Wed Dec 8 14:41:33 2004 From: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE (Patrick Wilken) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 15:41:33 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics In-Reply-To: <41B70F9C.3010408@humanenhancement.com> References: <006f01c4dcdb$df662b60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <41B70F9C.3010408@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <4184C92E-4927-11D9-AB18-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> On 8 Dec 2004, at 15:28, Joseph Bloch wrote: > I disagree; the term "pseudo-science" is dismissive. It is used to > describe such things as UFOlogy, phrenology, and other areas of > dubious scientific merit. It is most certainly not the brush I'd want > to be painted with... I think more correctly pseudo-science is used to define work that its proponents claim is scientific when its not. Since Extropians don't claim their belief structure is scientific this is simply false. Perhaps some Extropians have pseudo-scientific beliefs, that's another issue. No one is claiming that there are scientific principles that show the inevitability of singularity etc are they? Marxism was a pseudo-scientific belief system that believed in the historical inevitability of the rise of socialism. best, patrick From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 8 15:33:53 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 07:33:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics In-Reply-To: <4184C92E-4927-11D9-AB18-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> Message-ID: <20041208153353.70123.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Patrick Wilken wrote: > > On 8 Dec 2004, at 15:28, Joseph Bloch wrote: > > > I disagree; the term "pseudo-science" is dismissive. It is used to > > describe such things as UFOlogy, phrenology, and other areas of > > dubious scientific merit. It is most certainly not the brush I'd > want > > to be painted with... > > I think more correctly pseudo-science is used to define work that its > proponents claim is scientific when its not. Since Extropians don't > claim their belief structure is scientific this is simply false. > Perhaps some Extropians have pseudo-scientific beliefs, that's > another issue. > > No one is claiming that there are scientific principles that show the > inevitability of singularity etc are they? a) Moore's Law was determined by an econometric study of integrated chip development and market response. b) Various scientific studies have determined various amounts of 'processing power' that is in the human brain. It is pretty clear that if you label belief in the likelihood of the Singularity a pseudoscientific belief, then that tar brush equally applies to all of economics that seeks to predict future economic activity based on past results and various scientifically arrived-at models. However, that being said, Extropy itself does not infer a belief in the Singularity. It is merely a set of principles or philosophy that many believe is most conducive to humanity surviving to and through any technological singularity. At this point in time, I would say with confidence that those who don't believe there will be some sort of technological singularity are those who are being the most pseudo-scientific or un-scientific in their beliefs. The weight of evidence is just too signficant to think otherwise. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE Wed Dec 8 15:56:44 2004 From: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE (Patrick Wilken) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 16:56:44 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics In-Reply-To: <20041208153353.70123.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041208153353.70123.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 8 Dec 2004, at 16:33, Mike Lorrey wrote: > At this point in time, I would say with confidence that those who don't > believe there will be some sort of technological singularity are those > who are being the most pseudo-scientific or un-scientific in their > beliefs. The weight of evidence is just too signficant to think > otherwise. I think you miss the point. Belief for or against the singularity is has nothing to do with the practice of science (at least the sort of things scientists generally practice). best, patrick From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 8 17:53:30 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 09:53:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism mentioned in "Skeptic" re: cryonics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041208175330.94293.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Patrick Wilken wrote: > > On 8 Dec 2004, at 16:33, Mike Lorrey wrote: > > At this point in time, I would say with confidence that those who > don't > > believe there will be some sort of technological singularity are > those > > who are being the most pseudo-scientific or un-scientific in their > > beliefs. The weight of evidence is just too signficant to think > > otherwise. > > I think you miss the point. Belief for or against the singularity is > has nothing to do with the practice of science (at least the sort of > things scientists generally practice). Quite true, but as I said, where I cited Moore's Law and scientific estimates of the processing capacity of the human brain, it is rather clear that at some point the average desktop computer will have the same capacity as the human brain, while the next generation will be twice as capable, etc. Denying this is what is truly unscientific, AND as I said, to call such a prediction "pseudoscientific" is to also call all economic, meteorological, vulcanological, seismological, etc. predictions "pseudoscientific". Scientific predictions can turn out to be quite wrong while still being scientifically arrived at. Thus, whoever wrote that definition is clearly biased and must be corrected. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From wingcat at pacbell.net Wed Dec 8 19:20:30 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 11:20:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Mobility Merger: Blurring the Line Between Driver and Vehicle In-Reply-To: <003601c4dd29$38b1f1c0$1a893cd1@pavilion> Message-ID: <20041208192030.26152.qmail@web81602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Technotranscendence wrote: > http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/technovel_i-unit_041208.html "More than meets the eye..." ;) Seriously, though, I've been thinking about something like this myself - though only in the realm of sci-fi speculations. A vehicle that can fold up into roughly human proportions would have the practicality of not needing a parking space, at least for standard work commute (where you could "park" it in your cubicle or office), assuming it was indoors-friendly ("wipe your feet" doesn't even begin to describe what'd be needed, though "sheathe your tires and be able to move around with your engine off" might). It might also be adaptable into a good lunar or martian spacesuit (that is, a spacesuit intended for use only on the Moon or Mars) - though it'd need arms, pure electric power, and a few other modifications. From kurt at metatechnica.com Wed Dec 8 21:57:11 2004 From: kurt at metatechnica.com (Kurt Schoedel) Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 13:57:11 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Viruses as the Driver of Evolution Message-ID: The idea that viruses, especially retroviruses, are the driver of evolution should not supprise anyone. It makes sense and should be obvious to everyone since the discovery of the HERVs (human endongenous retroviruses) that exist in the 10,000s in the human genetic code. I first learned of HERVs when I read Laurie Garrett's book, "The Coming Plague", about 10 years ago. I saw sitting in a bar in the Roppongi when the thought occurred to me that infectious agents have got to be the driving force behind evolution. There is more. There is another researcher who has written a book about evolution. Her name is Lynn Caporale and her book is "Darwin in the Genome", in which she constructs a theory of evolution that is also based on infectious agents. Kurt Schoedel MetaTechnica From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Dec 8 22:05:57 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 16:05:57 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Viruses as the Driver of Evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041208160154.0198ea08@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 01:57 PM 12/8/2004 -0800, Kurt Schoedel wrote: >I first learned of HERVs when I read Laurie Garrett's book, "The Coming >Plague", about 10 years ago. I saw sitting in a bar in the Roppongi >when the thought occurred to me that infectious agents have got to be >the driving force behind evolution. > >There is more. There is another researcher who has written a book about >evolution. Her name is Lynn Caporale and her book is "Darwin in the >Genome", in which she constructs a theory of evolution that is also >based on infectious agents. Yes, and Greg Bear's novels DARWIN'S RADIO (1999) and sequel DARWIN'S CHILDREN, and, possibly, my story `A Tooth for Every Child' (written in 1981, published 1985). Damien Broderick From eugen at leitl.org Wed Dec 8 22:21:01 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 23:21:01 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Viruses as the Driver of Evolution In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041208160154.0198ea08@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041208160154.0198ea08@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041208222101.GV9221@leitl.org> On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 04:05:57PM -0600, damien wrote: > >There is more. There is another researcher who has written a book about > >evolution. Her name is Lynn Caporale and her book is "Darwin in the > >Genome", in which she constructs a theory of evolution that is also > >based on infectious agents. > > Yes, and Greg Bear's novels DARWIN'S RADIO (1999) and sequel DARWIN'S > CHILDREN, and, possibly, my story `A Tooth for Every Child' (written in > 1981, published 1985). Doesn't this assume the inserted segments are going to make other sense entirely, occasionally? -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From reason at longevitymeme.org Thu Dec 9 03:44:43 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 19:44:43 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] PopSci profiles Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041208160154.0198ea08@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: A long, irreverent, and generally very good article at PopSci profiles Aubrey de Grey and his work. In a very mainstream magazine as well - I think we're making progress :) http://www.popsci.com/popsci/medicine/article/0,20967,929447,00.html Meanwhile, the Methuselah Foundation is still growing. A new site went up just recently: http://www.mprize.org Feel free to pitch in if you haven't done so already. We're making waves, and the waves are only going to get bigger. Reason Founder, Longevity Meme From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 9 05:34:38 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 23:34:38 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] PopSci profiles Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041208160154.0198ea08@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041208233305.01a22a68@pop-server.satx.rr.com> < Transhumanists are science (and science-fiction) enthusiasts entranced by the prospect that futuristic technology will allow us to modify our bodies-wings, anyone? infrared vision?-and also to live a really, really long time (if not in our own bodies, then in robotic ones governed by our own downloaded brains). Most any gerontologist of repute would dive under the desk if a transhumanist came calling, but de Grey enjoys passing between the worlds of the professional scientist and the amateur crank. > Ah. Cranks again. Insightful! Damien Broderick From reason at longevitymeme.org Thu Dec 9 06:00:25 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 22:00:25 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] PopSci profiles Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041208233305.01a22a68@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: ---> Damien Broderick > < Transhumanists are science (and science-fiction) enthusiasts > entranced by > the prospect that futuristic technology will allow us to modify our > bodies-wings, anyone? infrared vision?-and also to live a really, really > long time (if not in our own bodies, then in robotic ones governed by our > own downloaded brains). Most any gerontologist of repute would dive under > the desk if a transhumanist came calling, but de Grey enjoys passing > between the worlds of the professional scientist and the amateur crank. > > > Ah. Cranks again. Insightful! Yes, but cranks with links from PopSci to our more notable websites, appearing underneath a fairly concise explanation of what we're about. Dismissive or not, that's good. This is a good excuse to write scathing letters to the editor that may just get printed. And turn out cutting return volley articles for publication at Betterhumans - something that doesn't happen often enough. Just for reference, from Alexa: Betterhumans traffic ranking: 89,935 PopSci traffic ranking: 24,252 ScienceDaily traffic ranking: 9,625 ---------- http://www.popsci.com/popsci/medicine/article/0,20967,930738,00.html While most of us science-literate folks are watching the biotech revolution with tentative optimism, hoping for innovations like medicines that have no side effects because they're tuned to a patient's genes, or livers and kidneys grown to order for people with organ failure, some intrepid souls are taking much larger leaps. Based on the fledgling promise of stem cells and brain-machine interfaces, they wonder: Why tolerate chronic pain, or suffer irrevocable injury in accidents? Why become forgetful, get sick, or grow old? Why, indeed, experience any of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities that so relentlessly characterize the human condition? These technology-over-biology advocates call themselves transhumanists. Some are focused on redesigning the human body, adding built-in telephones, multiple joints or even wings. Others are more interested in downloading their minds so that they can spend eternity in a robotic body. Most scientists would dismiss transhumanists out of hand, advising them to ease off on their fantastical reading. Not Aubrey de Grey, a theorist at the University of Cambridge, who has developed a biology-based plan whereby, he believes, it should be possible for all of us to live forever-or at least for 5,000 years. De Grey walks a line between legitimate scientific thinker and eccentric showman, and he welcomes dialogue with the transhumanist community. Following are some transhumanist Web sites that are worth checking out. Better Humans: www.betterhumans.com The goal: Provide information, analysis and opinion on the influence of advancing science and technology. Great clearinghouse of articles from the mainstream and alternative press and from medical journals. Extropy Institute: www.extropy.org The goal: Improve the human condition by finding ways to eradicate "stupidity, malice, conflict, aging, and death." Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence:www.singinst.org The goal: "Enhance cognition"-that is, make humans smarter-to help solve present-day challenges, including the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer' s disease, AIDS and multiple sclerosis. Foresight Institute: www.foresight.org The goal: Promote nanotechnology, the ability to build microscopic machines with atomic precision. Medically based nanomachines would have multiple applications, from scrubbing arteries free of plaque to tracking down and killing cancer cells. The Immortality Institute: imminst.org The goal: "Conquer the blight of involuntary death." World Transhumanist Association: www.transhumanism.org The goal: Support the development of and access to new technologies that promote human enhancement, enabling us to be "better than well." ------------- Reason Founder, Longevity Meme From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 9 06:17:09 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 22:17:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] PopSci profiles Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041209061709.1460.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Reason wrote: > > > > Ah. Cranks again. Insightful! > > Yes, but cranks with links from PopSci to our more notable websites, > appearing underneath a fairly concise explanation of what we're > about. > Dismissive or not, that's good. Yeah. When we get lots of grant dollars, then the can start calling us eccentrics.... ;) ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From john-c-wright at sff.net Thu Dec 9 18:10:49 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 12:10:49 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> My fellow not-quite-yet-transhumans, Forgive my lack of Net etiquette if I bring up a topic discussed in October, but the topic is one of particular interest to me, and, in all humility, I think I am in a position to have inside knowledge about it. Please forgive as well the length of this note, but I wanted to share my musings on several comments in the thread. Before I continue, I must express that I am honored my books came to your attention, therefore all my comments below are spoken by one who, hat in hand, speaks in a tone of respect. Certainly the ultimate destiny of mankind, even whether our posterity shall remain human or not, is a fascinating one. My attempt in THE GOLDEN AGE was to present an imaginary future where all boundaries to human inventiveness had fallen, in order to see what boundaries could not fall (such as limitations on the speed of light, economic scarcity, the ultimate victory of entropy, and so on) that I might speculate on the human reaction to these limits, both of those who bowed to the inevitable, and those who did not. This has no bearing on my comments below, save that I wanted to reassure all and sundry to take my words in the kindest possible way. I am surprised and secretly pleased to find anyone discussing my words or my works at all. I should say at the outset that the subject line of this thread wants accuracy. I did not, strictly speaking, "find" God. It might be more accurate to say He found me, or, if I may be permitted a drollery on so profound a topic, He pounced on me. I was the patient, not the agent. In my interview with Greg West, I said I was introverted, bookish, rude, irreligious, un-athletic, smart and smart-mouthed: a typical product of popular culture in America. Trend Ologist wrote: > Bookish? the 'typical product of our culture' leans more towards local yokel ..they can read sports statistics, romance novels, etc. ... I confess my comment could have been more clearly worded: I did not mean to imply that rude and bookish introverts were the only typical products of American popular culture, merely that boys of that "type" were "typical." One can speak of a ?typical? sunny spring day without meaning to imply that all days of all seasons are sunny. There is many a man (myself included) that falls into the stereotype described. Of my friends and peers in my generation, no one respected authority or honored tradition. We were all avowed nonconformists, uniformly and in lockstep. Brett Paatsch wrote: > Phenomena such as belief in the supernatural (heaven, reincarnation, happy hunting ground, nirvana) must itself have a basis in something. It may be that belief in the supernatural has its basis in experiences of the supernatural, which are common to all races and ages of man. This explanation at least has the merit of being straightforward. If we restrict ourselves to natural explanations for supernatural longings, I suppose nothing is more natural that human beings would desire life, justice, love from a world ruled by Mother Nature, a lady who is notoriously deadly, cruel and indifferent. In the naturalistic philosophy, these desires for life, justice and meaning must be merely the by-products of a sloppy evolution, which instilled these desires in us for the sake of their utility: but evolution is too blind a tool to shape our desires exactly to the contours of reality, and so there is always an awkward overlap, such as the desire of a man better off dead to live. Perhaps a more careful or kindly evolution would have tailored our desires to fit reality, so that men would crave death without fear once they were useless to their posterity; or with perfect indifference cease to love their parents, mates and offspring the moment they were useless. Unfortunately, evolution rewards reproductive success, not emotional serenity. But if we seek a supernatural explanation for supernatural longings, then, of course, nothing is more natural than that we exiles from a better world would retain a dim longing for it, or that the fingerprints of the potter who made us would still be found, to our surprise, in our souls. >I can't see I have a lot of necessarily persuasive evidence for this view (it doesn't seen falsifiable) but I still think its true. My dear sir, you ask too much of yourself in this case. The criterion that a view be ?falsifiable? applies only to empirical propositions, not to metaphysical ones. Metaphysical conclusions are proven or disproven by reason, not by observation. In this case, the axioms chosen at the outset determine the outcome. If you seek only a natural explanation for that homesickness for heaven only believers know, a supernatural explanation is outside the scope of your examination. Jeff Albright writes: > An overwhelming desire to find ultimate meaning can tip one over the edge. Nothing in Greg West's interview with me presents evidence that I was possessed with an "overwhelming desire to find ultimate meaning" at the time of my conversion. Just between you and me, I was perfectly content with my status as a "bright", i.e. a hard-core rationalist atheist. We must assume here that Mr. Albright is speaking in general terms about religions conversions, not of me in particular. > Once tipped, they will appear as rational as before, except for a tendency toward selective observation of information which confirms the new belief set. Please forgive me, but this sentence contains a whiff of paranoia about it: why say the converted ?appear? rational rather than ?are? rational? I am not sure if Mr. Albright is speaking of a selection bias, or if he is merely noting that people are interest in what interests them. When I was an Objectivist, I read Ayn Ran; as a Stoic, I read Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius; when I was an atheist, I read Ingersoll; when I became a Christian, I read the Gospel. This does not imply an absence of objectivity, merely a presence of more interest in some topics than others. In any case, selection bias is only pertinent to cases whose outcome depend on a number of observations conforming to a given set, that is, to people who chose what to believe based on statistics, anecdotes, or examples. Nicholas Anthony MacDonald says, in reply to Mr. Albright: > Except Robert Wright's search for "ultimate meaning" is of a very different character than John Wright. Robert Wright is engaged in a philosophical "search", while John just happened to have a near death experience and decide that Jesus was to blame. Well, this sentiment is accurate (my conversion was not the product of philosophical rumination) but the characterization is slightly inaccurate. Mr. McDonald is not to blame for assuming I had a near death experience and "decided Jesus was to blame", since my description to Greg West about the event was rather coy. I did not ?decide? anything. My reaction to a blinding revelation was something more spontaneous than rationally choosing which falsifiable theory best fit the observed and empirical facts. It was more like falling in love. You must forgive me for being close-mouthed about the details when speaking to strangers. It is my own inadequacy that stills my pen. An event beyond human understanding cannot be described in human words to those who have no referent experiences, no frame, in which to understand it. If you wonder how I, as a human, could have witnessed an event beyond human understanding, I can only hint that we humans are not what we think we are. The truth of the matter is far more glorious than we suspect. My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, for I have only departed your company recently) is this: what does an honest and rational man do when he has a supernatural experience? Does he, like Scrooge, claim Marlowe's ghost is a bit of beef, a product of bad digestion? Does he accuse himself of hallucination rather than entertain the opinion that his axioms might be mistaken? Occam's razor, plus a modicum of intellectual integrity, would seem to militate against this assumption. I ask this in all seriousness. What does one do when overwhelming evidence suddenly breaks in on you that your entire system of the world, so carefully constructed by materialist rational philosophy over many years of painstaking thought, is utterly wrong and discredited? Pretend it did not happen? Once upon a time, I saw the Goodyear blimp hanging over the town where I went to college. Back on campus, I told some friends of mine of the sighting. All of them knew of my sobriety and honesty, and yet not one of them believed me. Not one. Even though I am an avowed skeptic of long practice and impeccable credentials, I was at a loss to explain their skepticism. But, gosh, am I glad I did not see a flying saucer. Yours truly, John C. Wright From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 9 18:42:29 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 19:42:29 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <470a3c52041209104260686ddf@mail.gmail.com> John, if finding (having been found by) God will help you write more books as good as the Golden Age, I am all for God:-) Seriously, your words quoted below are quite intriguing. Perhaps you care to elaborate, not everyone here is a "fundamentalist atheist" you know. All the best, Giulio On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 12:10:49 -0600, john-c-wright at sff.net wrote:> You must forgive me for being close-mouthed about the details when speaking to > strangers. It is my own inadequacy that stills my pen. An event beyond human > understanding cannot be described in human words to those who have no referent > experiences, no frame, in which to understand it. If you wonder how I, as a > human, could have witnessed an event beyond human understanding, I can only hint > that we humans are not what we think we are. The truth of the matter is far > more glorious than we suspect. > > My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, for I have > only departed your company recently) is this: what does an honest and rational > man do when he has a supernatural experience? > > Does he, like Scrooge, claim Marlowe's ghost is a bit of beef, a product of bad > digestion? Does he accuse himself of hallucination rather than entertain the > opinion that his axioms might be mistaken? Occam's razor, plus a modicum of > intellectual integrity, would seem to militate against this assumption. > > I ask this in all seriousness. What does one do when overwhelming evidence > suddenly breaks in on you that your entire system of the world, so carefully > constructed by materialist rational philosophy over many years of painstaking > thought, is utterly wrong and discredited? Pretend it did not happen? > > Once upon a time, I saw the Goodyear blimp hanging over the town where I went > to college. Back on campus, I told some friends of mine of the sighting. All of > them knew of my sobriety and honesty, and yet not one of them believed me. Not > one. Even though I am an avowed skeptic of long practice and impeccable > credentials, I was at a loss to explain their skepticism. > > But, gosh, am I glad I did not see a flying saucer. > > Yours truly, John C. Wright From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 9 18:43:30 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 12:43:30 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041209123220.01af4128@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 12:10 PM 12/9/2004 -0600, John Wright asked: >My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, for I have >only departed your company recently) is this: what does an honest and >rational >man do when he has a supernatural experience? > > Does he, like Scrooge, claim Marlowe's ghost is a bit of beef, a product > of bad > digestion? Does he accuse himself of hallucination rather than entertain > the >opinion that his axioms might be mistaken? Occam's razor, plus a modicum of >intellectual integrity, would seem to militate against this assumption. I believe I was the one who started this thread. Thanks to Mr Wright for his interesting and quite moving response. I have to ask at once: what does an honest and rational man do when he has a UFO abduction experience, complete with rectal probing? (Let us suppose that Whitley Strieber can be believed when he makes this claim, that he has not simply concocted it.) What does an honest and rational man do when he has a psychic experience, complete with spoon bending? (Let us suppose that Michael Crichton can be believed when he makes this claim.) What does an honest and rational man do when he defends claims of fairies dancing in the garden, complete with photographs, as Conan Doyle did? One could go on almost indefinitely. Many of these kinds of experiences seem to have been overwhelming, apodictically persuasive, even life-changing, and utterly at odds with each other, piling L. Ron Hubbard atop Phil Dick atop Madam Blavatsky atop charismatic faith healers atop witnesses of N-rays atop... Damien Broderick From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 9 19:16:24 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 11:16:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041209123220.01af4128@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041209191624.83525.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote: > I have to ask at once: what does > an honest and rational man do when he has a UFO abduction experience, > complete with rectal probing? (Let us suppose that Whitley Strieber > can be believed when he makes this claim, that he has not simply > concocted it.) What does an honest and rational man do when he has > a psychic experience, complete with spoon bending? (Let us suppose > that Michael Crichton can be believed when he makes this claim.) > What does an honest and rational man do when he defends claims of > fairies dancing in the garden, complete with photographs, as Conan > Doyle did? One could go on almost indefinitely. Many of these > kinds of experiences seem to have been overwhelming, apodictically > persuasive, even life-changing, and utterly at odds with each other, > piling L. Ron Hubbard atop Phil Dick atop Madam Blavatsky atop > charismatic faith healers atop witnesses of N-rays atop... Well, as a person who has had one, count-em, one experience in his life he can clearly categorize as 'supernatural', at which time he was not under the influence of any alcohol, caffiene, or other drug, was clearly awake, and simply cannot come up with any possible rational or scientific explaination for it, I am forced by logic, by Sherlock Holmes' admonishment that, when all else is ruled out, that which remains is the truth, and by my own sense of sanity, to conclude that the atheist excuse that anything that cannot be explained by science doesn't exist is a very narrow minded conclusion. Just because something cannot be currently explained by science, does not occur frequently enough or predictably enough for science to observe, or does not present enough information about it to be falsifiable, does not mean that it does not exist or did not happen, or that it will never be explained by science. The list of things that science has not been able to sufficiently explain is very long. The human mind is at the top of that list. That does not mean that the human mind does not exist. Ergo, the atheist argument of scientific falsifiability falls on its face. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send a seasonal email greeting and help others. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 9 19:28:48 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 14:28:48 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <20041209191624.83525.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041209191624.83525.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41B8A770.5040907@pobox.com> Mike Lorrey wrote: > > The list of things that science has not been able to sufficiently > explain is very long. And keeps getting shorter. The blank areas of our map are not faithful representations of blank territories. Mystery exists to be conquered, to be transformed into non-mystery. This task is not accomplished by those who, meeting the great dragon Unknown, sheathe their blades and bow their heads in delicious submission. > The human mind is at the top of that list. *draws blade* *lops top item off list* Next! -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 9 19:28:47 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:28:47 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41B8A76F.4000100@neopax.com> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > > > > My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, for I have >only departed your company recently) is this: what does an honest and rational >man do when he has a supernatural experience? > > Acknowledge it, but don't jump to conclusions. > > I ask this in all seriousness. What does one do when overwhelming evidence >suddenly breaks in on you that your entire system of the world, so carefully >constructed by materialist rational philosophy over many years of painstaking >thought, is utterly wrong and discredited? Pretend it did not happen? > > > Not at all. Clearly a materialist philosophy works, for the most part. Now you've experienced something extra. Happened to me first time I took LSD in my 30s. I was utterly amazed by the expansion of consciousness and perception. I was experiencing something that previously I did not have the capacity to imagine. As for 'supernatural' eg psi phenomena etc, I would not call that something that could discredit a materialist philosophy. All it means if psi exists is that we have a bigger picture to integrate. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 9 19:36:00 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 13:36:00 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <20041209191624.83525.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041209123220.01af4128@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <20041209191624.83525.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041209132517.019faec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 11:16 AM 12/9/2004 -0800, Mike Lorrey wrote: > > Many of these > > kinds of experiences seem to have been overwhelming, apodictically > > persuasive, even life-changing, and utterly at odds with each other >The list of things that science has not been able to sufficiently >explain is very long. The human mind is at the top of that list. That >does not mean that the human mind does not exist. Ergo, the atheist >argument of scientific falsifiability falls on its face. `Utterly at odds with each other' is a very general criterion of the unintelligibility or incredibility of at least one of the competing explanations, however thrilling the experience was, and is hardly limited to canons of scientific falsifiability. If L. Ron Hubbard's world view is right, the Pope's is not. I suppose it's even barely conceivable that neither of them might be correct. Damien Broderick From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 9 19:40:32 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 20:40:32 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41B8A770.5040907@pobox.com> Message-ID: I agree with Eliezer that if something exists in our universe, sooner or later it shall be explained, and tamed, by science. Including supernatural experience of course. But perhaps the explanation, when one is found, can be much stranger that whatever we are able to understand or even imagine at our current stage of evolution. Let's not forget Clarke's Third Law. This stranger-than-you-can-imagine realities can accommodate what we call supernatural today. G. -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Eliezer Yudkowsky Sent: jueves, 09 de diciembre de 2004 20:29 To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Mike Lorrey wrote: > > The list of things that science has not been able to sufficiently > explain is very long. And keeps getting shorter. The blank areas of our map are not faithful representations of blank territories. Mystery exists to be conquered, to be transformed into non-mystery. This task is not accomplished by those who, meeting the great dragon Unknown, sheathe their blades and bow their heads in delicious submission. > The human mind is at the top of that list. *draws blade* *lops top item off list* Next! -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.806 / Virus Database: 548 - Release Date: 05/12/2004 From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 9 19:43:14 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:43:14 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41B8A770.5040907@pobox.com> References: <20041209191624.83525.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> <41B8A770.5040907@pobox.com> Message-ID: <41B8AAD2.1020500@neopax.com> Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Mike Lorrey wrote: > >> >> The list of things that science has not been able to sufficiently >> explain is very long. > > > And keeps getting shorter. The blank areas of our map are not > faithful representations of blank territories. Mystery exists to be > conquered, to be transformed into non-mystery. This task is not > accomplished by those who, meeting the great dragon Unknown, sheathe > their blades and bow their heads in delicious submission. > >> The human mind is at the top of that list. > > > *draws blade* > *lops top item off list* > > Next! > Riiiiiiight... all we have to do is wrap up the problem of consciousness using computer theory and fuse QM and GTR then we can all pack up and go home. Just like this time about 100yrs ago... Just a few loose ends... -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 9 19:54:22 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:54:22 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41B8AD6E.3050507@neopax.com> Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: >I agree with Eliezer that if something exists in our universe, sooner or >later it shall be explained, and tamed, by science. Including supernatural >experience of course. But perhaps the explanation, when one is found, can be >much stranger that whatever we are able to understand or even imagine at our >current stage of evolution. Let's not forget Clarke's Third Law. This >stranger-than-you-can-imagine realities can accommodate what we call >supernatural today. >G. > > Maybe we have frogs brains ie we are constrained by inbuilt limitations that we cannot overcome no matter how much additional intellect we throw at it because we lack faculty X - and cannot even concieve of the possibility that it exists because we don't have faculty X etc OTOH, maybe the universe is not ultimately understandable. Mathematics certainly isn't, as Chaitin, Godel, Turing et al have shown. Perhaps it's non computable, or turtles all the way down and psi etc occasionally bubbles from the depths... -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 9 20:49:35 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 12:49:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <20041209204935.12670.qmail@web81603.mail.yahoo.com> --- john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > what does an honest and > rational > man do when he has a supernatural experience? Keep an open mind about the possible causes, and integrate that one experience with all the rest of the evidence one has perceived. Perhaps science can't explain everything (yet). But just because we don't know why X happened, doesn't automatically mean that God or aliens caused X. True, it *may be possible*, but there are other possible explanations, some of them more wondrous than simply blaming it on mystical beings that happen not to show up whenever we specifically look for them. For instance, the human soul. A fragment of ineffable supernatural substance that gets stamped out factory-style by God is simple to understand, but rather bla, IMO. But consider when each mind/soul is actually the product of an incredible number of biochemical interactions and stimuli from the environment - many of which have been extraordinarily fine-tuned through millions of years of evolution, yet many more are in combination unique to each individual, producing such a wondrous array of possibilities and potentials (both between people, and in one's own future choices and resulting paths). Far more fascinating, and worthy of promoting the nobility of the human soul (at least, those souls that are noble), than just saying "God did it", no? From john-c-wright at sff.net Thu Dec 9 20:53:21 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 14:53:21 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412092056.iB9KuC002246@tick.javien.com> Giulio Prisco quips: > John, if finding (having been found by) God will help you write more books as good as > the Golden Age, I am all for God:-) Thank you, sir, but I can only promise to write, not to be inspired. If my work did not displease you, the praise is due, not to the author of the book, but to the Great Author who created both the world and the writer who depicts the world. > Seriously, your words quoted below are quite intriguing. Perhaps you >care to elaborate, not everyone here is a "fundamentalist atheist" you >know. I am unfortunately a prolix man. If you ask me a specific question, perhaps I can answer without endangering the patience of other subscribers on this list. If the question is too delicate for public airing, I can write to you privately. Mr. Broderick, quite rightly, answers my question with a question: >I have to ask at once: what does >an honest and rational man do when he has a UFO abduction experience, >complete with rectal probing? (Let us suppose that Whitley Strieber can be >believed when he makes this claim, that he has not simply concocted it.) To this list he adds a number of things to which a skeptical man will not normally assent: Psychic spoon bending, fairies being photographed, N-rays. The honest man speaks the truth, with humility, to any one who will hear. But perhaps the question should have been instead what the honest judge should do when he hears a believable witness tell an unbelievable story. A healthy dose of skepticism is perfectly natural in such cases. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. Myself, were I convinced of the sobriety and good faith of the witness, my first question would be whether he claimed the results were repeatable. I would invite someone who can bend spoons with his brainwaves to do so in front of James Randi (AKA The Amazing Randi of the committee for the scientific investigation of claims of the paranormal) after Randi checked his sleeves and pockets for the apparatus stage magicians use to do the spoon-bending trick. Likewise, I might palm the aluminium prism allegedly being used to refract the N-Rays to see if the observers would get the same results. Keep in mind that certain things on the list are claimed to be non-repeatable. UFO's do not land, nor do the fairies dance, at human command. In such cases, assuming the claim is not disqualified for some other reason (such as that the fairies are obviously paper cutouts wearing current styles), we have no choice but to fall back on authority. If there were fairies, or UFO, it is safe to assume that reports of them would be relatively constant across all lands and ages: and I mean reports meant to be taken in earnest, not in stories meant to amuse. That stories appear in every land and age, not even skeptics doubt. Here we immediately notice a sharp divide between the items on the list and the question of theism. The authority for belief in God, or, at least, in some sort of supernatural reality is overwhelming. There is no race of men that does not worship, does not bury its dead, does not embrace sober claims of miracles. Even materialists burn or bury their dead with signs of respect they have no rational reason to show to the inanimate meat occupying the space where their loved ones once breathed. An irrational sense that there is more to life than mere matter is ubiquitous. Aristotle and Plato and Epictetus were monotheists, as were Aquinas, Hobbes, Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Descartes, and even good old Thomas Paine. Whatever one may say about these men, they had first-rate intellects, they understood (and in one case, formulated) the laws of logic, and skeptical thinking was not alien to their natures. Atheists were and are in an astonishing minority on these issues. Such authority does not compel belief: far from it! It does, however, dispel the implication that religion is merely a crackpot fad like theosophy, Ufology or table-tipping. (Indeed, the rise of crackpot fads may be linked to the decline of religion in the West as an ordinary part of life. The hunger for spiritual things affects most of mankind; and if not fed on food, they feast on shadows). Such authority certainly dispels the proud idea that only children and silly old women believe such things. The highest exemplars of our race, men famed for wisdom and justice, found the belief sufficiently sound to rest upon it. If belief in the supernatural were merely a crackpot fad, it would not be universal. The belief, right or wrong, is indeed universal. Therefore it is not a crackpot fad. I am not making an argument from authority, nor, indeed, any argument in favor of faith at all. My faith was visited upon my by the Holy Spirit; it was poured into me like fine wine into an empty tin cup. I do not believe reason the proper tool to use to decide these matters; nay, I do not believe that they are "decided" at all. Now, you may ask: is the experiment repeatable? If I went to the same hospital as John C. Wright and lay in the same bed, would the same miracles, visitations, and religious experiences appear before me? Well, that is a strange question, for it is based on a strange assumption. It is like asking whether, had you been kneeling in front of my beloved as I was when I asked her to marry me, she would have chosen you for her bridegroom instead of me. Marriage is not a matter open to experiment. The results, in one sense, are not repeatable. You are, of course, free to find a comely maiden to kneel before, and court her with flowers and poetry and offer her a ring. There is a way in which these things are done. So, the results are not repeatable, but they can be reproduced, if you take my meaning. Only a Benedict refuses to believe, despite the ample evidence, that marriage is what it claims to be. (Allusion alert: I mean Shakespeare's Benedict, not Zelazny's). Now, as I say, the experiment is not repeatable, but, like proposing to a bride, there is a way in which these things are done. As in marriage, in this case also, it is customary to start on one?s knees. From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Dec 9 21:07:21 2004 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 13:07:21 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41B8BE89.2020102@jefallbright.net> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > > My fellow not-quite-yet-transhumans, > > Forgive my lack of Net etiquette if I bring up a topic discussed in October, >but the topic is one of particular interest to me, and, in all humility, I >think I am in a position to have inside knowledge about it. Please forgive as >well the length of this note, but I wanted to share my musings on several >comments in the thread. > > > Mr. Wright, I read and enjoyed your Golden Age series, especially in the ways it illuminated some of humanity's intrinsic values ranging from the individual to the collective, and over a similarly wide range of time. It is my experience that a great deal can be learned by examining a system while "zooming" in or out to view less or more of the associated context, and I think that this observation may apply as well to the issue of differing beliefs. Rather than viewing one deeply held belief as right and another as wrong, it seems to me more effective to see each as part of a coherent whole, on which we all would agree, given the same context, but on which can never be fully objective. This leads me toward discussion of the profound influence of subjectivity or intersubjectivity on our understanding of consciousness, free-will, and ethics, but this may or may not be related to the topic at hand. > > Jeff Albright writes: > > >>An overwhelming desire to find ultimate meaning can tip one over the edge. >> >> > > Nothing in Greg West's interview with me presents evidence that I was possessed > with an "overwhelming desire to find ultimate meaning" at the time of my >conversion. Just between you and me, I was perfectly content with my status as a > "bright", i.e. a hard-core rationalist atheist. > > We must assume here that Mr. Albright is speaking in general terms about >religions conversions, not of me in particular. > > > Yes, not knowing anything of your specific situation, I was referring in a general sense to our evolved drive to find meaning in all of our experience. >>Once tipped, they will appear as rational as before, except for a tendency >> >> >toward selective observation of information which confirms the new belief set. > > Please forgive me, but this sentence contains a whiff of paranoia about it: why >say the converted ?appear? rational rather than ?are? rational? > > > Hmmm, I see how this may have been taken as indication of a bit of paranoia, and I do admit that my observations of the world at large lead me to think we are at high risk due to our irrational behavior, but I find it personally effective to set my sights on the positive, given half a chance. In this case I was speaking of selection bias, but in the strong intentional sense rather than the more subtle sense with which we are familiar in general scientific endeavor. > I did not ?decide? anything. My reaction to a blinding revelation was >something more spontaneous than rationally choosing which falsifiable theory >best fit the observed and empirical facts. It was more like falling in love. > > You must forgive me for being close-mouthed about the details when speaking to > strangers. It is my own inadequacy that stills my pen. An event beyond human >understanding cannot be described in human words to those who have no referent >experiences, no frame, in which to understand it. If you wonder how I, as a >human, could have witnessed an event beyond human understanding, I can only hint > that we humans are not what we think we are. The truth of the matter is far >more glorious than we suspect. > > > > > I ask this in all seriousness. What does one do when overwhelming evidence >suddenly breaks in on you that your entire system of the world, so carefully >constructed by materialist rational philosophy over many years of painstaking >thought, is utterly wrong and discredited? Pretend it did not happen? > > > > Mr. Wright, I think you will find among those who attend this discussion group there are a variety of responses to claims of the extraordinary. Many of us are well aware that such claims are often accompanied by ignorance of what is already known of the natural world and rational methods of thought, and we therefore tend to give little of our time to their serious consideration. On the other hand, a report of an anomalous observation, presented with obvious intelligence and knowledge of the world, is almost sure to be seriously considered and discussed in this forum with the result tending toward greater understanding for all of the participants. - Jef http://www.jefallbright.net From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Dec 9 21:07:21 2004 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 13:07:21 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41B8BE89.2020102@jefallbright.net> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > > My fellow not-quite-yet-transhumans, > > Forgive my lack of Net etiquette if I bring up a topic discussed in October, >but the topic is one of particular interest to me, and, in all humility, I >think I am in a position to have inside knowledge about it. Please forgive as >well the length of this note, but I wanted to share my musings on several >comments in the thread. > > > Mr. Wright, I read and enjoyed your Golden Age series, especially in the ways it illuminated some of humanity's intrinsic values ranging from the individual to the collective, and over a similarly wide range of time. It is my experience that a great deal can be learned by examining a system while "zooming" in or out to view less or more of the associated context, and I think that this observation may apply as well to the issue of differing beliefs. Rather than viewing one deeply held belief as right and another as wrong, it seems to me more effective to see each as part of a coherent whole, on which we all would agree, given the same context, but on which can never be fully objective. This leads me toward discussion of the profound influence of subjectivity or intersubjectivity on our understanding of consciousness, free-will, and ethics, but this may or may not be related to the topic at hand. > > Jeff Albright writes: > > >>An overwhelming desire to find ultimate meaning can tip one over the edge. >> >> > > Nothing in Greg West's interview with me presents evidence that I was possessed > with an "overwhelming desire to find ultimate meaning" at the time of my >conversion. Just between you and me, I was perfectly content with my status as a > "bright", i.e. a hard-core rationalist atheist. > > We must assume here that Mr. Albright is speaking in general terms about >religions conversions, not of me in particular. > > > Yes, not knowing anything of your specific situation, I was referring in a general sense to our evolved drive to find meaning in all of our experience. >>Once tipped, they will appear as rational as before, except for a tendency >> >> >toward selective observation of information which confirms the new belief set. > > Please forgive me, but this sentence contains a whiff of paranoia about it: why >say the converted ?appear? rational rather than ?are? rational? > > > Hmmm, I see how this may have been taken as indication of a bit of paranoia, and I do admit that my observations of the world at large lead me to think we are at high risk due to our irrational behavior, but I find it personally effective to set my sights on the positive, given half a chance. In this case I was speaking of selection bias, but in the strong intentional sense rather than the more subtle sense with which we are familiar in general scientific endeavor. > I did not ?decide? anything. My reaction to a blinding revelation was >something more spontaneous than rationally choosing which falsifiable theory >best fit the observed and empirical facts. It was more like falling in love. > > You must forgive me for being close-mouthed about the details when speaking to > strangers. It is my own inadequacy that stills my pen. An event beyond human >understanding cannot be described in human words to those who have no referent >experiences, no frame, in which to understand it. If you wonder how I, as a >human, could have witnessed an event beyond human understanding, I can only hint > that we humans are not what we think we are. The truth of the matter is far >more glorious than we suspect. > > > > > I ask this in all seriousness. What does one do when overwhelming evidence >suddenly breaks in on you that your entire system of the world, so carefully >constructed by materialist rational philosophy over many years of painstaking >thought, is utterly wrong and discredited? Pretend it did not happen? > > > > Mr. Wright, I think you will find among those who attend this discussion group there are a variety of responses to claims of the extraordinary. Many of us are well aware that such claims are often accompanied by ignorance of what is already known of the natural world and rational methods of thought, and we therefore tend to give little of our time to their serious consideration. On the other hand, a report of an anomalous observation, presented with obvious intelligence and knowledge of the world, is almost sure to be seriously considered and discussed in this forum with the result tending toward greater understanding for all of the participants. - Jef http://www.jefallbright.net From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 9 21:25:24 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 21:25:24 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412092056.iB9KuC002246@tick.javien.com> References: <200412092056.iB9KuC002246@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41B8C2C4.9040405@neopax.com> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: >I am not making an argument from authority, nor, indeed, any argument in favor >of faith at all. My faith was visited upon my by the Holy Spirit; it was poured >into me like fine wine into an empty tin cup. I do not believe reason the proper >tool to use to decide these matters; nay, I do not believe that they are >"decided" at all. > > > > There is the experience, and then there is the 'explanation' which is the cultural context in which you place it. Different cultures will provide different explanatory frameworks. While the experience stands as it is, the explanation does not. The clearest 'context free' analysis, which is no analysis (subtle joke), is Zen. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Dec 9 21:30:10 2004 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 13:30:10 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041209132517.019faec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041209123220.01af4128@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <20041209191624.83525.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041209132517.019faec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41B8C3E2.7050405@jefallbright.net> Damien Broderick wrote: > `Utterly at odds with each other' is a very general criterion of the > unintelligibility or incredibility of at least one of the competing > explanations, however thrilling the experience was, and is hardly > limited to canons of scientific falsifiability. If L. Ron Hubbard's > world view is right, the Pope's is not. I suppose it's even barely > conceivable that neither of them might be correct. > > Damien Broderick > > We can be quite sure that each one's world view is incorrect in the bigger picture. But we observe that what works survives, that knowledge tends to ratchet forward, and that communication and cooperation tend to more of the same. All of these arrows point to an ever-expanding sphere of world-view in common, along with the -- paradoxically to some -- increasing diversity required for growth. - Jef From john-c-wright at sff.net Thu Dec 9 21:32:40 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 15:32:40 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412092132.iB9LWo007291@tick.javien.com> Mr. Adrian Tynes writes, in answer to my question: >Keep an open mind about the possible causes, and >integrate that one experience with all the rest of >the evidence one has perceived. Perhaps science >can't explain everything (yet). But just because we >don't know why X happened, doesn't automatically mean >that God or aliens caused X. True, it *may be >possible*, but there are other possible explanations, >some of them more wondrous than simply blaming it on >mystical beings that happen not to show up whenever >we specifically look for them. Bravo. This is a perfectly rational answer, and shows a healthy measure of common sense. And yet... And yet, I am in the same position as Mr. A Square of Flatland might be in trying to describe a sphere to his fellow two-dimensional beings. "It was like a circle, and yet it was not a circle, for it extended into directions for which we have no name and cannot picture." Mr. A Square has no word for "volume" and he cannot express the overwhelming solidity of his three-dimensional visitor. A religious experience is not like observing an interesting object. It is not as if a mermaid swam into my room, and I decided to explain the sight by assuming, against all evidence, that there was a God who sent her. A religious experience, or, to be precise, a visitation by the Paraclete is a literal inspiration, the entering of one spirit into another. The Holy Ghost enters the mind and soul and works a transformation. The only analogies I can think of are one both shopworn and mildly insulting to my brother atheists: like explaining sight to a man born blind, like explaining romance to a boy below the age when girls have cooties. No, wait. I am (or pretend to be) a writer after all, so I should be able to come up with a new metaphor, one that deprecates me and not my audience. Hmm .... Trying to explain a religious experience is like a Yahoo trying to explain his love of the shiny but useless metal called gold to the dignified and perfectly-rational Houyhnhnms. No matter what he says, the Houyhnhnms cannot see the value or the beauty of the substance they cannot eat. My experience was one that attacked and changed the axioms, the very foundations of my thought. My conception of what constituted myself, the universe, and my relation to it, were changed. So radical a change cannot be integrated with prior experience because the root of all experience is overturned. Imagine discovering where your thoughts come from before you think them, and tracing those thoughts back to a mind infinitely greater than your own, timeless and unutterably benevolent. It would be like one of the characters in my books suddenly growing aware of me, his author, and realizing that the thoughts and words I ascribe to him are mine, not his. How would you even begin to describe such an event? One is not aware of one?s own thoughts through the eye or ear by means of touch or taste. There would be nothing to hold up to another man?s eyes. And yet, neither could the experience be dismissed. I can also testify (and this will sound like a paradox, but make of it what you will) that the change was a growth, not merely an alteration. By that, I mean that all the things I used to see, I still see, but now my understanding has a weight and solidity, which heretofore it lacked. My new beliefs are larger than and encompass my older. A man who changes his coat merely makes a change, and he must put off the one to put on the other: a man who grows into an adult, while losing nothing of his personality when he was a child, builds a new level onto old foundations. From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 9 21:57:37 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 15:57:37 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412092132.iB9LWo007291@tick.javien.com> References: <200412092132.iB9LWo007291@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041209154040.01a9aec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 03:32 PM 12/9/2004 -0600, John Wright wrote: >Mr. A Square has no word for "volume" and >he cannot express the overwhelming solidity of his three-dimensional visitor. This is interesting, because... >A religious experience, or, to be precise, a visitation by the Paraclete is a >literal inspiration, the entering of one spirit into another. The Holy Ghost >enters the mind and soul and works a transformation. ...that way of putting it embraces such a specific, contingent and local tradition. Is it just a stroke of luck that you happened to live in a culture where people read the Gospels, or would you have expressed the same inexpressible experience in terms of animism, Hindu pantheism or Scientology, with the same confidence, had you lived among one of those mythic systems? Would it make any difference which form of limited analogy you employed for the unutterable? This is not a captious question; many people in the USA assert that to be saved one must gain and confess a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and declaring for L. Ron Hubbard or Pan or the Sky Spirits and their messenger Binnungar the frill-necked lizard just won't do it. >a man who grows into an adult, while >losing nothing of his personality when he was a child, builds a new level onto >old foundations. Well, yes, but I hope this observation does not entail the implication that atheists are children and you an adult speaking of what we'll only grasp when our adolescent tantrums are outgrown? Damien Broderick From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 9 22:14:36 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 14:14:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412092132.iB9LWo007291@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <20041209221436.57170.qmail@web81602.mail.yahoo.com> --- john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > And yet, I am in the same position as Mr. A Square > of Flatland might be in > trying to describe a sphere to his fellow > two-dimensional beings. "It was like a > circle, and yet it was not a circle, for it extended > into directions for which > we have no name and cannot picture." Mr. A Square > has no word for "volume" and > he cannot express the overwhelming solidity of his > three-dimensional visitor. You're talking about spiritual experiences, right? Eh, had 'em. Remember that you're just an observer, and that your senses can be tricked. You know they've found the neurochemistry behind them, right? It can seem profound to the observer - but think of it as an electrochemical mirage. Just like how a desert traveller might see something that looks just like water on the horizon...yet, upon closer study, there's no water there. But the mirage-seer sees something completely indistinguishable, from afar, from water. Likewise, these spiritual mirages can seem completely indistinguishable from being touched by God...yet, upon closer examination, one does not see that. Note that you're having trouble putting the experience into words. It is not just a factor of the language not having words for them, but due to the distorted nature of your recollection of the event - being the observer who experienced this mirage. You yourself can not perceive it in the same way you can perceive the computer you're reading this note on. Now, that said - having had this experience, you can remember it and use it to relate to others who have had it. You remember your own search to attach meaning to it, and how natural it can feel to ascribe it to the supernatural. Many people just leave it there, rationalizing it as proof that God must exist and that they are now chosen to believe. But consider what you actually felt: there was no doctrine, there was no dogma, just a presence. Mankind makes up what gets attached to that - and the earliest stories gained steam as more and more people accepted those theories in lieu of better ones. But study the history of science through the past few (at least two) centuries, and you will see how even the most cherised of truths can, if unchallenged, enshrine things that turn out not to be so. (Which is not to say that God doesn't necessarily exist. Just that if God does, the impact on our life is either so vague or so enshrined in the nature of the universe as to be equivalent to if there is no God for all practical purposes, including and especially issues of morality. I.e., "Thou shalt not kill" so that other people don't waste their resources defending against you, and if they reciprocate then you can spend your resources elsewhere - say, on improving your life and maybe others'.) From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 9 22:20:14 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 17:20:14 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041209154040.01a9aec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412092132.iB9LWo007291@tick.javien.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041209154040.01a9aec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41B8CF9E.5080606@pobox.com> "I would sooner believe that one could change the neural connections in your mind to *really* believe that magick had happened than you could change the physical laws of the universe. It comes down to a simple question of which is more malleable." -- Robert Bradbury -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From john-c-wright at sff.net Thu Dec 9 22:29:07 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 16:29:07 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412092229.iB9MTC014195@tick.javien.com> Dirk Bruere writes: >There is the experience, and then there is the 'explanation' which is >the cultural context in which you place it. >Different cultures will provide different explanatory frameworks. >While the experience stands as it is, the explanation does not. >The clearest 'context free' analysis, which is no analysis (subtle >joke), is Zen. Sir, you hit upon a point that I confess I find fascinating, namely, the question of objectivity within religious experience and sentiment. I am familiar in an amateur and passing way, with Zen, to the extent that I spent one weekend at an Ashram meditating. I found the Rochi to be gravely serious and impressive men. The firmest argument against religion is that the dogmas of the various churches of man do not agree. As Mr. Broderick so aptly puts it, if f L. Ron Hubbard's world view is right, the Pope's is not. On the other hand the counter-argument usually raised in defense of religion is that the fundamental and mystical experience, that haunting idea that the world is other than it seems to be, is a foundation for all religious sentiment. Baldly put, all faiths agree that there is a supernatural world. It is possible that both the Pontiff and the Scientologists might be partly agreed on a truth they both grasp only in part. As Mr. Albright suggests, "Rather than viewing one deeply held belief as right and another as wrong, it seems to me more effective to see each as part of a coherent whole, on which we all would agree, given the same context, but on which can never be fully objective." Here I will venture my own opinion. The hunger for truth is universal: I cannot see how any organism can survive without it. The hunger for the spirit world is widespread; it exists in most men, most of the time, but by no means in all. If the hunger for the spirit world is merely the blind programming of inanimate nature organizing the molecules of our brains over generations of evolution, then we are trapped in an illusionary belief by our basic drives and instincts. In such as case, the atheists may rightly congratulate themselves in using their minds to break free from a innate but demeaning instinct: their victory is as honorable as a pacifist renouncing violence, or a nun renouncing marriage. If the hunger for the spirit world is sent from the spirit world, like music heard across a starry sea, promising a farther shore, then the hunger has a proper object to satisfy it; an object not found on any earthly shore. All spiritual travelers depart from matter and materialism in their search: mysticism, by which I mean specifically the search for knowledge by non-rational, non-sensory means, is the common ocean onto which all such travelers embark. Now then, at this point, the skeptic can say that these so-called different travelers all ferried themselves to islands existing in their imaginations only, and brought back reports fished up from merely dreams and hallucinations: no wonder they disagree. The point is well taken. And yet, it is ships that sailed from England that colonized North America, not elsewhere, and our language bears the stamp of that ancestral isle. South America bears the stamp of Portugal and Spain. The descriptions of the Spanish Main do not match the descriptions of New England. If we were as skeptical of claims of the New World as we are of claims of the spirit world, each contradiction between the traveler's tales would encourage our disbelief. Likewise, the spiritual travelers who set off from Calvary and those who set sail from the Deer Park in Benares may have reached the same New World, but not the same continent. My experience tells me that Zen is like the first step of seamanship. One must let go of solid land to sail the mystic oceans. But, if there is a Truth out there to be found (or, in my case, a Truth that set sail to come find me) we cannot expect anything other than it will be stranger than we expect; we can hope it will be more glorious than we can hope. A Christian believes the Person of God passed that ocean, otherwise impassible, to land ashore at the most unlikely spot imaginable: the smelly stable in the crowded inn of a conquered nation. Of the many faiths of Earth, I am not bold enough to condemn any as utterly false, and my prayer is that all of them might lead sincere hearts, somehow, out of this sorrowful world where we find ourselves, to the shining lands of which the prophets speak. And yet is seems a cruel truth that not all peoples are equal to the task, any more than all nations are equal to discover the arts of ship-builders and longitudinal navigation. Likewise, some faiths are better than others: the cruelties of the Aztecs are not to be compared to the subtle reasonings of the peaceful Buddhist. You may think it terribly un-multicultural of me to believe that the Jews discovered (or were chosen to receive) a monumental truth by which all the nations of the world would be blessed, and that the Messiah appeared among them, not elsewhere. Perhaps so, but I cannot picture it happening any other way. It is not odd or absurd to learn that Euclid elaborated the geometry, or Ptolemy the astronomy, which was less developed even in other civilized lands. No one thinks the truths in these sciences are invented by nor restricted to one race of men. They are objective truths, free for all to discover. But, then again, but no one uses Eskimo or Hottentot mathematics and astronomy to determine his position at sea. From astapp at fizzfactorgames.com Thu Dec 9 22:32:07 2004 From: astapp at fizzfactorgames.com (Acy James Stapp) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 14:32:07 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3A9DF@amazemail2.amazeent.com> I'd like to share a few of my own ineffable experiences and my interpretation of them. I'll start off by saying I was raised mormon but have been a devout non-believer for fifteen or twenty years, so interpret in that context. The first is a dream I had some years ago. I was in a large, cylindrical room, infinitely tall and deep, a bottomless pit, and around twenty feet in diameter. This room was the entirety of existence, the entire universe. It was broken into floors, and each floor had a handrail to keep one from falling. On one side of the well, elevated above me, was a giant bronze face, twenty feet high. It spoke to me with a huge voice, a penetrating and utterly commanding voice. Its speech was my will, and it was inconceivable that I could disobey. It was majestic, grand, magnificent, all-powerful, and peaceful, just as I expect a god would sound, and I wish I could experience it again. Unfortunately I can't remember what it said :) The second is an earlier drug experience which I don't want to go into in too much detail; suffice it to say that I had taken altogether too much of too many kinds of drugs. As I was lying on the floor with my feet elevated trying not to black out, I realized that my inner monologue sounded like the movie version of the devil/satan voice, pitch shifted down a couple of octaves. I thought "this is really strange" in my devil voice, and then I realized I could change the voice in my head to sound like anyone I knew. I expiremented with my parents, girlfriend, donald duck, and friends and could hear myself as any one of them. I could even become them for short periods before my identity reasserted itself. Another experience was a fugue state I entered for an hour or two while on a long drive alone through Texas. It was quite similar to the preliminary hints of a psychedelic experience, but it never manifested itself fully; some might even call it a flashback, but it wasn't scary and didn't affect my cognition in any perceivable way; my head just felt tight and everything had a distant and pointy aspect to it. This was years after I had had any other psychedelic experiences. I imagine it was some response to the utter boredom of Texas highway driving. The important aspect of this experience is that it was not brought about by any incident; it just happened. I've also felt pure nirvana, being one with all things, as well as pure emptiness and isolation, being alone, an infinitesimal point in the eternal and infinite universe. In my mind, all of these experiences are a result of temporary oddities of neurotransmission, signals getting through where they shouldn't, or being amplified unreasonably, or some other neurochemical defect. What caused them? Stress, boredom, drugs? I don't doubt that someone in an extremely threatening situation could experience a similar state and have a conversion experience, when their critical faculties are suppressed by ancient reflexes, fear, and unimagineable uncertainty. Introspection is not in general a good way to understand the details of the mind's workings, but I feel enriched by each of these experiences in their own way. I would never consider them to be of deific origin, though, given the circumstances. Thanks, Acy > A religious experience, or, to be precise, a visitation by the > Paraclete is a literal inspiration, the entering of one spirit into > another. The Holy Ghost enters the mind and soul and works a > transformation. The only analogies I can think of are one both > shopworn and mildly insulting to my brother atheists: like explaining > sight to a man born blind, like explaining romance to a boy below the > age when girls have cooties. > > No, wait. I am (or pretend to be) a writer after all, so I should be > able to come up with a new metaphor, one that deprecates me and not > my audience. Hmm .... > > Trying to explain a religious experience is like a Yahoo trying to > explain his love of the shiny but useless metal called gold to the > dignified and perfectly-rational Houyhnhnms. No matter what he says, > the Houyhnhnms cannot see the value or the beauty of the substance > they cannot eat. > > My experience was one that attacked and changed the axioms, the very > foundations of my thought. My conception of what constituted myself, > the universe, and my relation to it, were changed. So radical a > change cannot be integrated with prior experience because the root of > all experience is overturned. > > Imagine discovering where your thoughts come from before you think > them, and tracing those thoughts back to a mind infinitely greater > than your own, timeless and unutterably benevolent. It would be like > one of the characters in my books suddenly growing aware of me, his > author, and realizing that the thoughts and words I ascribe to him > are mine, not his. How would you even begin to describe such an > event? One is not aware of one's own thoughts through the eye or ear > by means of touch or taste. There would be nothing to hold up to > another man's eyes. And yet, neither could the experience be > dismissed. From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 9 22:40:33 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 22:40:33 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <20041209221436.57170.qmail@web81602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041209221436.57170.qmail@web81602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41B8D461.7090409@neopax.com> Adrian Tymes wrote: >--- john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > > >>And yet, I am in the same position as Mr. A Square >>of Flatland might be in >>trying to describe a sphere to his fellow >>two-dimensional beings. "It was like a >>circle, and yet it was not a circle, for it extended >>into directions for which >>we have no name and cannot picture." Mr. A Square >>has no word for "volume" and >>he cannot express the overwhelming solidity of his >>three-dimensional visitor. >> >> > >You're talking about spiritual experiences, right? >Eh, had 'em. Remember that you're just an observer, >and that your senses can be tricked. > >You know they've found the neurochemistry behind them, >right? It can seem profound to the observer - but >think of it as an electrochemical mirage. Just like > > And when the neurochem behind love, hate, creativity, flashes of insight, the colour red etc has been discovered we can consign all of those to the rubbish bin as well. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 9 22:56:04 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 14:56:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Neurochemistry and perception In-Reply-To: <41B8D461.7090409@neopax.com> Message-ID: <20041209225604.67485.qmail@web81608.mail.yahoo.com> --- Dirk Bruere wrote: > Adrian Tymes wrote: [re: spiritual experiences] > >You know they've found the neurochemistry behind > them, > >right? It can seem profound to the observer - but > >think of it as an electrochemical mirage. > > > And when the neurochem behind love, hate, > creativity, flashes of > insight, the colour red etc has been discovered we > can consign all of > those to the rubbish bin as well. *snicker* Not. Just because we understand the basis for something does not in itself make it less real. Mirages, yes, okay, those aren't real - though note that they never were, and we're just finding out about it. But love? No, that exists, and it would continue to exist even if we could perfectly artificially synthesize it. (I further suspect, from what I know of it, that the "synthesis" would turn out to be merely a way of inducing the real thing.) The color red makes an even better example: we *do* know the neurochemistry behind the perception of the color red (although we don't quite know what all people do with it internally). We know the biophysics as well. We can and do cause the perception of "red", by creating things that are percieved that way or changing lighting conditions to induce that perception, all the time. (Ask any theatrical lighting expert about the color tones used to induce, say, a romantic tone around a character.) We could even, if we wanted, stimulate specific neurons to create the perception of "red" where no red truly existed. (Indeed some scientists are using a similar technique to create the perception of light in blind people - some of whom have never seen before.) Yet despite our thorough understanding of it, "red" stubbornly continues to exist. Spiritual experiences will continue to exist. And note that people try desperately to attach some meaning to them - *therefore the meaning and the experience are not one and the same thing*. The experiences themselves do not care what their cause is; they still happen. It's part of the current human condition. From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 9 23:11:02 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 23:11:02 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412092229.iB9MTC014195@tick.javien.com> References: <200412092229.iB9MTC014195@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41B8DB86.4000902@neopax.com> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: >Dirk Bruere writes: > > > >>There is the experience, and then there is the 'explanation' which is >>the cultural context in which you place it. >>Different cultures will provide different explanatory frameworks. >>While the experience stands as it is, the explanation does not. >>The clearest 'context free' analysis, which is no analysis (subtle >>joke), is Zen. >> >> > > >If the hunger for the spirit world is sent from the spirit world, like music >heard across a starry sea, promising a farther shore, then the hunger has a >proper object to satisfy it; an object not found on any earthly shore. All >spiritual travelers depart from matter and materialism in their search: >mysticism, by which I mean specifically the search for knowledge by >non-rational, non-sensory means, is the common ocean onto which all such >travelers embark. > > > You are again casting the experience into the cultural context with which you are most familiar. Reality is not dual. There is no spirit world and no material world. They are the same. >Now then, at this point, the skeptic can say that these so-called different >travelers all ferried themselves to islands existing in their imaginations only, >and brought back reports fished up from merely dreams and hallucinations: no >wonder they disagree. > >The point is well taken. And yet, it is ships that sailed from England that >colonized North America, not elsewhere, and our language bears the stamp of that >ancestral isle. South America bears the stamp of Portugal and Spain. The >descriptions of the Spanish Main do not match the descriptions of New England. > >If we were as skeptical of claims of the New World as we are of claims of the >spirit world, each contradiction between the traveler's tales would encourage >our disbelief. > >Likewise, the spiritual travelers who set off from Calvary and those who set >sail from the Deer Park in Benares may have reached the same New World, but not >the same continent. > The general consensus amongst mystics (even modern ones) from the Buddha to St John of the Cross is that it is the *same* reality. It is casting the experience into a language and context that creates the differences. > > >My experience tells me that Zen is like the first step of seamanship. One must > > My experience tells me it is the last. >You may think it terribly un-multicultural of me to believe that the Jews >discovered (or were chosen to receive) a monumental truth by which all the >nations of the world would be blessed, and that the Messiah appeared among them, >not elsewhere. Perhaps so, but I cannot picture it happening any other way. It > > I don't think it un-multicultural, but a position of ignorance of the historical Jesus, of mysticism and all the religions that have a Messiah from Isis and Horus to Baldur of my religion (Asatru). Jesus is but a latecomer in the line of Messiahs, and all the trappings from the virgin birth, the rising from the dead, the travels to the underworld etc etc have a long pedigree stretching back into pre-history. The Jews invented/discovered nothing with respect to the Messiah, but did inherit a vast amount from their neighbours and predecessors. Ever read the Garden of Eden story from Sumeria? -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 9 23:17:16 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 23:17:16 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Neurochemistry and perception In-Reply-To: <20041209225604.67485.qmail@web81608.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041209225604.67485.qmail@web81608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41B8DCFC.6060007@neopax.com> Adrian Tymes wrote: >>And when the neurochem behind love, hate, >>creativity, flashes of >>insight, the colour red etc has been discovered we >>can consign all of >>those to the rubbish bin as well. >> >> > >*snicker* Not. > >Just because we understand the basis for something >does not in itself make it less real. Mirages, yes, >okay, those aren't real - though note that they never > > Actually, they often are - they are images of something real elsewhere. >were, and we're just finding out about it. But love? >No, that exists, and it would continue to exist even > > Does it? prove it! >if we could perfectly artificially synthesize it. (I >further suspect, from what I know of it, that the >"synthesis" would turn out to be merely a way of >inducing the real thing.) > > > So what's the 'real thing'? >The color red makes an even better example: we *do* >know the neurochemistry behind the perception of the >color red (although we don't quite know what all >people do with it internally). We know the biophysics >as well. We can and do cause the perception of "red", >by creating things that are percieved that way or >changing lighting conditions to induce that >perception, all the time. (Ask any theatrical >lighting expert about the color tones used to induce, >say, a romantic tone around a character.) We could >even, if we wanted, stimulate specific neurons to >create the perception of "red" where no red truly >existed. (Indeed some scientists are using a similar >technique to create the perception of light in blind >people - some of whom have never seen before.) Yet >despite our thorough understanding of it, "red" >stubbornly continues to exist. > > > Actually, you are making a common mistake. You are talking about the mechanism for registering a certain wavelength of light. How the qualia called 'red' arises is totally unknown. >Spiritual experiences will continue to exist. And >note that people try desperately to attach some >meaning to them - *therefore the meaning and the >experience are not one and the same thing*. The >experiences themselves do not care what their cause >is; they still happen. It's part of the current human >condition. > > The argument seems to be whether they are aberrant neurochem or properly working neurochem. I say the latter. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 9 23:18:56 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 23:18:56 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3A9DF@amazemail2.amazeent.com> References: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3A9DF@amazemail2.amazeent.com> Message-ID: <41B8DD60.1000508@neopax.com> Acy James Stapp wrote: >The second is an earlier drug experience which I don't want to go >into in too much detail; suffice it to say that I had taken altogether >too much of too many kinds of drugs. As I was lying on the floor >with my feet elevated trying not to black out, I realized that >my inner monologue sounded like the movie version of the devil/satan >voice, pitch shifted down a couple of octaves. I thought "this is >really strange" in my devil voice, and then I realized I could >change the voice in my head to sound like anyone I knew. I >expiremented with my parents, girlfriend, donald duck, and friends >and could hear myself as any one of them. I could even become them >for short periods before my identity reasserted itself. > > > http://www.kbnet.co.uk/artemis/words/Travels/words.htm -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From john-c-wright at sff.net Thu Dec 9 23:30:06 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 17:30:06 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412092330.iB9NUF023184@tick.javien.com> Mr. Broderick asks two very pertinent questions: >Is it just a stroke of luck that you happened to live in a >culture where people read the Gospels, or would you have expressed the same >inexpressible experience in terms of animism, Hindu pantheism or >Scientology, with the same confidence, had you lived among one of those >mythic systems? The question is perfectly fair. It was not Krishna nor Grandfather Coyote who came to visit me. Not all parts of the various miracles, visions, visitations, and religious experiences I suffered are beyond description, but, unfortunately, some of them I was commanded not to speak of. If you are asking me the theoretical question, ?would the Virgin Mary appear to a man in the form of Parvati if he were a Hindu, rather than a man raised in Christendom?? That question no mortal can answer. Would my wife have accepted my proposal of marriage had I been born a Zulu? There is a possibility that God is all things to all people, and appears in whatever form we cloak Him in. If so, I have been deceived by the cloak. It is possible that I am in error, and that I misunderstood what I saw and what I was told. If so, I ask only that the Hindus pray to Vishnu to preserve me through higher reincarnations as I clear myself of this error, and that the Shaman intervene on my behalf with the ancestral spirits, if, in return, I pray my God forgive them their sins and errors. If we all pray for each other, perhaps we can all be saved, no matter who, in the end, turns out to be right. >Would it make any difference which form of limited analogy >you employed for the unutterable? Well, the analogy comes from A. Abbott?s book FLATLAND. In this case, it is the culture in which my readers were raised that concerns me, not my culture. >This is not a captious question; many >people in the USA assert that to be saved one must gain and confess a >personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and declaring for L. Ron Hubbard >or Pan or the Sky Spirits and their messenger Binnungar the frill-necked >lizard just won't do it. I am not in a position to pass judgment on the truth or falsehood of the assertion. The unambiguous mainstream belief of the Christian tradition agrees with the proposition that Christ is the exclusive door to salvation. I pray that the good Lord might extend His mercy even to those that reject and scorn Him, as I did for so many years; but I am not sure that this is logically possible. I assume the form, and the content, of the worship has an effect on the fate of the worshiper: otherwise worship is pointless. >>a man who grows into an adult, while losing nothing of his personality when he was a >>child, builds a new level onto old foundations. >Well, yes, but I hope this observation does not entail the implication that >atheists are children and you an adult speaking of what we'll only grasp >when our adolescent tantrums are outgrown? Heaven forbid! The analogy I hoped you would prefer was that I was the Yahoo addressing the Houyhnhnms, the all-too-human ogre talking to creatures of pure reason. My only point there was that some changes are organic, and do not involve a loss. A two eyed man who (somehow) grows a new organ of sight and opens a new eye in a new viewpoint, is not the same as a one-eyed man giving up an old viewpoint to move to a new viewpoint: binocular vision lends depth. An example is better than an analogy. Like most good Stoics (and all good Objectivists), my reason had concluded that there must be an objective moral order to the universe (for, if not, then there is no ground to condemn those who falsely think it so. If there is no virtue, intellectual integrity and honesty are not virtues, therefore the thinker has no reason to practice even the small amount of honesty needed to think about the question of whether there is a moral order to the universe). As a Christian, it was shown to me that this moral order which I dimly perceived with my reason, is a living thing, a Mind, a Principle, that can operate on me independent of my reason, and bring me (I pray) into conformity with it. In sum, the old me and the new me can agree on the objectivity of morality; where the old me had a relation to the moral order of the universe like that of a mathematician to geometry, the new me has a father-son relationship with it. But far be it from me to pretend any superiority of insight or wisdom! The gods would smite me for my hubris, were I to condescend. You may think of me, if you like, as one who has been flung from the Olympian cliffs of sanity and logic into the mired swamp of primitive superstition; but if you use that analogy, just keep in mind that, to me, it look as if I have just been freed from a tomb and flung up into the dazzling clouds. A theist and an atheist cannot agree on basic axioms. They cannot agree which direction is ?up?. They can agree upon the flinging. But, at least they can both agree that their common enemy, the relativist, is wrong. The change was not merely an arbitrary movement from point A to point B according to an arbitrary axis. It was either a fall or an ascension. From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 9 23:39:11 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 15:39:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Neurochemistry and perception In-Reply-To: <41B8DCFC.6060007@neopax.com> Message-ID: <20041209233911.77098.qmail@web81602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Dirk Bruere wrote: > Adrian Tymes wrote: > >Just because we understand the basis for something > >does not in itself make it less real. Mirages, > yes, > >okay, those aren't real - though note that they > never > > > Actually, they often are - they are images of > something real elsewhere. I meant as in they aren't what they appear to be. Images of air, placed to suggest water. One would see the sky's image reflected off real water at sea. > >were, and we're just finding out about it. But > love? > >No, that exists, and it would continue to exist > even > > > Does it? prove it! Prove it doesn't. You seem to be arguing from the point of view that "love exists" is a more obviously likely position. > >if we could perfectly artificially synthesize it. > (I > >further suspect, from what I know of it, that the > >"synthesis" would turn out to be merely a way of > >inducing the real thing.) > > > So what's the 'real thing'? That which we can experience now, and other humans have experienced. > >The color red makes an even better example: we *do* > >know the neurochemistry behind the perception of > the > >color red (although we don't quite know what all > >people do with it internally). We know the > biophysics > >as well. We can and do cause the perception of > "red", > >by creating things that are percieved that way or > >changing lighting conditions to induce that > >perception, all the time. (Ask any theatrical > >lighting expert about the color tones used to > induce, > >say, a romantic tone around a character.) We could > >even, if we wanted, stimulate specific neurons to > >create the perception of "red" where no red truly > >existed. (Indeed some scientists are using a > similar > >technique to create the perception of light in > blind > >people - some of whom have never seen before.) Yet > >despite our thorough understanding of it, "red" > >stubbornly continues to exist. > > > Actually, you are making a common mistake. > You are talking about the mechanism for registering > a certain wavelength > of light. > How the qualia called 'red' arises is totally > unknown. To my knowledge, "the qualia called 'red'" is, inherently, the registration of a certain wavelength of light, and things that result from that event. Not all of those extra things are known, yes - but the registration is an essential, integral part of the experience. > >Spiritual experiences will continue to exist. And > >note that people try desperately to attach some > >meaning to them - *therefore the meaning and the > >experience are not one and the same thing*. The > >experiences themselves do not care what their cause > >is; they still happen. It's part of the current > human > >condition. > > > The argument seems to be whether they are aberrant > neurochem or properly > working neurochem. > I say the latter. Actually, I'm not saying anything about aberrant vs. properly working. I'm just saying it *is* neurochem. From Walter_Chen at compal.com Fri Dec 10 00:19:29 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:19:29 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068553@tpeexg01.compal.com> Interesting analogy! So there is some cause-effect: If you believe in something (such as God), you have higher probability to get it. If you don't believe in something (such as God), you have less probability to get it. > From: john-c-wright at sff.net ... > Well, that is a strange question, for it is based on a strange assumption. It is > like asking whether, had you been kneeling in front of my beloved as I was when > I asked her to marry me, she would have chosen you for her bridegroom instead of > me. Marriage is not a matter open to experiment. The results, in one sense, are > not repeatable. ... > Now, as I say, the experiment is not repeatable, but, like proposing to a bride, > there is a way in which these things are done. As in marriage, in this case > also, it is customary to start on one's knees. ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. 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URL: From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 10 00:24:53 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:24:53 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412092330.iB9NUF023184@tick.javien.com> References: <200412092330.iB9NUF023184@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41B8ECD5.8010601@neopax.com> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: >If you are asking me the theoretical question, ?would the Virgin Mary appear to >a man in the form of Parvati if he were a Hindu, rather than a man raised in >Christendom?? That question no mortal can answer. > > Actually, that can be answered, and the answer is 'yes'. The archetypes are the same, but the names change. The Virgin Mary, as is commonly described, is Isis/Astarte. >There is a possibility that God is all things to all people, and appears in >whatever form we cloak Him in. If so, I have been deceived by the cloak. It is >possible that I am in error, and that I misunderstood what I saw and what I was >told. > >If so, I ask only that the Hindus pray to Vishnu to preserve me through higher >reincarnations as I clear myself of this error, and that the Shaman intervene on >my behalf with the ancestral spirits, if, in return, I pray my God forgive them >their sins and errors. If we all pray for each other, perhaps we can all be >saved, no matter who, in the end, turns out to be right. > > > It's not as simple as that. >I am not in a position to pass judgment on the truth or falsehood of the >assertion. The unambiguous mainstream belief of the Christian tradition agrees >with the proposition that Christ is the exclusive door to salvation. I pray that > > Again, you seem to be lacking a great deal of theological knowledge. Just to give one example, is Jesus still Jesus if his name was really Yashua? And can we call upon Jesus even if we do not know his name (any of them) at all? Can we call upon him even if we do not know he existed/exists? In fact, *what* is Jesus? -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 10 00:26:43 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:26:43 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Neurochemistry and perception In-Reply-To: <20041209233911.77098.qmail@web81602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041209233911.77098.qmail@web81602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41B8ED43.3040606@neopax.com> Adrian Tymes wrote: >>The argument seems to be whether they are aberrant >>neurochem or properly >>working neurochem. >>I say the latter. >> >> > >Actually, I'm not saying anything about aberrant vs. >properly working. I'm just saying it *is* neurochem. > > As is *everything* - all we have are models of the world in wetware. And even wetware is a theory we have for explaining mind. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 10 00:28:32 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:28:32 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068553@tpeexg01.compal.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068553@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <41B8EDB0.4040502@neopax.com> Walter_Chen at compal.com wrote: > Interesting analogy! > So there is some cause-effect: > If you believe in something (such as God), you have higher probability > to get it. > If you don't believe in something (such as God), you have less > probability to get it. > http://www.neopax.com/asatru/pk/index.html -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 10 01:22:46 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 17:22:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41B8ECD5.8010601@neopax.com> Message-ID: <20041210012246.74392.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Dirk Bruere wrote: > Again, you seem to be lacking a great deal of theological knowledge. > Just to give one example, is Jesus still Jesus if his name was really > Yashua? And can we call upon Jesus even if we do not know his name > (any of them) at all? Can we call upon him even if we do not know he > existed/exists? In fact, *what* is Jesus? Jesus is a domain name. The real trick is finding out his/her/its IP address... ;) The IP of the true server of the Jesus domain could very easily be serving other domain names, for different websites, each with their own content and structure. They might be the same site, but presenting different structure and language based on the web browser and language/culture of the browsing individual. Penetrating this graphical interface, and getting to the command prompt, not to mention root level access, is the same quest as Neo seeking to find out what is the Matrix. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send a seasonal email greeting and help others. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 10 01:33:28 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 01:33:28 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <20041210012246.74392.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041210012246.74392.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41B8FCE8.6090804@neopax.com> Mike Lorrey wrote: >--- Dirk Bruere wrote: > > >>Again, you seem to be lacking a great deal of theological knowledge. >>Just to give one example, is Jesus still Jesus if his name was really >>Yashua? And can we call upon Jesus even if we do not know his name >>(any of them) at all? Can we call upon him even if we do not know he >>existed/exists? In fact, *what* is Jesus? >> >> > >Jesus is a domain name. The real trick is finding out his/her/its IP >address... ;) > >The IP of the true server of the Jesus domain could very easily be >serving other domain names, for different websites, each with their own >content and structure. They might be the same site, but presenting >different structure and language based on the web browser and >language/culture of the browsing individual. > >Penetrating this graphical interface, and getting to the command >prompt, not to mention root level access, is the same quest as Neo >seeking to find out what is the Matrix. > > > That's not really the answer to the question. It refers to the statement 'I am the Way' - not *a* Way. If we accept Xian theology then JC is the name given to the link between man and god. There's only one link, but there are any number of methods to access it. Accessing it does not mean having to know the detailed history of JC as any kind of historical person. One only has to know that it exists and be willing to use it. It comes down to this: What is the absolute minimum one has to know/believe in order to be an Xian? Clearly the name is irrelevent (since we don't actually use his likely historical name). A full bio is also not required, since we don't have one. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From john-c-wright at sff.net Fri Dec 10 03:18:56 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 21:18:56 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412100319.iBA3JW019587@tick.javien.com> Dirk Bruere writes: >I don't think it un-multicultural, but a position of ignorance of the >historical Jesus, of mysticism and all the religions that have a Messiah >from Isis and Horus to Baldur of my religion (Asatru). Sir, with all due respect, it is bad form to assume a stranger is ignorant of something when it is possible that he is familiar with it, but might come to a differing conclusion about it. You put me in the awkward position of having to boast about my learning in an area where, for all I know, you may be more learned than me. Modesty forbids I claim anything other than an amateur interest in comparative mythology. As an amateur, then, I can report I have a passing familiarity with Biblical scholarship, Sumerians and Babylonian myths, and so on. I have read Sir James George Frazier and James Ingersoll, and the similarity between the Passion story and earlier pagan myths is not lost on me. I am not of your religion, but I have friends who are, I have read the Havalmal and the Prose Edda. Let me digress to express my respect and camaraderie! I hope you are an honest, old-fashioned pagan, who takes his gods seriously, and not a modern dilettante. It is good to know that there are men willing to die, weapon in hand, eager for no softer fate than to be carried by the Choosers of the Slain to the Valhall, there to await the doom of worlds. You will fall at the side of Alfadur and Asathor, fighting to the last against the rude and monstrous giants of frost and fire, the wolf of chaos, the deadly serpent who has all the middle world in his coils. This is a fight all omens say is hopeless, and which will extinguish God and Man alike, and all our works. Unlike a Christian, no one can accuse you of adopting a belief as a bribe: no paradise is promised to you. I salute you as a brother. You may not think of us as brethren, but, compared to what I used to believe, compared to the icy world-view that says we come from nothing and return to nothing, children of a blind cosmos-sized machine, compared to that, the differences between the various flavors of faith should be measured in angstroms. If you imagine I am being sarcastic or ironic, put such imagination aside. I believe the absurd story that the Omnipotent compressed Himself into the son of a Jewish cabinet-maker and died the vile death reserved for a criminal, and that this somehow saves me from death and damnation. Compared to that, the tale of the God of the Slain crucifying himself on the world-ash with the great spear with all the oaths of heaven carved into its shaft, in order that he might seize the runes that grant him sovereign power, seems both straightforward and sane. A man who believes in the Virgin birth is not going to mock someone who believes Heimdall had nine mothers. End of digression. >Jesus is but a >latecomer in the line of Messiahs, and all the trappings from the virgin >birth, the rising from the dead, the travels to the underworld etc etc >have a long pedigree stretching back into pre-history. The Jews >invented/discovered nothing with respect to the Messiah, but did inherit >a vast amount from their neighbours and predecessors. There are three explanations Christian offer to explain the similarity to earlier myths, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. First, some say devils, anticipating the Passion, impersonated it beforehand in other countries as a trick to erode the faithfulness of the faithful. One can imagine Spanish conquerors horrified to see the practices of the Aztecs impersonating the forms and ideas of the communion and the host. But this theory, true or not, sounds rather self-serving. Second, some say the shattering supernatural effect of the entry of God to the world might have cast echoes or reflections back through time, and the minds of men naturally picked up on this. A divine mind might be able to understand how effect can precede cause, but I cannot. Third, some say that man naturally gropes toward the light, and is inspired by his creator to find those tales which approach the truth; it also may be that providence arranged that the Incarnation would not occur on a world unprepared for the idea, therefore the idea had to be introduced before the Incarnation. These matters are too subtle for me. I make no claim that Christianity is original, merely that it is true. Were it as original as, say Scientology, I would suspect it to be largely a human invention. As far as my analogy goes (and it is only an analogy, mind) if I said that Euclid?s ELEMENTS expressed the most perfect understanding of geometry among all the ancient civilizations, it does not betray an ignorance on my part that I do not mention Pythagoras who came before him. The Chinese and the Hindu also understood the principles of geometry, and the fragments of text exist that show the Egyptians attempted to calculate pi. But Euclid was more clear and systematic than those who came before him. Mr. Bruere says in another letter: >>If you are asking me the theoretical question, ?would the Virgin Mary >>appear to a man in the form of Parvati if he were a Hindu, rather >>than a man raised in Christendom?? That question no mortal can answer. >Actually, that can be answered, and the answer is 'yes'. >The archetypes are the same, but the names change. >The Virgin Mary, as is commonly described, is Isis/Astarte. With all due respect, this is guesswork on your part. Perhaps what I saw were the gods in masquerade, dressed up as familiar figures to please me. But unless you, a mortal man, can peer behind the stage of life and see the supernatural machinery, watch the gods in their dressing rooms putting on their masks, then you cannot say for sure anything other than the fact that some men see some resemblances between tales told of Isis and Mary. Maybe one is real and the other is not. Maybe one is a Saint and the other an angel. If the gods are dressing up as Christians for my sake, honestly, I wish they would stop. Had they wished to impress me with characters I found impressive, the ghost of Cato or Scipio would have been far more to my tastes at the time. Mr. Buere continues: >> If we all pray for each other, perhaps we can all be >>saved, no matter who, in the end, turns out to be right. >It's not as simple as that. I did not suspect that the matter was simple. It is merely my hope that the mainstream tradition of Christianity underestimate the mercy of which Our Lord is capable. I was expressing a wish, not a creed. >>I am not in a position to pass judgment on the truth or falsehood of the >>assertion. The unambiguous mainstream belief of the Christian tradition agrees >>with the proposition that Christ is the exclusive door to salvation. >Again, you seem to be lacking a great deal of theological knowledge. Again, with the ignorance crack, my dear sir? I have read what I have read, and I know what I know. It may be small learning, but it is all I have. I am basing my understanding of ?mainstream? Christian theology on my reading of St. Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther. With all possible respect to the Mormons, I am placing their beliefs outside what I call ?the mainstream? for the purposes of his discussion. I mean no belittling of their faith by that. I am willing to hear you support the proposition that Christians do not take as their creed the idea that Christ is necessary for salvation, if you can give it. Otherwise, I am not sure in what respect my theology errs? >Just to give one example, is Jesus still Jesus if his name was really >Yashua? Beg pardon? What is this an example of? As best I know, Jesus is a Romanization of the name Joshua, which is a Greek version of Yesshua, God-the-Savior. It is not theology, but metaphysics, which tells us that the properties of an object do not change when the name assigned to it changes. >And can we call upon Jesus even if we do not know his name >(any of them) at all? It depends, I suppose, on who does the calling. A magician cannot command what he knows not the true name of: this is the rule of names. A Christian seeks to supplicate to his God in prayer, or to confess, or to praise, not to command. We ask only that the names we use to glorify Him be treated with respect. The other Christs of other religions, we Christians are specifically forbidden to call upon. For whatever reason, those are our orders. > Can we call upon him even if we do not know he > existed/exists? It worked in my case. You can shout out the window of a burning building for a fireman even if you don?t know for sure the fireman is there. As long as the fireman knows for sure you are there, why would he not raise his ladder and save you? >In fact, *what* is Jesus? My savior and my Lord. I?d be happy to introduce Him to you. Indeed, we are commanded to do so. Knock, and the door will open. Ask, and you will be answered. Mr. Walter Chen writes: >Interesting analogy! >So there is some cause-effect: >If you believe in something (such as God), you have higher probability to get it. >If you don't believe in something (such as God), you have less probability to get it. Well, it is customary in the West to ask the bride before the wedding for her hand. So I suppose there is a cause and effect in that case, too. If God is real, and those things said of Him are true, He will hear even the prayer of an atheist, and may well answer. The answer may be terrifying beyond belief, as it was in may case, and land you in the hospital, but it will be answer. From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 10 11:46:28 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 11:46:28 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412100319.iBA3JW019587@tick.javien.com> References: <200412100319.iBA3JW019587@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41B98C94.7040809@neopax.com> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: >Dirk Bruere writes: > > > >>I don't think it un-multicultural, but a position of ignorance of the >>historical Jesus, of mysticism and all the religions that have a Messiah >> >> >>from Isis and Horus to Baldur of my religion (Asatru). > >Sir, with all due respect, it is bad form to assume a stranger is ignorant of >something when it is possible that he is familiar with it, but might come to a >differing conclusion about it. You put me in the awkward position of having to > > > The point is that you learned this as an 'outsider', so to speak I came from the other direction in a peculiar manner. I was brought up on the GrecoRoman myths rather than biblical stories. I was a fairly militant atheist of the type one sees here until I was in my early 30s. Took some acid, had a chat with God and came by a circuitous route to Asatru. >Let me digress to express my respect and camaraderie! I hope you are an honest, >old-fashioned pagan, who takes his gods seriously, and not a modern dilettante. >It is good to know that there are men willing to die, weapon in hand, eager for >no softer fate than to be carried by the Choosers of the Slain to the Valhall, >there to await the doom of worlds. You will fall at the side of Alfadur and >Asathor, fighting to the last against the rude and monstrous giants of frost >and fire, the wolf of chaos, the deadly serpent who has all the middle world in >his coils. This is a fight all omens say is hopeless, and which will extinguish >God and Man alike, and all our works. Unlike a Christian, no one can accuse you >of adopting a belief as a bribe: no paradise is promised to you. I salute you >as a brother. > > > There are many interpretations of Ragnarok, ranging from the personal to the cosmic. In the lore there are survivors into the next cycle. A man and a woman survive in Midgard, Baldur returns from Hel (along, presumably with the rest of the dead) and some of the other Aesir and Vanir also survive. The Einheriar of Valhalla and those of Niflhel are burned up. Many see their death as a dissolution from which the next cycle gains its existence and tenor. Little or nothing is mentioned of those who reside in some of the other halls of the Gods, eg Freya's hall Sessrumnir, but one might assume that they too carry on. However, I don't think you will find many of us who believe the literal truth of the lore. We see it as metaphor and have no problem with that. >You may not think of us as brethren, but, compared to what I used to believe, >compared to the icy world-view that says we come from nothing and return to >nothing, children of a blind cosmos-sized machine, compared to that, the >differences between the various flavors of faith should be measured in >angstroms. > > > That is indeed a bleak and pointless view of life. I would assume that at the very least we have a 4D worldline. >If you imagine I am being sarcastic or ironic, put such imagination aside. I >believe the absurd story that the Omnipotent compressed Himself into the son of >a Jewish cabinet-maker and died the vile death reserved for a criminal, and >that this somehow saves me from death and damnation. Compared to that, the tale >of the God of the Slain crucifying himself on the world-ash with the great >spear with all the oaths of heaven carved into its shaft, in order that he >might seize the runes that grant him sovereign power, seems both >straightforward and sane. A man who believes in the Virgin birth is not going >to mock someone who believes Heimdall had nine mothers. End of digression. > > > The difference is that while we argue over whether Odin was an historical shamanic figure or not, we have never burned people at the stake for claiming it was all metaphor and not historical reality. By its fruits you will know it. >>Jesus is but a >>latecomer in the line of Messiahs, and all the trappings from the virgin >>birth, the rising from the dead, the travels to the underworld etc etc >>have a long pedigree stretching back into pre-history. The Jews >>invented/discovered nothing with respect to the Messiah, but did inherit >>a vast amount from their neighbours and predecessors. >> >> > >There are three explanations Christian offer to explain the similarity to >earlier myths, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. > >First, some say devils, anticipating the Passion, impersonated it beforehand in >other countries as a trick to erode the faithfulness of the faithful. One can >imagine Spanish conquerors horrified to see the practices of the Aztecs >impersonating the forms and ideas of the communion and the host. But this >theory, true or not, sounds rather self-serving. > >Second, some say the shattering supernatural effect of the entry of God to the >world might have cast echoes or reflections back through time, and the minds of >men naturally picked up on this. A divine mind might be able to understand how > > Ragnarok also perhaps. >effect can precede cause, but I cannot. Third, some say that man naturally > > Cramer's Transactional Interpretation anyone? :-) OTOH, maybe the price of consistency is that the past is not fixed. >gropes toward the light, and is inspired by his creator to find those tales >which approach the truth; it also may be that providence arranged that the >Incarnation would not occur on a world unprepared for the idea, therefore the >idea had to be introduced before the Incarnation. > >These matters are too subtle for me. I make no claim that Christianity is >original, merely that it is true. Were it as original as, say Scientology, I >would suspect it to be largely a human invention. > > > But *what* of Xianity is true? Forbidding women to uncover their head in church? The abomination of divorce (and JC was explicitly against that in an unequivocal manner if one believes the truth of the NT)? >As far as my analogy goes (and it is only an analogy, mind) if I said that >Euclid?s ELEMENTS expressed the most perfect understanding of geometry among >all the ancient civilizations, it does not betray an ignorance on my part that >I do not mention Pythagoras who came before him. The Chinese and the Hindu also >understood the principles of geometry, and the fragments of text exist that >show the Egyptians attempted to calculate pi. But Euclid was more clear and >systematic than those who came before him. > >Mr. Bruere says in another letter: > > > >>>If you are asking me the theoretical question, ?would the Virgin Mary >>>appear to a man in the form of Parvati if he were a Hindu, rather >>than a >>> >>> >man raised in Christendom?? That question no mortal can answer. > > > >>Actually, that can be answered, and the answer is 'yes'. >>The archetypes are the same, but the names change. >>The Virgin Mary, as is commonly described, is Isis/Astarte. >> >> > >With all due respect, this is guesswork on your part. Perhaps what I saw were > > In your case, perhaps. But in almost all other cases where the BVM has appeared she has appeared as Isis/Astarte, simply because her iconography, titles etc were transferred to her directly and undiluted from the Goddess archetype of the Middle East. >the gods in masquerade, dressed up as familiar figures to please me. But >unless you, a mortal man, can peer behind the stage of life and see the >supernatural machinery, watch the gods in their dressing rooms putting on their >masks, then you cannot say for sure anything other than the fact that some men >see some resemblances between tales told of Isis and Mary. Maybe one is real >and the other is not. Maybe one is a Saint and the other an angel. > >If the gods are dressing up as Christians for my sake, honestly, I wish they >would stop. Had they wished to impress me with characters I found impressive, >the ghost of Cato or Scipio would have been far more to my tastes at the time. > > > The Gods dress so that we may understand them and accomplish their purpose. >>>I am not in a position to pass judgment on the truth or falsehood of the >>>assertion. The unambiguous mainstream belief of the Christian tradition agrees >>>with the proposition that Christ is the exclusive door to salvation. >>> >>> > > > >>Again, you seem to be lacking a great deal of theological knowledge. >> >> > >Again, with the ignorance crack, my dear sir? I have read what I have read, and >I know what I know. It may be small learning, but it is all I have. > > Perhaps it is time to re-read with new eyes. >I am basing my understanding of ?mainstream? Christian theology on my reading >of St. Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther. With all possible respect to the >Mormons, I am placing their beliefs outside what I call ?the mainstream? for >the purposes of his discussion. I mean no belittling of their faith by that. > > > I suggest you start looking less at the 'rationalists' and more at people like St John of the Cross, or Theresa of Avila. >I am willing to hear you support the proposition that Christians do not take as >their creed the idea that Christ is necessary for salvation, if you can give >it. Otherwise, I am not sure in what respect my theology errs? > > > I did not claim that. What I am suggesting is that the 'bridge' embodied for Xians in the mythology of JC exists by other names, or even when nameless. >>Can we call upon him even if we do not know he >>existed/exists? >> >> > >It worked in my case. You can shout out the window of a burning building for a >fireman even if you don?t know for sure the fireman is there. As long as the >fireman knows for sure you are there, why would he not raise his ladder and >save you? > > > >>In fact, *what* is Jesus? >> >> > >My savior and my Lord. I?d be happy to introduce Him to you. Indeed, we are >commanded to do so. Knock, and the door will open. Ask, and you will be >answered. > > > I did knock, and have been answered, but not by anything dressed as an Xian. To be honest, I rather desise the Xian legacy and I feel that JC would too if he were alive today (a joke, of sorts). His warning and test were clear - by its fruits you will know it. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From namacdon at ole.augie.edu Fri Dec 10 15:26:06 2004 From: namacdon at ole.augie.edu (Nicholas Anthony MacDonald) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 09:26:06 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <1102692366.992f7c00namacdon@ole.augie.edu> "Nicholas Anthony MacDonald says, in reply to Mr. Albright: > Except Robert Wright's search for "ultimate meaning" is of a very different character than John Wright. Robert Wright is engaged in a philosophical "search", while John just happened to have a near death experience and decide that Jesus was to blame. Well, this sentiment is accurate (my conversion was not the product of philosophical rumination) but the characterization is slightly inaccurate. Mr. McDonald is not to blame for assuming I had a near death experience and "decided Jesus was to blame", since my description to Greg West about the event was rather coy." Pardon my assumption. I'd more or less been trying to defend Robert Wright from what I thought was an unjustified attack, I didn't mean to jump to conclusions (though I certainly did), it just seemed like the most natural explanation (given the circumstances). "You must forgive me for being close-mouthed about the details when speaking to strangers. It is my own inadequacy that stills my pen. An event beyond human understanding cannot be described in human words to those who have no referent experiences, no frame, in which to understand it. If you wonder how I, as a human, could have witnessed an event beyond human understanding, I can only hint that we humans are not what we think we are. The truth of the matter is far more glorious than we suspect." Something I frequently ponder as well, I just wonder about, to borrow a term from Ken Wilber, the "unpacking" of such events in a religious context. I had a similiar experience (though probably not as shocking to my system) five years ago that caused a similiar realignment of my perceptions, which I've been unable to integrate into any orthodox religious context... but if such an understanding works in your case, good for you. -Nicholas MacDonald From harara at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 10 18:13:16 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 10:13:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <1102692366.992f7c00namacdon@ole.augie.edu> References: <1102692366.992f7c00namacdon@ole.augie.edu> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041210100941.029300c8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Mmmmph. I think this thread would profit highly by reading Stanislav Grof: Realms of the Human Unconscious LSD Psychotherapy Reading these will add a much needed perspective to this discussion. >(one of many posts excerpt: )"Nicholas Anthony MacDonald says, in reply to >Mr. Albright: > > Except Robert Wright's search for "ultimate meaning" is of a very > different >character than John Wright. Robert Wright is engaged in a philosophical >"search", while John just happened to have a near death experience and decide >that Jesus was to blame. ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From pgptag at gmail.com Fri Dec 10 19:22:51 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 20:22:51 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] In memory of my mother, 1929-2001 Message-ID: <470a3c52041210112224ae1439@mail.gmail.com> Tomorrow December 11 it will be 3 years since the death of my mother. A few days later I wrote the message quoted below to the extropy list. I had been lurking on the lists and occasionally posting for some time before, but it was then when I decided to try supporting more actively the subversive and beautiful idea that someday we can DEFEAT DEATH. To all those here who are grieving for the death of a loved one, I wish to say that I still believe, as most of us do, that someday aging and death will only be ugly things of the past. I never believed in a utopia where unhappiness is completely eliminated. I am sure even in a posthuman world there will be reasons to be unhappy, but not permanently unhappy and not including knowing that you will never see again someone you loved. G. --- My mother Anna F. died a few days ago after a long illness. For the first time, I have seen a loved one dying. I had seen her aging in the last few years, perhaps that was even worse. Aging and death are not necessary, they are just a horrible, stupid, cruel and pointless waste. Yes, death has been a tool of evolution, and we owe it the development of our mind. But I believe our mind itself can now offer evolution a much better tool. By mastering the sciences ad technologies of life and information, we will take full control of our development and make aging and death ugly things of the past. In memory of Anna, I will do my best to help achieving this goal. I only hope it is soon. http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::EnwiQD5P-SBJn-eEJM-JGVA-Klc8URp6FVxS From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 10 20:05:25 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:05:25 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412100319.iBA3JW019587@tick.javien.com> References: <200412100319.iBA3JW019587@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041210135611.01bbaec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:18 PM 12/9/2004 -0600, John Wright wrote: >If God is >real, and those things said of Him are true, He will hear even the prayer >of an >atheist, and may well answer. The answer may be terrifying beyond belief, >as it >was in may case, and land you in the hospital, but it will be answer. I am reminded of a passage in my novel TRANSMITTERS (1984); it incorporates some material by my pal Rory Barnes. Intellectual Ray's young wife Marjory, in 1983, dismally disputes politics with her conservative Catholic father: ============ Ray returns to Jesus. A gold sphere rests in one oozing hand. The other, visibly perforated though not yet flyblown, gestures with gloomy confidence to his heart, which floats a few inches in front of his robe, dripping blood, torn by a vicious plait of thorns. Dr Barney Clark, first Mormon with a plastic heart, has finally thrown in the towel and died, Ray recalls. An age of botched miracles. Ray wonders if the incipient volcano across from him suffers heart trouble. If so, Marjory is certainly doing her best to bring on an attack. The Man from Nazareth looks steadily down, serenely untroubled by his own cardiac condition. [...] Ray listens to his wife. At least she's given up farting in bed. It's all a matter of cycles. Holons. There is a pattering of rain on the window and Ray turns his head to look at this unusual sight. All of Melbourne is cracked and parched, walls are fracturing as the earth slips, drying out; plaster falls in the night. And now the rains have returned. Locales burned to black ash a couple of Wednesdays ago have already been flooded by freak squalls further down the coast. God's providence. [...] The pattern in the heavy brown velvet curtains is starting to go where the silverfish have been at work. Jesus and His Mother and a mixed batch of saints and Popes gaze on from gilt frames, constant, compassionate, beyond blasphemy, shielded by glass. Ray lets his thoughts slip away into contemplation of poor dead Jean-Paul Sartre's error in asserting an unbridgeable metaphysical gulf between the Pour-Soi and the En-Soi, Being-for-itself and Being-in-itself, volitional consciousness and inert matter. It is the assertion of this gap that caused Sartre to deny Darwinian evolution, a denial as absolute and ludicrous as any churchman's refusal of Galileo's telescope. But evolution is a reality; rationally it cannot be denied or ignored that some of the structural elements of consciousness are the creation of selection pressures in the brute universe. So human praxis is to some extent canalized by the pratico-inert aspect of our being, just as the movements of our limbs are constrained by the metrical laws that constitute gravity and inertia. But Sartre's intuition of freedom, Ray thinks, that remains largely valid. The holonistic structure of consciousness generates an enormous optional range of actualisation. Yet the Pour-Soi has limits, and those can only be unearthed by positivist, reductionist science, Sartre's bane. Is the world a clock, after all? Out of the cradle endlessly ticking. The only moving thing in the room is the ornate sweep hand. It presses on with its simple gyrations. There is no blood in the clock's veins to quicken or falter as the souls of the dead drown in the burning seas of hell. Ray considers the sweep hand skimming the gothic numerals, crossing the two key holes (one for the main spring, one for the chimes). The clock stands solid, a lighthouse in the high tide of anger swirling about it. Marjory is sunken and withdrawn in her corner of the sofa, eyes signaling her rage and contempt. Ray's body seems quite dead. None of the sensations of life ticking over on standby are available to inspection. He wishes he were dead. He lets his gaze drift upward again to Jesus, the Man sharing his torn-out wounded heart with the room, a perfect case of the triumph of the Pour-Soi over the En-Soi. To his horror, Ray's eyes well with burning tears. He is taken up and out of the room, into another place. Light pours into him. Cream, thick and sweet, into the cracked jug. Why now? Oh shit. Not me. Aw fuck. He chokes, coughs, stares at the painting, horrified, sick with belief. It is the flood after the drought, too much, too suddenly, smashing into the ashes and hurling them in a foaming muck to smear the broken charred stumps of incinerated trees, the crisp-skinned rotting corpses of animals too slow to escape the flames and now too dead to care about their drowning. The old man's rage is love shouting at his deaf, stupid, brilliant daughter. Ray goes out of the room, stepping on Doris Nourse's arthritic toes as he stumbles by. Father and daughter look at him in surprise. He rips down his jeans, strikes the cold rim of the lavatory bowl, no time to lower the seat, and voids his liquid bowels. It is the love and truth of God pithing him. He finds himself grinning. He wipes his stinging arse, using sheet after sheet of floral absorbent paper. The stomach cramps subside. All his bitter shame. He flushes the lavatory and washes his hands happily, trying to believe this dreadful, ill-timed ambush. In the living room, he tells Doris of his attempt to cook one of her casserole recipes. Oven temperatures and pyrex, carrots and stewing steak. His own heart is pumping. Marjory leaves her redoubt on the sofa and sits on the arm of Ray's chair, putting her arm around his neck, her hand coming to rest against his collarbone, inside his shirt. She is trembling. Ray disengages himself, gives her hand a squeeze, goes to the kitchen on the pretext of checking a detail in Robert Carrier. The volcano follows him, passes him in the hall, heading for the workshop out the back. Ray returns, wondering what he is going to do with the rest of his life, and sits in an unoccupied chair, leaving his wife on the arm of the one he has vacated. ====================== Damien Broderick From wingcat at pacbell.net Fri Dec 10 21:18:05 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 13:18:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Step towards augmented reality Message-ID: <20041210211806.32572.qmail@web81601.mail.yahoo.com> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4081289.stm Embedded transmitters, using widely-deployed (rather than proprietary) formats, sending data about themselves to any readers in range that care to accept their signals (thus the importance of the format: start off with a large userbase, so that the network effect makes this worthwhile from the first deployment). From ml at gondwanaland.com Fri Dec 10 22:43:39 2004 From: ml at gondwanaland.com (Mike Linksvayer) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 17:43:39 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412092330.iB9NUF023184@tick.javien.com> References: <200412092330.iB9NUF023184@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <20041210224339.GA39478@or.pair.com> On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 05:30:06PM -0600, john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > Like most good Stoics (and all good > Objectivists), my reason had concluded that there must be an objective moral > order to the universe (for, if not, then there is no ground to condemn those who > falsely think it so. If there is no virtue, intellectual integrity and honesty > are not virtues, therefore the thinker has no reason to practice even the small > amount of honesty needed to think about the question of whether there is a moral > order to the universe). Let me get this straight: - If no objective moral order, can't condemn people who think there is an objective moral order. - If no objective moral order, no reason to think about whether there is an objective moral order. If I may simplify, action requires an objective moral order, you perceive action, therefore an objective moral order exists. I missed the proof for "action requires an objective moral order." > As a Christian, it was shown to me that this moral order > which I dimly perceived with my reason, is a living thing, a Mind, a Principle, > that can operate on me independent of my reason, and bring me (I pray) into > conformity with it. Sure, why not. > In sum, the old me and the new me can agree on the > objectivity of morality; where the old me had a relation to the moral order of > the universe like that of a mathematician to geometry, the new me has a > father-son relationship with it. Thanks for the reminder that Objectivists are nuts also. Please do not be gentle. -- Mike Linksvayer http://gondwanaland.com/ml/ From Walter_Chen at compal.com Sat Dec 11 00:34:47 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 08:34:47 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068567@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: Dirk Bruere > http://www.neopax.com/asatru/pk/index.html > Incidentally, 'The Amazing Randi'vii has a standing offer of one million dollars for anyone > who can demonstrate psychic phenomena in a laboratory setting of his design. Isn't it time some of us collected? > Dirk Bruere - September 2004 It would be *very* interesting to know if you have tried or when you plan to get the $1M prize. ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dirk at neopax.com Sat Dec 11 01:08:10 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 01:08:10 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068567@tpeexg01.compal.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068567@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <41BA487A.70806@neopax.com> Walter_Chen at compal.com wrote: > > From: Dirk Bruere > > http://www.neopax.com/asatru/pk/index.html > > Incidentally, 'The Amazing Randi'vii has a standing offer of one > million dollars for anyone > > who can demonstrate psychic phenomena in a laboratory setting of his > design. Isn't it time some of us collected? > > Dirk Bruere - September 2004 > > It would be *very* interesting to know if you have tried or when you > plan to get the $1M prize. > Well, if I can get a group of people together to replicate the Toronto SPR results then it will be worth a shot. IMO they had a phenomenon that was sufficiently replicable to be able to claim the prize - except they were 20yrs too early. All this from a book I picked up at a secondhand bookshop... Talked to some people from the SPR and nobody appears to have repeated, or even attempted, the expt since then. That's what I find strange. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Sat Dec 11 04:25:34 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 23:25:34 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <1102692366.992f7c00namacdon@ole.augie.edu> References: <1102692366.992f7c00namacdon@ole.augie.edu> Message-ID: <41BA76BE.4000406@humanenhancement.com> Forgive me for perhaps speaking out of turn, as I've only recently returned to the Extropy email list, but I must wonder why folks are coddling this bizzare talk of visits from ghosts, gods, magic nose goblins, holy spirits, or what-have-you? Mind you, I don't question Mr. Wright's earnestness or his motives; I simply question his credulity. The mechanisms of hallucination-- even wildly vivid hallucination-- are well-known to medical science, and the specific parts of the brain which react to religiously-based hallucinations (as well as religiously-based experiences which are based on ritual and other human-induced causes) are beginning to be identified and even their evolutionary benefits identified. I'm sure it felt realer than sunshine to Mr. Wright, but so too do the demons that haunt the mind of the schizophrenic seem to him or her. He asks: > what does an honest and rational man do when he has a supernatural experience? > > Does he, like Scrooge, claim Marlowe's ghost is a bit of beef, a product of bad > digestion? Does he accuse himself of hallucination rather than entertain the > opinion that his axioms might be mistaken? Occam's razor, plus a modicum of > intellectual integrity, would seem to militate against this assumption. I take issue with his notion that Occam's razor slices on the side of theism (particularly that it comes down on the side of any particular branch of theism, such as Christianity, whence seems to have been drawn the imagery for his own experience). What, I ask, is the simpler solution? That he has experienced a well-known and well-studied phenomeon (vivid hallucination with particularly religious connotations) in a time of emotional stress (lying in a hospital bed, if I can parse his prose properly)? Or that he has been personally visited by a supernatural entity whose very existence is unnecessary according to the accepted scientific cosmology of the day and whose specific exploits (according to the Christian scriptures, at any rate) are explicitly contrary to what we know to be true in terms of the creation of the universe, its constraints, and its age, and who just happens-- by sheerest coincidence-- to map perfectly to the predominant religious ideation in which he grew up; despite the fact that he did not himself accept it, he was still surrounded by 9 out of 10 individuals who did, at any given time. To paraphrase Dickens: "There's more of delusion than deity about it, whatever it was!" He further claims: > My faith was visited upon my by the Holy Spirit; it was poured into me like fine > wine into an empty tin cup. I do not believe reason the proper tool to use to > decide these matters; nay, I do not believe that they are "decided" at all. Indeed, here we agree. I would say they are "imposed"; we are the product of a few hundred thousand years of hominid evolution, which has, apparently because religious experience such as your own was evolutionarily advantageous, hard-wired some 90+% of us to accept them and thereby become more altruistic and/or deferential towards authority. Populations with such genes naturally flourished relative to those who did not, back before technology became the great leveler. He is a product of his evolutionary heritage, even as he seeks to deny it. And lastly, he attempts to create an analogy to explain his experience, finding the example of Flatland lacking: > Trying to explain a religious experience is like a Yahoo trying to explain his > love of the shiny but useless metal called gold to the dignified and > perfectly-rational Houyhnhnms. No matter what he says, the Houyhnhnms cannot > see the value or the beauty of the substance they cannot eat. I am reminded of the earnest entreaties of those who create tin-foil hats to frustrate the plots of the Illuminati. Or those who think that we are inhabited by invisible undetectable 'engrams' which are really aliens banished by the evil galactic emperor a million years ago. Or those who think that every stream and stone and tree harbors an invisible spirit. The examples of such earnest foolishness are legion, but they boil down to a single fact; we Houyhnhnmns can only allow and encourage the Yahoo to starve in their quest for gold, as long as they leave us alone to feast on the fruits of the world. Because, truly, man starves by relying on every word that proceeds from the mouth of god alone. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com From neuronexmachina at gmail.com Sat Dec 11 05:08:53 2004 From: neuronexmachina at gmail.com (Neil Halelamien) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 21:08:53 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post Message-ID: To switch to a topic completely different from what's been discussed recently: Are there by chance any t-shirts available (clever or otherwise) which have messages/images related to extropy, transhumanism, or the singularity? It probably sounds tacky, but I've found t-shirts to be an effective means of planting memes in people's heads and initiating dialogue. This is my first post here, so I should probably introduce myself. I'm Neil, a first-year graduate student at Caltech, pursuing a PhD in Computation & Neural Systems. My past research experience is with computational neuroscience and robot vision, when I was studying computer science and cognitive science at Carnegie Mellon. I'm still uncertain as to what area my thesis will be on, but I'm interested in such topics as computational vision, the neural basis of consciousness, modeling of the visual system, and neuroprosthetics. I've been interested in extropy for a couple of years now, and also have a keen interest in commercial spaceflight and space settlement. Cheers! -- Neil Halelamien From pgptag at gmail.com Sat Dec 11 05:33:59 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 06:33:59 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <470a3c52041210213363624cbd@mail.gmail.com> TRANSHUMANISTS DO IT FOREVER Welcome Neil! On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 21:08:53 -0800, Neil Halelamien wrote: > To switch to a topic completely different from what's been discussed > recently: Are there by chance any t-shirts available (clever or > otherwise) which have messages/images related to extropy, > transhumanism, or the singularity? It probably sounds tacky, but I've > found t-shirts to be an effective means of planting memes in people's > heads and initiating dialogue. > > This is my first post here, so I should probably introduce myself. I'm > Neil, a first-year graduate student at Caltech, pursuing a PhD in > Computation & Neural Systems. My past research experience is with > computational neuroscience and robot vision, when I was studying > computer science and cognitive science at Carnegie Mellon. I'm still > uncertain as to what area my thesis will be on, but I'm interested in > such topics as computational vision, the neural basis of > consciousness, modeling of the visual system, and neuroprosthetics. > I've been interested in extropy for a couple of years now, and also > have a keen interest in commercial spaceflight and space settlement. > > Cheers! > > -- Neil Halelamien From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 11 05:51:53 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 23:51:53 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: <470a3c52041210213363624cbd@mail.gmail.com> References: <470a3c52041210213363624cbd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041210234713.01aa30d0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 06:33 AM 12/11/2004 +0100, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: >TRANSHUMANISTS DO IT FOREVER >Hs >Do It ? pronounced `overdo it', of course :) >Welcome Neil! And to the other newcomers and returners and all! (Joseph spoke, I suspect, for many here who must have covered their heads with pillows and fallen into disbelieving silence.) [yes, pun intended] Damien Broderick From wingcat at pacbell.net Sat Dec 11 05:55:38 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 21:55:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041211055538.48605.qmail@web81605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Neil Halelamien wrote: > To switch to a topic completely different from > what's been discussed > recently: Are there by chance any t-shirts available > (clever or > otherwise) which have messages/images related to > extropy, > transhumanism, or the singularity? It probably > sounds tacky, but I've > found t-shirts to be an effective means of planting > memes in people's > heads and initiating dialogue. Tacky can be good. If you can reduce it to a commonplace thing, and your objective in the first place was to make it commonplace... > This is my first post here, so I should probably > introduce myself. I'm > Neil, a first-year graduate student at Caltech, > pursuing a PhD in > Computation & Neural Systems. My past research > experience is with > computational neuroscience and robot vision, when I > was studying > computer science and cognitive science at Carnegie > Mellon. I'm still > uncertain as to what area my thesis will be on, but > I'm interested in > such topics as computational vision, the neural > basis of > consciousness, modeling of the visual system, and > neuroprosthetics. > I've been interested in extropy for a couple of > years now, and also > have a keen interest in commercial spaceflight and > space settlement. Hmm. Well, I can invite you over to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/howtobuildaspacehabitat/ for the latter. As to the former...have you heard much about the work being done on neural net modelling of human vision, including higher-level processes like object recognition, and if so could you give a digest of the current state of the art? This would seem to be one of the things likely to lead towards computer modelling of the entire human brain, not to mention its more immediate applications. From reason at longevitymeme.org Sat Dec 11 06:25:32 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 22:25:32 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --> Neil Halelamien > To switch to a topic completely different from what's been discussed > recently: Are there by chance any t-shirts available (clever or > otherwise) which have messages/images related to extropy, > transhumanism, or the singularity? It probably sounds tacky, but I've > found t-shirts to be an effective means of planting memes in people's > heads and initiating dialogue. ExI (and the WTA for that matter) should make like the rest of us and grab a CafePress store. There's no money in selling t-shirts, but the CafePress model at least lets you do it very efficiently just for the meme exposure - the only significant outlay is in time spent pulling together the necessary image files. http://www.cafepress.com/longevitymeme http://www.cafepress.com/methuselahmouse http://www.cafepress.com/imminst etc. Reason Founder, Longevity Meme From harara at sbcglobal.net Sat Dec 11 06:24:38 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 22:24:38 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] In memory of my mother, 1929-2001 In-Reply-To: <470a3c52041210112224ae1439@mail.gmail.com> References: <470a3c52041210112224ae1439@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041210222333.02947780@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Well, let me ask the obvious question: Are you a cryonicist? At 11:22 AM 12/10/2004, you wrote: >Tomorrow December 11 it will be 3 years since the death of my mother. >A few days later I wrote the message quoted below to the extropy list. >I had been lurking on the lists and occasionally posting for some time >before, but it was then when I decided to try supporting more actively >the subversive and beautiful idea that someday we can DEFEAT DEATH. ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From pgptag at gmail.com Sat Dec 11 06:30:48 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 07:30:48 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] In memory of my mother, 1929-2001 In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041210222333.02947780@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <470a3c52041210112224ae1439@mail.gmail.com> <6.0.3.0.1.20041210222333.02947780@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <470a3c5204121022301747721b@mail.gmail.com> Yes of course, I am a CI member. We may really be the last mortal generation as in Damien's book. I am quite confident that those born in the 21st century won't even need cryonics. But we will (I am 47 oh my god) as I don't think all needed technologies will be developed in useful time. G. On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 22:24:38 -0800, Hara Ra wrote: > Well, let me ask the obvious question: Are you a cryonicist? > > At 11:22 AM 12/10/2004, you wrote: > >Tomorrow December 11 it will be 3 years since the death of my mother. > >A few days later I wrote the message quoted below to the extropy list. > >I had been lurking on the lists and occasionally posting for some time > >before, but it was then when I decided to try supporting more actively > >the subversive and beautiful idea that someday we can DEFEAT DEATH. From reason at longevitymeme.org Sat Dec 11 06:41:02 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason) Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 22:41:02 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41BA76BE.4000406@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: ---> Joseph Bloch > Forgive me for perhaps speaking out of turn, as I've only recently > returned to the Extropy email list, but I must wonder why folks are > coddling this bizzare talk of visits from ghosts, gods, magic nose > goblins, holy spirits, or what-have-you? If there's one thing that observing the ExI list has taught me, it's that demonstrating your puissance through the creation of really good book will garner you a lot of respect. At the very least, it's very hard to say "you suck" in intellectualese when faced with the tangible reality of said book, hovering over your attempts to paint the author as somehow lacking in the grasp of reality department. It requires something of an exercise. As an aside, I've noticed, in respect to this particular case, much the same issue going on over a http://www.schlockmercenary.com - the author recently came out as a God Speaks To Me And Told Me To Draw Comics Full Time sort of chap. Raised eyebrows, but life goes on as before. Patently, there is a transhumanist-aware, clever sci-fi comic, and there is also a very religious person creating it. And then there's Orson Scott Card. And so forth - like the ten dozen people you know who are no doubt equally touched in their own ways (and operate as normal human beings until you engage them on the subject of religion) but don't happen to produce stunning works of prose. Religious delusions are much like statist delusions; they are so prevalent and such a matter of personal choice that one really has few alternatives to humoring them if one wants to participate in polite society. It's the missionaries backed up by forceful coercion you have to watch for, but beyond that, who cares to comment on the tapestries people paint on the inside of their own skulls? If you're running Dali 1.0 on the inside it's no matter to me provided you can expose a Normal Rockwell API for me to interface with. (Or vice versa, of course). Reason Founder, Longevity Meme From pgptag at gmail.com Sat Dec 11 06:53:57 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 07:53:57 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] New Technique Scans Electrical 'Brainscape' Message-ID: <470a3c5204121022536cca2ed8@mail.gmail.com> Using hairlike microelectrodes and computer analysis, neurobiologists at Duke University Medical Center have demonstrated that they can see the detailed instant-to-instant electrical "brainscape" of neural activity across a living brain. According to Nicolelis, the new results "support a global theory of brain function that holds that all these processes are extremely dynamic. And now with this analytic technique we can measure these dynamics. It gives us a new language of how to describe continuous brain function. "One of the Holy Grails of neurobiology has been the neural 'code' by which the brain processes information. Now we can say that there is no such thing as a single neural code, because the code is continuously changing according to the internal state of the brain, and according to the strategy the animal selects to search the environment." Also, said Nicolelis, such analyses will influence neurobiology to advance beyond the current theory that the single neuron is the basic computational unit of the brain. "A single neuron is too noisy to act as a reliable unit of neuronal function," he said. "But an ensemble of neurons resolves that noise and makes neuronal output stable." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041208093616.htm From pharos at gmail.com Sat Dec 11 10:10:01 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 10:10:01 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: References: <41BA76BE.4000406@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 22:41:02 -0800, Reason wrote: > > And so forth - like the ten dozen people you know who are no doubt equally touched in their own ways (and operate as normal human beings until you engage them on the subject of religion) but don't happen to produce stunning works of prose. Religious delusions are much like statist delusions; they are so prevalent and such a matter of personal choice that one really has few alternatives to humoring them if one wants to participate in polite society. It's the missionaries backed up by forceful coercion you have to watch for, but beyond that, who cares to comment on the tapestries people paint on the inside of their own skulls? If you're running Dali 1.0 on the inside it's no matter to me provided you can expose a Normal Rockwell API for me to interface with. > Exactly. John Wright is speaking as though his religious experience was something unusual. It isn't. Millions of people have had similar experiences and many also *know* the meaning of life. More than half of all adult Americans (and UK adults also) will report having had some kind of religious experience. Religious experience is common to humanity worldwide, regardless of religious persuasion. Even atheists have transcendental events in their lives. It is a fundamental part of how the human brain is structured. Religious experiences are as real to the person experiencing them, as is pain and pleasure, or an emotion, or a sensation -- seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting. These religious experiences can even feel more real and deeper than ordinary experiences and can often be life changing. Abraham Maslow said that WE ALL have peak experiences. Here's how he described them: * the experience is ego-transcending; it goes beyond "you" * you see reality clearly, vividly, profoundly * everything in the universe seems meaningful and interconnected * you feel passive, receptive and surrendered to the experience * you see things for what they are and not according to your own needs * every thing looks unique and beautiful * you feel acceptance and love for everything * time and space seem irrelevant * you feel wonder, awe, humility * you feel fortunate and graced * you feel a sense of free-will and responsibility for the world * all of your fears, anxieties, and conflicts disappear * you KNOW that this experience is what life is all about How you deal with these experiences is unique to each individual. The objects of a religious experience depends on the culture of the person experiencing it. In a Muslim environment they will be related to the Koran. In a Christian environment they will be related to Jesus and Biblical events. In Ancient Rome they were related to the Gods and myths of the Romans at that time. And, so on. All religious experiences ("supernatural experiences") are personal and originate and end in the brain of the person experiencing them. No one and no group has a monopoly on these experiences or has a religious superiority over anyone else -- each experience is unique to that person and does not represent some external universal phenomenon. Religious experiences are not a type of perceptual experience, i.e. a type of experience in which something external is perceived. Religious experiences are more akin to imaginings than they are to perception. The object of the experience is not something that exists objectively in the world but rather is something that exists subjectively in the mind of the person having the experience. Each person's God (if he considers a God at all) is in his brain, not an entity beyond this. BillK From dirk at neopax.com Sat Dec 11 12:35:11 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 12:35:11 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41BA76BE.4000406@humanenhancement.com> References: <1102692366.992f7c00namacdon@ole.augie.edu> <41BA76BE.4000406@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <41BAE97F.40402@neopax.com> Joseph Bloch wrote: > Forgive me for perhaps speaking out of turn, as I've only recently > returned to the Extropy email list, but I must wonder why folks are > coddling this bizzare talk of visits from ghosts, gods, magic nose > goblins, holy spirits, or what-have-you? Mind you, I don't question > Mr. Wright's earnestness or his motives; I simply question his credulity. > > The mechanisms of hallucination-- even wildly vivid hallucination-- > are well-known to medical science, and the specific parts of the brain > which react to religiously-based hallucinations (as well as > religiously-based experiences which are based on ritual and other > human-induced causes) are beginning to be identified and even their > evolutionary benefits identified. I'm sure it felt realer than > sunshine to Mr. Wright, but so too do the demons that haunt the mind > of the schizophrenic seem to him or her. So too does love, hate, joy, ambition, creativity, sadness, insight etc etc And by what yardstick do you judge which mental states are 'really real' and which aren't? Consensus reality? Take an opinion poll? -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Sat Dec 11 12:40:55 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 12:40:55 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: References: <41BA76BE.4000406@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <41BAEAD7.2050104@neopax.com> BillK wrote: >Religious experiences are not a type of perceptual experience, i.e. a >type of experience in which something external is perceived. Religious >experiences are more akin to imaginings than they are to perception. >The object of the experience is not something that exists objectively >in the world but rather is something that exists subjectively in the >mind of the person having the experience. > >Each person's God (if he considers a God at all) is in his brain, not >an entity beyond this. > > > Debateable. Penrose has other ideas, of course, at least in respect to a mathematical Platonic realm 'out there'. Or are you one of those people who think maths is a cultural artefact invented, but not discovered? And if math is 'discovered' (even only partially) it is one of those 'internal' processes that act as if it were pure perception. Ditto God(s). -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Sat Dec 11 13:05:40 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:05:40 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: References: <41BA76BE.4000406@humanenhancement.com> <41BAEAD7.2050104@neopax.com> Message-ID: <41BAF0A4.1060902@neopax.com> BillK wrote: >On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 12:40:55 +0000, Dirk Bruere wrote: > > >>BillK wrote: >> >> >>>Religious experiences are not a type of perceptual experience, i.e. a >>>type of experience in which something external is perceived. Religious >>>experiences are more akin to imaginings than they are to perception. >>>The object of the experience is not something that exists objectively >>>in the world but rather is something that exists subjectively in the >>>mind of the person having the experience. >>> >>>Each person's God (if he considers a God at all) is in his brain, not >>>an entity beyond this. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>Debateable. >>Dirk >> >> >> > >If it is not solely in your own brain then it has to show measurable >effects in the real world. Come back after you can do this. (Randi has >1 million USD waiting for you). If you discover a hitherto >undiscovered power that can make it rain every Wednesday afternoon or >provide free electric power to your home then best of luck to you. >There are thousands of flaky web sites out there that will tell you >just that. Enjoy. > > > Mathematics - see other post. http://www.neopax.com/asatru/pk/index.html -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From neuronexmachina at gmail.com Sat Dec 11 23:37:01 2004 From: neuronexmachina at gmail.com (Neil Halelamien) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 15:37:01 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: vision research, was: T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: <200412111900.iBBJ0J020523@tick.javien.com> References: <200412111900.iBBJ0J020523@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 12:00:19 -0700, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > Hmm. Well, I can invite you over to > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/howtobuildaspacehabitat/ > for the latter. Thanks for the link! > As to the former...have you heard > much about the work being done on neural net modelling > of human vision, including higher-level processes like > object recognition, and if so could you give a digest > of the current state of the art? This would seem to > be one of the things likely to lead towards computer > modelling of the entire human brain, not to mention > its more immediate applications. I'm only beginning to familiarize myself with the vast literature on the subject, but I can take a stab at it. In general, we have a reasonable understanding of the overall architecture, and have many good models of individual circuits for things like attention and certain aspects of object recognition. One particular interest of mine recently is David Lowe's SIFT (scale-invariant feature transform), an object recognition algorithm loosely based on our understanding of visual cortex and the inferior temporal (IT) area. In a gist, the algorithm operates by identifying scale-invariant features in an image, and identifying objects (as well as their relative position and orientation) by detecting memorized constellations of such features. This particular algorithm is fast and invariant to scale, rotation, and a certain amount of affine transformation. One major problem with it though is that it doesn't do any sort of object segmentation, but instead identifies objects based on the entire image. On a related note, here's a neat utility which uses SIFT to find common feature keypoints between images, in order to construct panoramas: http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/autopano-sift/ However, even though we have many great models of many areas of the visual system, we're still somewhat limited in our understanding of how different areas interact with each other. People are slowly but surely making progress with this, though. For example, some students in my department (actually in the lab I'm rotating in next term) have done some great work by using attentional maps to select relevant parts of an image, then using SIFT to learn and identify objects in attended areas. This results in a system which gets less distracted by clutter and is better at learning individual objects: http://www.klab.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/publication/reference-view.pl?refdbname=paper&paper_id=492 Another open problem is that most research so far deals only with feedforward connections in the visual system, simply because they're more tractable. However, in many (most?) parts of the visual system, there are actually more feedback connections than feedforward connections. I'm not too familiar with the research done on them so far, but I get the impression that we know fairly little about what these feedback connections are doing. Hopefully progress in multielectrode recordings and simulation capabilities will help make feedback connections more tractable. Of course, it's impossible for me to really give a full overview of current research -- I've only commented on a couple of things along the forefront. If you have questions about any particular aspects of current research, feel free to ask. I'm not sure if I'm knowledgeable enough yet to adequately answer such questions, but I can try. :) -- Neil Halelamien From riel at surriel.com Sun Dec 12 03:17:18 2004 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:17:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41B8A770.5040907@pobox.com> References: <20041209191624.83525.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> <41B8A770.5040907@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Dec 2004, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > > The list of things that science has not been able to sufficiently > > explain is very long. > > And keeps getting shorter. Is it ? My impression has always been that the more we discover, the more new questions we get to ask. Almost like a fractal being iteratively drawn, filling up the screen bit by bit (understanding more of the total), but the edge growing infinitely long (unanswered questions). > The blank areas of our map are not faithful representations of blank > territories. Mystery exists to be conquered, to be transformed into > non-mystery. This task is not accomplished by those who, meeting the > great dragon Unknown, sheathe their blades and bow their heads in > delicious submission. I enjoy mysteries. Especially the half-dozen new mysteries that invariably spring up once the mystery that's in front has been tackled. cheers, Rik -- "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan From riel at surriel.com Sun Dec 12 03:34:10 2004 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:34:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41B8DB86.4000902@neopax.com> References: <200412092229.iB9MTC014195@tick.javien.com> <41B8DB86.4000902@neopax.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Dec 2004, Dirk Bruere wrote: > You are again casting the experience into the cultural context with > which you are most familiar. > Reality is not dual. There is no spirit world and no material world. > They are the same. The wave and the particle both exist, yet they are the same. I see dualism at many levels and don't see why it couldn't exist on the spiritual level, too. Rik -- "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Dec 12 04:15:27 2004 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:15:27 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20041211221355.037e47d0@pop-server.austin.rr.com> At 11:08 PM 12/10/2004, you wrote: >To switch to a topic completely different from what's been discussed >recently: Are there by chance any t-shirts available (clever or >otherwise) which have messages/images related to extropy, >transhumanism, or the singularity? It probably sounds tacky, but I've >found t-shirts to be an effective means of planting memes in people's >heads and initiating dialogue. Yes, there are several designs still available from the various conferences. I agree with you that t-shirts are very effective Send Extropy Institute an email at info at extropy.org Best, Natasha Natasha Vita-More http://www.natasha.cc [_______________________________________________ President, Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org [_____________________________________________________ Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture http://www.transhumanist.biz -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Dec 12 04:16:52 2004 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:16:52 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20041211221607.037ea828@pop-server.austin.rr.com> At 12:25 AM 12/11/2004, Reason wrote: >--> Neil Halelamien > > > To switch to a topic completely different from what's been discussed > > recently: Are there by chance any t-shirts available (clever or > > otherwise) which have messages/images related to extropy, > > transhumanism, or the singularity? It probably sounds tacky, but I've > > found t-shirts to be an effective means of planting memes in people's > > heads and initiating dialogue. > >ExI (and the WTA for that matter) should make like the rest of us and grab a >CafePress store. There's no money in selling t-shirts, but the CafePress >model at least lets you do it very efficiently just for the meme exposure - >the only significant outlay is in time spent pulling together the necessary >image files. > >http://www.cafepress.com/longevitymeme >http://www.cafepress.com/methuselahmouse >http://www.cafepress.com/imminst Sound good Reason. Would you like to advise on this? Please email us to set up a tele-conference. Many thanks, Natasha Natasha Vita-More http://www.natasha.cc [_______________________________________________ President, Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org [_____________________________________________________ Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture http://www.transhumanist.biz -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 12 04:31:02 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:31:02 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post References: Message-ID: <001101c4e003$63f12bd0$c3ebfb44@kevin> My other half has a printing degree and a small print shop. She inquired on here a year ago to see if there was any interest in such a product and received little response. If you have something in mind, I am sure she would be glad to print it. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Reason" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 12:25 AM Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post > > --> Neil Halelamien > > > To switch to a topic completely different from what's been discussed > > recently: Are there by chance any t-shirts available (clever or > > otherwise) which have messages/images related to extropy, > > transhumanism, or the singularity? It probably sounds tacky, but I've > > found t-shirts to be an effective means of planting memes in people's > > heads and initiating dialogue. > > ExI (and the WTA for that matter) should make like the rest of us and grab a > CafePress store. There's no money in selling t-shirts, but the CafePress > model at least lets you do it very efficiently just for the meme exposure - > the only significant outlay is in time spent pulling together the necessary > image files. > > http://www.cafepress.com/longevitymeme > http://www.cafepress.com/methuselahmouse > http://www.cafepress.com/imminst > > etc. > > Reason > Founder, Longevity Meme > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Dec 12 07:20:08 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 01:20:08 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Hubble's last best hope? Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212011905.01c343a0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/spacestoryN1212OKEEFENU0.htm O'Keefe resigning. From pgptag at gmail.com Sun Dec 12 08:47:27 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 09:47:27 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412092056.iB9KuC002246@tick.javien.com> References: <200412092056.iB9KuC002246@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <470a3c520412120047c01461a@mail.gmail.com> Well I am sure we would all like to hear more from you on this. For example, are we talking of the Cristian God or of a "generic" superior being which exists and can make her/his existence known (as you imply (s)he did in your case)? BTW I just received the Golden Transcendence (Amazon had screwed up and I had to wait two months) so finally today I will find out what happens to Phaeton and what the hell is the Silent Oecumene. I refrained from reading spoilers so far. G. On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 14:53:21 -0600, john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > Giulio Prisco quips: > > John, if finding (having been found by) God will help you write more books as > good as > the Golden Age, I am all for God:-) > > Thank you, sir, but I can only promise to write, not to be inspired. If my work > did not displease you, the praise is due, not to the author of the book, but to > the Great Author who created both the world and the writer who depicts the world. > > > Seriously, your words quoted below are quite intriguing. Perhaps you > >care to elaborate, not everyone here is a "fundamentalist atheist" you > >know. > > I am unfortunately a prolix man. If you ask me a specific question, perhaps I > can answer without endangering the patience of other subscribers on this list. > If the question is too delicate for public airing, I can write to you privately. From scerir at libero.it Sun Dec 12 10:24:20 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 11:24:20 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Pirelli Challenge "SR 2005" References: <200412111900.iBBJ0J020523@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <004701c4e034$be42b320$b0c31b97@administxl09yj> http://www.pirelliaward.com/einstein.html From riel at surriel.com Sun Dec 12 03:23:51 2004 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:23:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, for > I have only departed your company recently) is this: what does an honest > and rational man do when he has a supernatural experience? Accept the fact and admire the miracle. Afterwards, feel sorrow about the fact that the human lifespan probably isn't long enough to find a scientific explanation for the observed miracle, let alone to uncover the miracles behind ... ;) Rik -- "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan From Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it Sun Dec 12 13:18:37 2004 From: Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it (Amara Graps) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 14:18:37 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Perry Barlow vs The Man Message-ID: <20041212131357.M21726@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> Dear Extropes Boing-boing (http://boingboing.net) alerted me to a distressing story posted by John Perry Barlow (co-EFF founder, Grateful Dead lyricist, among his many talents). Barlow was arested in September 2003 at the San Francisco Airport and charged with the misdemeanor possession of controlled substances that had allegedly been discovered during a search of his checked baggage. He was requested to get off the plane (which was about to take off) by an attendant, who escorted him to the baggage claim area. Barlow says at his Blog (http://barlow.typepad.com/barlowfriendz/2004/12/a_taste_of_the_.html) : "He led me to an office in the baggage claim area that was thicker with cops than some banana republics. They greeted me with same distaste they'd likely have shown an actual terrorist and treated me accordingly for the remainder of that very long day. On the counter lay small quantities of marijuana (for which I have a physician's recommendation), mushrooms, and ketamine that had allegedly been encountered in my suitcase. That the total volume of this prize was significantly more compact than the amount of high explosive necessary to endanger an aircraft, and indeed, insufficient to merit a felony charge on any count, didn't matter to them. They clearly regarded me as a threat to public safety. When I pointed out to the officials that they only had authority to search for threats to the aircraft, one of them, a bug-eyed, crew-cutted troglodyte, declared that, if I had taken any of these substances, then I would have endangered Flight 310. That such an obviously ungifted person was capable of so imaginative a conceptual leap remains a marvel to me." Barlow spent the day locked up in the Redwood City jail, and not being given access to any of his documents or to a phonebook, he contacted one of his daughters who contacted another EFF co-founder, John Gilmore, who put up the $25,000 in cash to spring Barlow. They couldn't have chosen a better person for the task, because, besides having the money, and demonstrating a few more civil liberties principles to the jail attendants, Gilmore has experience fighting airport security laws. Rather than taking the path of least resistence in this case , the two have now chosen to make a particular case out of Barlow's incident, feeling that a law has been broken, and they would like to make this a precendent against TSA's routinely over-broad searches of checked bags. Those of you living in the San Francisco Bay Area, take note. Barlow says: "On December 15, at 2:00 pm, I will pay yet another visit to the North San Mateo County Courthouse in South San Francisco. This time I expect I will actually get a chance to plead my case. (Any interested Bay Area BarlowFriendz are invited to attend. It should be pretty decent theater.)" I recommend reading Barlow's full blog on this story. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR, Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it From Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it Sun Dec 12 13:25:46 2004 From: Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it (Amara Graps) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 14:25:46 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] A Strombolian Holiday Tree Message-ID: <20041212132332.M5754@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> another volcano vignette: A Strombolian Holiday Tree http://www.amara.com/photo/stromb04.html bella giornata tutti... Amara From Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it Sun Dec 12 14:42:32 2004 From: Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it (Amara Graps) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 15:42:32 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] book: Paddling my Own Canoe by Sutherland Message-ID: <20041212143914.M51186@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> The book: _Paddling My Own Canoe_ Four years ago, I talked about this book, unfortunately, it was out of print at the time. The book is back in print (amazon has it) For a short, sweet read, full of parables for life, I recommend this book alot. (Its a kick to read) _Paddling my Own Canoe_ by Audrey Sutherland Paperback: 144 pages Publisher: University of Hawaii Press; 3rd Prntg edition (August 1, 1980) ISBN: 0824806999 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0824806999/ The book is about a woman (Sutherland) who first started making solo journeys to a particular inaccessible beach in Moloka'i in 1958. She is a strong woman who made her first attempts swimming from one side of the island (after being dropped there by plane), dragging her gear in waterproof containers that she also built, and then later she improvised by building small rafts/canoes. This part of Moloka'i was uninhabited and, because of terrain and enormous cliffs around, one could not reach the beach from inland. And the Moloka'i Channel is one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the Pacific Ocean, so that getting there by boat is/was non-trivial too. Each year she learned new things on how to accomplish this task, and became more knowledgeable and sophisticated in her sea-faring methods. Eventually she built a cabin for herself on that beach, bringing all of the materials patiently on each journey. The whole book (it's only ~130 pgs) is a monologue. She (Audrey Sutherland) is talking to herself telling what she is thinking when this thing or that thing happened, and how she set about solving each little problem. She is always planning, trying, thinking, researching, improving how to do something. For me it's a book showing thinking for oneself and how to live with grace and humor and courage and diligence and how to solve big problems by breaking them down into manageable pieces. For example: much of her "equipment" she built or devised on her own because there didn't exist the kind of expedition equipment (lightweight, sturdy, waterproof) that she needed at the time. She is also very modest, often chiding herself, and she has a funny sense of humor. This book might be a good book for teenagers to read, to help understand that usually to accomplish large tasks, you must accumulate the successes of smaller tasks, and achieving at the end, what looked at first, impossible. I liked the book because I think that she is an amazing woman, and the book descriptions remind me of my childhood. Plus I especially liked her descriptions of solitude. It brings home why I like to go on long solo bike trips. I'll quote some parts of the book. Here is from near the ending: {begin quote} "And why did I always come alone to Moloka'i? I know why, but the telling is hard. Daily we are on trial, to do a job, to make a marriage good, to find depth, serenity, and meaning in a complex, deterioating world of politics, false values, and trivia. But rarely are we deeply challenged physically or alone. We rely on friends, on family, on a committee, on community agencies outside ourselves. To have actual survival, living or dying, depends on our own ingenuity, skill, or stamina- this is a core question we seldom face. We rarely find out if we like having only our own mind as company for days or weeks at a time. How many people have ever been total isolated, ten miles from the nearest other human, for even two days? Alone, you are more aware of surroundings, wary as an animal to danger, limp and relaxed when the sun, the brown earth, or the deep grass say, "Rest now." Alone you stand at night, alert, poised, hearing through ears and open mouth and fingertips. Alone, you do not worry whether someone else is tired or hungry or needing. You push yourself hard or quit for the day, reveling in the luxury of solitude. And being unconcerned with human needs, you become as a fish, a boulder, a tree- a part of the world around you. I stood once in midstream, balanced on a rock. A scarlet leaf fluttered, spiraled down. I watched it, became a wind-blown leaf, swayed, fell into the water with a giant human splash, then soddenly crawled out, laughing uproariously. The process of daily living is often intense and whimsical. The joy of it, and the compassion, we can share, but in pain we are ultimately alone. The only real antidote is inside. The only real security is not insurance or money or a job, not a house and furniture paid for, or a retirement fund, and never is it another person. It is the skill and humor and courage within, the ability to build your own fires and find your own peace. On a solo trip you may discover these, or try to build them, and life becomes simple and deeply satisfying. The confidence and strength remain and are brought back and applied to the rest of your life." {end quote} The author becomes more philosophical towards the later portions of the book, but in my opinion, there are many jewels along the way to grab you and sustain you. There are philosophical paragraphs scattered throughout, but what I found as interesting is her way of presenting something really amazing (to me) as "ordinary". Here is an example: {begin quote} It is about 3:00 AM. I wake from a dream and hear the seas rising, but something else awakened me. There is a bug in my ear. He crawls across the eardrum, his footfalls sounding and feeling like a branch scraping on a tin roof. I roll off the narrow air mattress onto the bare boards of the bottom bunk and fumble for the flashlight. The bug's antennae are probing. I grope thruogh the plastic bag of miscellany for the bottle of olive oil, tilt my head, pour a teaspoon of oil into the ear, slosh my head around. After two doses he stops squirming, and I tilt oil and bug out onto a towel. It is a small, greasy expiring cockroach. Olive oil is very versatile. I use it to fry fish, clean my face, dress salads, treat sunburn, lubricate zippers -- and drown bugs. {end quote} {begin quote} I peeled down to the high-topped tennis shoes and clumped off to the river with the dirty dishes. Alone and content among the trees at the water's edge, I stood like Daphne, bewitched there in the forest. Daphne, ha! Where's Apollo, you dirty, salty female? I knelt by the pool and scrubbed, composing a derisive haiku, as did Basho and Issa in Japan long ago. Goddess by the stream Tall, bare, proud ... laughs at dreams, and Squats to wash the pots. {end quote} {begin quote} What I really need is for some scientist to develop a dehydrated or freeze-dried wine. Please forgive such sacrilege, Monsieur Lichine and Mr. Balzer and you other connoisseurs, but I do enjoy wine with my meals, and seven half-bottles, a week's supply, weigh ten pack-sagging pounds. Table wines are twelve percent alcohol and perhaps two percent grape residue. Perfect a dehydration method and I could carry a fifth of that lovely wine, Louis Martini's Moscato Amabile, in a container holding four ounces. Develop further; freeze-dry the alchohol. Then I could buy foil packets of a powdered Beaulieu Cabernet Sauvignon, or, for Franco-oenophiles, a Chateau LaMission Haut Brion, add water, display the packet label with a flourish, and pour with a drip-stopping wrist twist- into a Sierra Club cup. "But listen, Aud", say my scientific friends. "If you really want concentrated wine, it's already been done. It's called brandy." {end quote} {begin quote} I had to go back again. To be that terrified of anything, that incompetent, survive by that small a margin - I'd better analyze, practice,then return and do it right. {end quote} Enjoy... Amara From Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE Sun Dec 12 15:58:32 2004 From: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE (Patrick Wilken) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 16:58:32 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041210234713.01aa30d0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <470a3c52041210213363624cbd@mail.gmail.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041210234713.01aa30d0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 11 Dec 2004, at 06:51, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 06:33 AM 12/11/2004 +0100, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: > >> TRANSHUMANISTS DO IT FOREVER Better sex through nanotubes? best, patrick From spike66 at comcast.net Sun Dec 12 17:55:06 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 09:55:06 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c4e073$bcbf96f0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> > >> TRANSHUMANISTS DO IT FOREVER Better sex through nanotubes? best, Patrick\ High on the list of things you hope your girlfriend does not say to you on the second date: "What's that, a carbon nanotube?" spike {8^D From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Dec 12 18:58:10 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:58:10 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212125800.01c29c18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> http://www.thefinaltheory.com/pages/1/index.htm Reviewed on amazon.com: <> From jef at jefallbright.net Sun Dec 12 20:07:23 2004 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:07:23 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212125800.01c29c18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212125800.01c29c18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41BCA4FB.7050209@jefallbright.net> Damien Broderick wrote: > > http://www.thefinaltheory.com/pages/1/index.htm > > Reviewed on amazon.com: > > < read book over and over again. I did. I didn't understand at first, > but then I got it. Listen, I'm not dumb when it comes to physical > education. It's just that scientists who talk about atoms and gravity > have really been wrong all along, and I and all us other peopel who > rely on common sense knew it all along, and McCutcheon knew it all > along. That's why we didn't understand. Because what the scientists > were saying was a bunch of hogwash. Who decides anyways, that the >> > Damien - Thank you very much for bringing this book to our attention. As those on this list well know, a central theme of the utmost important to me is the sharing of knowledge and bringing together people of disparate beliefs and knowledge to form a greater whole. Today you have passed along a key piece to the universal puzzle, which I am sure will link Mark McCutcheon's revolutionary work in the hard sciences with the inspiring work of the Objective Christian Ministries applying this greater understanding to our daily lives. See also I have only two words to express my gratitude: Thank you, thank you, thank you. - Jef From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Dec 12 20:40:13 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 14:40:13 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! In-Reply-To: <41BCA4FB.7050209@jefallbright.net> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212125800.01c29c18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41BCA4FB.7050209@jefallbright.net> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212143641.01b795b0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 12:07 PM 12/12/2004 -0800, Jef wrote: >See also This seems a little abstract to me. I prefer the visceral thrills of http://objective.jesussave.us/zounds.html and such ever popular attractions as * Hanukkah Hoedown at Mt. Fellowship's main auditorium. Join our Jewish friends to celebrate the rootingest-tootingest Festival of Lights ever! Featuring the Country-Western-Yiddish stylings of Dwight "Billy-Bob" Liebowitz. Special lasso performances by the Cowboys for Christ team. while singing along to the happy strains of Zounds YRM, < a ministry aimed at teens and young adults that uses the rocking power of awesome music to reach out and bring the Word to those that feel traditional church services too boring or uncool. We offer Totally Radical Salvation for today's totally radical kids! Zounds supports straight edge living and abstinence until marriage, but we also support good times with friends and rocking out for the Lord! Our high-energy services are more like concerts, and when we Get Down, we Get Down on our knees and pray! Yeah! > Damien Broderick From ned_lt at yahoo.com Sun Dec 12 22:40:09 2004 From: ned_lt at yahoo.com (Ned Late) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 14:40:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] interview with economist Message-ID: <20041212224009.84758.qmail@web61307.mail.yahoo.com> Though the interview is from 1999, it nevertheless remains relevant to 21st century economic dislocation:: http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/mbook017.htm __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Sun Dec 12 22:47:21 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 14:47:21 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412092229.iB9MTC014195@tick.javien.com> References: <200412092229.iB9MTC014195@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41BCCA79.6080601@mac.com> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > >Here I will venture my own opinion. The hunger for truth is universal: I cannot >see how any organism can survive without it. The hunger for the spirit world is >widespread; it exists in most men, most of the time, but by no means in all. > >If the hunger for the spirit world is merely the blind programming of inanimate >nature organizing the molecules of our brains over generations of evolution, >then we are trapped in an illusionary belief by our basic drives and instincts. >In such as case, the atheists may rightly congratulate themselves in using their >minds to break free from a innate but demeaning instinct: their victory is as >honorable as a pacifist renouncing violence, or a nun renouncing marriage. > > > Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that evolutionary programming left us susceptible to certain patterns of experience and belief that do not necessarily reflect anything truly "out there". Some of these belief patterns are/were actually useful in some ways and thus propagate in socieities. It is not that it was programmed in so much as evolution did not result in being programmed out. We are not trapped unless we agree to be, unless we fail to question deeply. There is no "instinct" for religion or the supernatural. >If the hunger for the spirit world is sent from the spirit world, like music >heard across a starry sea, promising a farther shore, then the hunger has a >proper object to satisfy it; an object not found on any earthly shore. All >spiritual travelers depart from matter and materialism in their search: >mysticism, by which I mean specifically the search for knowledge by >non-rational, non-sensory means, is the common ocean onto which all such >travelers embark. > >Now then, at this point, the skeptic can say that these so-called different >travelers all ferried themselves to islands existing in their imaginations only, >and brought back reports fished up from merely dreams and hallucinations: no >wonder they disagree. > >The point is well taken. And yet, it is ships that sailed from England that >colonized North America, not elsewhere, and our language bears the stamp of that >ancestral isle. South America bears the stamp of Portugal and Spain. The >descriptions of the Spanish Main do not match the descriptions of New England. > > > And yet they brought back actual real things everyone could see and touch. The analogy breaks down. >Of the many faiths of Earth, I am not bold enough to condemn any as utterly >false, and my prayer is that all of them might lead sincere hearts, somehow, out >of this sorrowful world where we find ourselves, to the shining lands of which >the prophets speak. And yet is seems a cruel truth that not all peoples are >equal to the task, any more than all nations are equal to discover the arts of >ship-builders and longitudinal navigation. Likewise, some faiths are better than >others: the cruelties of the Aztecs are not to be compared to the subtle >reasonings of the peaceful Buddhist. > > > And while we are looking for those finer and more subtle shores will we let this all too apparently real world disintegrate into darkness? Will we spend our lives and hearts and energy on inchoate longings for the "Beyond the Beyond"? Every culture where a significant number of the finest minds took this path has stagnated and devolved into superstition and ritual. >You may think it terribly un-multicultural of me to believe that the Jews >discovered (or were chosen to receive) a monumental truth by which all the >nations of the world would be blessed, and that the Messiah appeared among them, >not elsewhere. Perhaps so, but I cannot picture it happening any other way. It >is not odd or absurd to learn that Euclid elaborated the geometry, or Ptolemy >the astronomy, which was less developed even in other civilized lands. No one >thinks the truths in these sciences are invented by nor restricted to one race >of men. They are objective truths, free for all to discover. But, then again, >but no one uses Eskimo or Hottentot mathematics and astronomy to determine his >position at sea. > > > A comparitive study of the world's religions should show you that Christianity is not privileged or even terribly original. An examination of the history of Christianity and the creation of the Bible as we have it today will surely show good reason to doubt it has some shining veracity beyond all other belief systems. As far as mysticism itself goes Christian mystical practice and writing is primitive compared to many Eastern variants. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Sun Dec 12 23:21:46 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 15:21:46 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <9778AAAA-4C94-11D9-88B7-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> A most interesting post! On Dec 9, 2004, at 10:10 AM, john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > Nicholas Anthony MacDonald says, in reply to Mr. Albright: >> Except Robert Wright's search for "ultimate meaning" is of a very >> different > character than John Wright. Robert Wright is engaged in a > philosophical > "search", while John just happened to have a near death experience and > decide > that Jesus was to blame. > > Well, this sentiment is accurate (my conversion was not the product of > philosophical rumination) but the characterization is slightly > inaccurate. Mr. > McDonald is not to blame for assuming I had a near death experience and > "decided Jesus was to blame", since my description to Greg West about > the event > was rather coy. > > I did not ?decide? anything. My reaction to a blinding revelation was > something more spontaneous than rationally choosing which falsifiable > theory > best fit the observed and empirical facts. It was more like falling > in love. > I know that experience. It makes most falling in love we generally know about rather pale. > You must forgive me for being close-mouthed about the details when > speaking to > strangers. It is my own inadequacy that stills my pen. An event > beyond human > understanding cannot be described in human words to those who have no > referent > experiences, no frame, in which to understand it. If you wonder how I, > as a > human, could have witnessed an event beyond human understanding, I can > only hint > that we humans are not what we think we are. The truth of the matter > is far > more glorious than we suspect. I very much understand and I do have useable referents. Yet I also have to ask what the worth of these experiences is. As you may know, certain types of epilepsy lead to near continuous mystical visions and knowings of tremendous power. Some types of brain stimulation also appear capable of generating such experience at least in part. Psychedelics are famous for giving some very similar experiences although to be perfectly frank, my mystical expriences of a few years ago were quite different from anything I experienced in my misspent psychedelic youth all too long ago. > > My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, > for I have > only departed your company recently) is this: what does an honest and > rational > man do when he has a supernatural experience? I don't know. I only know what I did. The first such experience utterly floored me. My entire idea of what life was about and what was important and who/what I was changed. So much so that I saw nothing to be done but to fully live and surrender to what I had seen. I was ready to become a full-time religious although what I had experienced did not fit so well with the dogma of any religion that had such vocations. Fortunately (or not) there were enough roadblocks between me and such a life that I had a considerable cooling off period. At the end of that time I was left with the only "non-supernatural" explanation being that the human mind/heart is capable of layers of integration, experience, emoting, insight far beyond what I thought. But in the end what did this great wonderful experience of utter Love and knowing everything from within everything and from within That in which everything was actually say about what is true? Too many critical questions were left hanging. It took some time but I put it aside at least tentatively. Eventually I more or less decided that such an extraordinary interrupting experience not backed up by other evidence was not to be trusted at face value. Over time I became very un-enamored of all the credulity that unfortunately seemed nearly inseparable from "The Path" or the walking of it. I gradually "lost my faith" even backed by Experience. But it was not easy. It was and even today sometimes is an incredible internal struggle. I very much wanted to stay with the Bliss - the greatest joy, happiness and peace I have ever known. But I could not help wondering if it was all it appeared to be. Then, just when I was back to my naturalistic self and worldview, I had another Experience, that integrated many of the things I thought opposed to the meaning of the first experience. I saw the inevitability of God and many different aspects of what spirituality is and why it is important. I experienced a Grand Integration of all I knew and cared about. I experienced sheaves of sermons of all the implications and how they could be shared to heal the world. As I was happily and atheist by then and thought i had got far away from "that stuff" this was very, very distressing and not at all what I wanted. Yet there it was. It was so powerful that the truth of it boomed out of every cell of my body. This one dropped me to my knees! Because of the insights I had received I was sorely tempted to immediately go out and start sharing these with any who I could get to listen. Yet I had just signed up for a very important and interesting project that I very much wanted to do even though it was very "mundane" in comparison. So again I had a cooling off period. This vision was very different in that I saw the "Supernatural" in terms of the "Natural". I saw why God would come to be if God did not exist already. I saw that if God came to be then God must transcend space-time. If in any conditions ever God could come to be then God Is. I saw how naturalistic science would lead to ever accelerating technological change that would require we ourselves to transcend our evolutionary programming or perish. I saw that it led directly (if succesful) to Intelligence Augmentation and the creation of every greater Mind. I saw that the most successful direction of that transcendence over our evolution was very similar to the directions for transcendence of the "ego" or "natural man". I saw how the age of Information would push us beyond our selfishness if we are to survive and thrive at all. Enough for now. I cannot do it justice in this space. > > Does he, like Scrooge, claim Marlowe's ghost is a bit of beef, a > product of bad > digestion? Does he accuse himself of hallucination rather than > entertain the > opinion that his axioms might be mistaken? Occam's razor, plus a > modicum of > intellectual integrity, would seem to militate against this assumption. > When confronted with an experience seriously out-of-band with everything else one must first asks whether this experience is an aberration. This is only reasonable. It is said (I wouldn't know) that the high from heroin is the most glorious experience. But that it is glorious does not by itself says it is worth pursuing or that those fabulous feelings/insights/perceptions have real meaning. Our feelings are not normally taken as valid tools of cognition. Does then a veritable tsunami of Feeling automatically mean we are low if we doubt and question its meaning? > I ask this in all seriousness. What does one do when overwhelming > evidence > suddenly breaks in on you that your entire system of the world, so > carefully > constructed by materialist rational philosophy over many years of > painstaking > thought, is utterly wrong and discredited? Pretend it did not happen? > Is it "overwhelming evidence" or overwhelming Experience of Meaning, Love, Truth, Power, Knowing? Why this over-the-top Experience but without filling in the thought and reason and questions fully? Why this occasional perfect spiritual storm but not solid understanding? Why would the Divine arrange things like this? Why have the purported Truth go gamboling among us to occasionally knock one of us who seek it or not flat on our ass? Why not share this awesome truth of the way-it-really-is across the spectrum with all human beings? Why this capricious hide-and-seek and cosmic peek-a-boo? This looks deeply suspicious to me. And yet please understand that I to this day feel like a lout to say so after the Depth of what I have experienced. - samantha From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 13 00:18:25 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 18:18:25 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <9778AAAA-4C94-11D9-88B7-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> <9778AAAA-4C94-11D9-88B7-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212180555.01a3cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 03:21 PM 12/12/2004 -0800, samantha wrote: >This vision was very different in that I saw the "Supernatural" in terms >of the "Natural". I saw why God would come to be if God did not exist >already. I saw that if God came to be then God must transcend >space-time. If in any conditions ever God could come to be then God >Is. I saw how naturalistic science would lead to ever accelerating >technological change that would require we ourselves to transcend our >evolutionary programming or perish. I saw that it led directly (if >succesful) to Intelligence Augmentation and the creation of every greater Mind. This is the Stapledonian vision that seems to have powered John Wright's Golden Age sequence, and was proposed seriously by Sir Fred Hoyle in THE INTELLIGENT UNIVERSE. (And, I have to say, a year earlier by me in THE JUDAS MANDALA, although that was as an sf trope drawn from Julian Huxley and Teilhard.) >Is it "overwhelming evidence" or overwhelming Experience of Meaning, Love, >Truth, Power, Knowing? Why this over-the-top Experience but without >filling in the thought and reason and questions fully? Quite so. Wright would say (has said, really, in his posts) that the Handbook is readily accessible: it's the New Testament. Luckily, had he lived in another culture, he would not have been forced to go without such guidance, though, for each of them has its own versions of the Rapture Handbook, most of them at odds with each other when it comes to practical implementation. Even those drawing upon the Gospels have been known to disagree mildly, hard though that is to credit. See for example the useful advice provided at http://www.godhatesfags.com/main/index.html >This looks deeply suspicious to me. Entirely suspicious. >And yet please understand that I to this day feel like a lout to say so >after the Depth of what I have experienced. As I said when I first launched this thread: Be careful. It could happen to you. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 13 00:37:29 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 18:37:29 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The powerful impact of some non-veridical experiences Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212182639.01a50ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> One impressive (if partisan and fallible) attempt to explore the induction of non-real experiences is described at length at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/6521/ Back in 1977, before UFO abduction imagery was as pervasive as it is now, Dr. Lawson elicited from several good hypnotic subjects quite detailed and familiar close encounter/abduction narratives. Now one might argue that all he did was expose the terrifying ubiquity of *actual* abductions; a more reductive conclusion seems plausible to me: they made it up, but fooled themselves. How can such contrived (and rather silly) quasi-experiences have the profound life-altering effects they often do? Lawson traces the impact to a recovery of perinatal child-parent bonding. That might or might not be substantiated, but perhaps the etiology of bogus abductions also helps explain some of the rapture and overwhelming uncritical bliss described with wonderfully intense sincerity by Samantha Atkins and John Wright. Damien Broderick From spike66 at comcast.net Mon Dec 13 00:53:31 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 16:53:31 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] freezing frogs In-Reply-To: <41BCCA79.6080601@mac.com> Message-ID: <000001c4e0ae$3143e140$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Hey cool, check this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6700752/ Anyone here live in the Virginia area, could you find one of these guys, or preferrably a breeding pair? Or failing that, does anyone here know where we could buy some of these things? I can think of a lot of experiments I would like to do on them. spike From Walter_Chen at compal.com Mon Dec 13 00:57:01 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 08:57:01 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406856E@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: Damien Broderick > http://www.thefinaltheory.com/pages/1/index.htm > ... Have you read this book and agree to this TOE? I checked the web site of this book and still don't know if this TOE is more true. For example, it says: ******************** Quantum Mechanics -- is it all just a Misunderstanding? Yes, it is. One of the support pillars of quantum mechanics is the supposedly bizarre dual nature of light as sometimes an energy wave and sometimes a stream of photon particles. This support pillar is completely removed when the true nature of light is revealed, showing this supposed "quantum mechanical mystery" to be a mere misunderstanding. In actuality, waves of pure energy do not exist anywhere in nature. The water wave analogy commonly used to support the energy wave concept is seriously flawed since water waves are merely wavelike motion of countless particles (water molecules). In actuality, the "energy wave" concept has no support at all, and is debunked and replaced by the same new subatomic principle that runs throughout the book. All other apparent support for quantum theory is equally debunked and clearly explained for the first time ever, such as Einstein's photoelectric effect, quantum entanglement, and the classic double-slit experiment. *********************** Can you tell us what new insights this TOE provides? ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 13 01:31:08 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 19:31:08 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406856E@tpeexg01.compal.com > References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406856E@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212192713.01ab0ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 08:57 AM 12/13/2004 +0800, Walter asked (and I'm glad he did): > > > http://www.thefinaltheory.com/pages/1/index.htm > > >Have you read this book and agree to this TOE? >I checked the web site of this book and still don't know if this TOE is >more true... >Can you tell us what new insights this TOE provides? It provides a dazzling insight into whether readers can tell shit from Shinola. For many years, that was not a necessary test on this list. Here is useful reference: http://www.pottymouth.org/humor/shinola.html Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 13 02:02:39 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 20:02:39 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Great Shinola Quest In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212192713.01ab0ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406856E@tpeexg01.compal.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041212192713.01ab0ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212195602.01b2aec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> On reflection, I must apologize to Walter Chen for snarling at him. I guess from his +8000 time stamp that Walter lives in China (Hong Kong?) and his conversational English is a hell of a lot better than my Mandarin. (Which, alas, is non-existent.) I do understand that Aussie/British/American humor might be hard to grasp if you haven't grown up in one of those places, despite the presence everywhere of Hollywood. Still, I remain depressed at the thought that anyone on this list could seriously suppose for a moment that McCutcheon's drivel was being recommended. It was a joke, Walter. Damien Broderick From Walter_Chen at compal.com Mon Dec 13 02:23:22 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:23:22 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Great Shinola Quest Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068571@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: Damien Broderick > ... Still, I remain depressed at > the thought that anyone on this list could seriously suppose for a moment > that McCutcheon's drivel was being recommended. It was a joke, Walter. You must be kidding! I don't see why TOE is not to be recommended or possible. At least I think TOE is not more far away than transhumans. I live in Taiwan (a free country!). ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Dec 13 03:23:29 2004 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 22:23:29 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Subject: [extropy-chat] A Strombolian Holiday Tree In-Reply-To: <20041212132332.M5754@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> References: <20041212132332.M5754@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> Message-ID: This is very beautiful, Amara! Thanks for sharing. I'm glad you're getting to go on all these volcano excursions, they must be fascinating. And perhaps terrifying. I've followed the links from your page and looked at the many pictures from Stromboli Online - what an amazing thing to see! Regards, MB On Sun, 12 Dec 2004, Amara Graps wrote: > > another volcano vignette: > > A Strombolian Holiday Tree > http://www.amara.com/photo/stromb04.html From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 13 03:30:27 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 21:30:27 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] and speaking of anal probes Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212212531.01b4aec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> (I've always thought that should be `rectal probes', BTW, but then I've also always thought that people usually mean `vulva' when they teach their kids to say`vagina')... ...a nicely rational and infuriated 1994 piece by James Gleick on the egregious and late Dr. John Mack: http://www.around.com/abduct.html [extracts:] Though he is in all the machinery surrounding his book as true a believer as can be, still, in the actual text, he engages in a slippery form of rhetoric--as if somehow he still wanted to hedge his bets. He writes of "the actual experience (whatever the source of these experience may ultimately prove to be)." What does John Mack really believe (assuming that the whole thing isn't just a calculated scam)? Does he have any curiosity about the technology of this species, on the one hand capable of passing through walls and beaming people about on rays of light, and on the other hand, sometimes reduced to flagging down cars? Does he believe that creatures from another planet are grabbing our fellow humans, pinning them down, and engaging in weird sex with them? Literally? Well, yes--and no. Certainly he writes as though he does, but he also manages to avoid answering such tacky direct questions. Sometimes he switches over to writing in terms of "the abduction phenomenon" (Smartspeak) instead of "abductions" (Markspeak). Mack says, "Our use of familiar words like 'happening,' 'occurred,' and 'real' will themselves have to be thought of differently, less literally perhaps"--it's a sickeningly corrupt style of hiding behind language. His writing is full of phrases drained of all meaning: "the collapse of space/time"; "the alien being opened Ed's consciousness." And there is always the ultimate hedge: "the problem of defining in what reality the abductions occur." We know some realities they aren't occurring in. They aren't occurring in the reality Mack calls "the ontological framework of modern science." This is the reality where we might be tripped up by things like "accepted laws of physics and principles of biology." They aren't occurring in "the Judeo-Christian tradition"--Jews and Christians have become such stick-in-the-muds compared to (no surprise here) "Eastern religions, such as Tibetan Buddhism, which have always recognized a vast range of spirit entities in the cosmos . . ." Things that, after all, could not have really happened, are constantly happening in "converging time frames" or "another dimension." The game of let's-find-another-reality turns someone like me into such a party-pooper, having to fall back on the common-sense idea that reality is in fact . . . reality. But it's not just a game. Mack is a practicing psychiatrist, and he's toying with real people. There is "Ed," who first got in touch with Mack in 1992 and "recalled" having been abducted, raped (not Mack's word), and lectured to about "the way humans are conducting themselves here in terms of international politics, our environment, our violence to each other, our food, and all that"--all this having supposedly occurred 31 years earlier, in 1961, though Ed didn't begin to recall it until 1989. In a chilling aside, Mack writes that Ed and his wife, "Lynn," have had "a number of fertility problems, which may or may not be abduction-related, including three or four spontaneous terminations of Lynn's pregnancies." It's a reminder: This man is practicing medicine. He is telling patients that their miscarriages may be due to imaginary aliens. Why do the medical licensing boards permit this? [...] We are not fully rational creatures. Our minds are not computers. We see people, we hear voices, we sense presences that are not really there. If you have never seen the face of someone you know, in broad daylight, clear as truth, when in reality that person was a continent away or years dead, then you are unusual. Our memories cannot be trusted--not our five-minute-old memories, and certainly not our decades-old memories. They are weakened, distorted, rearranged, and sometimes created from wishes or dreams. With or without hypnosis, we are susceptible to suggestion. From Walter_Chen at compal.com Mon Dec 13 04:28:27 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:28:27 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068574@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: Damien Broderick > http://www.thefinaltheory.com/pages/1/index.htm > ... http://dpedtech.com/FTreview.pdf This seems to be a good review (33 pages). You can try and comment. ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 13 04:46:23 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 22:46:23 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068574@tpeexg01.compal.com > References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068574@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212224256.01a0ed10@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 12:28 PM 12/13/2004 +0800, Walter wrote: >http://dpedtech.com/FTreview.pdf > >This seems to be a good review (33 pages). >You can try and comment. Actually it seems to be an idiotic review: < According to OP I can choose any theory I like and make a world that perfectly matches that theory simply by REALLY believing in that theory. That gives me a universe of one. Whether anyone else wants to join me in that world is another question. Of course, I can REALLY believe that many others will join me in that world and that will become part of the theory. Acceptance by others of that world will constitute validation of such a theory. > Let's have an exciting discussion about Mormon archeology instead. Or Colin Wilson's exciting new idea that Atlantis is Antarctica. Or George Bush's terrific analysis of Iraq. Damien Broderick From andrew at ceruleansystems.com Mon Dec 13 04:53:25 2004 From: andrew at ceruleansystems.com (J. Andrew Rogers) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 20:53:25 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] freezing frogs Message-ID: <1102913605.15768@whirlwind.he.net> > Anyone here live in the Virginia area, could you > find one of these guys, or preferrably a breeding > pair? Or failing that, does anyone here know where > we could buy some of these things? I can think of a > lot of experiments I would like to do on them. Just admit it Spike, you want to use them as ice cubes for cocktail parties. So much entertainment value to be had here... j. andrew rogers From Walter_Chen at compal.com Mon Dec 13 05:44:35 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:44:35 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Pirelli Challenge "SR 2005" Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068576@tpeexg01.compal.com> Thanks. Walter. --------- -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of scerir Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2004 6:24 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [extropy-chat] Pirelli Challenge "SR 2005" http://www.pirelliaward.com/einstein.html _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Walter_Chen at compal.com Mon Dec 13 05:44:54 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:44:54 +0800 Subject: Recall: [extropy-chat] Pirelli Challenge "SR 2005" Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068577@tpeexg01.compal.com> Chen. Walter (TPE) would like to recall the message, "[extropy-chat] Pirelli Challenge "SR 2005"". ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hal at finney.org Mon Dec 13 07:04:12 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 23:04:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] book: Paddling my Own Canoe by Sutherland Message-ID: <20041213070412.5245A57E2A@finney.org> Amara writes about: > _Paddling my Own Canoe_ by Audrey Sutherland > Paperback: 144 pages > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0824806999/ > > The book is about a woman (Sutherland) who first started > making solo journeys to a particular inaccessible beach in > Moloka'i in 1958. > ... > "And why did I always come alone to Moloka'i?" Sutherland's description of the effects of being alone and isolated, miles from any other human being, for days or weeks at a time suggests that it can be a mind-altering experience, almost like taking drugs: > Alone, you are more aware of surroundings, wary as an animal > to danger, limp and relaxed when the sun, the brown earth, or > the deep grass say, "Rest now." > ... > I stood once in midstream, balanced on a rock. A scarlet leaf > fluttered, spiraled down. I watched it, became a wind-blown > leaf, swayed, fell into the water with a giant human splash, > then soddenly crawled out, laughing uproariously. Here's what I think. We grow up amid a culture and a language. We are immersed in it and it becomes part of our minds. It's strange, but a fundamental part of what we think of as being human comes from outside of us. It is language and lessons and ways of thinking about the world. These are as much a part of us and as much a part of being humans as our limbs and senses and organs. Imagine a human baby who is somehow raised without any of this. He lives in a natural environment which is so benign that he is able to survive. It may be a challenging and interesting world, one to test and stimulate his mind and body. But he never hears a human word and never sees a human being. This person, when grown, would not really be a human being as we think of one. He would have no language, other than perhaps some rudimentary mental patterns he might construct himself. He would not be able to think about abstractions and reason with logic the way we can. He would, in truth, be deeply crippled, and mentally damaged. Humans have evolved to live with linguistic input. We can't develop properly without it. To some extent I think we can see our consciousness as an interloper or parasite or symbiote which lives in the brain. Language takes root in our minds, but our minds are like the fertile ground, and language is a seed planted by others. The brain supplies the raw materials, but language is what organizes and patterns them to create a human mind. And this goes on beyond the developmental stage. We are constantly swimming through a sea of language. We are engulfed in it, the constant give and take, the exchange, the flow of words. I think this helps to maintain the stability of our human consciousness. Now imagine a person who loses this connection to the flow. They go off, as Sutherland did, and live for weeks by themself. What happens? Well, people will have different experiences. Some probably keep the language flow going internally on their own, it's very stable for them, and they keep talking and talking to themselves the whole time. But others will find that being cut off from the flow of language will change their mentality. The feedback is no longer present. The plant of language in their mind begins to wither. This, I think, is what people like Sutherland describe when they talk about the impact of being alone and experiencing the silence. Their mind changes. And they like it, or at least they find the novelty of the experience attractive. I think this is part of what urges people to experiment with drugs, the feeling of an alteration to mentality. People take stimulants, and they take depressants, and both change how their minds work, and both are attractive even though the effects are opposite, because it's the change people are craving, the novelty. If our minds were always like they are after smoking pot, and there were a drug we could take to make our minds like they are for us normally, people would seek out that drug. This seeking after novelty I think is also one of the reasons that those who change their minds by solitude find it rewarding. The key question, then, is whether going out alone and altering your mind in this way is actually a valuable experience. Are you gaining a useful insight? Or is this simply a new drug? Our minds are adapted to live in a human society built on language. Depriving them of that flow produces altered responses. I can't help seeing it as analogous to depriving the body of oxygen, which can also produce strange mental states (which some people do seek out - I knew several kids in elementary school who used to intentionally make themselves pass out, by a strange pattern of breathing and chest pressure). If you go out into the wilderness for days or weeks, and your mind changes, are you really gaining insight into your true nature? Or are you merely experiencing how your mind reacts without the supporting flow of linguistic information that it needs to retain its stability? I think of language as a somewhat precarious passenger we carry in our minds, yet a crucially important partner which truly makes us what we are (in fact we might even say that we are language more than brain). It's not suprising that taking away the flow of information destabilizes our internal language. And in my view, that means it destabilizes our self. If I go out and spend weeks alone, and I change, I become more like an animal as Sutherland describes: > Alone, you are more aware of surroundings, wary as an animal > to danger, limp and relaxed when the sun, the brown earth, or > the deep grass say, "Rest now." Alone you stand at night, > alert, poised, hearing through ears and open mouth and > fingertips. Alone, you do not worry whether someone else is > tired or hungry or needing. You push yourself hard or quit for > the day, reveling in the luxury of solitude. And being > unconcerned with human needs, you become as a fish, a boulder, > a tree- a part of the world around you. Is that the real me? Or is the busy, thoughtful, analytical, linguistic mind the real me? I don't know that there is an a priori reason to say that one or the other is the true self, but I certainly would not jump to the conclusion that the language-suppressed version is real, and the busy, language- and society-oriented version is some kind of artifact. As I said at first, it is the insertion of language and culture into a rather unformed brain which makes us human. Like it or not, language is what our thoughts are made of. Turning away from that is turning away from our humanity. Hal From spike66 at comcast.net Mon Dec 13 07:32:15 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 23:32:15 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] freezing frogs In-Reply-To: <1102913605.15768@whirlwind.he.net> Message-ID: <000001c4e0e5$e49725e0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] freezing frogs > Anyone here live in the Virginia area, could you > find one of these guys, or preferrably a breeding > pair? Or failing that, does anyone here know where > we could buy some of these things? I can think of a > lot of experiments I would like to do on them. Just admit it Spike, you want to use them as ice cubes for cocktail parties. So much entertainment value to be had here... j. andrew rogers Well yes, I did say "a lot of experiments." The old frog-in-the-punchbowl trick would be a terrific party gag. (Hey cool, unintended double meaning.) {8^D I want to get a bunch of them, freeze them all at the same time, then thaw one out each day to see if there is a time limit. Do they get freezer burn? Do they take on the flavor of other foods? Can you take them down to lower temps than the freezer? Will houseguests gross out? Can you refreeze them? How many times? What if you set the freezer to just below freezing, can you leave them longer? Does it matter if they freeze quickly or slowly? How cold can we make them and still get them back? Can we thaw them in the microwave? Can we freeze the frog eggs? Can we take them to liquid nitrogen temperatures? That kinda stuff. You can see why these are important questions. spike From scerir at libero.it Mon Dec 13 07:50:43 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 08:50:43 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406856E@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <007801c4e0e8$72e74490$a7bd1b97@administxl09yj> [Walter] > Have you read this book and agree to this TOE? T. Breuer wrote something strong about TOEs http://www.staff.fh-vorarlberg.ac.at/tb/ See under 'publications' and you'll find 'What Theories of Everything Don't Tell', in Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 28, (1997), 137-143.2 > Quantum Mechanics -- is it all just a Misunderstanding? This is a general hope :-) According to Rabi, Wheeler, etc. it is more a blindness, than a misunderstanding. "Someday, surely, we will see the principle underlying existence as so simple, so beautiful, so obvious that we will all say to each other, 'Oh, how could we all have been so blind, so long.'" --John Archibald Wheeler, "A Journey Into Gravity and Spacetime," _Scientific American Library_, 1990. From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Dec 13 08:25:19 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:25:19 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] freezing frogs References: <000001c4e0e5$e49725e0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <002301c4e0ed$4869f0f0$b8232dcb@homepc> Spike wrote: > Can we take them to liquid nitrogen temperatures? "The glucose lowers the freezing temperature of water inside the frogs' cells, and because of this, the cells stay liquid, even as ice fills the space around them. This is crucial: If the water inside the cells froze, scientists say, the jagged ice crystals would destroy everything inside, killing the frog." Brett Paatsch From eugen at leitl.org Mon Dec 13 09:10:22 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:10:22 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068574@tpeexg01.compal.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA4068574@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <20041213091022.GP9221@leitl.org> What are you doing reading this message? Since you're not the intended recipient, you're supposed to notify the recipient, and destroy this message (before reading, of course). On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 12:28:27PM +0800, Walter_Chen at compal.com wrote: > > From: Damien Broderick > > > http://www.thefinaltheory.com/pages/1/index.htm > > ... > > http://dpedtech.com/FTreview.pdf > > This seems to be a good review (33 pages). > You can try and comment. > > > ================================================================================================================================================================ > This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. > ================================================================================================================================================================ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Dec 13 11:29:36 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:29:36 +1100 Subject: The Problem of Evil (was Re: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God) References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <005e01c4e107$06b1c1f0$b8232dcb@homepc> John Wright wrote: > My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, > for I have only departed your company recently) is this: what does > an honest and rational man do when he has a supernatural experience? To me, or perhaps for me, a supernatural experience is or would be a contradiction in terms. All my experiences, however surprising and unexpected must be natural to me by definition. My experiences *are* the stuff out which of I construct my world view. I was a theist before I became an atheist. There is an infinitesimal chance that the Christian God exists. Also that unicorns exist and that mermaids exist etc. I think these do not exist. If I encountered what seemed to be a unicorn or a mermaid I would be unsettled and I would look for an explanation that would enable me to have a cogent world view once again. In the case a unicorn or a mermaid I'd probably look for a trick. If I had an experience that *I* thought could be a visit from the Holy Spirit, then I'd keep an open mind but I think I'd suspect that something was going wrong with my senses or with my mind. Just about the least likely explanation would be the one that I've been culturally primed for. Perhaps I'd laugh out loud that of all the unlikely deities the Christian deity which comes with so much baggage would be the one that my mind was messing with. I'd remember lucid dreaming, I'd remember deja vu, and I'd remember reading or hearing about a bunch of stuff by folk like Carl Sagan, Hume, and William James that would offer alternate explanations. > I ask this in all seriousness. What does one do when overwhelming > evidence suddenly breaks in on you that your entire system of the > world, so carefully constructed by materialist rational philosophy > over many years of painstaking thought, is utterly wrong and > discredited? If your entire system of the world gets blown away then you probably had a pretty shaky world view to begin with. Ultimately no one can discredit your *entire* world view but you whilst you remain you. (Think of Descartes method of hyperbolic doubt. Even an evil demiurge can't convince you you are wrong in thinking you have a viewpoint whilst you have it. Your own existence is always your bedrock certainty even if you do not know what it is that you are). Atheists and theists have some things in common. They both *know* that they exist to have a perspective a viewpoint on the world (whatever it is) with greater certainty I think than they know anything else. And there is a consequence of this for you if you become a theist. You know you exist. You know (I presume) that suffering exists. (Pace Leibniz with your best of all possible worlds). If you believe in the traditional Christian God as the creator, then you will, if you are a serious thinker, probably have to come to terms with the problem of evil. This is NOT a problem for the atheist. i.e.. How could evil come to be in a world created by an omnipotent loving God? Brett Paatsch From megao at sasktel.net Mon Dec 13 14:34:46 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 08:34:46 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: freezing frogs & brain freeze helmet & Rip Van Winkle Pets Message-ID: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> Seriously, between the fish anti-freeze proteins, conventional solvents/cryo adjuvants , anti neural oxidative deterioration chemical prepping and the frog chemistry there should be good fuel to improve upon the cryo art. At very least lets get some groundhogs frozen over a winter and bring "Punksatoney Pete" back with a real bang to see his shadow. Then follow the little beasties through a year and freeze the whole family. Procreate them a couple of generations to increase the numbers and sell 50% off to chinese customers as "Rip Van winkle" designer pets. The Chinese have a fondness for gophers as pets. Make pet cryonics a money making cottage industry. Remember Artificial Insemination was used for cows for decades before it arrived on the people scene. By the way I saw a story on a sat feed about 20 years ago of a CO2 cooled helmet to rapidly cool the brain to beat the 4 minute factor from body temp to 32. If that plus a tank of Ice Water was set so the cryonaut or his/hers appointed pushed the process start button one might hope to have the body in a condition where is could be easily resuscitated . If one is terminal with less than a couple of months left that would be a better time to start the process than after the body has shut itself down naturally. MFJ -------- Original Message -------- Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] freezing frogs Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 23:32:15 -0800 From: spike Reply-To: ExI chat list To: andrew at ceruleansystems.com, 'ExI chat list' Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] freezing frogs > Anyone here live in the Virginia area, could you > find one of these guys, or preferrably a breeding > pair? Or failing that, does anyone here know where > we could buy some of these things? I can think of a > lot of experiments I would like to do on them. Just admit it Spike, you want to use them as ice cubes for cocktail parties. So much entertainment value to be had here... j. andrew rogers Well yes, I did say "a lot of experiments." The old frog-in-the-punchbowl trick would be a terrific party gag. (Hey cool, unintended double meaning.) {8^D I want to get a bunch of them, freeze them all at the same time, then thaw one out each day to see if there is a time limit. Do they get freezer burn? Do they take on the flavor of other foods? Can you take them down to lower temps than the freezer? Will houseguests gross out? Can you refreeze them? How many times? What if you set the freezer to just below freezing, can you leave them longer? Does it matter if they freeze quickly or slowly? How cold can we make them and still get them back? Can we thaw them in the microwave? Can we freeze the frog eggs? Can we take them to liquid nitrogen temperatures? That kinda stuff. You can see why these are important questions. spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at amara.com Mon Dec 13 15:07:02 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 16:07:02 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] book: Paddling my Own Canoe by Sutherland Message-ID: Dear Hal, >Sutherland's description of the effects of being alone and isolated, >miles from any other human being, for days or weeks at a time suggests >that it can be a mind-altering experience, almost like taking drugs: I don't think being alone for a few days or a week or so is mind-altering in that way. At least my drug experiences were radically different than being isolated for a little while. My impression from her book (I've read it twice) is that she was talking about being completely comfortable in one's own mind and being comfortable with accepting that each of us are ultimately alone. And that these facets of our character can be gained at the same time of challenging ourselves in a basic survival environment. Even though she didn't use the word: Abyss, the ideas of the Abyss are present in her book. No matter who may be around us for giving love and support, ultimately each of us are alone. The Abyss is a terrifying freefall place where one sees that there is no support outside of oneself. And the Abyss provides the framework with which we can grow our true selves. Growing our true selves, following our life path, is a process: --------------------------------------------- oops oops / \ / \ /oops / \ / \ / \ \--- |-----\ / \--- \ / \ / oops --------------------------------------------- Failures and mistakes are an integral part of living and growing and taking risks, and sometimes it's excruciatingly hard to know if one is following in the right path of being true to oneself. Sutherland chose to challenge herself with a Moloka'i beach impossibility, and so began years of efforts and mistakes and successes, and growing herself at the same time. For her, it was important to be in a completely different environment to challenge herself in the way she needed. Perhaps it is not necessary for other people, but I suggest _some_ isolation is still valuable to have a dialog with one's mind. >Here's what I think. We grow up amid a culture and a language. We are >immersed in it and it becomes part of our minds. It's strange, but a >fundamental part of what we think of as being human comes from outside >of us. It is language and lessons and ways of thinking about the world. >These are as much a part of us and as much a part of being humans as >our limbs and senses and organs. I think that one can do well to understand what are mostly external inputs and what the core parts of our psychology that can face an Abyss by sitting at a table, and 'having a tea' with it. I agree that a fundamental part of who we are comes from the outside, but I think that a crucial challenge in every human's life is to know how to psychologically support ourselves. No one else can do this for you. >Imagine a human baby who is somehow raised without any of this. He lives >in a natural environment which is so benign that he is able to survive. >It may be a challenging and interesting world, one to test and stimulate >his mind and body. But he never hears a human word and never sees a >human being. >This person, when grown, would not really be a human being as we think >of one. He would have no language, other than perhaps some rudimentary >mental patterns he might construct himself. He would not be able to >think about abstractions and reason with logic the way we can. He would, >in truth, be deeply crippled, and mentally damaged. >Humans have evolved to live with linguistic input. We can't develop >properly without it. [...] >Now imagine a person who loses this connection to the flow. They go >off, as Sutherland did, and live for weeks by themself. I understand what you are saying about linguistic input, but I don't believe that Sutherland's excursions were long enough to cause her mind to fill in the gaps from the missing linguistic input. She was a single mom with four children, and she spent her excursions to Moloka'i using her one or two vacation weeks per year away from her secretarial job. I don't believe her trips were longer than one or two weeks. But she did this over 20 years. Her challenge to herself was how to survive (and survive well) given the goal of reaching that beach, and then later, building her little cabin on the beach. This is why I say that her story showed how to break large tasks into small parts, and keep trying, and refining and learning how to make it work, by iterating on mistakes, solving each over time. Even though I have not challenged myself to survive like Sutherland, I've played with that survival boundary in my bike tours and I understand how a few days in 'survival mode' and relying on oneself changes (recharges) you. My bike trips were also never very long (5 days to 2 weeks), but my life perspective during that short time is so different and so 'rich' from my usual life that I find that I crave my bike journeys when too long of a time passes with no bike trip. It's as if I'm missing an integral part of myself. During those days or weeks that I'm on my bike, like Sutherland, the survival aspects are the most important. I'm concerned with getting enough water, or finding a place to sleep, or reaching a town where there is a store for food, or having enough strength in my legs to make it up a mountain pass. When parts of my bike break, I either fix it and congratulate myself, or berate myself for not bringing the proper tool or backup part and I vow that I will never make that mistake again. Injuries while on tours are yet another challenge. I didn't face death from my many bike trip mistakes but walking or hitching rides from mishaps while in foreign countries teaches one many lessons about the importance of selfsufficiency and skill in fixing one's mode of transportation. Over time it helps me build confidence. My bicycle trips have an added benefit that Sutherland's doesn't have, in that I'm alone in strange places and vulnerable, and I reinforce or relearn how to trust complete strangers (because I must). >This, I think, is what people like Sutherland describe when they talk >about the impact of being alone and experiencing the silence. Their mind >changes. And they like it, or at least they find the novelty of the >experience attractive. For her, I don't think it is the lack of language. The experience of the silence is to hear one's own mind, like it, and revel in being alive. >The key question, then, is whether going out alone and altering your >mind in this way is actually a valuable experience. Are you gaining a >useful insight? Or is this simply a new drug? Well, I can say from my own drug experiences that I've gained valuable insights. For one thing, I learned how fear looks, because I was able to walk around it, and see it from every perspective and I learned that the usual pain associated with fear didn't kill me. Amara -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "It's not the pace of life I mind. It's the sudden stop at the end." --Calvin From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 13 15:37:26 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 07:37:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: The Problem of Evil (was Re: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God) In-Reply-To: <005e01c4e107$06b1c1f0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <20041213153726.40208.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Brett Paatsch wrote: > > i.e.. How could evil come to be in a world created by an omnipotent > loving God? Why do birds kick their children out of the nest? Why do devout catholic women who repeatedly miscarry keep trying to have children? Why do transhumanists keep trying to create more extropy when every such act causes more entropy in the world? It is because the net benefits of trying are greater than not trying at all. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From etcs.ret at verizon.net Mon Dec 13 17:41:52 2004 From: etcs.ret at verizon.net (stencil) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:41:52 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: freezing frogs In-Reply-To: <200412131130.iBDBUQ017980@tick.javien.com> References: <200412131130.iBDBUQ017980@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 04:30:26 -0700, in extropy-chat Digest, Vol 15, Issue 19 spike wrote: >------------------------------ > > Do they get freezer burn? Do they >take on the flavor of other foods? Can you take them >down to lower temps than the freezer? Will houseguests >gross out? Can you refreeze them? How many times? >What if you set the freezer to just below freezing, >can you leave them longer? Does it matter if they >freeze quickly or slowly? How cold can we make them >and still get them back? Can we thaw them in the >microwave? Can we freeze the frog eggs? Can we take >them to liquid nitrogen temperatures? Can you throw them over your shoulder Like a Continental soldier? They're Extropian, batrachian, Gotta find something To rhyme with them. chor. Tension, apprehension, etc stencil sends From pharos at gmail.com Mon Dec 13 18:20:45 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:20:45 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: freezing frogs In-Reply-To: References: <200412131130.iBDBUQ017980@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:41:52 -0500, stencil wrote: > Can you throw them over your shoulder > Like a Continental soldier? They're > Extropian, batrachian, > Gotta find something > To rhyme with them. > > chor. > Tension, apprehension, etc > We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose. Get your crunchy frogs here! BillK From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 13 18:30:51 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:30:51 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: freezing frogs & brain freeze helmet & Rip VanWinkle Pets References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> Message-ID: <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> "By the way I saw a story on a sat feed about 20 years ago of a CO2 cooled helmet to rapidly cool the brain to beat the 4 minute factor from body temp to 32." Couldn;t this be a handy household device to have around for people who live in rural areas? It can take qute some time for an ambulance to respond to a heart attack or similar problem in such a situation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From harara at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 13 18:28:22 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:28:22 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: freezing frogs & brain freeze helmet & Rip Van Winkle Pets In-Reply-To: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041213102727.02944550@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> May I suggest going to Alcor.org and using the site search for "vitrification". At 06:34 AM 12/13/2004, you wrote: >Seriously, between the fish anti-freeze proteins, conventional >solvents/cryo adjuvants , anti neural oxidative deterioration chemical >prepping and the frog chemistry there should be good fuel to improve upon >the cryo art. ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From harara at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 13 18:16:53 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:16:53 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The powerful impact of some non-veridical experiences In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212182639.01a50ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212182639.01a50ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041213101608.0294d608@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> >Like I said, read your Grof. > >How can such contrived (and rather silly) quasi-experiences have the >profound life-altering effects they often do? Lawson traces the impact to >a recovery of perinatal child-parent bonding. That might or might not be >substantiated, but perhaps the etiology of bogus abductions also helps >explain some of the rapture and overwhelming uncritical bliss described >with wonderfully intense sincerity by Samantha Atkins and John Wright. > >Damien Broderick ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From wingcat at pacbell.net Mon Dec 13 18:24:42 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:24:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: The Problem of Evil (was Re: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God) In-Reply-To: <20041213153726.40208.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041213182442.47431.qmail@web81608.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mike Lorrey wrote: > --- Brett Paatsch wrote: > > i.e.. How could evil come to be in a world created > by an omnipotent > > loving God? > > Why do birds kick their children out of the nest? > Why do devout > catholic women who repeatedly miscarry keep trying > to have children? > > Why do transhumanists keep trying to create more > extropy when every > such act causes more entropy in the world? It is > because the net > benefits of trying are greater than not trying at > all. Ah, but birds, catholic women, and transhumanits have to work within the limits of the world they find themselves in. God is presumed to be the one who created, and can edit, those limits. From wingcat at pacbell.net Mon Dec 13 18:40:49 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:40:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] book: Paddling my Own Canoe by Sutherland In-Reply-To: <20041213070412.5245A57E2A@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041213184049.24815.qmail@web81604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Hal Finney wrote: > Imagine a human baby who is somehow raised without > any of this. He lives > in a natural environment which is so benign that he > is able to survive. > It may be a challenging and interesting world, one > to test and stimulate > his mind and body. But he never hears a human word > and never sees a > human being. > > This person, when grown, would not really be a human > being as we think > of one. He would have no language, other than > perhaps some rudimentary > mental patterns he might construct himself. He > would not be able to > think about abstractions and reason with logic the > way we can. He would, > in truth, be deeply crippled, and mentally damaged. Sadly, one doesn't have to imagine it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child From john-c-wright at sff.net Mon Dec 13 18:43:14 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:43:14 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Those wacky Objectivists (was John Wright finds God) Message-ID: <200412131843.iBDIhI001405@tick.javien.com> Mike Linksvayer writes: Let me get this straight: - If no objective moral order, can't condemn people who think there is an objective moral order. Correct. - If no objective moral order, no reason to think about whether there is an objective moral order. Not quite. I propose only that there is no moral obligation to study the question, no reason to be more loyal to the truth than to falsehood. > If I may simplify, action requires an objective moral order, you perceive action, therefore an objective moral order exists. I missed the proof for "action requires an objective moral order." In your simplification, you leave out the operative term. Honest action requires moral order. Honesty is a moral category. If no moral categories, then questions of honesty are meaningless. I put it to you that you would not have written the words you did above, if you did not mean the questions honestly, did not believe that I would give you an honest answer, or, at least, a courteous one. People can exchange jokes or insults about philosophy without a modicum of honesty, but they cannot have a serious discussion. Therefore serious discussion of a philosophical question (such as, e.g. whether there is a moral order to the universe) presupposes categorically that there is a moral order to the universe. Without such an assumption the debate cannot begin. >Thanks for the reminder that Objectivists are nuts also. If you mean to say that there is an object standard of sanity and that the Objectivists do not meet it, I am afraid you are playing into their hands. However, whatever their flaws, if you argue with an Objectivist without first admitting that morality is objective, you have no standard by which the argument can be judged. There is nothing wrong with an ad Hominem attack, for example, unless it is both illogical and wrong. If there is no such thing as right and wrong, what's wrong with being illogical? From megao at sasktel.net Mon Dec 13 18:47:54 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:47:54 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: freezing frogs & brain freeze helmet & Rip VanWinkle Pets In-Reply-To: <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> Message-ID: <41BDE3DA.7080509@sasktel.net> Don't think this was ever commercialized , likely regulatory stuff as regards a "medical device". It looked like a little leaguer's warm up helmet and circulated CO2 to cool down the head so that the 4 minutes could be extended to perhaps 15-45 minutes. I have a video on it in my tape archives. Exactly, we are in a rural area and if you are lucky enough to have another person within 2 minutes you are indeed lucky. If you can get to any facility with an MD, it is 90-120 minutes round trip for pickup, and 180 minutes to a real city hospital. If someone had biomonitors to alert of problems and personal ownership of a head or whole body "lifeboat" it would be invaluable as time and distance would no longer be the killer they are now. This is not rocket science and the market should be huge. Anybody with a predisposing medical condition should have one. Kevin Freels wrote: > "By the way I saw a story on a sat feed about 20 years ago of a CO2 > cooled helmet to rapidly cool the brain > to beat the 4 minute factor from body temp to 32." > > Couldn;t this be a handy household device to have around for people > who live in rural areas? It can take qute some time for an ambulance > to respond to a heart attack or similar problem in such a situation. > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 13 19:05:54 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:05:54 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: freezing frogs References: <200412131130.iBDBUQ017980@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <020c01c4e146$c5d1fc50$c3ebfb44@kevin> Aren;t these frogs old news? From john-c-wright at sff.net Mon Dec 13 19:18:02 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:18:02 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412131918.iBDJID007393@tick.javien.com> Dirk Bruere Writes: >The difference [between Christianity and the Viking religion] is that while we argue over whether Odin was an historical shamanic figure or not, we have never burned people at the stake for claiming it was all metaphor and not historical reality. By its fruits you will know it. The Vikings also raided, raped and looted and burnt: Christian men do evil because we are men, not because we are Christian. The difference is that some Christians do actually turn the other cheek and pray for our enemies. There is nothing in the Havamal which requires you to do any such thing. >I did knock, and have been answered, but not by anything dressed as an Xian. To be honest, I rather desise [sic despise?] the Xian legacy and I feel that JC would too if he were alive today (a joke, of sorts). Joke or not, I agree wholeheartedly that my Lord would take up a lash and drive the money-changers out of the temple. He has no patience for those who have brought such disgrace upon His house, Pharisees and hypocrites. Hatred for Christians and their bloody history is not unknown to me. When I was a militant atheist, I felt it every day. >His warning and test were clear - by its fruits you will know it. My Lord also said that the branch that does not bear fruit would be thrown on the fire: a warning that those who have betrayed and demeaned His message would do well to heed. It is possible that certain Christians have tried to do good in the world that has merely not recommended itself to your attention. Saint Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa are not less representative of Christianity as Torquemada Cardinal Richelieu. I am sure the Red Cross and the Christian Children?s Fund have done charitable works you might find praiseworthy. All I can do in my own life it try to make my own little vine come to fruition. From etcs.ret at verizon.net Mon Dec 13 19:28:26 2004 From: etcs.ret at verizon.net (stencil) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:28:26 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: freezing frogs In-Reply-To: <200412131900.iBDJ0M004381@tick.javien.com> References: <200412131900.iBDJ0M004381@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <5oqrr0p37vdo2vblt2thkvq4fbnakakbv6@4ax.com> On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:00:22 -0700, in extropy-chat Digest, Vol 15, Issue 20 Kevin Freels wrote: > >Aren;t these frogs old news? > Yes. Many decades ago the Bayarrhea was flooded with t-shirts decorated variously but all emblazoned, KISS ME AND YOU'LL LIVE FOREVER! You'll be frog... but you'll live forever. Frogs and toads of course, have been known for centuries to have unusually effective survival strategies when faced with extremes of cold, drought, or lack of food. The Virginia naturalists were quoting textbook science. But it is ...cool. stencil sends From john-c-wright at sff.net Mon Dec 13 19:34:17 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:34:17 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God Message-ID: <200412131934.iBDJYT009842@tick.javien.com> BillK writes: > John Wright is speaking as though his religious experience was something unusual. It isn't. Millions of people have had similar experiences and many also *know* the meaning of life. More than half of all adult Americans (and UK adults also) will report having had some kind of religious experience. Religious experience is common to humanity worldwide, regardless of religious persuasion. Even atheists have transcendental events in their lives. It is a fundamental part of how the human brain is structured. Will all due respect, you misquote me. I did not say my experience was unique. Far from it. I merely opine that the most logical explanation to a type of perception that an overwhelming majority of people have had is not necessary the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of people are mistaken. It could be that that are: but the burden of proof surely lies on the party making the more extraordinary claim. From john-c-wright at sff.net Mon Dec 13 19:42:59 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:42:59 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> Mr. Bloch writes: >Forgive me for perhaps speaking out of turn, as I've only recently returned to the Extropy email list, but I must wonder why folks are coddling this bizzare talk of visits from ghosts, gods, magic nose goblins, holy spirits, or what-have-you? Mind you, I don't question Mr. Wright's earnestness or his motives; I simply question his credulity. Well, I hate to say it, but he has a good point. This thread is actually off topic for the question of human means to discover human transcendence. My purpose in writing was merely to thank those who read an enjoyed my book, and also, perhaps, to convince those who love logic as much as I do, that at least some Christians may be mistaken, or credulous of things the world finds incredible, but we neither fanatical, nor unintelligent, nor inarticulate. It is a question of different axioms, not a defect in the brain, that makes a man religious. That purpose served, I suppose I can bow out of any further conversation with no ill will: there are Christian apologists more able than I to debate our doctrines, and forums more suited. As Mr. Broderick said when he opened this thread (though he meant it as a warning, I as a welcome) "it could happen to you." JCW From Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it Mon Dec 13 20:18:31 2004 From: Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 21:18:31 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] book: Paddling my Own Canoe by Sutherland Message-ID: <20041213200517.M42294@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> To add to what I wrote before. Audrey Sutherland taught her (4) kids self-sufficiency as much out of necessity, as out of passing on her own value system. I enjoyed seeing a glimpse of the running of her household because there are valuable and/or confirming life lessons in this part of her world too. Perhaps some of you would recognize your own houses (I did), or perhaps it would seem bizarre to you; nevertheless, I think these words are useful and interesting. So continuing why she went to Moloka'i alone, she says: ---- "Despite all standard advice, it does not seem foolish to come alone. I now know how and what to do, having learned most of it the hard way. The few competent, compatible people that I'd like to have along are seldom available to come when I do. Alone, I am doubly careful. At home the family knows my planned route, the deadline for my return, and what to do if I don't meet it. I carry signal flares for emergency; a daily sight-seeing plane flies by a mile away. There is another reason to come alone, besides my own need. The children, by necessity, have been trained to self-sufficiency. We have no television -- they read omnivorously. There have been few other children living nearby, but there is plenty of life in the tide pools in front of the house. I work days and often nights, and have the car with me; the kids ride bikes or walk or run. There are no organized playgrounds; they've learned to skin-dive and to surf, Jock becoming "number one" in the world. We have the list posted of twenty things every kid ought to be able to do by age sixteen, which includes fix a meal, splice a cord (manila or electric), change a tire, change a baby, listen to an adult with empathy, see work to be done and do it -- that last one will take about five years more. But now the clan is growing up; the youngest is a teenager. I won't know whether I've done a good job raising them until they all reach forty or so. They I'll see how they respond to other people and to their own children. The transition is going on. They need the opportunity now and then to be without me, to make their own decisions, to make their own mistakes and repair them." --- Amara From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 13 22:10:52 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:10:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: The Problem of Evil (was Re: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God) In-Reply-To: <20041213182442.47431.qmail@web81608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041213221052.26460.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > --- Mike Lorrey wrote: > > --- Brett Paatsch wrote: > > > i.e.. How could evil come to be in a world created > > by an omnipotent > > > loving God? > > > > Why do birds kick their children out of the nest? > > Why do devout > > catholic women who repeatedly miscarry keep trying > > to have children? > > > > Why do transhumanists keep trying to create more > > extropy when every > > such act causes more entropy in the world? It is > > because the net > > benefits of trying are greater than not trying at > > all. > > Ah, but birds, catholic women, and transhumanits have > to work within the limits of the world they find > themselves in. God is presumed to be the one who > created, and can edit, those limits. Firstly, I have severe doubts about any simulation operators capacity to edit the universe. What we know about quantum computation at present precludes any hacking in mid process unless the hack is part of the original program, in which case it isn't a hack. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From wingcat at pacbell.net Mon Dec 13 22:39:54 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:39:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: The Problem of Evil (was Re: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God) In-Reply-To: <20041213221052.26460.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041213223954.60609.qmail@web81602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mike Lorrey wrote: > --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > > Ah, but birds, catholic women, and transhumanits > have > > to work within the limits of the world they find > > themselves in. God is presumed to be the one who > > created, and can edit, those limits. > > Firstly, I have severe doubts about any simulation > operators capacity > to edit the universe. What we know about quantum > computation at present > precludes any hacking in mid process unless the hack > is part of the > original program, in which case it isn't a hack. Omnipotence isn't a bug, it's a feature. It includes the foresight and design ability to preclude the possibility of such things as evil. That they exist is proof that, if the universe was deliberately designed, evil was intentionally part of it. Which precludes certain classes of God (like a God that wants only goodness to exist), although it does allow for other types of God. (One common practical problem being one of bait-and-switch: religionists try to get one to admit to the possibility of the latter type of God, then twist that into an admission of the former type of God - and therefore an admission of the religion's supreme moral authority, since they claim to be implementing the directives of a God that wants only goodness - even though it was not, and the conclusion would rest on an untested assumption of the church's real and effective loyalties even if the admission was of the former type.) From jef at jefallbright.net Mon Dec 13 22:49:33 2004 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:49:33 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Those wacky Objectivists In-Reply-To: <200412131843.iBDIhI001405@tick.javien.com> References: <200412131843.iBDIhI001405@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41BE1C7D.6080404@jefallbright.net> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: >Mike Linksvayer writes: > >Let me get this straight: - If no objective moral order, can't condemn people >who think there is an objective moral order. > >Correct. > >- If no objective moral order, no reason to think about whether there is an >objective moral order. > >Not quite. I propose only that there is no moral obligation to study the >question, no reason to be more loyal to the truth than to falsehood. > > >However, whatever their flaws, if you argue with an Objectivist without first >admitting that morality is objective, you have no standard by which the argument >can be judged. There is nothing wrong with an ad Hominem attack, for example, >unless it is both illogical and wrong. If there is no such thing as right and >wrong, what's wrong with being illogical? > > Discussion on this topic often carries with it some semantic confusion. Those who say there is no objective morality have a perfectly good point, and they can demonstrate for most, if not all controversial moral issues that "right" action is to some degree dependent on context. On the other hand, those who say there must be an objective basis for morality also make a good case, as demonstrated by Mr. Wright, that we must have at least some common basis for any discussion of "right" and "wrong". Regardless of a thinking person's axioms of choice, moral judgments are based on our values, and our values are ultimately grounded in "what works." Values related to murder, theft, honesty, and so on have evolved both genetically and culturally by a process of natural selection of which humans are an intrinsic part. In a very profound sense, at every level of organization from the sub-atomic to human culture, cooperative-advantage/synergy/non-zero-sumness is part of the fabric of our world, and forms the objective root of our values and thus our morality. Although the branches have grown in somewhat different directions, they have much in common and in the bigger picture are seen as part of a whole that makes sense. - Jef - Jef From sjatkins at gmail.com Mon Dec 13 23:29:10 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 15:29:10 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41B8FCE8.6090804@neopax.com> References: <20041210012246.74392.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> <41B8FCE8.6090804@neopax.com> Message-ID: <948b11e0412131529ff4f50e@mail.gmail.com> In "I am the way" much depends on the sense of what is translated as "I". It could be the personal dude form of "I". On the other hand it could refer to a type of consciousness some call the "Christ consciousness". The latter is a lot more universal as an interpretation and a lot more inclusive. - samantha On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 01:33:28 +0000, Dirk Bruere wrote: > Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > > >--- Dirk Bruere wrote: > > > > > >>Again, you seem to be lacking a great deal of theological knowledge. > >>Just to give one example, is Jesus still Jesus if his name was really > >>Yashua? And can we call upon Jesus even if we do not know his name > >>(any of them) at all? Can we call upon him even if we do not know he > >>existed/exists? In fact, *what* is Jesus? > >> > >> > > > >Jesus is a domain name. The real trick is finding out his/her/its IP > >address... ;) > > > >The IP of the true server of the Jesus domain could very easily be > >serving other domain names, for different websites, each with their own > >content and structure. They might be the same site, but presenting > >different structure and language based on the web browser and > >language/culture of the browsing individual. > > > >Penetrating this graphical interface, and getting to the command > >prompt, not to mention root level access, is the same quest as Neo > >seeking to find out what is the Matrix. > > > > > > > That's not really the answer to the question. > It refers to the statement 'I am the Way' - not *a* Way. > If we accept Xian theology then JC is the name given to the link between > man and god. There's only one link, but there are any number of methods > to access it. Accessing it does not mean having to know the detailed > history of JC as any kind of historical person. One only has to know > that it exists and be willing to use it. > > It comes down to this: What is the absolute minimum one has to > know/believe in order to be an Xian? > Clearly the name is irrelevent (since we don't actually use his likely > historical name). > A full bio is also not required, since we don't have one. > > > > -- > Dirk > > The Consensus:- > The political party for the new millenium > http://www.theconsensus.org > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 13 23:35:34 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 15:35:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: The Problem of Evil (was Re: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God) In-Reply-To: <20041213223954.60609.qmail@web81602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041213233534.26580.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > --- Mike Lorrey wrote: > > --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > Ah, but birds, catholic women, and transhumanits > > have > > > to work within the limits of the world they find > > > themselves in. God is presumed to be the one who > > > created, and can edit, those limits. > > > > Firstly, I have severe doubts about any simulation > > operators capacity > > to edit the universe. What we know about quantum > > computation at present > > precludes any hacking in mid process unless the hack > > is part of the > > original program, in which case it isn't a hack. > > Omnipotence isn't a bug, it's a feature. Omnipotence is an unsubstantiated claim of modern era Popes. It has no basis in original scripture. > It includes > the foresight and design ability to preclude the > possibility of such things as evil. That they exist > is proof that, if the universe was deliberately > designed, evil was intentionally part of it. If it was, the fact that is was does not preclude certain classes of God. The examples I previously gave are evidence that a sentient being can be omni-loving but not omni-protective, omni-sheltering, or omni-smothering. Only omni-spoiled omni-brats who resent being weaned would demand such treatment, which might explain why atheism is so prevalent among the Baby Boomers. ;) ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From sjatkins at gmail.com Tue Dec 14 01:09:41 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:09:41 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God In-Reply-To: <200412131934.iBDJYT009842@tick.javien.com> References: <200412131934.iBDJYT009842@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <948b11e041213170963f397c9@mail.gmail.com> Well, the "claim" is about what these rather extraordinary yet widespread experiences mean. What it means largely falls into two camps. One camp says that the experience means that reality is not like we normally assume it to be and we ourselves are quite different than what we normally believe to be the case. The other camp says that these experiences say little about what really is true beyond the obvious fact that human beings can have such experiences. Which is the more extraordinary interpretration? It looks to me like it is the first. - samantha On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:34:17 -0600, john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > BillK writes: > > > John Wright is speaking as though his religious experience > was something unusual. It isn't. Millions of people have had similar > experiences and many also *know* the meaning of life. > More than half of all adult Americans (and UK adults also) will report > having had some kind of religious experience. Religious experience is > common to humanity worldwide, regardless of religious persuasion. Even > atheists have transcendental events in their lives. It is a > fundamental part of how the human brain is structured. > > Will all due respect, you misquote me. I did not say my experience was unique. > Far from it. I merely opine that the most logical explanation to a type of > perception that an overwhelming majority of people have had is not necessary the > conclusion that the overwhelming majority of people are mistaken. It could be > that that are: but the burden of proof surely lies on the party making the more > extraordinary claim. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From duggerj1 at charter.net Tue Dec 14 02:18:43 2004 From: duggerj1 at charter.net (duggerj1 at charter.net) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 20:18:43 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity Suggestions? Message-ID: <3khdin$el9u5r@mxip02a.cluster1.charter.net> Monday, 13 December 2004 Hello all, As the winter holidays roll around the calendar from "over for another year" to "here we go again", I'd like suggestions from the lists about >H-themed and sympathetic charities. Here's a starter list: Extropy Institute Foresight Institute (Holiday discount on memberships!) National Space Society Immortality Institute World Transhumanist Association I've intentionally omitted policital parties and the FSP in the probably vain hope of avoiding flames, not because of my own sympathies or antipathies. I have my own list of charity types I'd like to see, but why bias any answers? Jay Dugger : Til Eulenspiegel http://www.owlmirror.net/~duggerj/ Sometimes the delete key serves best. From ned_lt at yahoo.com Tue Dec 14 02:35:51 2004 From: ned_lt at yahoo.com (Ned Late) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:35:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] does vitamin E do more harm than good In-Reply-To: <20041214023037.26652.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041214023551.50951.qmail@web61304.mail.yahoo.com> >From a study publicised in November:: http://summer.antiagingconference.com/ar/exhibitions_study_vitamin_may/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From reason at longevitymeme.org Tue Dec 14 02:46:33 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:46:33 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity Suggestions? In-Reply-To: <3khdin$el9u5r@mxip02a.cluster1.charter.net> Message-ID: > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of duggerj1 at charter.net > As the winter holidays roll around the calendar from "over > for another year" to "here we go again", I'd like suggestions > from the lists about >H-themed and sympathetic charities. > > Here's a starter list: > > Extropy Institute > Foresight Institute (Holiday discount on memberships!) > National Space Society > Immortality Institute > World Transhumanist Association > > I've intentionally omitted policital parties and the FSP in the > probably vain hope of avoiding flames, not because of my own > sympathies or antipathies. I have my own list of charity types > I'd like to see, but why bias any answers? You missed the Methuselah Foundation: http://www.mprize.org Reason Founder, Longevity Meme From harara at sbcglobal.net Tue Dec 14 03:39:53 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:39:53 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: freezing frogs & brain freeze helmet & Rip VanWinkle Pets In-Reply-To: <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> I have the original article, appeared in OMNI magazine. Without circulatory access, there is no way to cool the brain rapidly enough. Conduction through the skull is not nearly fast enough. A major limitation is that if you use a really cold gas, you freeze the outer flesh. I'd have to look it up, but I believe there were fluids introduced through the carotids and jugulars. Cannulation of these is incredibly difficult, so such a device needs a skilled operator. If it were available and worked, we would surely use it! At 10:30 AM 12/13/2004, you wrote: >"By the way I saw a story on a sat feed about 20 years ago of a CO2 cooled >helmet to rapidly cool the brain >to beat the 4 minute factor from body temp to 32." > >Couldn;t this be a handy household device to have around for people who >live in rural areas? It can take qute some time for an ambulance to >respond to a heart attack or similar problem in such a situation. ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Dec 14 03:57:14 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 21:57:14 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] thinner Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041213215530.019e5e98@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Aussie fat-burn pill a big success Clara Pirani, Medical reporter 14dec04 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11682770%255E23289,00.html AN Australian company has developed the first weight-loss pill that kick-starts the human body's metabolism to help people burn fat without the need for strict diets or exercise. Melbourne-based Metabolic Pharmaceuticals said yesterday that the results of its second phase of clinical trials proved the drug promoted weight loss without causing any side effects. Three hundred obese people were given either the obesity drug, known as AOD9604, or a placebo every day for 12 weeks. They all followed the same exercise advice and diet. Those taking AOD9604 lost an average of 2.8kg, while those given a placebo lost only 0.8kg. "We are delighted with the results," Metabolic Pharmaceuticals chief executive Chris Belyea said. "It's extremely promising." Dr Belyea said AOD9604 differed from existing obesity drugs that work by suppressing appetite or preventing the body from absorbing food. Appetite suppressants did not help the many overweight people who ate even when they were not hungry, and drugs that prevented food absorption could cause painful and embarrassing side effects such as diarrhoea. The new drug, invented by Monash University associate professor Frank Ng, is based on part of the human growth hormone molecule. The hormone, which stimulates the metabolism of fat, occurs naturally in the body but is suppressed in obese people. "We don't know why the hormone is suppressed in obese people but it makes it harder for them to lose weight," Dr Belyea said. "Our drug makes it possible for these people to lose weight." Six doses of the drug, ranging from 1mg to 30mg, were tested. "We did different doses because for our drug there is an active range and below or above that range there is no effect," Dr Belyea said. "So we expected to see an odd dose response and what we saw, somewhat to our surprise, was that the 1mg dose was the most effective." More than 50 per cent of volunteers taking the 1mg dose lost 2kg or more, and 9 per cent lost 8kg or more. Dr Belyea said the company would continue to test different doses. "We found that the lower dose was the most effective and we expect to see a little bit of an improvement in weight loss when we go down to slightly lower than a 1mg dose." However, Australian Divisions of GPs chairman Rob Walters questioned the long-term safety of weight-loss pills, claiming they gave overweight people an excuse to avoid exercise. "Weight loss is a huge industry predicated on the fact that you can perform miracles with no effort on the part of the patient and with no side effects, and that's not the case," Dr Walters said. Metabolic Pharmaceuticals' shares closed up 8c at $2.04, after hitting $2.50 earlier in the day. The third phase of the clinical trials will begin in the second half of next year and involve at least 1500 volunteers. From megao at sasktel.net Tue Dec 14 04:09:42 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:09:42 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: freezing frogs & brain freeze helmet &Rip VanWinkle Pets In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> The way around that is to add something like a sleeping bag and simulate what happens when someone falls into near freezing water and thrashes around causing hypothermia before drowing. I had a prospectus a year back from a company that had developed a "self cooling" pop can which had an insert which once the can was opened would spontaneously remove heat from the contents. They had spent 7 million to date and wanted to raise money for marketing. http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3af5f7df31f0.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ Last | Latest Posts | Latest Articles | Self Search | Add Bookmark | Post | Abuse | Help! ] Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works. Florida Firm Creates Self-Cooling Soda Can ~ No Cooler Needed Business/Economy News Source: Miami.com Published: 05/05/2001 Author: Miami.com Staff Posted on 05/06/2001 18:18:23 PDT by GeekDejure BRADENTON, Fla. -- (AP) -- How about a cold beer on demand without lugging an ice chest or waiting in line? Simply twist the can and it chills. A Florida company developed the technology and teamed with a leading global can maker to produce a can that can drop the temperature of its contents at least 30 degrees Fahrenheit in three minutes. The ``I.C. Can'' resembles an aluminum can and works on vacuum heat pump technology, much like a refrigerator. The desiccant in the vacuum draws heat from the beverage through an evaporator into an insulated heat container attached at the bottom of the can. There is a water and gel mix in the small cylinder. The two bind and cool by sucking out the heat, like evaporation. ``We're not creating cold, we're just removing heat,'' said Barney Guarino, president and CEO of Tempra Technology, a small private company which has worked on thermal technology since 1991. Tempra, located in Bradenton south of Tampa, partnered with packaging giant Crown Cork & Seal Co., Inc. of Philadelphia to develop and mass produce the can. ``It is quite exciting and interesting. I think everyone agrees there is marketing opportunity for on-the-go consumers -- hiking, boating, fishing,'' said Dan Abramowicz, a Crown executive vice president. ``If market trials go well and there is strong interest by customers, it probably would take us 18 months to have a fully commercial line capable of producing millions of containers,'' Abramowicz said. Guarino says the company is negotiating with a European beer maker and some soft drink companies. He estimates a 16-ounce can with 11 fluid ounces would sell for about $1.50. The self-contained can contains no gases or chemicals and is nontoxic and recyclable. A quick twist of the can breaks the seal, triggering the chilling process. The unit will continue to pump out heat until there is no more heat to remove. Then it will just remain idle. On a hot day, the liquid is expected to stay cold about 25 minutes. It won't go below freezing. ``Crown is one of the best and most highly regarded packaging companies in the industry and its involvement will certainly get a hearing from the beverage companies,'' said John Sicher, publisher of Beverage Digest, a trade publication based in Bedford, N.Y. But Sicher envisions only ``modest potential'' for the product, saying it will sell at a premium price and probably have limited appeal because of the accessibility of cold beverages from vending machines and convenience stores. However, Tom Bachmann, publisher of Chicago-based Beverage Industry, said the product will at first be popular with boaters and campers. ``But as the cans gains acceptance there could be a real benefit to Third World countries and countries where there is a lack of refrigeration,'' he said. In the United States, Bachmann predicts ``self-chill'' beer and soda cans on the market by next summer with the technology then extending to juices, sport and energy drinks and water. But the Coca-Cola Co. is somewhat cool to the concept. Robert Baskin, company spokesman in Atlanta, said the soft drink giant has been looking at the technology for years. Coca-Cola sells 17 billion cases of its products a year, Baskin said. The company has 16 million retail outlets globally and more than 2 million vending machines in the U.S. and Japan that dispense chilled Coca-Cola drinks. ``The issue becomes 'Can a package be commercialized at an affordable price?'' Baskin said. ``It isn't commercialized yet.'' In late April, Tempra made its first public demonstration of ``I.C. Can'' in Denver at Cannex 2001, the packaging industry's forum for can manufacturers and suppliers. Guarino said it took a third-place award for creative or innovative technology. He was optimistic that its popularity will grow. ``With ``I.C. Can'' it will be a home run or it's not going to go at all,'' Guarino said. ``Thermal technology has unlimited applications. It's limited only by the imagination.'' Hara Ra wrote: > I have the original article, appeared in OMNI magazine. Without > circulatory access, there is no way to cool the brain rapidly enough. > Conduction through the skull is not nearly fast enough. A major > limitation is that if you use a really cold gas, you freeze the outer > flesh. I'd have to look it up, but I believe there were fluids > introduced through the carotids and jugulars. Cannulation of these is > incredibly difficult, so such a device needs a skilled operator. If it > were available and worked, we would surely use it! > > At 10:30 AM 12/13/2004, you wrote: > >> "By the way I saw a story on a sat feed about 20 years ago of a CO2 >> cooled helmet to rapidly cool the brain >> to beat the 4 minute factor from body temp to 32." >> >> Couldn;t this be a handy household device to have around for people >> who live in rural areas? It can take qute some time for an ambulance >> to respond to a heart attack or similar problem in such a situation. > > > ================================== > = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = > = harara at sbcglobal.net = > = Alcor North Cryomanagement = > = Alcor Advisor to Board = > = 831 429 8637 = > ================================== > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal at smigrodzki.org Tue Dec 14 05:22:08 2004 From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 00:22:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God References: <200412131934.iBDJYT009842@tick.javien.com> <948b11e041213170963f397c9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <003f01c4e19c$dd2e18b0$0c21bc3f@dimension> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Samantha Atkins" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Monday, December 13, 2004 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God > Well, the "claim" is about what these rather extraordinary yet > widespread experiences mean. What it means largely falls into two > camps. One camp says that the experience means that reality is not > like we normally assume it to be and we ourselves are quite different > than what we normally believe to be the case. The other camp says > that these experiences say little about what really is true beyond the > obvious fact that human beings can have such experiences. > > Which is the more extraordinary interpretration? It looks to me like > it is the first. ### Indeed, Samantha, I agree with you that the latter interpretation is less extraordinary: It requires fewer assumptions to be made about available sensory evidence. For me, the observation of human brains obviously malfunctioning, and the following behaviors, is an almost daily experience - in the clinic I see patients with e.g. visual hallucinations due to dopaminergic medication, or with olfactory hallucinations due to partial seizures, or with delusions in Lewy body dementia. It is a simple matter of fact to say that human brains malfunction frequently, and in many cases without the patients themselves being aware of the malfunction. I make only the probabilistic assumptions necessary to provide an explanatory and predictive framework for my daily sensory and noumenal experience. This forces me to believe in the existence of e.g. electrons, niobium, Corvettes, toilet paper, flagella, and all the myriad of physical objects and their relationships that constitute my (and other humans') direct and inferred experience - this, and nothing more. Observation of phosphenes, THC-evoked illusions, or Purkinje lights within my own visual system convinces me that my noumenal existence is an aspect of the physical object I may see in the mirror, and no further assumptions about the world are then needed to interpret other noumena as aspects of a physical reality. Therefore, given the regularities in malfunctioning of human brains in general, if confronted with an experience of seeing double, I would first try to trouble-shoot my cranial nerves, and upon seeing rows of little marching men in the corners of the room I would consider the Charles Bonnet syndrome rather than sprites. This syndrome is defined by presence of visual hallucinations without impairment of reality testing, with the patient fully aware of the absence of external referents to his experiences - which appears to be possible as long as the hallucinations do not assume a form with high emotional impact and the remaining parts of the nervous system perform their reality-testing routines without malfunction. Of course, if I had William James' "will to believe", if I was an atheist eager, rather than loath to embrace a spirit, this detached attitude would be more difficult to maintain - but then I would be a different person altogether, rather than being just me skeptically waving away ghosts flitting around in the corners. So, I interpret reports of certain experiences as most likely devoid of the significance that others may attach to them, and not even having such experiences myself would be enough to change this attitude. Short of a physical rewrite of my prefrontal cortex, only specific prophecies (be it regarding the Millenium, or the stock market) coming true could convince me otherwise. Rafal PS. Ghostlike figures crowding in dark corners are really quite common in older people, so to quote Damien, "It may happen to you". > > - samantha > > > > On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:34:17 -0600, john-c-wright at sff.net > wrote: >> BillK writes: >> >> > John Wright is speaking as though his religious experience >> was something unusual. It isn't. Millions of people have had similar >> experiences and many also *know* the meaning of life. >> More than half of all adult Americans (and UK adults also) will report >> having had some kind of religious experience. Religious experience is >> common to humanity worldwide, regardless of religious persuasion. Even >> atheists have transcendental events in their lives. It is a >> fundamental part of how the human brain is structured. >> >> Will all due respect, you misquote me. I did not say my experience was >> unique. >> Far from it. I merely opine that the most logical explanation to a type >> of >> perception that an overwhelming majority of people have had is not >> necessary the >> conclusion that the overwhelming majority of people are mistaken. It >> could be >> that that are: but the burden of proof surely lies on the party making >> the more >> extraordinary claim. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > From harara at sbcglobal.net Tue Dec 14 06:19:36 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:19:36 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] thinner In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041213215530.019e5e98@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041213215530.019e5e98@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041213221711.02955ac8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> The performance is the same as many other diet pills, 5-7 pounds. Example - Fen-Phen before it was withdrawn. Most clinical trials do not track the long term, once a person stops, does the weight return? >Aussie fat-burn pill a big success >Clara Pirani, Medical reporter >14dec04 ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Dec 14 07:34:57 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 01:34:57 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] just to add to the excitement Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041214013412.01bc0e80@pop-server.satx.rr.com> http://www.kniff.de/cgi-bin/cgiproxy/nph-proxy.cgi/010110A/http/www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1371641,00.html Atheist finds 'God' after 50 years Laura Smith Saturday December 11, 2004 The Guardian A philosophy professor who has been a leading proponent of atheism for more than 50 years has decided that God may exist after all. Antony Flew, 81, now believes scientific evidence supports the theory that some sort of intelligence created the universe. But he continues to reject traditional religious ideas of God and especially the idea of salvation after death. He said: "I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins." He still accepts Darwinian evolutionary theory but doubts it can explain the complexities of the origins of life. Throughout his career, Flew has expounded the lack of evidence for the existence of God while lecturing at St John's College, Oxford and King's College, London. He said his change of heart had been a gradual process prompted by new scientific research. Speaking in a new video, Has Science Discovered God?, Flew argues that the investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce [life], that intelligence must have been involved." The first indication of his about-turn came in a letter to Philosophy Now magazine, in which he said: "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism." Flew, who is writing an introduction of a new edition of his work, God and Philosophy, said: "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: follow the evidence, wherever it leads." From max at maxmore.com Tue Dec 14 08:51:29 2004 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 02:51:29 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity Suggestions? In-Reply-To: <3khdin$el9u5r@mxip02a.cluster1.charter.net> References: <3khdin$el9u5r@mxip02a.cluster1.charter.net> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041214024757.03bc5298@pop-server.austin.rr.com> Thanks for thinking about contributing this holiday season, Jay. Contributions to Extropy Institute would be helpful, as we gear up to push the Proactionary Principle. Having just completed a (long) chapter of my book that critiques the currently-dominant precautionary principle, I'm painfully aware of just how badly we need to replace it with something more future-friendly and cognitively adequate. Onward! Max At 08:18 PM 12/13/2004, you wrote: >Monday, 13 December 2004 > >Hello all, > > As the winter holidays roll around the calendar from "over for > another year" to "here we go again", I'd like suggestions from the lists > about >H-themed and sympathetic charities. > >Here's a starter list: > >Extropy Institute >Foresight Institute (Holiday discount on memberships!) >National Space Society >Immortality Institute >World Transhumanist Association > >I've intentionally omitted policital parties and the FSP in the probably >vain hope of avoiding flames, not because of my own sympathies or >antipathies. I have my own list of charity types I'd like to see, but why >bias any answers? > > >Jay Dugger : Til Eulenspiegel >http://www.owlmirror.net/~duggerj/ >Sometimes the delete key serves best. > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat _______________________________________________________ Max More, Ph.D. max at maxmore.com or max at extropy.org http://www.maxmore.com Strategic Philosopher Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org _______________________________________________________ From eugen at leitl.org Tue Dec 14 09:27:39 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:27:39 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: freezing frogs & brain freeze helmet & Rip VanWinkle Pets In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041214092738.GQ9221@leitl.org> I see, it's that time of the year again, where hare-brained schemes of armchair cryonicists roam freely, unfettered by any practical knowledge... On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 07:39:53PM -0800, Hara Ra wrote: > I have the original article, appeared in OMNI magazine. Without circulatory > access, there is no way to cool the brain rapidly enough. Conduction > through the skull is not nearly fast enough. A major limitation is that if > you use a really cold gas, you freeze the outer flesh. I'd have to look it > up, but I believe there were fluids introduced through the carotids and > jugulars. Cannulation of these is incredibly difficult, so such a device > needs a skilled operator. If it were available and worked, we would surely It needs a skilled surgeon, in fact. You have to find them, to prep them open, to ligate them, introduce the cannula, flush out the bubbles and then untie. And of course the perfusion solution is microfiltered and degassed, made freshly or unexpired, when stored under proper condition, the perfusion apparatus has fresh tubings, etc. It's a long list. Those who still entertain the amusing notion they can improvise this with no training... go straight to the next slaughterhouse, and practice on a freshly killed hog, while accompanied by a medical professional who's going to point out how many times you have killed the poor porcine patient. > use it! -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Dec 14 09:42:46 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:42:46 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: freezing frogs & brain freeze helmet &Rip VanWinkle Pets In-Reply-To: <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> Message-ID: <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org> On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 10:09:42PM -0600, Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc. wrote: > The way around that is to add something like a sleeping bag and simulate There's no way to cool down a patient, core temperature included, using a gas as heat exchanger in required time frame, period. Adding a sleeping bag makes the problem worse (~2 day descent for inner core, you're mush -- look up those CI threads on Cryonet). What is wrong with a thumper and a portable ice bath? > what happens when someone falls into near freezing water and thrashes Water is a liquid, you will observe. > around causing hypothermia before drowing. I had a prospectus a year When you're drowning in ice cold water, you still have circulation. Your periphery shuts down first, and your core temperature can come down as low as ~25 C before you're out cold due to fibrillation. This works best with small children, which can be reanimated up to 45 min (I don't claim this is the longest time). Small children = good volume/surface ratio, low body fat index, and good shape in general, as well as excellent regeneration (there might be additional protection mechanisms at play). > back from a company that had developed a "self cooling" pop can which > had an insert which once the can was opened would spontaneously remove > heat from the contents. They had spent 7 million to date and wanted to > raise money for marketing. Good for cooling beer, sure. Good to cool patients, no. > http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3af5f7df31f0.htm -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Dec 14 10:55:38 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 02:55:38 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God In-Reply-To: <003f01c4e19c$dd2e18b0$0c21bc3f@dimension> References: <200412131934.iBDJYT009842@tick.javien.com> <948b11e041213170963f397c9@mail.gmail.com> <003f01c4e19c$dd2e18b0$0c21bc3f@dimension> Message-ID: All of that said and heard, I am not convinced that that are no transrational rather than merely irrational or pathological modes of experience. Neither I nor many people who have had mystical experiences exhibit any sign of any known brain or psychological pathology. From the assumption that the rational naturalist view is the pinnacle of human understanding and knowing you are of course right to see these things as utterly untrustworthy. But I know of no way to validate that assumption. I am not sure it is falsifiable. - samantha On Dec 13, 2004, at 9:22 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Samantha Atkins" > > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Monday, December 13, 2004 8:09 PM > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God > > >> Well, the "claim" is about what these rather extraordinary yet >> widespread experiences mean. What it means largely falls into two >> camps. One camp says that the experience means that reality is not >> like we normally assume it to be and we ourselves are quite different >> than what we normally believe to be the case. The other camp says >> that these experiences say little about what really is true beyond the >> obvious fact that human beings can have such experiences. >> >> Which is the more extraordinary interpretration? It looks to me like >> it is the first. > > ### Indeed, Samantha, I agree with you that the latter interpretation > is less extraordinary: It requires fewer assumptions to be made about > available sensory evidence. > > For me, the observation of human brains obviously malfunctioning, and > the following behaviors, is an almost daily experience - in the clinic > I see patients with e.g. visual hallucinations due to dopaminergic > medication, or with olfactory hallucinations due to partial seizures, > or with delusions in Lewy body dementia. It is a simple matter of fact > to say that human brains malfunction frequently, and in many cases > without the patients themselves being aware of the malfunction. > > I make only the probabilistic assumptions necessary to provide an > explanatory and predictive framework for my daily sensory and noumenal > experience. This forces me to believe in the existence of e.g. > electrons, niobium, Corvettes, toilet paper, flagella, and all the > myriad of physical objects and their relationships that constitute my > (and other humans') direct and inferred experience - this, and nothing > more. Observation of phosphenes, THC-evoked illusions, or Purkinje > lights within my own visual system convinces me that my noumenal > existence is an aspect of the physical object I may see in the mirror, > and no further assumptions about the world are then needed to > interpret other noumena as aspects of a physical reality. > > Therefore, given the regularities in malfunctioning of human brains in > general, if confronted with an experience of seeing double, I would > first try to trouble-shoot my cranial nerves, and upon seeing rows of > little marching men in the corners of the room I would consider the > Charles Bonnet syndrome rather than sprites. This syndrome is defined > by presence of visual hallucinations without impairment of reality > testing, with the patient fully aware of the absence of external > referents to his experiences - which appears to be possible as long as > the hallucinations do not assume a form with high emotional impact and > the remaining parts of the nervous system perform their > reality-testing routines without malfunction. Of course, if I had > William James' "will to believe", if I was an atheist eager, rather > than loath to embrace a spirit, this detached attitude would be more > difficult to maintain - but then I would be a different person > altogether, rather than being just me skeptically waving away ghosts > flitting around in the corners. > > So, I interpret reports of certain experiences as most likely devoid > of the significance that others may attach to them, and not even > having such experiences myself would be enough to change this > attitude. Short of a physical rewrite of my prefrontal cortex, only > specific prophecies (be it regarding the Millenium, or the stock > market) coming true could convince me otherwise. > > Rafal > > PS. Ghostlike figures crowding in dark corners are really quite common > in older people, so to quote Damien, "It may happen to you". > > >> >> - samantha >> >> >> >> On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:34:17 -0600, john-c-wright at sff.net >> wrote: >>> BillK writes: >>> >>> > John Wright is speaking as though his religious experience >>> was something unusual. It isn't. Millions of people have had similar >>> experiences and many also *know* the meaning of life. >>> More than half of all adult Americans (and UK adults also) will >>> report >>> having had some kind of religious experience. Religious experience is >>> common to humanity worldwide, regardless of religious persuasion. >>> Even >>> atheists have transcendental events in their lives. It is a >>> fundamental part of how the human brain is structured. >>> >>> Will all due respect, you misquote me. I did not say my experience >>> was unique. >>> Far from it. I merely opine that the most logical explanation to a >>> type of >>> perception that an overwhelming majority of people have had is not >>> necessary the >>> conclusion that the overwhelming majority of people are mistaken. It >>> could be >>> that that are: but the burden of proof surely lies on the party >>> making the more >>> extraordinary claim. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From amara at amara.com Tue Dec 14 14:59:25 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 15:59:25 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] A Strombolian Holiday Tree Message-ID: , Sun, 12 Dec 2004: >This is very beautiful, Amara! Thanks for sharing. You're welcome. >I'm glad you're >getting to go on all these volcano excursions, they must be >fascinating. It's another world. Work is so stressful right now (we deliver our instrument to NASA in four months), that I need something like this. FYI, From where I am in Rome, It's not expensive or difficult to go to Stromboli. A long weekend in the summer is all the time you need. In the winter you need a bit of luck because the hydrofoils don't run when the sea is rough and the overnight ship runs just twice per week. You can hike up to the third-way point on your own. Above that point is off limits (they say... :-)) For Etna, you just need to go to Sicily, and a bus runs every hour to the Etna part-way point where one can find accommodations (small hotels). You'll need a guide to the top of Etna, but there are many guides. >And perhaps terrifying. Usually not, but a couple of times I was very stupid and too close and in a very dangerous position. I won't do that again. >I've followed the links from your >page and looked at the many pictures from Stromboli Online - what an >amazing thing to see! (http://stromboli.net) It's a very good educational site, probably the best in the world for volcanoes. You've probably seen the volcano photos, so here are some enhancements: Photos and Quicktime movies (Etna) http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/etna/etna04/etna0410-en.html Panoramas (Etna) http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/etna/etnaqtvr/index-en.html Virtual walks up Stromboli http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/virtual/index-en.html Astrophotos from Stromboli http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/photoastro/comet_q4-en.html For example: This zodiacal light / comet Hale-Bopp / Pleiades / Mercury photo http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/photoastro/comets/icons/habo07.jpg has become the 'canonical' interplanetary dust image -- shown as backdrops on dust astronomers' conference slides and so forth. I used this photo for the first page image in my Sky and Telescope article (2000) about interplanetary dust. In addition this image is the cover image for the _Interplanetary Dust_ book, published by Springer Verlag 2001. Bomb flight Simulation http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/simulation/index-en.html Erta Ale animation http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/perm/erta/movies-en.html enjoy... Amara -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "And chase down any of those noble gases or whatever that crud is." -- Apollo 12 Astronaut Alan Bean From amara at amara.com Tue Dec 14 15:13:47 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 16:13:47 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] "Okay. We got that solar wind." Message-ID: For some chuckles. When I was digging up material for a popular science article I wrote about how Earth got its water, I discovered this dialog at the Genesis mission web site- their public outreach material. I couldn't stop laughing at the astronaut dialog. The context is the following. One of the important values to use as a base comparison for noble gas measurements in the solar system are neon isotope ratios. The uppermost limit of 20Ne/22Ne is assumed to be that from the solar nebula, which can be measured from gases streaming out from the Sun, (the solar wind). Some of the best measurements today of the isotope ratios of the noble gases in the solar wind were made by the solar wind collection (SWC) experiment on the Moon, placed by the Apollo astronauts between 1969 and 1972. The SWC experiment consisted of a 4200 cm^2 aluminum metal foil placed on a five-section telescopic pole and unrolled. After the collection time, different for each mission, which ranged from ~1 hour to ~50 hours, the foil was rolled up again and returned to the Earth. Have fun... Amara =========== amusing side story: Conversation of Apollo 12 Astronauts with Houston ===== (reference: Genesis educational literature) The difficulty in rolling up the foil after collection varied from one mission to another. Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean had a tougher than usual time rolling up the foil from that mission's solar wind collector (SWC). He described the need to have the foil and tape looked at in lunar conditions for future missions. Astronauts Alan Bean and Pete Conrad are speaking with mission control's Ed Gibson: 134:55:26 Bean: "Solar wind doesn't like to roll up much. (Pause) Little rascal, doesn't want to roll up. (I'll) just wrap it around here best I can, without getting any dirt on it." (Pause) 134:56:13 Bean: "Okay. We got that solar wind." 134:56:17 Conrad: "Good boy!" 134:56:20 Bean: "Houston, we got that solar wind, but it didn't roll up in a very neat package." 134:56:26 Gibson: "Roger, Al. We copy. That's all right." (Long Pause) 134:56:46 Conrad: "Hey, it sure didn't, did it?" 134:56:48 Bean: "No. It just didn't. It split right near the top." 134:56:50 Conrad: "Can I help you?" 134:56:51 Bean: "Yeah. You can hold that, and I'll just try to roll it up as best I can without getting any...I already got a little dirt on it that's not doing any good. (Pause) You see what I mean?" 134:57:02 Conrad: "Yeah." 134:57:03 Bean: "Not a lot I can do about it. I'm sure it's [the solar wind] a good experiment. That thing is fragile." 134:57:09 Conrad: "Here, let me hold this end, and you just wrap it tight. That a boy." 134:57:14 Bean: "I'll squeeze it down." [This is probably where Al is compressing the roll with his hands to get it tight enough to fit in the bag.] 134:57:15 Conrad: "That a..." 134:57:16 Bean: "And chase down any of those noble gases or whatever that crud is. Okay. Stick that in there? (To Gibson) Looks bad, but I think it will do the job, Houston. We squashed it in so it's..." 134:57:27 Conrad: "Where is it [the bag]?" 134:57:29 Bean: "It's right...Let me get it for you." 134:57:32 CapCom: "Roger, Al." 134:57:34 Bean: "There you go. Okay. It just doesn't look so good, Houston." ========================================================================== -- Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR, Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it From spike66 at comcast.net Tue Dec 14 15:59:59 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 07:59:59 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: freezing frogs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <00ad01c4e1f5$fa14c9c0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> stencil wrote: > Can you throw them over your shoulder > Like a Continental soldier?... I have been puzzled by those song lyrics since I first heard them as a young child. If I had a continental soldier, why would I wish to throw him over my shoulder? What has he done to deserve such treatment? Does it matter which continent he is from? spike From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 14 16:27:28 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:27:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: The China Flu Message-ID: <20041214162728.91705.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China and its Relation With Spam | | from the but-i-don't-like-spam dept. | | posted by CmdrTaco on Monday December 13, @13:27 (Spam) | | http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/13/1758203 | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ smooth wombat writes "[0]Asia Times has a nice article about why China is becoming the [1]spam capital of the world. Steve Linford, of Spamhaus fame, is quoted several times in the article and offers some insight into how the Chinese ISPs operate. Steves quote at the end of the article pretty much sums up why China isn't doing anything to curb the hosting of spam website servers in the country: "They simply don't want to know - China Telecom doesn't care because they're government-owned and there is no pressure coming from the government. Meanwhile, our statistics on spam volumes and the number of spammers setting up in China are going up and up and up."" Discuss this story at: http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=04/12/13/1758203 Links: 0. http://www.atimes.com/ 1. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FL14Ad02.html -end quote- Is there any better demonstration of why nationalized ANYTHING is a bad idea? Looks to be like China will become the Love Canal of spam, at least until some bureaucrat gets annoyed because his secretaries are spending too much time filtering his spam and not enough polishing his knob, and decides to round up all the spammers and send them off to the organ farms... hmmm maybe nationalizing spam isn't such a bad idea.... ;) ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 14 16:31:21 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:31:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: freezing frogs In-Reply-To: <00ad01c4e1f5$fa14c9c0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <20041214163122.92243.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> --- spike wrote: > stencil wrote: > > Can you throw them over your shoulder > > Like a Continental soldier?... > > I have been puzzled by those song lyrics since I > first heard them as a young child. If I had a > continental soldier, why would I wish to throw > him over my shoulder? What has he done to deserve > such treatment? Does it matter which continent > he is from? Is this referring to the fact that American Revolutionary soldiers were so poorly supplied with footwear that their primary cause of casualty was foot injuries/frostbite? Or is it referring to the lack of value of the continental dollar (as in "not worth a Continental" that chucking one over your shoulder after having used it to wipe one's backside or light one's pipe is a rather casual affair? ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From sentience at pobox.com Tue Dec 14 16:04:26 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:04:26 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Charity Suggestions? In-Reply-To: <3khdin$el9u5r@mxip02a.cluster1.charter.net> References: <3khdin$el9u5r@mxip02a.cluster1.charter.net> Message-ID: <41BF0F0A.6060103@pobox.com> duggerj1 at charter.net wrote: > Monday, 13 December 2004 > > Hello all, > > As the winter holidays roll around the calendar from "over for another year" to "here we go again", I'd like suggestions from the lists about >H-themed and sympathetic charities. > > Here's a starter list: > > Extropy Institute > Foresight Institute (Holiday discount on memberships!) > National Space Society > Immortality Institute > World Transhumanist Association Singularity Institute Methuselah Mouse Prize -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From sentience at pobox.com Tue Dec 14 04:38:21 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:38:21 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <9778AAAA-4C94-11D9-88B7-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> <9778AAAA-4C94-11D9-88B7-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <41BE6E3D.1090807@pobox.com> Samantha Atkins wrote: > > Is it "overwhelming evidence" or overwhelming Experience of Meaning, > Love, Truth, Power, Knowing? Why this over-the-top Experience but > without filling in the thought and reason and questions fully? Why > this occasional perfect spiritual storm but not solid understanding? > Why would the Divine arrange things like this? Why have the purported > Truth go gamboling among us to occasionally knock one of us who seek it > or not flat on our ass? Why not share this awesome truth of the > way-it-really-is across the spectrum with all human beings? Why this > capricious hide-and-seek and cosmic peek-a-boo? > > This looks deeply suspicious to me. And yet please understand that I > to this day feel like a lout to say so after the Depth of what I have > experienced. Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. I considered John Wright's dilemma, not quite in the form he posed. I asked myself: "If I was overpowered by religious ecstasy, would my rationality survive? Am I that strong?" I've previously considered this question, in the form of wondering whether any conceivable discipline could enable a trained rationalist to defeat schizophrenia. Religious ecstasy is a lesser test. If my future self had an overpowering religious experience, one obvious reaction of my future self might be, "Hm, I must be having a temporal lobe mini-seizure." But that feels to me like cheating; what if I hadn't studied neurology? I thought of arguments that my hypothetical slightly more ignorant future self might consider: "When I was an atheist, I knew that people had deep religious experiences, but I did not think it likely that the experience reflected reality as the retina reports a flower. Now that I have had such an experience myself, my best estimate of the underlying cause should not change. I was content to be an atheist when I knew that other people had religious brainstorms; should this change if one of the 'other people' is myself? For they and I are both humans; the causal analysis is the same in either case." "Far down the tale of science goes; from quarks to atoms to molecules, from molecules to proteins to cells to humans, physics and evolution and intelligence, all a single coherent story. To the best of all human knowledge, since the beginning of time, not one unusual thing has ever happened. A thousand generations have learned to their astonishment and dismay that there are mysterious questions, but never mysterious answers; that the universe runs on math, not heroic mythology. The science that I know is too solid, the laws of rationality too strict, the lessons driven home too many times, to be overturned so lightly." "Let us suppose that the experience is caused by something external to a simple brain malfunction. Just because an entity is capable of inducing an overpowering religious experience in me, does not make the entity morally superior. I have seen people sell their souls for the price of a book. God in the Bible kills and tortures anyone who won't worship Him properly, or even innocent bystanders, such as Egyptian children during the Ten Plagues. If we had pictures of such a thing, occurring in any modern country, we would never forgive the perpetrators; we would hold them in less esteem than Nazi Germany. Kindhearted rabbis read tales of dead Egyptian children, killed to impress their parents with God's might, and the rabbis somehow fail to take moral notice. Is there no end to the human ability to ignore the failings of one's favored political leaders? Killing children is wrong, period, end of discussion. And yet all it takes to make people endorse a God that commits torture-murder of children, is to hand them a book. People sell their moralities so cheaply. They don't even demand that the book be given to them directly by God. They sell their moralities and give over their sense of judgment just because someone else handed them a book and told them God wrote it. Even if God speaks to me directly, I should demand *reasons* before handing over my moral judgment. I have studied evolutionary biology. I know that there are forces in the universe capable of producing complex plans and designs, yet utterly nonhumane. If this "God" wishes me to do something, let It tell me Its reasons, and see if I agree. As it stands, I have no reason whatever to believe that God is good. I will not sell myself so cheaply, into bondage to who knows What." And: "Why should some people have these experiences and not others? Why jerk us around? Why work blatant, showy miracles in front of desert nomads, for the explicit purpose of providing proof, and then mysteriously change policies after the introduction of skeptical thinking and video cameras? If I am told all these spiritual truths, why not give me next week's winning lottery numbers, to help me convey these truths to my friends? If I am given no solid proof because the experience is meant to convince me personally, then, leaving aside the unfairness, why not tell me ten digits of pi starting at the 1000th decimal place? Why is it that not one factual assertion brought back from the grip of religious ecstasy has been surprising, checkable, and right?" I thought of these arguments, Samantha, and yet it occurred to me that if I was caught in the grip of such a powerful religious experience, I might not *want* to think them. And then I would be defeated without ever getting a chance to draw my blade. Intelligence, to be useful, must be used for a purpose other than defeating itself. I have trained myself to be wary of knowing my desired conclusion before I begin to think; explicitly emphasized the impossibility of asking a question without being genuinely unsure of the answer. It ain't a real crisis of faith unless it could go either way, as a wise man once said. Having a powerful religious experience isn't quite as bad as going schizophrenic. The religious experience happens and then goes away and you can think about it rationally. Schizophrenia is constant and defeats the frontal lobes of reflectivity, destroying both emotional balance and the ability to use reason to correct it. But I have wondered whether my mental discipline and my explicit understanding of rationality would be powerful enough for me to win through, either the almost impossible test of schizophrenia, or the lesser test of religious ecstasy. I now know that it is possible for a rationalist to cut through to the correct answer even after suffering a religious ecstasy. For you won through, Samantha, traveling from a wrong belief to the correct one, and you even permitted (forced?) yourself to think of arguments like those that occurred to me - me, sitting here easily at my desk, imagining a hypothetical future and hoping I *wouldn't* be persuaded. Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Tue Dec 14 17:15:44 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 11:15:44 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Resuscitation: (WAS: freezing frogs & brain freeze helmet &RipVanWinkle Pets) References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net><01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin><6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com><41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin> Eugen said: "This works best with small children, which can be reanimated up to 45 min (I don't claim this is the longest time). Small children = good volume/surface ratio, low body fat index, and good shape in general, as well as excellent regeneration (there might be additional protection mechanisms at play)." I think the record resuscitation for such an incident is around 7 hours. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/3895005.stm Here is a 29 year old woman who went quite some time. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/620609.stm I think we have been speaking of too many different things on this thread and I would like to take a thread down it's own path. What I am interested in is what I understand to be the way the brain dies. According to my understanding, the brain does not start to die after 4-6 minutes. Instead, it is the pathways and arteries for feeding the brain and providing it with oxygen that begin to collapse after this period. At this point, the brain slowly starves to death even if the person's heartbeat and respiration are re-established. I also understand that cold can slow this process. It is that extra time for the ambulance to get to me that I am interested in, not the cryonics aspect of it. If I can avoid it, I would prefer to simply be resuscitated and not have to go through cryonic preservation. Is my understanding about this process incorrect? If so, please let me know. Otherwise, could such a devcice as the aforementioned helmet help to extend this time to up to 30 minutes? From pharos at gmail.com Tue Dec 14 17:12:25 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 17:12:25 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: The China Flu In-Reply-To: <20041214162728.91705.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041214162728.91705.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:27:28 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey wrote: > > Is there any better demonstration of why nationalized ANYTHING is a bad > idea? Looks to be like China will become the Love Canal of spam, at > least until some bureaucrat gets annoyed because his secretaries are > spending too much time filtering his spam and not enough polishing his > knob, and decides to round up all the spammers and send them off to the > organ farms... hmmm maybe nationalizing spam isn't such a bad idea.... > ;) > Mike is just miffed that free enterprise spam from the US has been knocked off the top spot. Up until now the US has been the main source spewing spam to the world. The article also comments:- According to network management firm Sandvine, about 80% of spam is now sent via legions of PCs owned by ordinary - and usually oblivious - computer users around the world. These machines, known as "zombies" or "spam Trojans", have been infected with various viruses (recent examples include MyDoom and Bagle) developed specifically to allow the virus writer to contact them over the Internet and instruct them to spew out, among other things, vast quantities of spam. Because of this, it is now meaningless to say that spam itself originates in any given place - it is truly a cyber-product. Thank you Microsoft (US). BillK From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 14 17:29:14 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 09:29:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Charity Suggestions? In-Reply-To: <41BF0F0A.6060103@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20041214172914.67384.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote: > duggerj1 at charter.net wrote: > > Monday, 13 December 2004 > > > > Hello all, > > > > As the winter holidays roll around the calendar from "over for > another year" to "here we go again", I'd like suggestions from the > lists about >H-themed and sympathetic charities. > > > > Here's a starter list: > > > > Extropy Institute > > Foresight Institute (Holiday discount on memberships!) > > National Space Society > > Immortality Institute > > World Transhumanist Association > > Singularity Institute > Methuselah Mouse Prize X-Prize Foundation Foundation For the Future ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Tue Dec 14 17:46:39 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 11:46:39 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: The China Flu References: <20041214162728.91705.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00b001c4e204$de288300$c3ebfb44@kevin> If ALL spammers set up in China, wouldn't it be fairly easy to filter them? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Lorrey" To: Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 10:27 AM Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: The China Flu > +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ > | China and its Relation With Spam | > | from the but-i-don't-like-spam dept. | > | posted by CmdrTaco on Monday December 13, @13:27 (Spam) | > | http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/13/1758203 | > +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ > > smooth wombat writes "[0]Asia Times has a nice article about why China > is becoming the [1]spam capital of the world. Steve Linford, of > Spamhaus fame, is quoted several times in the article and offers some > insight into how the Chinese ISPs operate. Steves quote at the end of > the article pretty much sums up why China isn't doing anything to curb > the hosting of spam website servers in the country: "They simply don't > want to know - China Telecom doesn't care because they're > government-owned and there is no pressure coming from the government. > Meanwhile, our statistics on spam volumes and the number of spammers > setting up in China are going up and up and up."" > > Discuss this story at: > http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=04/12/13/1758203 > > Links: > 0. http://www.atimes.com/ > 1. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FL14Ad02.html > > -end quote- > > Is there any better demonstration of why nationalized ANYTHING is a bad > idea? Looks to be like China will become the Love Canal of spam, at > least until some bureaucrat gets annoyed because his secretaries are > spending too much time filtering his spam and not enough polishing his > knob, and decides to round up all the spammers and send them off to the > organ farms... hmmm maybe nationalizing spam isn't such a bad idea.... > ;) > > > ===== > Mike Lorrey > Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH > "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. > It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." > -William Pitt (1759-1806) > Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. > http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com Tue Dec 14 18:16:52 2004 From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:16:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity Suggestions? In-Reply-To: <41BF0F0A.6060103@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20041214181652.27226.qmail@web41307.mail.yahoo.com> TransVision 2005 Scholarship Fund: http://www.transhumanismo.org/tv05/registration.htm > Monday, 13 December 2004 > > Hello all, > > As the winter holidays roll around the calendar from "over for another year" to "here we go again", I'd like suggestions from the lists about >H-themed and sympathetic charities. > > Here's a starter list: > > Extropy Institute > Foresight Institute (Holiday discount on memberships!) > National Space Society > Immortality Institute > World Transhumanist Association La vie est belle! Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra, Solar System, Milky Way, Multiverse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From harara at sbcglobal.net Tue Dec 14 20:08:13 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 12:08:13 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Resuscitation: and Armchair Cryonicists In-Reply-To: <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org> <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> To posts by Eugen and Kevin. For Kevin: My (very limited) information on ischemia is that the Krebs cycle is vulnerable to the loss of oxygen. (The machinery for this cycle is passed via the egg, so evolution in mammalia long ago lost any protection if it was there.) When O2 is returned to the cell, the Krebs cycle has failed, and some steps lack the needed intermediate products, the result is a toxic accumulation of reactive radicals and serious irreparable damage. I don't know about what the arteries do, but failure of their Krebs cycle may well do as you describe. For Eugen: Thanks for taking my point and clarifying it. If you read my sig file, I don't think I am an "Armchair cryonicist". Please correct me if you think so, and explain why. For Both: If the law permitted touching the patienr prior to announcement of death (not likely in the USA for a very long time), then, in a clinic, 1) give patient general anesthesia 2) cannulate femorals 3) pump in intermediate cooldown fluid (plasma blood extender) with high oxygenation. As the body temp cools, the heart stops at about 50 deg F. Cooldown to 0 deg C can be done in about 10 minutes, without subjecting the patient to ischemia. But, folks, this is legally MURDER, and dat's how it is in the good ole USA. :( PS We currently do no longer use the Thumper, which is an obscene bastard of equipment fully capable of major injury to both patient and rescue team. Respiratory support is no longer in the protocol, because basically all patients are over the 4 minute limit, and restoring O2 is a bad idea. We use an Ambi product, a suction cup with handles, to maintain circulation for the 3-5 minutes it takes to circulate the medicines (a proprietary cocktail of anticoaguants, clot busters and other stuff) ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From harara at sbcglobal.net Tue Dec 14 19:51:36 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 11:51:36 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: freezing frogs/ soldier song In-Reply-To: <20041214163122.92243.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> References: <00ad01c4e1f5$fa14c9c0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <20041214163122.92243.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041214114929.029398e8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Google came up with: http://plateaupress.com.au/wfw/continen.htm A kids' song, sung to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw," goes like this: Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? Can you tie 'em in a know? Can you tie 'em in a bow? Can you toss 'em over your shoulder, Like a Continental soldier? Do your ears......hang.......low? ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From megao at sasktel.net Tue Dec 14 21:02:28 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 15:02:28 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Assisted Suicide Message-ID: <41BF54E4.3060801@sasktel.net> If done to a terminally ill person, with specific legal instructions of how to proceed it would be Assisted Suicide. Question....how would a life insurance policy pay out differently if the patient "died" Vs was assisted in the termination of a terminal condition during what was medically considered the last 90 days of natural life plus a "do not resusitation order". -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Resuscitation: and Armchair Cryonicists Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 12:08:13 -0800 From: Hara Ra Reply-To: ExI chat list To: Kevin Freels , ExI chat list References: <41BDA886.6080509 at sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44 at kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0 at pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BE6786.2070009 at sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221 at leitl.org> <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44 at kevin> To posts by Eugen and Kevin. For Kevin: My (very limited) information on ischemia is that the Krebs cycle is vulnerable to the loss of oxygen. (The machinery for this cycle is passed via the egg, so evolution in mammalia long ago lost any protection if it was there.) When O2 is returned to the cell, the Krebs cycle has failed, and some steps lack the needed intermediate products, the result is a toxic accumulation of reactive radicals and serious irreparable damage. I don't know about what the arteries do, but failure of their Krebs cycle may well do as you describe. For Eugen: Thanks for taking my point and clarifying it. If you read my sig file, I don't think I am an "Armchair cryonicist". Please correct me if you think so, and explain why. For Both: If the law permitted touching the patienr prior to announcement of death (not likely in the USA for a very long time), then, in a clinic, 1) give patient general anesthesia 2) cannulate femorals 3) pump in intermediate cooldown fluid (plasma blood extender) with high oxygenation. As the body temp cools, the heart stops at about 50 deg F. Cooldown to 0 deg C can be done in about 10 minutes, without subjecting the patient to ischemia. But, folks, this is legally MURDER, and dat's how it is in the good ole USA. :( PS We currently do no longer use the Thumper, which is an obscene bastard of equipment fully capable of major injury to both patient and rescue team. Respiratory support is no longer in the protocol, because basically all patients are over the 4 minute limit, and restoring O2 is a bad idea. We use an Ambi product, a suction cup with handles, to maintain circulation for the 3-5 minutes it takes to circulate the medicines (a proprietary cocktail of anticoaguants, clot busters and other stuff) ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Dec 14 21:04:16 2004 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 07:34:16 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: The China Flu In-Reply-To: <00b001c4e204$de288300$c3ebfb44@kevin> References: <20041214162728.91705.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> <00b001c4e204$de288300$c3ebfb44@kevin> Message-ID: <710b78fc04121413045a5f61ac@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 11:46:39 -0600, Kevin Freels wrote: > If ALL spammers set up in China, wouldn't it be fairly easy to filter them? I guess. If only all the AOL lUsers would move there as well, then we'd really have a chance... -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com * blogs * music * software * From etcs.ret at verizon.net Tue Dec 14 21:12:17 2004 From: etcs.ret at verizon.net (stencil) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 16:12:17 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: freezing frogs, and other things In-Reply-To: <200412141900.iBEJ0H007024@tick.javien.com> References: <200412141900.iBEJ0H007024@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 12:00:18 -0700, in extropy-chat Digest, Vol 15, Issue 22 spike & Mike ponder >> stencil wrote: >> > Can you throw them over your shoulder >> > Like a Continental soldier?... >> http://www.hootisland.com/text/songs/doyour.html I guess it must not have been an Air Force thing; but one does wonder at the childhood environment in which spike first heard it.. stencil sends From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 14 21:24:17 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 13:24:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: freezing frogs, and other things In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041214212417.84545.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- stencil wrote: > On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 12:00:18 -0700, > in extropy-chat Digest, Vol 15, Issue 22 > spike & Mike ponder > > >> stencil wrote: > >> > Can you throw them over your shoulder > >> > Like a Continental soldier?... > >> > http://www.hootisland.com/text/songs/doyour.html > > I guess it must not have been an Air Force thing; but one does > wonder at the childhood environment in which spike first heard it If it was, it would have been killed off shortly before I joined up, as the feminazi PC patrol was in full swing by the time I went in in '88. They'd have not tolerated female airmen having to march to tunes about swinging balls.... 'less twer about busting and cracking them. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Dec 14 22:09:38 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 16:09:38 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: feminazis, and other things Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041214160752.01be5ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 01:24 PM 12/14/2004 -0800, Mike wrote: >the feminazi PC patrol was in full swing by the time I went in in '88. >They'd have not tolerated female airmen having to march to tunes about >swinging balls.... 'less twer about busting and cracking them. Um, on those grounds, what part of When your bollocks hang right down, Do they drag along the ground? Do they make a lusty clamor, When you hit them with a hammer? Can you bounce 'em off the wall, Like an Indian rubber ball? Do they ever start to hurt, Cos they're dragging in the dirt? Do they have a hollow sound, When you drop 'em on the ground? would these vicious bitches have refused to sing? BTW, I understand that the more usual word for the people Mike is speaking of here is `women'. Oh, and while we're looking into linguistic usage, does the term `feminazi' implicitly invoke Godwin's Rule and bring the whole discussion to an instant and sickened stop? Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Tue Dec 14 22:22:58 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 22:22:58 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: feminazis, and other things In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041214160752.01be5ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041214160752.01be5ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 16:09:38 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > > Um, on those grounds, what part of > > would these vicious bitches have refused to sing? > > BTW, I understand that the more usual word for the people Mike is speaking > of here is `women'. > > Oh, and while we're looking into linguistic usage, does the term `feminazi' > implicitly invoke Godwin's Rule and bring the whole discussion to an > instant and sickened stop? > Perhaps Mike has not been in the sort of female company that sing the female versions of the song? Replacing 'balls' with 'tits'? (and another even ruder version). The female ladettes in the UK out drinking can be quite an impressive sight. :) BillK From sjatkins at gmail.com Tue Dec 14 23:07:12 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 15:07:12 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41BE6E3D.1090807@pobox.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> <9778AAAA-4C94-11D9-88B7-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> <41BE6E3D.1090807@pobox.com> Message-ID: <948b11e04121415073cdae2bd@mail.gmail.com> Eliezer, Thank you for your words and for the appreciation of the scope of the struggle. Some days it is difficult for me to see it that way. Some days it is difficult to not dive into what the experiences said was real. So many rationalizations for doing so have been built by others and myself. The ones I built are the hardest ones for me to untangle. No surprise there I suppose. Something you said more elegantly once has helped me many times. I am paraphrasing here but the gist was that building a seemingly plausible theory or arguing that X is possible is not a sufficient reason to believe that X is true. Please fill in the detail again if you would like. As alluded to, a killer question that has kept me from belief in God, even in the very refined and hyper-scientific/futuristic cleanest form I have come up with, is the question of why such a Being would create such a universe peopled by intelligent entities without making it clear to the entities, especially those that very much want to know, just what the real story and purpose is. In other words, why the cosmic game of hide-and-seek where only a few powerful visions and a lot of guesswork and wishful thinking expose the true nature of reality? Why make it even harder by making what the visions say almost impossible to actually validate? Try as I might I have never come up with a scenario that really works. The closest is that this is a great game designed to give as few clues as possible to the players (alternately in-game intelligences) to see what minimal clues and prodding will lead to solving the puzzle. Not exactly a very inspiring worldview is it? And there's the rub. If this is roughly true then we are playthings/players in a diversion. This gives the lie to the great cosmic significance of "who we really are" and "what our purpose is" that is common to many of these visions. I have attempted more than once to walk/create a spiritual path. Each time I noticed that to do so I was opening to considering as plausible many things that do not meet the test of rationality. Sooner or later each time I would become disgusted with the sugar coated baselessness of much around me and of my own attempts to form an integration in these areas. I also noticed that many things in the real world circumstances of my life got shunted aside and insufficiently dealt with no matter what my intentions were. At the very least the purported spiritual path is dangerous and tangled in my experience. There was actually one guru type who said "if you have not started on the spiritual path the very best thing to do is to stay away from it!" Among other things I have done is some fairly earnest meditation for an extended period. After doing this for some time I thought I really had experienced a real change of consciousness and real personal growth. Then, due to a period of illness, I could not do my daily dose of mediatation for a while. I noticed that all these supposed gains evaporated almost immediately. This made me deeply suspicious. It reminded me of feeling so high and righteous in my late teens as long as I smoked a joint every day and spent most of my time running a "groovy" mental dialog. It seemed that in both cases a high maintenance thought entrainment boosted by brain chemistry changes was afoot. I began to find hints as to what meditation actually does in the brain. Slowly it became less mystical and more mundane. I also noticed that during times where I practiced a lot of meditation that some things improved while others seemed to be harmed. Ability to notice my own internal story and emotional productions and choose my actions more consciously improved. Concentration seemed to improve as far as ignoring distractions and single-pointedness goes. But creative problem solving and level of mental energy and inquisitivenessness seemed to be depressed. It felt as if the network of associations and inter-connections in my brain had most paths signal strength lowered due to deeply boosting only a few paths with meditational attention. I also noticed that memory seemed somewhat depressed. As I not only greatly prize these abilities but make my living from them this was more than a little alarming. Also I noticed that my own self-image, self-confidence was somewhat shaken. I do find it fascinating that a few simple meditation practices done for a certain amount of time can cause pretty extensive changes in subjective experience, many of which feel like real improvments. But one of things that meditation apparently does do to brain chemistry is change serontonin levels. Doing this with drugs is known to lead to some similar effects on the postive and negative side. Meditation does lead to more of these experiences, not just during the actual period of meditation. More spontaneous lucid dreaming also can occur. Which makes sense if one is learning to watch one's internal mental productions at a more subtle level. The habit of such focus sometimes partially kicks in during dreaming sleep. To wrap up this bit of a ramble, our brains are capable of some very interesting states of consciousness and productions. These can be invoked and tuned to various degrees by certain practices that many religions and spiritual paths have discovered. But that these experiences occur can only be assured to be saying something about what our brains are capable of. The actual content of these experiences is not likely to be more true than our more normal sensory and conceptual brain content. It is actually less likely to be true as it is produced by bypassing external reality checks and balances by "going within". There are many over-amped states our brains can get into. Some of them are very helpful when they produce for instance an integrative vision solving a sophisticated problem or interlocking set of questions. But that a state is over-amped in various ways says nothing for its relative veracity. That we are in such an over-amped state should make us more cautious rather than less so. We must remember that our evolutionary psychology is such that we tend to pay great attention to powerful experiences and urgings. Only our intelligence can keep us from making serious errors based on this programming. - samantha On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:38:21 -0600, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Samantha Atkins wrote: > > > > Is it "overwhelming evidence" or overwhelming Experience of Meaning, > > Love, Truth, Power, Knowing? Why this over-the-top Experience but > > without filling in the thought and reason and questions fully? Why > > this occasional perfect spiritual storm but not solid understanding? > > Why would the Divine arrange things like this? Why have the purported > > Truth go gamboling among us to occasionally knock one of us who seek it > > or not flat on our ass? Why not share this awesome truth of the > > way-it-really-is across the spectrum with all human beings? Why this > > capricious hide-and-seek and cosmic peek-a-boo? > > > > This looks deeply suspicious to me. And yet please understand that I > > to this day feel like a lout to say so after the Depth of what I have > > experienced. > > Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > I considered John Wright's dilemma, not quite in the form he posed. I > asked myself: "If I was overpowered by religious ecstasy, would my > rationality survive? Am I that strong?" I've previously considered > this question, in the form of wondering whether any conceivable > discipline could enable a trained rationalist to defeat schizophrenia. > Religious ecstasy is a lesser test. > > If my future self had an overpowering religious experience, one obvious > reaction of my future self might be, "Hm, I must be having a temporal > lobe mini-seizure." But that feels to me like cheating; what if I > hadn't studied neurology? I thought of arguments that my hypothetical > slightly more ignorant future self might consider: > > "When I was an atheist, I knew that people had deep religious > experiences, but I did not think it likely that the experience reflected > reality as the retina reports a flower. Now that I have had such an > experience myself, my best estimate of the underlying cause should not > change. I was content to be an atheist when I knew that other people > had religious brainstorms; should this change if one of the 'other > people' is myself? For they and I are both humans; the causal analysis > is the same in either case." > > "Far down the tale of science goes; from quarks to atoms to molecules, > from molecules to proteins to cells to humans, physics and evolution and > intelligence, all a single coherent story. To the best of all human > knowledge, since the beginning of time, not one unusual thing has ever > happened. A thousand generations have learned to their astonishment and > dismay that there are mysterious questions, but never mysterious > answers; that the universe runs on math, not heroic mythology. The > science that I know is too solid, the laws of rationality too strict, > the lessons driven home too many times, to be overturned so lightly." > > "Let us suppose that the experience is caused by something external to a > simple brain malfunction. Just because an entity is capable of inducing > an overpowering religious experience in me, does not make the entity > morally superior. I have seen people sell their souls for the price of > a book. God in the Bible kills and tortures anyone who won't worship > Him properly, or even innocent bystanders, such as Egyptian children > during the Ten Plagues. If we had pictures of such a thing, occurring > in any modern country, we would never forgive the perpetrators; we would > hold them in less esteem than Nazi Germany. Kindhearted rabbis read > tales of dead Egyptian children, killed to impress their parents with > God's might, and the rabbis somehow fail to take moral notice. Is there > no end to the human ability to ignore the failings of one's favored > political leaders? Killing children is wrong, period, end of > discussion. And yet all it takes to make people endorse a God that > commits torture-murder of children, is to hand them a book. People sell > their moralities so cheaply. They don't even demand that the book be > given to them directly by God. They sell their moralities and give over > their sense of judgment just because someone else handed them a book and > told them God wrote it. Even if God speaks to me directly, I should > demand *reasons* before handing over my moral judgment. I have studied > evolutionary biology. I know that there are forces in the universe > capable of producing complex plans and designs, yet utterly nonhumane. > If this "God" wishes me to do something, let It tell me Its reasons, and > see if I agree. As it stands, I have no reason whatever to believe that > God is good. I will not sell myself so cheaply, into bondage to who > knows What." > > And: "Why should some people have these experiences and not others? > Why jerk us around? Why work blatant, showy miracles in front of desert > nomads, for the explicit purpose of providing proof, and then > mysteriously change policies after the introduction of skeptical > thinking and video cameras? If I am told all these spiritual truths, > why not give me next week's winning lottery numbers, to help me convey > these truths to my friends? If I am given no solid proof because the > experience is meant to convince me personally, then, leaving aside the > unfairness, why not tell me ten digits of pi starting at the 1000th > decimal place? Why is it that not one factual assertion brought back > from the grip of religious ecstasy has been surprising, checkable, and > right?" > > I thought of these arguments, Samantha, and yet it occurred to me that > if I was caught in the grip of such a powerful religious experience, I > might not *want* to think them. And then I would be defeated without > ever getting a chance to draw my blade. Intelligence, to be useful, > must be used for a purpose other than defeating itself. I have trained > myself to be wary of knowing my desired conclusion before I begin to > think; explicitly emphasized the impossibility of asking a question > without being genuinely unsure of the answer. It ain't a real crisis of > faith unless it could go either way, as a wise man once said. > > Having a powerful religious experience isn't quite as bad as going > schizophrenic. The religious experience happens and then goes away and > you can think about it rationally. Schizophrenia is constant and > defeats the frontal lobes of reflectivity, destroying both emotional > balance and the ability to use reason to correct it. But I have > wondered whether my mental discipline and my explicit understanding of > rationality would be powerful enough for me to win through, either the > almost impossible test of schizophrenia, or the lesser test of religious > ecstasy. > > I now know that it is possible for a rationalist to cut through to the > correct answer even after suffering a religious ecstasy. For you won > through, Samantha, traveling from a wrong belief to the correct one, and > you even permitted (forced?) yourself to think of arguments like those > that occurred to me - me, sitting here easily at my desk, imagining a > hypothetical future and hoping I *wouldn't* be persuaded. > > Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > -- > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 00:30:01 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 00:30:01 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just What We All Need To Know! In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212125800.01c29c18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041212125800.01c29c18@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41BF8589.4070809@neopax.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > > http://www.thefinaltheory.com/pages/1/index.htm > > Reviewed on amazon.com: > > < read book over and over again. I did. I didn't understand at first, > but then I got it. Listen, I'm not dumb when it comes to physical > education. It's just that scientists who talk about atoms and gravity > have really been wrong all along, and I and all us other peopel who > rely on common sense knew it all along, and McCutcheon knew it all > along. That's why we didn't understand. Because what the scientists > were saying was a bunch of hogwash. Who decides anyways, that the >> > There's a guy called on the Net called 'Uncle Al' who probably shares my opinion of this book. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 00:33:24 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 00:33:24 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41BE6E3D.1090807@pobox.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> <9778AAAA-4C94-11D9-88B7-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> <41BE6E3D.1090807@pobox.com> Message-ID: <41BF8654.3040303@neopax.com> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Samantha Atkins wrote: > >> >> Is it "overwhelming evidence" or overwhelming Experience of Meaning, >> Love, Truth, Power, Knowing? Why this over-the-top Experience but >> without filling in the thought and reason and questions fully? Why >> this occasional perfect spiritual storm but not solid understanding? >> Why would the Divine arrange things like this? Why have the >> purported Truth go gamboling among us to occasionally knock one of us >> who seek it or not flat on our ass? Why not share this awesome >> truth of the way-it-really-is across the spectrum with all human >> beings? Why this capricious hide-and-seek and cosmic peek-a-boo? >> >> This looks deeply suspicious to me. And yet please understand that >> I to this day feel like a lout to say so after the Depth of what I >> have experienced. > > > Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > I considered John Wright's dilemma, not quite in the form he posed. I > asked myself: "If I was overpowered by religious ecstasy, would my > rationality survive? Am I that strong?" I've previously considered > this question, in the form of wondering whether any conceivable > discipline could enable a trained rationalist to defeat schizophrenia. > Religious ecstasy is a lesser test. > > If my future self had an overpowering religious experience, one > obvious reaction of my future self might be, "Hm, I must be having a > temporal lobe mini-seizure." But that feels to me like cheating; what > if I hadn't studied neurology? I thought of arguments that my > hypothetical slightly more ignorant future self might consider: > I had such thoughts after I experienced something like this. The answer I have come up with is straightforward. Don't put it into a cultural context (or if you do, recognise that it is scaffolding that you are deliberately putting in place there). Second, validity of insight is measured by utility. Otherwise, as the Zen saying goes, continue to cut wood and carry water. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 00:34:39 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 00:34:39 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] thinner In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041213221711.02955ac8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041213215530.019e5e98@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213221711.02955ac8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41BF869F.5040701@neopax.com> Hara Ra wrote: > The performance is the same as many other diet pills, 5-7 pounds. > Example - Fen-Phen before it was withdrawn. Most clinical trials do > not track the long term, once a person stops, does the weight return? > When I decided to lose about 20lbs of weight because I had been eating like a pig I simply halved the number of calories, and adjusted my intake so that I did not gain weight. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 00:44:16 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 00:44:16 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: The China Flu In-Reply-To: <00b001c4e204$de288300$c3ebfb44@kevin> References: <20041214162728.91705.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> <00b001c4e204$de288300$c3ebfb44@kevin> Message-ID: <41BF88E0.6050500@neopax.com> Kevin Freels wrote: >If ALL spammers set up in China, wouldn't it be fairly easy to filter them? > > Yes. When the Chinese govt decides they are more trouble than they are worth they will be given a choice between stopping instantly or a speedy trial followed by a few years in a labour camp. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 00:51:06 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 00:51:06 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <948b11e04121415073cdae2bd@mail.gmail.com> References: <200412091810.iB9IAw007757@tick.javien.com> <9778AAAA-4C94-11D9-88B7-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> <41BE6E3D.1090807@pobox.com> <948b11e04121415073cdae2bd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <41BF8A7A.7010004@neopax.com> Samantha Atkins wrote: >Among other things I have done is some fairly earnest meditation for >an extended period. After doing this for some time I thought I >really had experienced a real change of consciousness and real >personal growth. Then, due to a period of illness, I could not do my >daily dose of mediatation for a while. I noticed that all these >supposed gains evaporated almost immediately. This made me deeply >suspicious. It reminded me of feeling so high and righteous in my >late teens as long as I smoked a joint every day and spent most of my >time running a "groovy" mental dialog. It seemed that in both cases >a high maintenance thought entrainment boosted by brain chemistry >changes was afoot. > >I began to find hints as to what meditation actually does in the >brain. Slowly it became less mystical and more mundane. I also >noticed that during times where I practiced a lot of meditation that >some things improved while others seemed to be harmed. Ability to >notice my own internal story and emotional productions and choose my >actions more consciously improved. Concentration seemed to improve >as far as ignoring distractions and single-pointedness goes. But >creative problem solving and level of mental energy and >inquisitivenessness seemed to be depressed. It felt as if the >network of associations and inter-connections in my brain had most >paths signal strength lowered due to deeply boosting only a few paths >with meditational attention. I also noticed that memory seemed >somewhat depressed. As I not only greatly prize these abilities but >make my living from them this was more than a little alarming. Also I >noticed that my own self-image, self-confidence was somewhat shaken. > >I do find it fascinating that a few simple meditation practices done >for a certain amount of time can cause pretty extensive changes in >subjective experience, many of which feel like real improvments. But >one of things that meditation apparently does do to brain chemistry is >change serontonin levels. Doing this with drugs is known to lead to >some similar effects on the postive and negative side. > >Meditation does lead to more of these experiences, not just during the >actual period of meditation. More spontaneous lucid dreaming also >can occur. Which makes sense if one is learning to watch one's >internal mental productions at a more subtle level. The habit of >such focus sometimes partially kicks in during dreaming sleep. > > > http://webreprints.djreprints.com/1107731187914.html -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From ned_lt at yahoo.com Wed Dec 15 03:02:36 2004 From: ned_lt at yahoo.com (Ned Late) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 19:02:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: feminazis, and other things In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041215030236.7794.qmail@web61302.mail.yahoo.com> Feminazis are not mythological creatures such as the unicorn or the phoenix, they do exist-- though they are not as common as Rush Limbaugh would have us believe. > > Oh, and while we're looking into linguistic usage, > does the term `feminazi' > > implicitly invoke Godwin's Rule and bring the > whole discussion to an > > instant and sickened stop? > > > > Perhaps Mike has not been in the sort of female > company that sing the > female versions of the song? Replacing 'balls' with > 'tits'? (and > another even ruder version). > The female ladettes in the UK out drinking can be > quite an impressive sight. :) > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From spike66 at comcast.net Wed Dec 15 03:45:47 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 19:45:47 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] A Strombolian Holiday Tree In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000101c4e258$9368b9d0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> From: Amara Graps ... Work is so stressful right now (we deliver our instrument to NASA in four months... Amara Amara, how did that experiment come out, the one that was to collect space dust, but the parachute failed and it smacked into the desert floor? Was any of that data salvageable? spike From neuronexmachina at gmail.com Wed Dec 15 03:49:21 2004 From: neuronexmachina at gmail.com (Neil Halelamien) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 19:49:21 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: vision research, was: T-shirts? Intro post In-Reply-To: <200412121900.iBCJ0H025105@tick.javien.com> References: <200412121900.iBCJ0H025105@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: A few days ago I came across a great C++ toolkit for neuromorphic vision, released under the GPL. I figured some of you might be interested in it: http://ilab.usc.edu/toolkit/home.shtml This PDF presentation gives a brief overview of some of the toolkit's capabilities and the science behind it: http://ilab.usc.edu/toolkit/iNVT-intro-031204.pdf -- Neil Halelamien From Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it Wed Dec 15 04:57:23 2004 From: Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it (Amara Graps) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 05:57:23 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Sample Return Missions (was: A Strombolian Holiday Tree) Message-ID: <20041215045221.M9483@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> Spike: >Amara, how did that experiment come out, the one that was to >collect space dust, but the parachute failed and it smacked into >the desert floor? Was any of that data salvageable? Dear Spike: You're mixing up your sample return missions. Genesis --> solar 'particles' http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/genesis/spacecraft/return-to-earth. html http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/index.html is the mission where the capsule's parachute failed to open during descent due to design error in the switches and the capsule crashed in the Utah desert. See Sky and Telescope pg. 28, January 2005 for a picture of the broken shards. The pieces are being analyzed at Johnson Space Flight Center, and I hear that some are useable. Stardust --> dust particles http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/top.html The dust from comet Wild2 are in the capsule scheduled to return to Earth January 15, 2006. The rest of the data from Comet Wild 2 was sent back to Earth about one year ago and is really quite unbelieavable, and people are still trying to understand it. And yes, in light of Genesis' accident, the sample return to Earth part of the Stardust mission is being scrutinized again. Amara From megao at sasktel.net Wed Dec 15 09:01:49 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 03:01:49 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:Resuscitation: and Armchair Cryonicists-hypothermic liferaft In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org> <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41BFFD7D.7020305@sasktel.net> The concept goes thusly: The liferaft = -sleeping /body bag like sack made so that no 2 arms or legs touch each other or body -zipper + ziplock seal - control/RFID biomonitor keypad with on outside -stage 1- evacuate liner to ensure good skin contact with sack -person put inside without outer clothes , shoes etc -put cooling hood or cap over all of head less face, face cover ziplock cover after body cooled off -start in 2 parts; activation of emergency cooling packs layer of sack to quick cool body; hood cooling cycle co2 based for higher cooling rate -infusion of adjuvants may include: Caffeinol as neuroprotectant; berberine in DMSO solution as neuroprotectant; cannabidiol in DMSO solution as neuroprotectant -optional defib cycle to pump neuroprotectants into cooling body uniformly The adjuvants are designed to allow the brain to survive a longer cool-off time than the usual 3-5 minutes. as well as allow for easier re-start of body by hospital medical team -once body temp is near 32F optional external hookups to maintain cooled body during extended transport Once the working prototype is designed and tested , the actual mfg costs may be quite reasonable Morris Johnson Hara Ra wrote: > To posts by Eugen and Kevin. > > For Kevin: > > My (very limited) information on ischemia is that the Krebs cycle > is vulnerable to the loss of oxygen. (The machinery for this cycle is > passed via the egg, so evolution in mammalia long ago lost any > protection if it was there.) When O2 is returned to the cell, the > Krebs cycle has failed, and some steps lack the needed intermediate > products, the result is a toxic accumulation of reactive radicals and > serious irreparable damage. > > I don't know about what the arteries do, but failure of their > Krebs cycle may well do as you describe. > > For Eugen: > > Thanks for taking my point and clarifying it. If you read my sig > file, I don't think I am an "Armchair cryonicist". Please correct me > if you think so, and explain why. > > For Both: > > If the law permitted touching the patienr prior to announcement of > death (not likely in the USA for a very long time), then, in a clinic, > 1) give patient general anesthesia 2) cannulate femorals 3) pump in > intermediate cooldown fluid (plasma blood extender) with high > oxygenation. As the body temp cools, the heart stops at about 50 deg > F. Cooldown to 0 deg C can be done in about 10 minutes, without > subjecting the patient to ischemia. > > But, folks, this is legally MURDER, and dat's how it is in the > good ole USA. :( > > PS We currently do no longer use the Thumper, which is an obscene > bastard of equipment fully capable of major injury to both patient and > rescue team. Respiratory support is no longer in the protocol, because > basically all patients are over the 4 minute limit, and restoring O2 > is a bad idea. We use an Ambi product, a suction cup with handles, to > maintain circulation for the 3-5 minutes it takes to circulate the > medicines (a proprietary cocktail of anticoaguants, clot busters and > other stuff) > ================================== > = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = > = harara at sbcglobal.net = > = Alcor North Cryomanagement = > = Alcor Advisor to Board = > = 831 429 8637 = > ================================== > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Wed Dec 15 10:43:01 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 11:43:01 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:Resuscitation: and Armchair Cryonicists-hypothermic liferaft In-Reply-To: <41BFFD7D.7020305@sasktel.net> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org> <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BFFD7D.7020305@sasktel.net> Message-ID: <20041215104301.GT9221@leitl.org> On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 03:01:49AM -0600, Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc. wrote: > The concept goes thusly: > The liferaft = > -sleeping /body bag like sack made so that no 2 arms or legs touch each > other or body > -zipper + ziplock seal > - control/RFID biomonitor keypad with on outside > -stage 1- evacuate liner to ensure good skin contact with sack > -person put inside without outer clothes , shoes etc > -put cooling hood or cap over all of head less face, face cover ziplock > cover after body cooled off > -start in 2 parts; activation of emergency cooling packs layer of sack > to quick cool body; hood cooling cycle Useless. This gives you no advatage over an ice bath. > co2 based for higher cooling rate More than useless. You can't go below 0 C, or you'll get freezing injury. > -infusion of adjuvants may include: > Caffeinol as neuroprotectant; berberine in DMSO solution as > neuroprotectant; cannabidiol in DMSO solution as neuroprotectant > -optional defib cycle to pump neuroprotectants into cooling body uniformly You have to maintain the circulation. Best do achieve this is life support. > The adjuvants are designed to allow the brain to survive a longer > cool-off time than the usual 3-5 minutes. Sorry, but your science is garbage. I'm being delibertely harsh here, because otherwise you won't get the message. > as well as allow for easier re-start of body by hospital medical team > -once body temp is near 32F optional external hookups to maintain cooled > body during extended transport > > Once the working prototype is designed and tested , the actual mfg > costs may be quite reasonable If you have to live in the sticks, you have to rely on people. No machinery is going to help. > Morris Johnson > > Hara Ra wrote: > >For Eugen: > > > > Thanks for taking my point and clarifying it. If you read my sig > >file, I don't think I am an "Armchair cryonicist". Please correct me > >if you think so, and explain why. Of course I wasn't commenting on what you wrote, but on periodical resurgence of well-meaning-but-clueless armchair cryonicists. > >PS We currently do no longer use the Thumper, which is an obscene > >bastard of equipment fully capable of major injury to both patient and > >rescue team. Respiratory support is no longer in the protocol, because Oh yeah, if the cup breaks off you'll get a massive metal rod puncturing the ribcage. > >basically all patients are over the 4 minute limit, and restoring O2 > >is a bad idea. We use an Ambi product, a suction cup with handles, to Not if you add neuroprotectants via IV push, and maintain artificial circulation. > >maintain circulation for the 3-5 minutes it takes to circulate the > >medicines (a proprietary cocktail of anticoaguants, clot busters and > >other stuff) -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE Wed Dec 15 13:09:31 2004 From: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE (Patrick Wilken) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 14:09:31 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Sample Return Missions (was: A Strombolian Holiday Tree) In-Reply-To: <20041215045221.M9483@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> References: <20041215045221.M9483@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> Message-ID: <8ED81B3A-4E9A-11D9-87BC-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> On 15 Dec 2004, at 05:57, Amara Graps wrote: > The dust from comet Wild2 are in the capsule scheduled to return > to Earth January 15, 2006. The rest of the data from Comet Wild 2 > was sent back to Earth about one year ago and is really quite > unbelieavable, and people are still trying to understand it. Amara: Can you let us in on the unbelievable results? best, patrick From megao at sasktel.net Wed Dec 15 13:56:05 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 07:56:05 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:Resuscitation: and Armchair Cryonicists-hypothermic liferaft In-Reply-To: <20041215104301.GT9221@leitl.org> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org> <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BFFD7D.7020305@sasktel.net> <20041215104301.GT9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <41C04275.4010203@sasktel.net> United States Patent Application 20040097534 Kind Code A1 Choi, Byung-Kil ; et al. May 20, 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Composition for the protection and regeneration of nerve cells containing berberine derivatives Abstract Disclosed is a composition for protecting nerve cells, promoting nerve cell growth and regenerating nerve cells comprising berberine, derivatives thereof or pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof. The composition has protective effects against apoptosis of neuronal stem cells and differentiated neuronal stem cells, an effect of inducing the regeneration of nerve cells, a regenerative effect on neurites, a neuroregenerative effect on central nerves and peripheral nerves, a reformation effect on neuromuscular junctions, and a protective effect against apoptosis of nerve cells and a neuroregenerative effect in animals suffering from dementia and brain ischemia. Therefore, the composition can be used as a therapeutic agent for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, ischemic nervous diseases or nerve injuries, and for the improvement of learning capability. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& [0150] Next, the head of the rat was fixed on a stereotaxic apparatus to operate on the occiput, and then the tail was fixed so that it descended downwardly at an angle of 30.degree.. After incising the occipital bone, an electrocauterizing needle having a diameter of 1 mm or less was inserted into the alar foramina positioned at lower part of the first cervical vertebra under the occipital bone. At this time, this approach must be carefully done so as not to damage the muscles in the alar foramina. Thereafter, the vertebral artery was electrically cauterized by intermittently applying current. After the complete electrocauterization of the vertebral artery was confirmed, suturing was carried out using operating clips. After 24 hours, the operating clips were removed. Finally, the common carotid arteries were occluded using the silicone tube rings for 10 minutes to induce ischemia. If light reflex did not disappear within 1 minute, the cervical portion was further tightly sutured. Rats which did not show the complete disappearance of light reflex were excluded from the experiment because they underwent no damage to the CA1 region. After 10 minutes, the common carotid arteries were loosened to reperfuse. For 20 minutes after the reperfusion, loss of consciousness was observed. At this time, only rats which showed consciousness loss period within 20.+-.5 minutes were selected for subsequent experiments. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& 2) Experimental Results (1) Concentration of Berberine, Influence of Body Temperature and Ischemia Inducing Time [0157] The highest concentration of berberine was set to 300 .mu.g/0.1 kg, and 600 .mu.l (1 mg/ml) of berberine was intraperitoneally injected to white rats weighing 200 g. In order to determine an optimal ischemia induction time, 2.about.3 rats were selected and ischemia-induced over 5, 10, 20 and 30 minutes, respectively. 1 week after reperfusion, they were sacrificed and their hippocampal tissue sections were obtained to observe the number of damaged nerve cells. 10 minutes after ischemia induction, damaged pyramidal cells in the hippocampal CA1 region were found to be reduced to 1/4 of their original numbers. The ischemia induction time of 10 minutes was determined to be most optimal for evaluating the effects of berberine. [0158] For statistically analyzing the effects of berberine, a sham operated group having undergone an operation in the same manner without ischemia induction was used. For comparing the effects of berberine, a control group administered with physiological saline at the same dose as berberine was used. Berberine was intraperitoneally injected into all experimental groups. [0159] It is well known that reduction in body temperature during ischemia induction prevents damage to nerve cells in the hippocampus and thus exhibits neuroprotective effects. Therefore, in order to evaluate the neuroprotective effect of berberine, after ischemia induction and reperfusion, the body temperature of all rats was maintained at a constant (37.+-.1.degree. C.) for 6 hours. (2) Observation of Damaged Nerve Cells [0160] When ischemia was induced by 4-VO and then reperfusion was performed, nerve cells in the neocortex, striatum, hippocampal CA1 region and cerebellum were damaged. Among them, pyramidal nerve cells in the hippocampal CA1 region were the most susceptible to the induced ischemia, and started to undergo cell death 72 hours after reperfusion. In order to observe delayed neuronal death in the hippocampal CA1 region, 1 week after reperfusion, the time when almost all nerve cells were damaged, white rats were sacrificed and tissue sections from the hippocampus were observed under an optical microscope. In a sham operated group having undergone no ischemia, normal hippocampal nerve cells were observed in the stratum pyramidale (490 .mu.m long)(see,A and B of FIG. 21). [0161] C and D of FIG. 21 as control groups show apoptosis. When cells are induced to undergo apoptosis by an external or an internal stimulus, they shrink to lose their original shapes. This shrinkage breaks the junctions with other adjacent cells so that the interaction between cells is disrupted. When the shrinkage proceeds to some extent, the cell membranes form apoptotic bodies like a bulla. In the hippocampal CA1 region of the control group administered with physiological saline (D of FIG. 21), it was observed that nerve cells underwent apoptotic morphological changes after ischemia induction. In addition, it was observed that tissues was relaxed and separated from adjacent cells, unlike B of FIG. 21. From these observations, it was confirmed that the cell bodies of nerve cells lost their original pyramidal shape and were condensed, thereby appearing to be single cells. Furthermore, it was confirmed that subsequent nuclear chromatin condensation and nuclear envelope collapse led to apoptosis of nerve cells. On the contrary, nerve cells in the hippocampal CA1 region administered with berberine were similar to normal cells in terms of their morphology (see, E and F of FIG. 21). At this time, because necrotic nerve cells around the CA1 region were very difficult to distinguish from microglias, only viable pyramidal nerve cells in the CA1 region were counted. In F of FIG. 21, separated cells were observed above and below the hippocampal region and cell bodies were condensed. This demonstrates that the damage to nerve cells was great enough to induce apoptosis. Nevertheless, it was observed that a great number of nerve cells were protected from apoptosis and their original pyramidal morphology was maintained. This suggests that berberine has a protective effect against damages to nerve cells in the hippocampal CA1 region induced by 4-VO. Although it was not confirmed what stage during apoptosis influences nerve cell survival, it was certain that berberine has a significant protective effect against apoptosis of nerve cells (see, E and F of FIG. 21). (3) Protective Effect of Berberine Against Damage to Nerve Cells [0162] In order to examine the neuroprotective effect of berberine after ischemia induction, berberine was intraperitoneally injected 0 and 90 minutes after ischemia induction. [0163] In the sham groups, the density of viable cells was measured to be 308.+-.6.6 cells/mm.sup.2 (at 37.degree. C.). In the control groups administered with physiological saline, the density of viable cells was measured to be 28.+-.3.8 cells/mm.sup.2 (at 37.degree. C.). There was cell loss in these two groups. On the other hand, in the experimental groups administered with berberine, the density of viable cells was measured to be 257.+-.9.6 cell/mm.sup.2. In conclusion, berberine was determined to have a significant neuroprotective effect (p<0.05). [0164] As described above, the composition according to the present invention regenerates axons and dendrites of nerve cells, thereby having a protective effect against nerve cell injuries, a positive effect on nerve cell growth and a regenerative effect on nerve cells. In addition, the composition according to the present invention can be used as a therapeutic agent for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases or nerve injuries, in particular, dementia, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, palsy, ischemic brain diseases, trauma to the spinal cord and peripheral nerve injuries. [0165] Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims. * * * * * Aside from its carrier capacity DMSO was chosen for its ability to inhibit damage from a light freeze There are a number of complementary chemistries besides from the ones cited readily available. Eugen Leitl wrote: >On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 03:01:49AM -0600, Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc. wrote: > > > >>The concept goes thusly: >>The liferaft = >>-sleeping /body bag like sack made so that no 2 arms or legs touch each >>other or body >>-zipper + ziplock seal >>- control/RFID biomonitor keypad with on outside >>-stage 1- evacuate liner to ensure good skin contact with sack >>-person put inside without outer clothes , shoes etc >>-put cooling hood or cap over all of head less face, face cover ziplock >>cover after body cooled off >>-start in 2 parts; activation of emergency cooling packs layer of sack >>to quick cool body; hood cooling cycle >> >> > >Useless. This gives you no advatage over an ice bath. > > > >>co2 based for higher cooling rate >> >> > >More than useless. You can't go below 0 C, or you'll get freezing injury. > > > >>-infusion of adjuvants may include: >>Caffeinol as neuroprotectant; berberine in DMSO solution as >>neuroprotectant; cannabidiol in DMSO solution as neuroprotectant >>-optional defib cycle to pump neuroprotectants into cooling body uniformly >> >> > >You have to maintain the circulation. Best do achieve this is life support. > > > >>The adjuvants are designed to allow the brain to survive a longer >>cool-off time than the usual 3-5 minutes. >> >> > >Sorry, but your science is garbage. I'm being delibertely harsh here, because >otherwise you won't get the message. > > > >>as well as allow for easier re-start of body by hospital medical team >>-once body temp is near 32F optional external hookups to maintain cooled >>body during extended transport >> >>Once the working prototype is designed and tested , the actual mfg >>costs may be quite reasonable >> >> > >If you have to live in the sticks, you have to rely on people. No machinery >is going to help. > > > >>Morris Johnson >> >>Hara Ra wrote: >> >> >>>For Eugen: >>> >>> Thanks for taking my point and clarifying it. If you read my sig >>>file, I don't think I am an "Armchair cryonicist". Please correct me >>>if you think so, and explain why. >>> >>> > >Of course I wasn't commenting on what you wrote, but on periodical resurgence >of well-meaning-but-clueless armchair cryonicists. > > > >>>PS We currently do no longer use the Thumper, which is an obscene >>>bastard of equipment fully capable of major injury to both patient and >>>rescue team. Respiratory support is no longer in the protocol, because >>> >>> > >Oh yeah, if the cup breaks off you'll get a massive metal rod puncturing the >ribcage. > > > >>>basically all patients are over the 4 minute limit, and restoring O2 >>>is a bad idea. We use an Ambi product, a suction cup with handles, to >>> >>> > >Not if you add neuroprotectants via IV push, and maintain artificial >circulation. > > > >>>maintain circulation for the 3-5 minutes it takes to circulate the >>>medicines (a proprietary cocktail of anticoaguants, clot busters and >>>other stuff) >>> >>> > > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Wed Dec 15 14:31:38 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:31:38 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:Resuscitation: and Armchair Cryonicists-hypothermic liferaft In-Reply-To: <41C04275.4010203@sasktel.net> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org> <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BFFD7D.7020305@sasktel.net> <20041215104301.GT9221@leitl.org> <41C04275.4010203@sasktel.net> Message-ID: <20041215143138.GS9221@leitl.org> On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 07:56:05AM -0600, Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc. wrote: > > United States Patent Application 20040097534 > Kind Code A1 > Choi, Byung-Kil ; et al. May 20, 2004 > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Composition for the protection and regeneration of nerve cells > containing berberine derivatives Apoptosis is one of damage mechanisms, and is indeed initiated by ischaemic damage. Most of it occurs days after damage, and requires a working metabolism. There are lots of drugs to block it. If you need drugs to block ischaemic damage as a cryonics patient there's something ran terribly wrong. (Blocking brain activity when on life support after flat EEG lacune due to ischemia is something else, and something really really necessary). > Abstract > > Disclosed is a composition for protecting nerve cells, promoting nerve > cell growth and regenerating nerve cells comprising berberine, > derivatives thereof or pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof. The > composition has protective effects against apoptosis of neuronal stem > cells and differentiated neuronal stem cells, an effect of inducing the > regeneration of nerve cells, a regenerative effect on neurites, a > neuroregenerative effect on central nerves and peripheral nerves, a > reformation effect on neuromuscular junctions, and a protective effect > against apoptosis of nerve cells and a neuroregenerative effect in > animals suffering from dementia and brain ischemia. Therefore, the > composition can be used as a therapeutic agent for the prevention and > treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, ischemic nervous diseases or > nerve injuries, and for the improvement of learning capability. > > &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& > > [0150] Next, the head of the rat was fixed on a stereotaxic apparatus to > operate on the occiput, and then the tail was fixed so that it descended > downwardly at an angle of 30.degree.. After incising the occipital bone, > an electrocauterizing needle having a diameter of 1 mm or less was > inserted into the alar foramina positioned at lower part of the first > cervical vertebra under the occipital bone. At this time, this approach > must be carefully done so as not to damage the muscles in the alar > foramina. Thereafter, the vertebral artery was electrically cauterized > by intermittently applying current. After the complete > electrocauterization of the vertebral artery was confirmed, suturing was > carried out using operating clips. After 24 hours, the operating clips > were removed. Finally, the common carotid arteries were occluded using > the silicone tube rings for 10 minutes to induce ischemia. If light > reflex did not disappear within 1 minute, the cervical portion was > further tightly sutured. Rats which did not show the complete > disappearance of light reflex were excluded from the experiment because > they underwent no damage to the CA1 region. After 10 minutes, the common > carotid arteries were loosened to reperfuse. For 20 minutes after the > reperfusion, loss of consciousness was observed. At this time, only rats > which showed consciousness loss period within 20.+-.5 minutes were > selected for subsequent experiments. > > &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& > > 2) Experimental Results > > (1) Concentration of Berberine, Influence of Body Temperature and > Ischemia Inducing Time > > [0157] The highest concentration of berberine was set to 300 .mu.g/0.1 > kg, and 600 .mu.l (1 mg/ml) of berberine was intraperitoneally injected > to white rats weighing 200 g. In order to determine an optimal ischemia > induction time, 2.about.3 rats were selected and ischemia-induced over > 5, 10, 20 and 30 minutes, respectively. 1 week after reperfusion, they > were sacrificed and their hippocampal tissue sections were obtained to > observe the number of damaged nerve cells. 10 minutes after ischemia > induction, damaged pyramidal cells in the hippocampal CA1 region were > found to be reduced to 1/4 of their original numbers. The ischemia > induction time of 10 minutes was determined to be most optimal for > evaluating the effects of berberine. > > [0158] For statistically analyzing the effects of berberine, a sham > operated group having undergone an operation in the same manner without > ischemia induction was used. For comparing the effects of berberine, a > control group administered with physiological saline at the same dose as > berberine was used. Berberine was intraperitoneally injected into all > experimental groups. > > [0159] It is well known that reduction in body temperature during > ischemia induction prevents damage to nerve cells in the hippocampus and > thus exhibits neuroprotective effects. Therefore, in order to evaluate > the neuroprotective effect of berberine, after ischemia induction and > reperfusion, the body temperature of all rats was maintained at a > constant (37.+-.1.degree. C.) for 6 hours. > > (2) Observation of Damaged Nerve Cells > > [0160] When ischemia was induced by 4-VO and then reperfusion was > performed, nerve cells in the neocortex, striatum, hippocampal CA1 > region and cerebellum were damaged. Among them, pyramidal nerve cells in > the hippocampal CA1 region were the most susceptible to the induced > ischemia, and started to undergo cell death 72 hours after reperfusion. > In order to observe delayed neuronal death in the hippocampal CA1 > region, 1 week after reperfusion, the time when almost all nerve cells > were damaged, white rats were sacrificed and tissue sections from the > hippocampus were observed under an optical microscope. In a sham > operated group having undergone no ischemia, normal hippocampal nerve > cells were observed in the stratum pyramidale (490 .mu.m long)(see,A and > B of FIG. 21). > > [0161] C and D of FIG. 21 as control groups show apoptosis. When cells > are induced to undergo apoptosis by an external or an internal stimulus, > they shrink to lose their original shapes. This shrinkage breaks the > junctions with other adjacent cells so that the interaction between > cells is disrupted. When the shrinkage proceeds to some extent, the cell > membranes form apoptotic bodies like a bulla. In the hippocampal CA1 > region of the control group administered with physiological saline (D of > FIG. 21), it was observed that nerve cells underwent apoptotic > morphological changes after ischemia induction. In addition, it was > observed that tissues was relaxed and separated from adjacent cells, > unlike B of FIG. 21. From these observations, it was confirmed that the > cell bodies of nerve cells lost their original pyramidal shape and were > condensed, thereby appearing to be single cells. Furthermore, it was > confirmed that subsequent nuclear chromatin condensation and nuclear > envelope collapse led to apoptosis of nerve cells. On the contrary, > nerve cells in the hippocampal CA1 region administered with berberine > were similar to normal cells in terms of their morphology (see, E and F > of FIG. 21). At this time, because necrotic nerve cells around the CA1 > region were very difficult to distinguish from microglias, only viable > pyramidal nerve cells in the CA1 region were counted. In F of FIG. 21, > separated cells were observed above and below the hippocampal region and > cell bodies were condensed. This demonstrates that the damage to nerve > cells was great enough to induce apoptosis. Nevertheless, it was > observed that a great number of nerve cells were protected from > apoptosis and their original pyramidal morphology was maintained. This > suggests that berberine has a protective effect against damages to nerve > cells in the hippocampal CA1 region induced by 4-VO. Although it was not > confirmed what stage during apoptosis influences nerve cell survival, it > was certain that berberine has a significant protective effect against > apoptosis of nerve cells (see, E and F of FIG. 21). > > (3) Protective Effect of Berberine Against Damage to Nerve Cells > > [0162] In order to examine the neuroprotective effect of berberine after > ischemia induction, berberine was intraperitoneally injected 0 and 90 > minutes after ischemia induction. > > [0163] In the sham groups, the density of viable cells was measured to > be 308.+-.6.6 cells/mm.sup.2 (at 37.degree. C.). In the control groups > administered with physiological saline, the density of viable cells was > measured to be 28.+-.3.8 cells/mm.sup.2 (at 37.degree. C.). There was > cell loss in these two groups. On the other hand, in the experimental > groups administered with berberine, the density of viable cells was > measured to be 257.+-.9.6 cell/mm.sup.2. In conclusion, berberine was > determined to have a significant neuroprotective effect (p<0.05). > > [0164] As described above, the composition according to the present > invention regenerates axons and dendrites of nerve cells, thereby having > a protective effect against nerve cell injuries, a positive effect on > nerve cell growth and a regenerative effect on nerve cells. In addition, > the composition according to the present invention can be used as a > therapeutic agent for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative > diseases or nerve injuries, in particular, dementia, Parkinson's > disease, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, palsy, ischemic brain diseases, > trauma to the spinal cord and peripheral nerve injuries. > > [0165] Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have > been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will > appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are > possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention > as disclosed in the accompanying claims. > > * * * * * > > Aside from its carrier capacity DMSO was chosen for its ability to > inhibit damage from a light freeze > > There are a number of complementary chemistries besides from the ones > cited readily available. > > > > Eugen Leitl wrote: > > >On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 03:01:49AM -0600, Extropian Agroforestry Ventures > >Inc. wrote: > > > > > > > >>The concept goes thusly: > >>The liferaft = > >>-sleeping /body bag like sack made so that no 2 arms or legs touch each > >>other or body > >>-zipper + ziplock seal > >>- control/RFID biomonitor keypad with on outside > >>-stage 1- evacuate liner to ensure good skin contact with sack > >>-person put inside without outer clothes , shoes etc > >>-put cooling hood or cap over all of head less face, face cover ziplock > >>cover after body cooled off > >>-start in 2 parts; activation of emergency cooling packs layer of sack > >>to quick cool body; hood cooling cycle > >> > >> > > > >Useless. This gives you no advatage over an ice bath. > > > > > > > >>co2 based for higher cooling rate > >> > >> > > > >More than useless. You can't go below 0 C, or you'll get freezing injury. > > > > > > > >>-infusion of adjuvants may include: > >>Caffeinol as neuroprotectant; berberine in DMSO solution as > >>neuroprotectant; cannabidiol in DMSO solution as neuroprotectant > >>-optional defib cycle to pump neuroprotectants into cooling body > >>uniformly > >> > >> > > > >You have to maintain the circulation. Best do achieve this is life support. > > > > > > > >>The adjuvants are designed to allow the brain to survive a longer > >>cool-off time than the usual 3-5 minutes. > >> > >> > > > >Sorry, but your science is garbage. I'm being delibertely harsh here, > >because > >otherwise you won't get the message. > > > > > > > >>as well as allow for easier re-start of body by hospital medical team > >>-once body temp is near 32F optional external hookups to maintain cooled > >>body during extended transport > >> > >>Once the working prototype is designed and tested , the actual mfg > >>costs may be quite reasonable > >> > >> > > > >If you have to live in the sticks, you have to rely on people. No machinery > >is going to help. > > > > > > > >>Morris Johnson > >> > >>Hara Ra wrote: > >> > >> > >>>For Eugen: > >>> > >>> Thanks for taking my point and clarifying it. If you read my sig > >>>file, I don't think I am an "Armchair cryonicist". Please correct me > >>>if you think so, and explain why. > >>> > >>> > > > >Of course I wasn't commenting on what you wrote, but on periodical > >resurgence > >of well-meaning-but-clueless armchair cryonicists. > > > > > > > >>>PS We currently do no longer use the Thumper, which is an obscene > >>>bastard of equipment fully capable of major injury to both patient and > >>>rescue team. Respiratory support is no longer in the protocol, because > >>> > >>> > > > >Oh yeah, if the cup breaks off you'll get a massive metal rod puncturing > >the > >ribcage. > > > > > > > >>>basically all patients are over the 4 minute limit, and restoring O2 > >>>is a bad idea. We use an Ambi product, a suction cup with handles, to > >>> > >>> > > > >Not if you add neuroprotectants via IV push, and maintain artificial > >circulation. > > > > > > > >>>maintain circulation for the 3-5 minutes it takes to circulate the > >>>medicines (a proprietary cocktail of anticoaguants, clot busters and > >>>other stuff) > >>> > >>> > > > > > > > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >_______________________________________________ > >extropy-chat mailing list > >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From amara at amara.com Wed Dec 15 14:45:57 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:45:57 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Sample Return Missions Message-ID: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE, Wed Dec 15, 2004 >Can you let us in on the unbelievable results? The large swarms and narrow bursts are weird. Minutes of no dust impacts go by between the bursts. I understand fragmentation, electrostically or by other means, but the spacecraft is within 600 km. How can the dust flux be that burst-y, so close to the comet nucleus? Then it encountered another intense burst 4000 km away. The authors have explanations for the early bursts using the topography of the nucleus, geometry of 'jets crossing', etc. but I think it is still too speculative. And why are the largest depressions on the surface devoid of dust activity? And what can explain such a well-structured burst (like a cloud of dust) 4000 km away? Weird data! (but that's what makes science interesting :-)) http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/304/5678/1760a Science, Vol 304, Issue 5678, 1760 , 18 June 2004 (opening note. See the other articles in the issue) Question: How close can you get to a comet? Answer: In this special section, the Stardust spacecraft will take you within 236 kilometers of the nucleus of comet Wild 2. Stardust's primary mission was to collect interstellar dust particles and cometary dust particles. These micrometer-sized particles represent the building blocks of the solar system as well as samples of other stars. The particles were collected in aerogel, an extremely low-density microporous silica. Aerogel can capture particles only at slow relative velocities; however, most previous spacecraft encounters occurred at much higher relative velocities, so the mission engineers designed an orbital path to ensure slow encounters. Launched in February 1999, Stardust collected interstellar particles in May 2000. After coming close to Earth at the end of its first orbit to get a gravity assist, Stardust collected more interstellar dust particles in 2002. Finally, in January 2004, Stardust encountered comet Wild 2 at a relative velocity of about 6 kilometers per second and a breathlessly close distance of 236 kilometers. Besides capturing cometary particles, the Stardust spacecraft used its scientific payload to obtain highly spatially and temporally resolved data on this extremely slow encounter of a unique kind. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-CALTECHAs described by Brownlee et al. (p. 1764), the optical navigation camera took 72 images (one every 10 seconds) and found an oddly shaped nucleus, pockmarked with depressions and ridges. The feature-rich surface suggests that this comet has cohesive strength and is not a porous ball of ice that would fall apart at the slightest perturbation [see the Perspective by Weaver for more details (p. 1760)]. As described by Tuzzolino et al. (p. 1776), the dust flux monitor found unexpected swarms of particles, suggesting fragmentation of larger chunks of the comet. As described by Kissel et al. (p. 1774), the time-of-flight mass spectrometer recorded spectra and found organic-rich matter as well as nitrogen- and sulfur-rich species. The images also showed jets coming out in all directions, and Sekanina et al. (p. 1769) concluded that these jets are narrow sheets of particles that burst forth from small sources on the tumbling comet. Levasseur-Regourd (p. 1762) puts these jets and their sources into perspective. Now that the flyby is complete and the unexpectedly ugly but strong surface of Wild 2 has been revealed in the finest detail possible, scientists can ponder what all of this means for the origin of the solar system, while the mission scientists have sweet dreams made of fluffy particles of comets, the solar nebula, and other stars cushioned in aerogel until the return of the samples in 2006. Then scientists can get really close to actual particles captured from comet Wild 2. Chemical analyses of the particles, combined with the flyby data, should help clear up any nightmares about the origin of the solar system and the dynamics of comets. -- Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR, Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it From john-c-wright at sff.net Wed Dec 15 15:11:28 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:11:28 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Re: John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> With no trace of irony, Mme. Yudkowsky writes >Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. The argument that, since there are by definition no supernatural events, ergo all reports of supernatural events must be false, is circular. Real skeptics do not take conclusions as articles of faith. "You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost. "I don't." said Scrooge. "What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?" "I don't know," said Scrooge. "Why do you doubt your senses?" "Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" --- Original Message --- From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" To: ExI chat list CC: john-c-wright at sff.net Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:38:21 -0600 Subject: Re: John Wright Finds God > Samantha Atkins wrote: > > > > Is it "overwhelming evidence" or overwhelming Experience of Meaning, > > Love, Truth, Power, Knowing? Why this over-the-top Experience but > > without filling in the thought and reason and questions fully? Why > > this occasional perfect spiritual storm but not solid understanding? > > Why would the Divine arrange things like this? Why have the purported > > Truth go gamboling among us to occasionally knock one of us who seek it > > or not flat on our ass? Why not share this awesome truth of the > > way-it-really-is across the spectrum with all human beings? Why this > > capricious hide-and-seek and cosmic peek-a-boo? > > > > This looks deeply suspicious to me. And yet please understand that I > > to this day feel like a lout to say so after the Depth of what I have > > experienced. > > Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > I considered John Wright's dilemma, not quite in the form he posed. I > asked myself: "If I was overpowered by religious ecstasy, would my > rationality survive? Am I that strong?" I've previously considered > this question, in the form of wondering whether any conceivable > discipline could enable a trained rationalist to defeat schizophrenia. > Religious ecstasy is a lesser test. > > If my future self had an overpowering religious experience, one obvious > reaction of my future self might be, "Hm, I must be having a temporal > lobe mini-seizure." But that feels to me like cheating; what if I > hadn't studied neurology? I thought of arguments that my hypothetical > slightly more ignorant future self might consider: > > "When I was an atheist, I knew that people had deep religious > experiences, but I did not think it likely that the experience reflected > reality as the retina reports a flower. Now that I have had such an > experience myself, my best estimate of the underlying cause should not > change. I was content to be an atheist when I knew that other people > had religious brainstorms; should this change if one of the 'other > people' is myself? For they and I are both humans; the causal analysis > is the same in either case." > > "Far down the tale of science goes; from quarks to atoms to molecules, > from molecules to proteins to cells to humans, physics and evolution and > intelligence, all a single coherent story. To the best of all human > knowledge, since the beginning of time, not one unusual thing has ever > happened. A thousand generations have learned to their astonishment and > dismay that there are mysterious questions, but never mysterious > answers; that the universe runs on math, not heroic mythology. The > science that I know is too solid, the laws of rationality too strict, > the lessons driven home too many times, to be overturned so lightly." > > "Let us suppose that the experience is caused by something external to a > simple brain malfunction. Just because an entity is capable of inducing > an overpowering religious experience in me, does not make the entity > morally superior. I have seen people sell their souls for the price of > a book. God in the Bible kills and tortures anyone who won't worship > Him properly, or even innocent bystanders, such as Egyptian children > during the Ten Plagues. If we had pictures of such a thing, occurring > in any modern country, we would never forgive the perpetrators; we would > hold them in less esteem than Nazi Germany. Kindhearted rabbis read > tales of dead Egyptian children, killed to impress their parents with > God's might, and the rabbis somehow fail to take moral notice. Is there > no end to the human ability to ignore the failings of one's favored > political leaders? Killing children is wrong, period, end of > discussion. And yet all it takes to make people endorse a God that > commits torture-murder of children, is to hand them a book. People sell > their moralities so cheaply. They don't even demand that the book be > given to them directly by God. They sell their moralities and give over > their sense of judgment just because someone else handed them a book and > told them God wrote it. Even if God speaks to me directly, I should > demand *reasons* before handing over my moral judgment. I have studied > evolutionary biology. I know that there are forces in the universe > capable of producing complex plans and designs, yet utterly nonhumane. > If this "God" wishes me to do something, let It tell me Its reasons, and > see if I agree. As it stands, I have no reason whatever to believe that > God is good. I will not sell myself so cheaply, into bondage to who > knows What." > > And: "Why should some people have these experiences and not others? > Why jerk us around? Why work blatant, showy miracles in front of desert > nomads, for the explicit purpose of providing proof, and then > mysteriously change policies after the introduction of skeptical > thinking and video cameras? If I am told all these spiritual truths, > why not give me next week's winning lottery numbers, to help me convey > these truths to my friends? If I am given no solid proof because the > experience is meant to convince me personally, then, leaving aside the > unfairness, why not tell me ten digits of pi starting at the 1000th > decimal place? Why is it that not one factual assertion brought back > from the grip of religious ecstasy has been surprising, checkable, and > right?" > > I thought of these arguments, Samantha, and yet it occurred to me that > if I was caught in the grip of such a powerful religious experience, I > might not *want* to think them. And then I would be defeated without > ever getting a chance to draw my blade. Intelligence, to be useful, > must be used for a purpose other than defeating itself. I have trained > myself to be wary of knowing my desired conclusion before I begin to > think; explicitly emphasized the impossibility of asking a question > without being genuinely unsure of the answer. It ain't a real crisis of > faith unless it could go either way, as a wise man once said. > > Having a powerful religious experience isn't quite as bad as going > schizophrenic. The religious experience happens and then goes away and > you can think about it rationally. Schizophrenia is constant and > defeats the frontal lobes of reflectivity, destroying both emotional > balance and the ability to use reason to correct it. But I have > wondered whether my mental discipline and my explicit understanding of > rationality would be powerful enough for me to win through, either the > almost impossible test of schizophrenia, or the lesser test of religious > ecstasy. > > I now know that it is possible for a rationalist to cut through to the > correct answer even after suffering a religious ecstasy. For you won > through, Samantha, traveling from a wrong belief to the correct one, and > you even permitted (forced?) yourself to think of arguments like those > that occurred to me - me, sitting here easily at my desk, imagining a > hypothetical future and hoping I *wouldn't* be persuaded. > > Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > -- > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 15 16:36:09 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 08:36:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <20041215163609.29738.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> --- john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > With no trace of irony, Mme. Yudkowsky writes > >Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > The argument that, since there are by definition no supernatural > events, ergo > all reports of supernatural events must be false, is circular. Real > skeptics do not take conclusions as articles of faith. Similar to the point I've been trying to make with these fundamentalist atheists. Of course, it doesn't help the argument to be quoting from a work of fiction. My own singular experience took place in 1993, at age 25, long after the age range in which symptoms of schizoid behavior would have manifested themselves, involved primarily tactile sensation of an invisible phenomenon that only affected my vision once it had made contact with my eyes, and exhibited intelligent response to my own change in response to it. There was no auditory component, though. It was night time, I was fully awake, and was under the influence of no artificial substances. If it was hallucination, it was a damn good one, with absolutely no evidence or symptoms of any neurological cause. What it was, I still have no clue about. It was a bit too 'real' to me for me to rationally dismiss it as hallucination. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do? http://my.yahoo.com From reason at longevitymeme.org Wed Dec 15 16:55:36 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 08:55:36 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Michael Rae on why he joined The Three Hundred In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This is an excellent piece: http://www.longevitymeme.org/articles/viewarticle.cfm?page=1&article_id=23 Sign up - all the cool kids are doing it! Reason Founder, Longevity Meme ---------------- Today, I made the decision to join The Three Hundred. This essay will explain who The Three Hundred are, why I joined them, and why I think you should do so, too. The short answer to all of the above is that The Three Hundred is a commitment to strongly and directly support what I believe to be the most effective vehicle for funding genuine anti-aging research - research that could drastically delay, or even ultimately eliminate, the slow, but gradually accelerating downward spiral of physical and mental deterioration with the passing of the years. In other words, it is our best hope of substantially forestalling or escaping an otherwise-foreordained future of increasing disability, suffering and death - and of watching helplessly as our loved ones undergo the same terrible decline. While I am still relatively young and believe that I am indeed aging more slower than those around me, I've have suffered the loss of my loved ones to the aging process already. It's bad enough to watch allegedly "independently-living" aged strangers out in public, idly shuffling their feet, pushing cleverly designed wheeled walkers or balancing on their canes, unable to open the doors for themselves, faces a mask of apathy. It's much worse to spend even a few minutes in a nursing home, walking out of a world of relative health of body and mind into an asylum of decay: men and women, once fit, well optimism about the future, now tied to oxygen tanks, raving mad or sunk into almost complete retreat from the outside world, sitting down hours in advance of their meals for lack of any better purpose to their lives, needing help to get out of bed or clean their own wastes. But what is truly terrible is to be in such a house of horrors to visit your grandmother - watching her become increasingly passive, disengaged, and helpless; seeing her unable to carry out the basic activities of daily living until she is a decayed funhouse mirror image of an infant, unable to walk or even control her own bladder; wondering when she will die, and whether that is really the worst fate that you can envision for her. I am consciousness that the advancing process of cellular disorder that took a young woman - a woman that escaped poverty in Scotland, worked through two World Wars to build a home and a family, bore my mother into the world, and cared for me through almost three decades as a mature, increasingly wrinkly, but still proudly independent gra'ma - and slowly sapped her in body and mind ... consciousness that these same processes are invisibly at work in my own flesh, and are now erupting visibly in my own mother and father. Most people refuse to confront this reality. When the horror of aging is thrust in front of their noses, they push it away desperately, reflexively wrenching their attention toward another subject. They pretend that it is "not so bad," that it is unusual and will not happen to them, or engage in elaborate flights of intellectual apologism for the "natural," "divinely-ordained" order of things. They lie to themselves that they will be satisfied with just a few more years of life after which they will simply check out, well before the full weight of the years begins to crush them. As even a cursory glance at previous generations would demonstrate, for better or for worse, no one will choose to give up life merely because their bodies are losing the powers and liberties without which they do not believe that they could live. Whether struck by aging or rendered paraplegic by a fall on the ice, they will grasp at the thread of life until their suffering is truly so wracking of body and soul that their will falters and they simply cannot go on. Fundamentally, we all want to live -- in youth and health if possible, in age and misery if necessary. Many readers will know that I invest a substantial amount of my time and energy into the only scientifically justified method of delaying the horror of biological aging: calorie restriction (CR). It is a measure of my own horror in the face of the aging process that I spend so much of my life's energy in an intervention that I know perfectly well to be crude, weak medicine. Tragically, those around me are so put off by the bitterness in the medicine that they refuse to take it. But even if they were to join me in massive salads and refusing Rocky Road ice cream, CR is not, ultimately, a solution to the problem. CR will - if, as I believe, the animal experiments translate well into the human case - buy perhaps a couple of decades of middle- and late-middle-aged relative health. It has already granted me improved vitality in many ways, even as it has come with a cost in other areas. But CR is just buying time - and not much time, at that. The specter of biological decay is still before me. I want to live forever; or if not, I will accept as a second choice to live indefinitely in youth and in health. CR cannot deliver this dream. To do it, we will need a new biomedicine that attacks aging at its most fundamental, molecular roots, in ways that never naturally occurred in our genetic toolkit. There is reason for optimism in thinking that this goal can be achieved. Decades of research into the biology of aging - much of it using the CR model - have revealed the fundamental molecular lesions that are associated with aging and almost certainly drive it. Theoretically, we could remove or neutralize these toxic wastes, creating interventions that will not just slow down the molecular gumming-up of life's machinery, but halt or even reverse it. We could actually undo the toll of the years ([1-4]; for a very accessible overview, see [5]), and then aging itself could come to an end. We would spend centuries or millennia in youth and health, only falling prey to catastrophic accident or disease. There is significant progress toward [6,7] - and in some cases even preliminary proof-of-concept for [8-10] - several interventions based on these insights. The problem is to turn these as-yet-theoretical solutions - or any others! - into widely available therapies. As with any medical discovery, this entails a long process starting with test-tube studies and working hypotheses, moving to animal models, and finally progressing to human trials and regulatory hurdles. Venture capital has demonstrated that it lacks the attention span or patience for such expensive, long-term projects in medicine. One major problem is that there is no way to quickly assess the effect of a new intervention on aging. You can perform a good rodent cancer study in a few months, and Phase II cancer trial work in humans can be accomplished in a year or so, but there's no way to do this with aging. The critical, absolutely essential first step - a full lifespan study in rodents - takes not five months, but five years, and requires many more rodent subjects (and proportionally greater expense). As a result, all of the biotech companies that initially made their buzz by promising anti-aging drugs have retreated from this vision - more or less as soon as a putative anti-aging drug looks promising as a treatment for some diseases - and lifespan studies are abandoned. Geron, to pick the obvious example, was founded by Michael West to exploit telomerase as the cellular fountain of youth. Venture capital firms were initially excited: West put forward a powerful pitch during the early, optimistic inflation of the biotech bubble. Investors rapidly lost interest in long-term goals, however, and began insisting that Geron work to drugs (and revenue) into the pipeline post-haste. Thus telomerase the anti-aging enzyme became telomerase the target for cancer inhibition. The same thing has happened to Sirtris, Elixir, and all the way down. Venture firms are not being terribly patient with some of the longer-pipeline ventures which do have obvious disease applications either: Advanced Cell Technology and even Osiris Therapeutics have been treading water financially for nearly three years now. There are related problems in academic research, alas. For one thing, the length of time required to do a rodent lifespan study, and the nature of the experiment, makes it very unpopular with grad students and thus difficult for senior researchers to implement. No one wants to spend five years of an up-and-coming career minding lab rats in order to produce one single study (a survival curve, plus commentary) at the end. This is particularly true since, historically, these experiments have mostly been flops - not good material for inclusions in one's CV. Another point worth noting is that government-funded researchers are not exactly at liberty to pursue whatever studies they want. Scientists must write funding proposals to explain exactly what they want to do, and exactly why. Here, a nasty vicious circle is in play: the people making funding decisions, while scientists, are first and foremost acting in their capacity as bureaucrats with political masters. Research thought to be fringe or misunderstood by politicians or the electorate - such as a scheme to "engineer negligible senescence" - is poison to a political or bureaucratic career. Ironically, because of its less cut-and-dried nature, similar bureaucracies in the arts (such as the National Endowment for the Arts in the US) are actually more insulated from their political masters - they can defend the allocation of funds to fringe or unpopular work on freedom of expression grounds, and because art is by its nature in the eye of the beholder. Neither defense applies for scientific work, of course. Thus scientists continue to pursue relatively modest, uninspiring projects, and to couch their work in modest, uninspiring terms. "We're not looking for a cure for aging. We'd just like to learn how to delay some of the diseases of aging so that Granny can be more comfortable in her old age." This is what obtains funding, regardless of the actual limits on what is possible or plausible in medical research. This state of affairs reinforces the impression, in the minds of the electorate, of a scientific consensus that real intervention in the aging process is impossible at this time. This reinforces the pressure on politicians to prevent government funding being "wasted" on such work. This in turn reinforces the need for scientists who want public funding to play it safe. Round and round this vicious circle goes... How do we break out of this self-perpetuating system? One way would be for people like us, concerned about aging, to fund the work ourselves: to hunt down projects that we consider likely to lead to extended life in mice, raise a huge pile of dollars, and just hand the money over to someone willing to do the study. The Life Extension Foundations's LifeSpan study illustrates part of the problem with this approach. Having invested - to their credit - large sums of money in seriously testing a dozen or so promising supplements and drugs, they came away with a fistful of failed overlapping lifespan curves, a lot of dead rodents, and many, many millions of valuable dollars essentially wasted. Another problem is sheer lack of funds - even funds to waste. For now, there are no huge, well-endowed research charities, nor nearly enough concerned individuals, contributing money to work on anti-aging interventions. Charities working on cancer and heart disease raise a lot of money - donors recognize these high profile diseases from which they suffer or of which their mothers, husbands and friends have died. Patients and their advocates are also very politically active in pushing for - and obtaining - public funding for work on their specific diseases. The present state of AIDS funding is perhaps the most spectacular and successful example of this form of activism, but the results of cancer and Alzheimer's advocacy are also impressive. Yet only a few people with the universal disease - aging - are prepared to make the same sort of effort. So long as people refuse to think of aging as a disease, as something that is not "a normal part of life," and as a medical condition that can be cured, then we will not see this kind of mass mobilization (or, in the case of AIDS, a mixture of an energetic and effective activist core coupled with widespread public sympathy and sense of urgency). We have to come up with a creative way to mobile the funds sitting amply in other coffers - the aforementioned government medical research bureaucracies and venture capital firms. From this starting point, we arrive quickly at the Methuselah Mouse Prize - http://www.mprize.org. Structured as an improvement on the X Prize model, and enjoying that organization's Peter Diamandis as a chief advisor, the Methuselah Mouse Prize (or M Prize) actually consists of two related prizes. The Longevity Prize is to be awarded for the next record in single-animal lifespan in the laboratory mouse, the second Rejuvenation Prize for the greatest extension of lifespan in a mouse that is already elderly. The former will likely lead to advances in our understanding of the mechanisms of aging, while the latter is more likely to lead to viable anti-aging therapies for people who (as biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey once put it) have the misfortune of already having been born. The M Prize has the potential to remove the stumbling blocks preventing scientists in government and industry from taking on the aging process as a curable disease. On the one hand, it reorients the incentives for industry. Right now, there is no specific incentive for private researchers to perform lifespan studies in mice: at most, they are a stepping stone toward long, expensive, human trials - and as noted, even the rodent studies are long and expensive. When a significant financial reward - and the promise of substantial publicity - is put in place, however, suddenly there is a business case for spending a few years rather than a few months in testing a compound in mice. Should you succeed in rejuvenating mice, you can bet that Big Pharma will be beating down your door for the rights to translate the intervention to the human case. The M Prize can dislodge the vicious circle that drives the lack of serious anti-aging biogerontology in academic research. For the scientists, it creates an incentive to write those grant proposals, in hopes of obtaining more funding directly and greater prestige for their institutions - prestige itself tends to attract more funding. On the side of public opinion, the Prize structure, by its nature, captures public imagination and provides a dramatic way to educate the public and media that scientists are working on extending healthy lifespan in mammals. This increases the credibility of any similar reputable efforts and wins acceptance for the idea that it can be done in humans. In turn, changes in public opinion eases political constraints on awarding public funding for such projects - and may even lead to active pressure to make such awards. The real tipping point, however, comes when aging is demonstrably reversed in an elderly mouse. Aside from the obvious point that success in mice implies a parallel success in humans with adequate further research, it may initiate a sea change in public opinion as people allow themselves to believe that aging could be cured in humans. I envisage this leading to a public and political demand for a War on Aging. At this point, the whole field of serious anti-aging research will become scientifically respectable. It will attract scientists and funding; this will further fuels the expectations of the public and pressure for public and private funding. Before you know it, a virtuous circle has taken over from the vicious circle. Scientific results will drive public optimism, in turn driving political acceptability, public and private funding. Funding will eventually lead to the results we wish to see: breakthroughs in the science of longevity and aging. The bottom line, however, is that breaking the existing vicious circle will require a substantial reserve of money, even if accomplished the efficient M Prize way. Here, again, we are confronted by the relatively small people who are willing to set aside their protective apologism for aging, and to recognize it for what it is: a degenerative medical condition no more worthy of respect and no more inevitable than syphilis. As I am sure many of you know, most people will not allow themselves to dream of an ageless future, or even acknowledge that it is desirable. Justification and peace of mind was necessary when nothing could be done - but that is no longer the case. Precisely because aging is universal, viewed as inevitable, "natural," and "fair" because it happens after a relatively extended period of time, we don't see the sense of urgency or injustice that fueled the successful campaign to make AIDS a research priority in the 1980s. To make it work, more of us are going to have to stop avoiding the issue and stare unblinkingly at the horror of aging. We must accept that aging is simply a medical condition, subject to research and treatment, and realize the magnitude of the moral obligation and personal stake resting in putting an end to biological aging. To join The Three Hundred - named for a heroic force of 300 Spartan warriors who held back the invading Persian hordes at the narrow pass of Thermopylae, buying the Greeks time to mobilize an effective defense - is to commit to a donation of US$1000 per year for the next 25 years. The donations of the The Three Hundred will help build up the M Prize into an effort mighty enough to mobilize the scientific community into action for a concerted, all-out campaign to defeat aging and age-related disease. The need is great for people to sign on to The Three Hundred - I have now answered the call. As you consider whether you, too, will step forward and make the financial commitment needed to fuel this critical change in the direction of aging research, bear several things in mind. First, remember "you can't take it with you." You may think that you have an unusually well controlled case of aging, but it's still a terminal, degenerative disease. Even the best available treatment (calorie restriction) has some risky side effects associated with it. If a cure is not found, your fate will be sealed in a few short decades. Second, this is a crucial time to contribute to the M Prize, as is begins to garner serious attention from the media and scientific community. You can help show the world that people are serious in the fight to cure aging! Third, for every day of delay in the march towards a cure for aging, tens of thousands of people - men and women; parents, brothers, wives - will die. This is the daily body count resulting from biological aging. Can we really afford to wait? We need an intervention that will fundamentally arrest, or reverse, the biological decay that creeps into our every cell with each passing year. Too few people are pushing this agenda. We - the healthy life extension community - must to put our hands upon the wheel. If not us, who else, after all? We must wake up to the reality of an epidemic in slow motion: a medical condition rendered paradoxically invisible by its very ubiquity is slowly debilitating and killing us all. We should write to our politicians and legislators to and demand they stop interfering with science and start working to support cures. Relevant resources for those ready to do battle with their pens and at the ballot box can be found here: http://www.longevitymeme.com/topics/activism.cfm We must also realize that if we don't invest what we can to fight aging, this slow degeneration will take it all them us anyway. What value has money if our loved ones are dying in front of our eyes? What is the value of a dollar when wallets are emptied by the cost of fighting age-related disease as our bodies fall apart? What use are coins and notes when we have been trapped in the final stages of Alzheimer's? He who dies with the most toys is still dead - and likely received little pleasure from his toys in the gloomy final years of age-related illness and decay. The success of the M Prize is not guaranteed - but as nearly as I can see, it is the only currently available way to make effective use of our resources to bring an end to the Gray Holocaust and commence an endless summer of healthy vitality. Time is growing short: we don't have many years or many chances to defeat aging. Sign up at http://www.mprize.org . Give what you can. Your youth, your health, your life, your loved ones, and the future of humanity are riding on it. 1. de Grey AD, Campbell FC, Dokal I, Fairbairn LJ, Graham GJ, Jahoda CA, Porterg AC. Total deletion of in vivo telomere elongation capacity: an ambitious but possibly ultimate cure for all age-related human cancers. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2004 Jun;1019:147-70. Review. PMID: 15247008 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 2. de Grey AD. An engineer's approach to the development of real anti-aging medicine. Sci Aging Knowledge Environ. 2003 Jan 8;2003(1):VP1. Review. PMID: 12844502 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/focusPP.pdf 3. de Grey AD. Challenging but essential targets for genuine anti-ageing drugs. Expert Opin Ther Targets. 2003 Feb;7(1):1-5. PMID: 12556198 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/manu21.pdf 4. de Grey AD, Ames BN, Andersen JK, Bartke A, Campisi J, Heward CB, McCarter RJ, Stock G. Time to talk SENS: critiquing the immutability of human aging. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2002 Apr;959:452-62; discussion 463-5. PMID: 11976218 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/manu12.pdf 5. http://www.speculist.com/archives/000056.html (This is also pretty good: http://www.longevitymeme.org/articles/printarticle.cfm?article_id=15) 6. Khan SM, Bennett JP Jr. Development of mitochondrial gene replacement therapy. J Bioenerg Biomembr. 2004 Aug;36(4):387-93. PMID: 15377877 [PubMed - in process] 7. Gonzalez-Halphen D, Funes S, Perez-Martinez X, Reyes-Prieto A, Claros MG, Davidson E, King MP. Genetic correction of mitochondrial diseases: using the natural migration of mitochondrial genes to the nucleus in chlorophyte algae as a model system. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2004 Jun;1019:232-9. Review. PMID: 15247021 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 8. Bendiske J, Bahr BA. Lysosomal activation is a compensatory response against protein accumulation and associated synaptopathogenesis--an approach for slowing Alzheimer disease? J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 2003 May;62(5):451-63. PMID: 12769185 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 9. Du H, Schiavi S, Wan N, Levine M, Witte DP, Grabowski GA. Reduction of atherosclerotic plaques by lysosomal acid lipase supplementation. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2004 Jan;24(1):147-54. Epub 2003 Nov 13. PMID: 14615393 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 10. Kass DA, Shapiro EP, Kawaguchi M, Capriotti AR, Scuteri A, deGroof RC, Lakatta EG. Improved arterial compliance by a novel advanced glycation end-product crosslink breaker. Circulation. 2001 Sep 25;104(13):1464-70. PMID: 11571237 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Dec 15 17:17:08 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 11:17:08 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scrooge as evidence of rationalism's failure In-Reply-To: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> References: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041215111250.01a104a8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:11 AM 12/15/2004 -0600, John Wright wrote: >Real skeptics do >not take conclusions as articles of faith. > >"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost. > >"I don't." said Scrooge. Interestingly, the Ghost was made up. Scrooge was made up. Charles Dickens invented them. (Indeed, IIRC, the Ghost was a dream *inside the made-up world of Scrooge*.) What a very peculiar argument this is. Damien Broderick From pgptag at gmail.com Wed Dec 15 17:24:34 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:24:34 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scrooge as evidence of rationalism's failure In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041215111250.01a104a8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215111250.01a104a8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <470a3c5204121509245f3cc75@mail.gmail.com> Dickens did not invent them, they were already living in the Jungian collective subconscious mind. And Dickens, maybe he was/is/willbe a sim like the rest of us. G. On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 11:17:08 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 09:11 AM 12/15/2004 -0600, John Wright wrote: > > >Real skeptics do > >not take conclusions as articles of faith. > > > >"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost. > > > >"I don't." said Scrooge. > > Interestingly, the Ghost was made up. Scrooge was made up. Charles Dickens > invented them. (Indeed, IIRC, the Ghost was a dream *inside the made-up > world of Scrooge*.) > > What a very peculiar argument this is. > > Damien Broderick From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 17:36:49 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 17:36:49 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scrooge as evidence of rationalism's failure In-Reply-To: <470a3c5204121509245f3cc75@mail.gmail.com> References: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215111250.01a104a8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <470a3c5204121509245f3cc75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <41C07631.9040807@neopax.com> Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: >Dickens did not invent them, they were already living in the Jungian >collective subconscious mind. And Dickens, maybe he was/is/willbe a >sim like the rest of us. >G. > > > > I have started to think that I'm a sim of the real Dirk Bruere simply because there are very extensive (and growing) records of my thoughts and beliefs archived on Usenet! If that were true it would be quite a disappointment - I'm not even me:-( -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From pgptag at gmail.com Wed Dec 15 18:07:28 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 19:07:28 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> References: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <470a3c520412151007453155eb@mail.gmail.com> Well if we define nature as all that exists, then the supernatural does not exist. The validity of this statement has nothing to do with belief, only with grammar and logic. Or, as I prefer to think, nature includes supernatural in the sense that what science cannot explain today will someday be explained by tomorrow's science. Including things that we cannot even begin to imagine and can only define as supernatural at this moment. There are more things in Heaven and Earth... G. On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:11:28 -0600, john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > With no trace of irony, Mme. Yudkowsky writes > >Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > The argument that, since there are by definition no supernatural events, ergo > all reports of supernatural events must be false, is circular. Real skeptics do > not take conclusions as articles of faith. From jonkc at att.net Wed Dec 15 18:54:12 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 13:54:12 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright Finds God References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> Wrote: >My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, for I >have only departed your company recently) is this: what does an honest > and rational man do when he has a supernatural experience? I have never had a supernatural experience but if I ever have that misfortune I intend to keep it to myself because yammering about it to others is pointless. It is one thing to have a mystical experience, it is quite another to listen so somebody else talk about theirs. Perhaps you really did discover an unexplored world and a new path for knowledge, or perhaps you are just the victim of a bad bit of beef and bad digestion, I have absolutely no way of knowing. Even you can't be certain if you had a real experience or a neurological accident, but at least you can make an educated guess, I can't even do that. I do have one question for you, people have been claiming supernatural experiences for thousands of years but not one has ever been verified; If it's real why do you suppose this is the one area of knowledge that is not amenable to the scientific method? John K Clark jonkc at att.net From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 15 19:09:54 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 11:09:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Wiki update Message-ID: <20041215190954.39363.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle Updated the above entry to reflect a more balanced view and links to the Proactionary Principle. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Dress up your holiday email, Hollywood style. Learn more. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 19:24:56 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 19:24:56 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> John K Clark wrote: > I do have one question for you, people have been claiming supernatural > experiences for thousands of years but not one has ever been verified; > If it's > real why do you suppose this is the one area of knowledge that is not > amenable to the scientific method? > It is. That's why chemistry developed out of alchemy. As for psi phenomena, there is plenty of experimental evidence. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From sjatkins at gmail.com Wed Dec 15 19:27:44 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 11:27:44 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <948b11e0412151127613a9630@mail.gmail.com> For the same reason that many of our subjective experiences can't be verified, yet. See, wasn't that really easy? As a matter of fact some research is being done and has been done as we get better tech for mapping what is going on in the brain. One study wired up monks, Tibetan Buddhists iirc, and monitored what changed when they went into reportedly higher levels of consciousness. I don't have the reference handy but it said some interesting things about what the attendant physical changes, causative or not, are for some states of consciousness. Using such things it would not be too difficult to actually show that a person had acheived a particular state. That is it would not be if either you had them wired up at the time or reported long term changes were present in their brains. Also, particularly in Eastern religions, there is a rather developed body of knowledge on states of consciousness and distinquishing such states by non-physical examination of experential evidence. - samantha On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 13:54:12 -0500, John K Clark wrote: > Wrote: > > >My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, for I > >have only departed your company recently) is this: what does an honest > > and rational man do when he has a supernatural experience? > > I have never had a supernatural experience but if I ever have that > misfortune I intend to keep it to myself because yammering about it to > others is pointless. It is one thing to have a mystical experience, it is > quite another to listen so somebody else talk about theirs. Perhaps you > really did discover an unexplored world and a new path for knowledge, or > perhaps you are just the victim of a bad bit of beef and bad digestion, I > have absolutely no way of knowing. Even you can't be certain if you had a > real experience or a neurological accident, but at least you can make an > educated guess, I can't even do that. > > I do have one question for you, people have been claiming supernatural > experiences for thousands of years but not one has ever been verified; If > it's > real why do you suppose this is the one area of knowledge that is not > amenable to the scientific method? > > John K Clark jonkc at att.net > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Dec 15 19:51:13 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 13:51:13 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> >As for psi phenomena, there is plenty of experimental evidence. Granting this (as I do, to the horror of many extropes), there is no obvious link between that evidence and claims of the supernatural. Granting its validity for the sake of the discussion, psi evidence might suggest that, e.g., quantum entanglement *can* convey information under some circumstances, etc; what it doesn't do (unless a deity bafflingly likes to help willing subjects gain scores of 70%, at best, when 50% or 20% would be expected by chance) is manifest the activities of a divine designer/sustainer of our observable ontology. No more than lightning, however inexplicable at the time, proved the reality of a thundering storm god. Damien Broderick From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 20:24:30 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 20:24:30 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C09D7E.5060708@neopax.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > >> As for psi phenomena, there is plenty of experimental evidence. > > > Granting this (as I do, to the horror of many extropes), there is no > obvious link between that evidence and claims of the supernatural. > I tend to agree. However, I think it is likely there is a link between psi phenonena and altered states of consciousness. Problem is that no really new and interesting experiments are being done. For example, I'd like a PEAR-like machine to be coupled with people on LSD to see what happens. > Granting its validity for the sake of the discussion, psi evidence > might suggest that, e.g., quantum entanglement *can* convey > information under some circumstances, etc; what it doesn't do (unless > a deity bafflingly likes to help willing subjects gain scores of 70%, > at best, when 50% or 20% would be expected by chance) is manifest the > activities of a divine designer/sustainer of our observable ontology. > No more than lightning, however inexplicable at the time, proved the > reality of a thundering storm god. > Well, Thor is still around and still has followers (me, for example). -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From sjatkins at gmail.com Wed Dec 15 21:04:10 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 13:04:10 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> References: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <948b11e04121513042271556@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:11:28 -0600, john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > With no trace of irony, Mme. Yudkowsky writes > >Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > The argument that, since there are by definition no supernatural events, ergo > all reports of supernatural events must be false, is circular. Real skeptics do > not take conclusions as articles of faith. This is a rather limited and surprising tack to pull out of a much richer conversation. BTW, please say precisely as you can what you do and do not mean by "supernatural". If you have read what I have written on this subject in particular I don't think you can dismiss me as taking any conclusions "as articles of faith". - s From john-c-wright at sff.net Wed Dec 15 21:04:40 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:04:40 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:John Wright Finds God Message-ID: <200412152104.iBFL4i019206@tick.javien.com> >I do have one question for you, people have been claiming supernatural >experiences for thousands of years but not one has ever been verified; If >it's real why do you suppose this is the one area of knowledge that is not >amenable to the scientific method? The scientific method is concerned with measureable aspects of our sense-impressions. --- Original Message --- From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" To: ExI chat list CC: john-c-wright at sff.net Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:38:21 -0600 Subject: Re: John Wright Finds God > Samantha Atkins wrote: > > > > Is it "overwhelming evidence" or overwhelming Experience of Meaning, > > Love, Truth, Power, Knowing? Why this over-the-top Experience but > > without filling in the thought and reason and questions fully? Why > > this occasional perfect spiritual storm but not solid understanding? > > Why would the Divine arrange things like this? Why have the purported > > Truth go gamboling among us to occasionally knock one of us who seek it > > or not flat on our ass? Why not share this awesome truth of the > > way-it-really-is across the spectrum with all human beings? Why this > > capricious hide-and-seek and cosmic peek-a-boo? > > > > This looks deeply suspicious to me. And yet please understand that I > > to this day feel like a lout to say so after the Depth of what I have > > experienced. > > Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > I considered John Wright's dilemma, not quite in the form he posed. I > asked myself: "If I was overpowered by religious ecstasy, would my > rationality survive? Am I that strong?" I've previously considered > this question, in the form of wondering whether any conceivable > discipline could enable a trained rationalist to defeat schizophrenia. > Religious ecstasy is a lesser test. > > If my future self had an overpowering religious experience, one obvious > reaction of my future self might be, "Hm, I must be having a temporal > lobe mini-seizure." But that feels to me like cheating; what if I > hadn't studied neurology? I thought of arguments that my hypothetical > slightly more ignorant future self might consider: > > "When I was an atheist, I knew that people had deep religious > experiences, but I did not think it likely that the experience reflected > reality as the retina reports a flower. Now that I have had such an > experience myself, my best estimate of the underlying cause should not > change. I was content to be an atheist when I knew that other people > had religious brainstorms; should this change if one of the 'other > people' is myself? For they and I are both humans; the causal analysis > is the same in either case." > > "Far down the tale of science goes; from quarks to atoms to molecules, > from molecules to proteins to cells to humans, physics and evolution and > intelligence, all a single coherent story. To the best of all human > knowledge, since the beginning of time, not one unusual thing has ever > happened. A thousand generations have learned to their astonishment and > dismay that there are mysterious questions, but never mysterious > answers; that the universe runs on math, not heroic mythology. The > science that I know is too solid, the laws of rationality too strict, > the lessons driven home too many times, to be overturned so lightly." > > "Let us suppose that the experience is caused by something external to a > simple brain malfunction. Just because an entity is capable of inducing > an overpowering religious experience in me, does not make the entity > morally superior. I have seen people sell their souls for the price of > a book. God in the Bible kills and tortures anyone who won't worship > Him properly, or even innocent bystanders, such as Egyptian children > during the Ten Plagues. If we had pictures of such a thing, occurring > in any modern country, we would never forgive the perpetrators; we would > hold them in less esteem than Nazi Germany. Kindhearted rabbis read > tales of dead Egyptian children, killed to impress their parents with > God's might, and the rabbis somehow fail to take moral notice. Is there > no end to the human ability to ignore the failings of one's favored > political leaders? Killing children is wrong, period, end of > discussion. And yet all it takes to make people endorse a God that > commits torture-murder of children, is to hand them a book. People sell > their moralities so cheaply. They don't even demand that the book be > given to them directly by God. They sell their moralities and give over > their sense of judgment just because someone else handed them a book and > told them God wrote it. Even if God speaks to me directly, I should > demand *reasons* before handing over my moral judgment. I have studied > evolutionary biology. I know that there are forces in the universe > capable of producing complex plans and designs, yet utterly nonhumane. > If this "God" wishes me to do something, let It tell me Its reasons, and > see if I agree. As it stands, I have no reason whatever to believe that > God is good. I will not sell myself so cheaply, into bondage to who > knows What." > > And: "Why should some people have these experiences and not others? > Why jerk us around? Why work blatant, showy miracles in front of desert > nomads, for the explicit purpose of providing proof, and then > mysteriously change policies after the introduction of skeptical > thinking and video cameras? If I am told all these spiritual truths, > why not give me next week's winning lottery numbers, to help me convey > these truths to my friends? If I am given no solid proof because the > experience is meant to convince me personally, then, leaving aside the > unfairness, why not tell me ten digits of pi starting at the 1000th > decimal place? Why is it that not one factual assertion brought back > from the grip of religious ecstasy has been surprising, checkable, and > right?" > > I thought of these arguments, Samantha, and yet it occurred to me that > if I was caught in the grip of such a powerful religious experience, I > might not *want* to think them. And then I would be defeated without > ever getting a chance to draw my blade. Intelligence, to be useful, > must be used for a purpose other than defeating itself. I have trained > myself to be wary of knowing my desired conclusion before I begin to > think; explicitly emphasized the impossibility of asking a question > without being genuinely unsure of the answer. It ain't a real crisis of > faith unless it could go either way, as a wise man once said. > > Having a powerful religious experience isn't quite as bad as going > schizophrenic. The religious experience happens and then goes away and > you can think about it rationally. Schizophrenia is constant and > defeats the frontal lobes of reflectivity, destroying both emotional > balance and the ability to use reason to correct it. But I have > wondered whether my mental discipline and my explicit understanding of > rationality would be powerful enough for me to win through, either the > almost impossible test of schizophrenia, or the lesser test of religious > ecstasy. > > I now know that it is possible for a rationalist to cut through to the > correct answer even after suffering a religious ecstasy. For you won > through, Samantha, traveling from a wrong belief to the correct one, and > you even permitted (forced?) yourself to think of arguments like those > that occurred to me - me, sitting here easily at my desk, imagining a > hypothetical future and hoping I *wouldn't* be persuaded. > > Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > -- > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From sjatkins at gmail.com Wed Dec 15 21:06:25 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 13:06:25 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <470a3c520412151007453155eb@mail.gmail.com> References: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> <470a3c520412151007453155eb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <948b11e041215130675bd7c9d@mail.gmail.com> Obviously such a definition of nature is not what those who speak of the "supernatural" have in mind. So it pays to ask. -s On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 19:07:28 +0100, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: > Well if we define nature as all that exists, then the supernatural > does not exist. The validity of this statement has nothing to do with > belief, only with grammar and logic. > Or, as I prefer to think, nature includes supernatural in the sense > that what science cannot explain today will someday be explained by > tomorrow's science. Including things that we cannot even begin to > imagine and can only define as supernatural at this moment. There are > more things in Heaven and Earth... > G. > > On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:11:28 -0600, john-c-wright at sff.net > wrote: > > With no trace of irony, Mme. Yudkowsky writes > > >Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists. > > > > The argument that, since there are by definition no supernatural events, ergo > > all reports of supernatural events must be false, is circular. Real skeptics do > > not take conclusions as articles of faith. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Wed Dec 15 21:25:46 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:25:46 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:Resuscitation: and ArmchairCryonicists-hypothermic liferaft References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net><01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin><6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com><41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org><008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin><6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com><41BFFD7D.7020305@sasktel.net> <20041215104301.GT9221@leitl.org> <41C04275.4010203@sasktel.net> Message-ID: <01f301c4e2ec$a4e7a420$e41f4842@kevin> Just wanted everyone to know that I received my Popular Science magazine today and the helmet that cools the head is in there and should be available in the next few years. :-) ----- Original Message ----- From: Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc. To: ExI chat list Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 7:56 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re:Resuscitation: and ArmchairCryonicists-hypothermic liferaft United States Patent Application 20040097534 Kind Code A1 Choi, Byung-Kil ; et al. May 20, 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Composition for the protection and regeneration of nerve cells containing berberine derivatives Abstract Disclosed is a composition for protecting nerve cells, promoting nerve cell growth and regenerating nerve cells comprising berberine, derivatives thereof or pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof. The composition has protective effects against apoptosis of neuronal stem cells and differentiated neuronal stem cells, an effect of inducing the regeneration of nerve cells, a regenerative effect on neurites, a neuroregenerative effect on central nerves and peripheral nerves, a reformation effect on neuromuscular junctions, and a protective effect against apoptosis of nerve cells and a neuroregenerative effect in animals suffering from dementia and brain ischemia. Therefore, the composition can be used as a therapeutic agent for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, ischemic nervous diseases or nerve injuries, and for the improvement of learning capability. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& [0150] Next, the head of the rat was fixed on a stereotaxic apparatus to operate on the occiput, and then the tail was fixed so that it descended downwardly at an angle of 30.degree.. After incising the occipital bone, an electrocauterizing needle having a diameter of 1 mm or less was inserted into the alar foramina positioned at lower part of the first cervical vertebra under the occipital bone. At this time, this approach must be carefully done so as not to damage the muscles in the alar foramina. Thereafter, the vertebral artery was electrically cauterized by intermittently applying current. After the complete electrocauterization of the vertebral artery was confirmed, suturing was carried out using operating clips. After 24 hours, the operating clips were removed. Finally, the common carotid arteries were occluded using the silicone tube rings for 10 minutes to induce ischemia. If light reflex did not disappear within 1 minute, the cervical portion was further tightly sutured. Rats which did not show the complete disappearance of light reflex were excluded from the experiment because they underwent no damage to the CA1 region. After 10 minutes, the common carotid arteries were loosened to reperfuse. For 20 minutes after the reperfusion, loss of consciousness was observed. At this time, only rats which showed consciousness loss period within 20.+-.5 minutes were selected for subsequent experiments. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& 2) Experimental Results (1) Concentration of Berberine, Influence of Body Temperature and Ischemia Inducing Time [0157] The highest concentration of berberine was set to 300 .mu.g/0.1 kg, and 600 .mu.l (1 mg/ml) of berberine was intraperitoneally injected to white rats weighing 200 g. In order to determine an optimal ischemia induction time, 2.about.3 rats were selected and ischemia-induced over 5, 10, 20 and 30 minutes, respectively. 1 week after reperfusion, they were sacrificed and their hippocampal tissue sections were obtained to observe the number of damaged nerve cells. 10 minutes after ischemia induction, damaged pyramidal cells in the hippocampal CA1 region were found to be reduced to 1/4 of their original numbers. The ischemia induction time of 10 minutes was determined to be most optimal for evaluating the effects of berberine. [0158] For statistically analyzing the effects of berberine, a sham operated group having undergone an operation in the same manner without ischemia induction was used. For comparing the effects of berberine, a control group administered with physiological saline at the same dose as berberine was used. Berberine was intraperitoneally injected into all experimental groups. [0159] It is well known that reduction in body temperature during ischemia induction prevents damage to nerve cells in the hippocampus and thus exhibits neuroprotective effects. Therefore, in order to evaluate the neuroprotective effect of berberine, after ischemia induction and reperfusion, the body temperature of all rats was maintained at a constant (37.+-.1.degree. C.) for 6 hours. (2) Observation of Damaged Nerve Cells [0160] When ischemia was induced by 4-VO and then reperfusion was performed, nerve cells in the neocortex, striatum, hippocampal CA1 region and cerebellum were damaged. Among them, pyramidal nerve cells in the hippocampal CA1 region were the most susceptible to the induced ischemia, and started to undergo cell death 72 hours after reperfusion. In order to observe delayed neuronal death in the hippocampal CA1 region, 1 week after reperfusion, the time when almost all nerve cells were damaged, white rats were sacrificed and tissue sections from the hippocampus were observed under an optical microscope. In a sham operated group having undergone no ischemia, normal hippocampal nerve cells were observed in the stratum pyramidale (490 .mu.m long)(see,A and B of FIG. 21). [0161] C and D of FIG. 21 as control groups show apoptosis. When cells are induced to undergo apoptosis by an external or an internal stimulus, they shrink to lose their original shapes. This shrinkage breaks the junctions with other adjacent cells so that the interaction between cells is disrupted. When the shrinkage proceeds to some extent, the cell membranes form apoptotic bodies like a bulla. In the hippocampal CA1 region of the control group administered with physiological saline (D of FIG. 21), it was observed that nerve cells underwent apoptotic morphological changes after ischemia induction. In addition, it was observed that tissues was relaxed and separated from adjacent cells, unlike B of FIG. 21. From these observations, it was confirmed that the cell bodies of nerve cells lost their original pyramidal shape and were condensed, thereby appearing to be single cells. Furthermore, it was confirmed that subsequent nuclear chromatin condensation and nuclear envelope collapse led to apoptosis of nerve cells. On the contrary, nerve cells in the hippocampal CA1 region administered with berberine were similar to normal cells in terms of their morphology (see, E and F of FIG. 21). At this time, because necrotic nerve cells around the CA1 region were very difficult to distinguish from microglias, only viable pyramidal nerve cells in the CA1 region were counted. In F of FIG. 21, separated cells were observed above and below the hippocampal region and cell bodies were condensed. This demonstrates that the damage to nerve cells was great enough to induce apoptosis. Nevertheless, it was observed that a great number of nerve cells were protected from apoptosis and their original pyramidal morphology was maintained. This suggests that berberine has a protective effect against damages to nerve cells in the hippocampal CA1 region induced by 4-VO. Although it was not confirmed what stage during apoptosis influences nerve cell survival, it was certain that berberine has a significant protective effect against apoptosis of nerve cells (see, E and F of FIG. 21). (3) Protective Effect of Berberine Against Damage to Nerve Cells [0162] In order to examine the neuroprotective effect of berberine after ischemia induction, berberine was intraperitoneally injected 0 and 90 minutes after ischemia induction. [0163] In the sham groups, the density of viable cells was measured to be 308.+-.6.6 cells/mm.sup.2 (at 37.degree. C.). In the control groups administered with physiological saline, the density of viable cells was measured to be 28.+-.3.8 cells/mm.sup.2 (at 37.degree. C.). There was cell loss in these two groups. On the other hand, in the experimental groups administered with berberine, the density of viable cells was measured to be 257.+-.9.6 cell/mm.sup.2. In conclusion, berberine was determined to have a significant neuroprotective effect (p<0.05). [0164] As described above, the composition according to the present invention regenerates axons and dendrites of nerve cells, thereby having a protective effect against nerve cell injuries, a positive effect on nerve cell growth and a regenerative effect on nerve cells. In addition, the composition according to the present invention can be used as a therapeutic agent for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases or nerve injuries, in particular, dementia, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, palsy, ischemic brain diseases, trauma to the spinal cord and peripheral nerve injuries. [0165] Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims. * * * * * Aside from its carrier capacity DMSO was chosen for its ability to inhibit damage from a light freeze There are a number of complementary chemistries besides from the ones cited readily available. Eugen Leitl wrote: On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 03:01:49AM -0600, Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc. wrote: The concept goes thusly: The liferaft = -sleeping /body bag like sack made so that no 2 arms or legs touch each other or body -zipper + ziplock seal - control/RFID biomonitor keypad with on outside -stage 1- evacuate liner to ensure good skin contact with sack -person put inside without outer clothes , shoes etc -put cooling hood or cap over all of head less face, face cover ziplock cover after body cooled off -start in 2 parts; activation of emergency cooling packs layer of sack to quick cool body; hood cooling cycle Useless. This gives you no advatage over an ice bath. co2 based for higher cooling rate More than useless. You can't go below 0 C, or you'll get freezing injury. -infusion of adjuvants may include: Caffeinol as neuroprotectant; berberine in DMSO solution as neuroprotectant; cannabidiol in DMSO solution as neuroprotectant -optional defib cycle to pump neuroprotectants into cooling body uniformly You have to maintain the circulation. Best do achieve this is life support. The adjuvants are designed to allow the brain to survive a longer cool-off time than the usual 3-5 minutes. Sorry, but your science is garbage. I'm being delibertely harsh here, because otherwise you won't get the message. as well as allow for easier re-start of body by hospital medical team -once body temp is near 32F optional external hookups to maintain cooled body during extended transport Once the working prototype is designed and tested , the actual mfg costs may be quite reasonable If you have to live in the sticks, you have to rely on people. No machinery is going to help. Morris Johnson Hara Ra wrote: For Eugen: Thanks for taking my point and clarifying it. If you read my sig file, I don't think I am an "Armchair cryonicist". Please correct me if you think so, and explain why. Of course I wasn't commenting on what you wrote, but on periodical resurgence of well-meaning-but-clueless armchair cryonicists. PS We currently do no longer use the Thumper, which is an obscene bastard of equipment fully capable of major injury to both patient and rescue team. Respiratory support is no longer in the protocol, because Oh yeah, if the cup breaks off you'll get a massive metal rod puncturing the ribcage. basically all patients are over the 4 minute limit, and restoring O2 is a bad idea. We use an Ambi product, a suction cup with handles, to Not if you add neuroprotectants via IV push, and maintain artificial circulation. maintain circulation for the 3-5 minutes it takes to circulate the medicines (a proprietary cocktail of anticoaguants, clot busters and other stuff) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 21:24:19 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 21:24:19 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <200412152104.iBFL4i019206@tick.javien.com> References: <200412152104.iBFL4i019206@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41C0AB83.4070700@neopax.com> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: >>I do have one question for you, people have been claiming supernatural >>experiences for thousands of years but not one has ever been verified; If >>it's real why do you suppose this is the one area of knowledge that is not >>amenable to the scientific method? >> >> > >The scientific method is concerned with measureable aspects of our >sense-impressions. > > > Slightly more than that. It is concerned with consensus reality. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From pharos at gmail.com Wed Dec 15 22:14:44 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:14:44 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <948b11e041215130675bd7c9d@mail.gmail.com> References: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> <470a3c520412151007453155eb@mail.gmail.com> <948b11e041215130675bd7c9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 13:06:25 -0800, Samantha Atkins wrote: > Obviously such a definition of nature is not what those who speak of > the "supernatural" have in mind. So it pays to ask. > The big problem with admitting 'supernatural' into the system is that it doesn't know when to stop. If you open one door to let in the power of god or a spirit driving you to do something, then because the only evidence is your testimony, everyman and his dog can also testify to 'supernatural' events. And because the only evidence is their testimony, their 'supernatural' events have equal validity. See Occult, paranormal, psychics, etc. Humans have a great imagination and can conjure up gods and demons without end. Look up 'Supernatural' and start with - not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws, not physical or material. e.g. supernatural forces or occurrences or beings. Now see where that leads: existing outside of or not in accordance with nature e.g. nonnatural, otherworldly, preternatural, transcendental. departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature, existing or extending beyond the physical world e.g. transmundane without material form or substance e.g. metaphysical departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature, being or having the character of a miracle e.g. miraculous, marvellous not explainable by scientific methods or on the basis of normal experience, esp. in the mental or psychic realm. e.g. paranormal attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit) e.g. spiritual, spectral, ghostly, phantasmal, ghostlike, apparitional suggesting the operation of supernatural influences e.g. uncanny, unearthly, weird, eldritch possessing or believed to possess magic power e.g. talismanic possessing or using or characteristic of supernatural powers e.g. magic, magical, sorcerous, witching, wizard, wizardly being or having the character of witchcraft e.g. witchlike suggestive of an elf in strangeness and otherworldliness e.g. fey, elfin used in the art of conjuring up the dead e.g. necromantic Where will it all end? BillK From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 15 22:15:41 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 14:15:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41C0AB83.4070700@neopax.com> Message-ID: <20041215221541.57325.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Dirk Bruere wrote: > john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: > > > > >The scientific method is concerned with measureable aspects of our > >sense-impressions. > > > Slightly more than that. > It is concerned with consensus reality. No, it isn't. Consensus is generally quite unscientific, irrational, and as much based on mythology, urban myth, agit-prop, and general fakery as the worst relgions. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do? http://my.yahoo.com From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 22:23:50 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:23:50 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <20041215221541.57325.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041215221541.57325.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41C0B976.1060206@neopax.com> Mike Lorrey wrote: >--- Dirk Bruere wrote: > > > >>john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: >> >> >>>The scientific method is concerned with measureable aspects of our >>>sense-impressions. >>> >>> >>> >>Slightly more than that. >>It is concerned with consensus reality. >> >> > >No, it isn't. Consensus is generally quite unscientific, irrational, >and as much based on mythology, urban myth, agit-prop, and general >fakery as the worst relgions. > > > So it's not based upon a reality people can agree upon. Fine. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Wed Dec 15 22:24:59 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:24:59 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Re: John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: References: <200412151511.iBFFBX026046@tick.javien.com> <470a3c520412151007453155eb@mail.gmail.com> <948b11e041215130675bd7c9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <41C0B9BB.20008@neopax.com> BillK wrote: >On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 13:06:25 -0800, Samantha Atkins wrote: > > >>Obviously such a definition of nature is not what those who speak of >>the "supernatural" have in mind. So it pays to ask. >> >> >> > >The big problem with admitting 'supernatural' into the system is that >it doesn't know when to stop. If you open one door to let in the power >of god or a spirit driving you to do something, then because the only >evidence is your testimony, everyman and his dog can also testify to >'supernatural' events. And because the only evidence is their >testimony, their 'supernatural' events have equal validity. See >Occult, paranormal, psychics, etc. Humans have a great imagination and >can conjure up gods and demons without end. > >Look up 'Supernatural' and start with - >not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural >laws, not physical or material. e.g. supernatural forces or >occurrences or beings. > >Now see where that leads: > >existing outside of or not in accordance with nature > e.g. nonnatural, otherworldly, preternatural, transcendental. > >departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to >transcend the laws of nature, existing or extending beyond the >physical world > e.g. transmundane > >without material form or substance > e.g. metaphysical > >departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to >transcend the laws of nature, being or having the character of a >miracle > e.g. miraculous, marvellous > >not explainable by scientific methods or on the basis of normal >experience, esp. in the mental or psychic realm. > e.g. paranormal > >attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit) > e.g. spiritual, spectral, ghostly, phantasmal, ghostlike, apparitional > >suggesting the operation of supernatural influences > e.g. uncanny, unearthly, weird, eldritch > >possessing or believed to possess magic power > e.g. talismanic > >possessing or using or characteristic of supernatural powers > e.g. magic, magical, sorcerous, witching, wizard, wizardly > >being or having the character of witchcraft > e.g. witchlike > >suggestive of an elf in strangeness and otherworldliness > e.g. fey, elfin > >used in the art of conjuring up the dead > e.g. necromantic > >Where will it all end? > > > http://www.neopax.com/asatru/spirit/index.html -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From riel at surriel.com Thu Dec 16 02:31:21 2004 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 21:31:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: The China Flu In-Reply-To: References: <20041214162728.91705.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, BillK wrote: > On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:27:28 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > > Is there any better demonstration of why nationalized ANYTHING is a bad > > idea? Looks to be like China will become the Love Canal of spam, at > > Mike is just miffed that free enterprise spam from the US has been > knocked off the top spot. Up until now the US has been the main source > spewing spam to the world. Still is. AFAICS the majority of the spam that's sent via China, or advertising websites on chinese servers, is sent by US spammers. Rik -- "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan From ned_lt at yahoo.com Thu Dec 16 02:41:55 2004 From: ned_lt at yahoo.com (Ned Late) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:41:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] armchair cryonicists? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041216024155.61979.qmail@web61302.mail.yahoo.com> I am not familiar with the latest in-crowd expressions and buzzwords. Would you please enlighten as to a more specific meaning of 'armchair cryonicist? Would that, in the venacular of some of you, indicate someone who is interested in cryonics but does not spend funds on being suspended, or does not donate to cryonics organisations? >armchair cryonicists. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 16 05:01:13 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 23:01:13 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Babylon Sisters and Other Posthumans: Paul Di Filippo Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041215225956.01b64ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> I haven't read this; it looks inneresting: http://www.wildsidepress.com/cgi-bin/miva?Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=WP1&Product_Code=1894815815&Category_Code=difilippo1 the blurb there reads thus: Paul Di Filippo is one of Science Fiction's finest short story writers, wild, witty, exuberantly imaginative; BABYLON SISTERS AND OTHER POSTHUMANS is a generous showcase of his strange, transformative, and powerful Hard SF visions. The fourteen stories collected here are glimpses into the most fantastic possibilities of human evolution ? biological, social, and cultural. From a New York split into warring walled enclaves, to the destiny of our species as a strain of virus, to an Africa made over by nanotech messiahs, to a future Earth protected by half-alien angels, to wars of liberation from what we have always so tragically been: these are only some of the awe-inspiring transitions to be found in Babylon Sisters. Read here of rebellion by books against their librarian, of cosmic destiny remade by stellar lunatics, of disorienting ventures beyond the boundaries of the human; discover here the perverse and terrible dangers of the age of posthumanity. From harara at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 16 05:29:53 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 21:29:53 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Resuscitation: and Armchair Cryonicists In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org> <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041215211215.0297fd78@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> 1. I want to make it clear that any opinions I post to this list are strictly personal. Though my sig file has my Alcor affiliations stated, I am NOT IN ANY CASE REPRESENTING ALCOR or any other organization when I make posts to this list. 2. Due to a communications mishap which I am not at liberty to discuss, I became misinformed concerning Alcor's protocols concerning cardiopulmonary support. Please see these pages: http://www.alcor.org/procedures.html http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CardiopulmonarySupport.html 3. If anyone calls me an "armchair cryonicist" I will call them an "Armchair Extropian" and probably will be banned from the list... 4. Alcor is dedicated to providing the very best technological support for suspensions. I formally withdraw the statement I made below, for it is in error. My sincere apologies to all involved. ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR >PS We currently do no longer use the Thumper, >which is an obscene bastard of equipment fully >capable of major injury to both patient and >rescue team. Respiratory support is no longer >in the protocol, because basically all patients >are over the 4 minute limit, and restoring O2 is >a bad idea. We use an Ambi product, a suction cup >with handles, to maintain circulation for the 3-5 >minutes it takes to circulate the medicines >(a proprietary cocktail of anticoaguants, >clot busters and other stuff) ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From reason at longevitymeme.org Thu Dec 16 07:46:26 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 23:46:26 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] on being old In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041215211215.0297fd78@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: http://thecorpse.blogspot.com/2004/12/somehow-without-knowledge-of-future.ht ml Reason Founder, Longevity Meme -------------------- Somehow, without the knowledge of a future Pete, I managed to obtain this brief interview with myself at the age of 75. Actually, Pete might know about it, but since he's busy living his mid-21st century life, he probably just didn't get around to letting us in the present in on the discovery. The interviewer isn't mentioned by name, so I've designated him "I" for simplicity's sake. Here goes. -- I: So, Dave, how's life? Dave: Man, I'm tired. Being old is an ass-kicker, and I reckon I've still got another seventy-five years or so before I call it a day. Damn. I: Seventy-five? I know life extension's come a long way, but that's still pretty impressive. Do you foresee the current generation living to 200 or longer? Dave: This has nothing to do with life extension, and I stopped paying attention to what's going on with younger folks after some little shit sent me a bomb back in '36. He apparently wasn't too happy that I wasn't writing very much, so he sent me a Hickory Farms Christmas box filled with black powder, nails, and broken glass. I: You're kidding. How did you survive that? Dave: Because the kid forgot to put a fuse in with the explosives. I: Wow. I guess having your life threatened by your audience might potentially make you turn your back on them. Dave: No, it was the kid's stupidity. I'm ashamed that this kid, who enclosed a note saying how much he liked my first novel, forgot something as basic as the fucking fuse. Even when I was young- in my twenties, say- I didn't hold out a lot of hope for folks younger than myself. After that shitty bomb, I just gave up on them completely, just like I gave up on politics, coffee shops, and every post-mp3/DVD audio format. I: So what are you doing these days? Still writing? Dave: Still dabbling is more like it. I still read a lot. Drink beer. Cruise around in the Judge or the six-five. I collect turntables too. I: Turntables? Dave: Come on, you know what a turntable is. I don't collect them for any reason other than to cannibalize them for parts, though. The only things I collect, so to speak, are spent shell casings, empty beer cans, and the occasional royalty check from my writing. I: Wait, shell casings? I know you still drink beer- Dave: Yeah, those liver filters are the best things that ever happened to me. Well, and the cancer pseudo-vaccine. I: But what about the shell casings? Do you own a gun? Dave: I'm not answering that, for obvious legal reasons. But yeah, I've got about 100,000 spent shell casings. 7.62x39. I'm hoping to find someone who will eventually fuse them all together to build my coffin, and maybe my headstone as well. Want a beer? I: No thanks. Dave: Your loss, dude. I: I'm curious as to your opinion of- Dave: Come on, dude, I'm not that interested in offering my opinion to strangers. You should know that, if you've followed my life and career at all. I: All right. That sounds kind of cynical, though. Dave: Maybe it is. Or maybe you could just call me Johannes de Silentio. Or just more interested in takin' it easy and sitting on the porch. I: So you're still an advocate of idleness? Dave: Did you expect me to have an epiphany and start busting my ass? I: No, but you have a family, and- Dave: Christ on a crutch, who the hell chose you to do this interview? Of course I've got a family, but I'm seventy-fucking-five years old, and the kids have been taking care of themselves for years. Ask me a decent question, please. I: Sorry. Okay. Are you happy? Dave: I reckon I am. I don't have to do much except kick back, drink beer, read, and think a lot, so I've pretty much achieved my life's goals. I: Those don't seem like very... complex goals. Dave: I dare you to quit your job and fuck off for the rest of your life. I bet you couldn't handle it. I've got a question for you, son. I: Um, okay. Dave: Why is asking old fucks like me questions any more complex or fulfilling than trying to answer questions about your own life? Don't get me wrong, I like a good interview or novel or essay as much as the next guy, if not more, but really, wouldn't you rather take some time and engage in a little introspection? I: Well, yes, but- Dave: But you're too busy trying to build a career and leave a legacy. Fuck it, dude. I don't feel like giving a lecture right now. I: Okay. Dave: You ever seen a GTO? I: What's that? Dave: I knew that's what you'd say. You into cars? I: Uh, not really. Dave: Me neither, but the 1970 GTO Judge is the finest car ever made. Before you ask, yes, it runs on gasoline, not hydrogen. I: I thought they outlawed those. Dave: Maybe where you're from, but not in Texas. They've still got the old twentieth-century oil economy mindset. Anyway, fuck this interview. You wanna go cruise? I: Sure. Can I bring the recorder along? Dave: Why not? Let me get my cigarettes and a CD. Yes, I still have a CD player. I'm seventy-fuckin'-five, and I'm not gonna shell out for anything newer, especially since nobody could install a new system in the Judge without fuckin' it up. Come on, dude, let's hit it. -- Looks like being old will kick ass. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Dec 16 08:29:12 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:29:12 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] armchair cryonicists? In-Reply-To: <20041216024155.61979.qmail@web61302.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041216024155.61979.qmail@web61302.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041216082911.GS9221@leitl.org> On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 06:41:55PM -0800, Ned Late wrote: > I am not familiar with the latest in-crowd expressions and buzzwords. -1, troll. http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics9106.txt http://www.google.com/search?q=armchair&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official > Would you please enlighten as to a more specific meaning of 'armchair > cryonicist? Would that, in the venacular of some of you, indicate someone -1, troll. > who is interested in cryonics but does not spend funds on being suspended, > or does not donate to cryonics organisations? No. Armchair cryonicists are (usually well-meaning, and very energetic) people with little or no understanding of medicine and cryobiology, yet full of great ideas. <-- been there, done that. The more obnoxious of them actively resist listening to anything which might burst their bubble. > >armchair cryonicists. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 16 10:34:16 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:34:16 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] BBC "If..." on cloning, violence and drug legalisation Message-ID: <470a3c520412160234241c40a3@mail.gmail.com> Solutions to problems which have been with us for decades - or are unique to the new millennium. Sometimes the pace of change can be mind-boggling. To keep up we have to respond quickly. The second series of IF begins on Thursday, 16 December, 2004, on BBC Two. This second series of IF aims to involve you in the options that lie ahead for you, and for your children. The future, of course, is not here. So IF tries to bring that to life through drama. We imagine how the world might be in 10 or 15 years' time. But before we can begin we need information and opinion. We spend weeks reading, talking to experts and compiling briefing documents before we tackle the drama. The first film If... Cloning Could Cure Us explores the potential of cloning and stem cell therapy. To give this courtroom drama real substance and moral complexity, we approached our research on several fronts: scientific, ethical, legal and political. The second film, If... We Could Stop The Violence, might seem like wishful thinking. But it reflects the views of cutting edge scientists who believe that the propensity for violent crime is genetic. The third film If... Drugs Were Legal examines the existing problems with drug prohibition and hears the arguments in favour of legalisation. Feedback from viewers and interested citizens is encouraged: in Embryonic stem cell therapy: have your say, you can post your opinion on "Does this type of research and potential treatment herald a medical revolution, which will save countless lives? Or is it just one step too far in an ethical minefield?". Thoughts and opinions on the issues raised by the programme will be published on the BBC site. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/if/default.stm From eugen at leitl.org Thu Dec 16 10:43:22 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:43:22 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Resuscitation: and Armchair Cryonicists In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041215211215.0297fd78@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <41BDA886.6080509@sasktel.net> <01c401c4e141$e056b840$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041213193455.029140f0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <41BE6786.2070009@sasktel.net> <20041214094246.GT9221@leitl.org> <008a01c4e200$8c5fc320$c3ebfb44@kevin> <6.0.3.0.1.20041214115324.02939340@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <6.0.3.0.1.20041215211215.0297fd78@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041216104322.GX9221@leitl.org> On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 09:29:53PM -0800, Hara Ra wrote: > 3. If anyone calls me an "armchair cryonicist" I will call them an > "Armchair Extropian" and probably will be banned from the list... Hara, no one called you an armchair cryonicist. (Me least of all people, you probably don't recall me talking with you at Extro 4). I was commenting on other people's harebrained schemes, periodically floated here. (I already said this, both to you via private mail, and the list, but a repetition doesn't hurt). -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 16 11:27:45 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:27:45 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] What's Next for Google Message-ID: <470a3c5204121603271caf0f93@mail.gmail.com> Running the Web's best search engine isn't enough: Google wants to organize all digital information. That means war with Microsoft. Read this very good article on possible Google futures on Technology Review. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/issue/ferguson0105.asp?trk=top From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com Thu Dec 16 16:34:16 2004 From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 08:34:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Asimo learns to run Message-ID: <20041216163416.47030.qmail@web41313.mail.yahoo.com> Check the new Toyota i-units in the Performance Show for Expo 2005: http://expo.toyota-g.com/index_en.html And Asimo learning to run: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4098201.stm Humanoid robot learns how to run Asimo is now taller, fatter and faster Car-maker Honda's humanoid robot Asimo has just got faster and smarter. The Japanese firm is a leader in developing two-legged robots and the new, improved Asimo (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) can now run, find his way around obstacles as well as interact with people. Eventually Asimo could find gainful employment in homes and offices. "The aim is to develop a robot that can help people in their daily lives," said a Honda spokesman. Jogging along To get the robot running for the first time was not an easy process as it involved Asimo making an accurate leap and absorbing the impact of landing without slipping or spinning. The "run" he is now capable of is perhaps not quite up to Olympic star Kelly Holmes' standard. At 3km/h, it is closer to a leisurely jog. Its makers claim that it is almost four times as fast as Sony's Qrio, which became the first robot to run last year. The criteria for running robots is defined by engineers as having both feet off the ground between strides. Asimo has improved in other ways too, increasing his walking speed, from 1.6km/h to 2.5km, growing 10cm to 130cm and putting on 2kg in weight. While he may not quite be ready for yoga, he does have more freedom of movement, being able to twist his hips and bend his wrists, thumbs and neck. Wowing audiences WHAT ASIMO CAN DO Recognise moving objects Follow movements Greet people Recognise and respond to 50 different Japanese phrases Come when beckoned Walk up and down stairs Asimo has already made his mark on the international robot scene and in November was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame. He has wowed audiences around the world with his ability to walk upstairs, recognise faces and come when beckoned. In August 2003 he even attended a state dinner in the Czech Republic, travelling with the Japanese prime minister as a goodwill envoy. He is one of a handful of robots used by tech firms to trumpet their technological advances. Technology developed for Asimo could be used in the automobile industry as electronics increasingly take over from mechanics in car design. For the moment Asimo's biggest role is an entertainer and the audience gathered to see his first public run greeted his slightly comical gait with amusement, according to reports. Robots can fulfil serious functions in society and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe predicts that the worldwide market for industrial robots will swell from 81,000 units in 2003 to 106,000 in 2007. La vie est belle! Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra, Solar System, Milky Way, Multiverse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Dec 16 17:47:22 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 18:47:22 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Comments on Annalee Newitz's Neofiles interview Message-ID: <470a3c520412160947464da9c8@mail.gmail.com> Annalee Newitz's Neofiles interview (http://www.life-enhancement.com/NeoFiles/default.asp?ID=54) is very interesting as nearly everything written by Annalee Newitz and RU Sirius: here we have a clearly smart and progressive person who is raising her middle finger (see the first picture and read the text) against transhumanism. While the questions and comments of RU Sirius make good sense, Newitz makes some good points but is inconsistent on some others. Some comments: Annalee is assuming that radical life extension is either impossible or very, very far in the future ("it's not something that's likely to happen soon, and I'm not counting on it. Therefore, it's definitely not something I want to base my belief system around"). Here she is ignoring or not taking into account current research results which say that perhaps it is not going to be years, but probably it is going to be decades rather than centuries. So she is guilty of the same sin she accuses transhumanists of: "making a religion" of her firm opinions on things she does not know enough about. She writes very good things about the social side of infotech, but biotech is still more of a science than of a social phenomenon: one has to research the facts first. These days everyone "knows" what is a P2P network, not so for telomeres. She is seeing the world in black and white: you are either pursuing useless dreams of immortality, or "focusing on what needs to be done here and now to fix this shitty-ass planet". It does not cross her mind that you could be trying to do both things. I am definitely in favor of both quests and try to contribute to both. If I contribute more to one, someone else will contribute more to the other. Please save me from those who see only black and white children blocks, the real world is much more complex than that. "I'd rather make life better for people who live into their 70s. Curing death is only going to be cool when everybody is living a cool life". I know many people in their 70s and know that one thing that would make their life really cool is not having to think about being dead in a few years. Hope is one of those things that really make life better. But this is too much: she is in favor of gender reassignment but does not wish to see the analogy with life extension "Getting gender reassignment seems to me really different from life-extension, just in terms of ethics". She is not seeing what she does not want to see: that gender reassignment and life extension are exactly the same kind of thing - using tech (which unfortunately not everyone can afford) to repair nature's mistakes), and that in both cases demand and technical development will lower costs and make such reparations more and more affordable. From jonkc at att.net Thu Dec 16 18:01:17 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:01:17 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:John Wright Finds God References: <200412152104.iBFL4i019206@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <004601c4e399$509092d0$a6fe4d0c@hal2001> - > The scientific method is concerned with measureable aspects of our > sense-impressions. If by "supernatural" you mean a person having an unusual, even bizarre, subjective experience then I have absolutely no difficulty believing you; but usually something like a burning bush is also involved and rapidly oxidizing vegetable matter is measurable. Whenever a famous person gets assassinated you can be certain that in the next few day dozens of people will come forward and say that they had a vision it would happen the night before; but for reasons not entirely clear they never bother to tell anyone about it until after the poor man was dead. Odd don't you think? "Dirk Bruere" > That's why chemistry developed out of alchemy. Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist who ever lived, was an alchemist and there was nothing wrong with that; at the time there was no reason to think you couldn't turn lead into gold if you just used the right chemicals. Today we know better. > As for psi phenomena, there is plenty of experimental evidence. The compelling evidence was not gathered using good scientific methods and the evidence that was gathered using good scientific methods is not compelling. Don't you think that's odd? If fortune tellers, psychic healers, and Taro card readers didn't have such stellar reputations for moral rectitude I might almost think fraud was involved . We could have had this exact same conversation 100 years ago and not change one word; in fact people back then did have such conversations, and in the next century despite huge advances in science and technology there is not one more bit of evidence that psi is real than there was back then. Do you find that odd? I find that odd. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 16 18:38:21 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 18:38:21 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <004601c4e399$509092d0$a6fe4d0c@hal2001> References: <200412152104.iBFL4i019206@tick.javien.com> <004601c4e399$509092d0$a6fe4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <41C1D61D.6090800@neopax.com> John K Clark wrote: > - > >> The scientific method is concerned with measureable aspects of our >> sense-impressions. > > > If by "supernatural" you mean a person having an unusual, even bizarre, > subjective experience then I have absolutely no difficulty believing you; > but usually something like a burning bush is also involved and rapidly > oxidizing vegetable matter is measurable. > > Whenever a famous person gets assassinated you can be certain that in the > next few day dozens of people will come forward and say that they had a > vision it would happen the night before; but for reasons not entirely > clear > they never bother to tell anyone about it until after the poor man was > dead. > Odd don't you think? > > "Dirk Bruere" > >> That's why chemistry developed out of alchemy. > > > Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist who ever lived, was an alchemist and > there was nothing wrong with that; at the time there was no reason to > think > you couldn't turn lead into gold if you just used the right chemicals. > Today > we know better. > > > As for psi phenomena, there is plenty of experimental evidence. > > The compelling evidence was not gathered using good scientific methods > and > the evidence that was gathered using good scientific methods is not > compelling. Don't you think that's odd? Like PEAR? Seems like people have been running in circles trying to convince professional 'sceptics'. If the evidence is good, the expt must be bad, and vice versa. > f fortune tellers, psychic healers, > and Taro card readers didn't have such stellar reputations for moral > rectitude I might almost think fraud was involved . > > We could have had this exact same conversation 100 years ago and not > change > one word; in fact people back then did have such conversations, and in > the > next century despite huge advances in science and technology there is not > one more bit of evidence that psi is real than there was back then. Do > you > find that odd? I find that odd. > > I don't find it any more odd than that the same conversations about the nature of qualia were taking place. It would seem likely that it's an aspect of Nature that is still beyond our science. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From john-c-wright at sff.net Thu Dec 16 19:56:27 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:56:27 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God Message-ID: <200412161956.iBGJuW008546@tick.javien.com> Samantha Atkins writes: >This is a rather limited and surprising tack to pull out of a much >richer conversation. BTW, please say precisely as you can what you >do and do not mean by "supernatural". >If you have read what I have written on this subject in particular I >don't think you can dismiss me as taking any conclusions "as articles >of faith". She is correct to upbraid me, for my reply was less sober than so profound a topic requires, not to mention what courtesy requires. My apologies, for I meant not to sound dismissive. My intent, since I have already been too prolix on a topic where, honestly, I have nothing original to say, was to be brief; instead, it seems I was short with her. By supernatural, I mean what is meant in the ordinary sense of the world: whatever is not of the natural world. My belief is that the natural world stands to the supernatural as the mind to the body. No description of the body and its motions, no matter how accurate, is sufficient to describe the meaning which the mind puts upon it. As far as biologist is concerned, the determination of a man to do a certain act, which he sets in motion his body to do, is supernatural to the science of biology: it stands behind it, cannot be explained in terms of it, and informs it with meaning. If a man is hallucinating because he is drunk, there is a natural explanation for his visions; if he is seeing visions because he is visited by a Spirit, there is no natural explanation. From john-c-wright at sff.net Thu Dec 16 20:03:17 2004 From: john-c-wright at sff.net (john-c-wright at sff.net) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:03:17 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God Message-ID: <200412162003.iBGK3V009840@tick.javien.com> >>>I do have one question for you, people have been claiming supernatural >>>experiences for thousands of years but not one has ever been verified; If >>>it's real why do you suppose this is the one area of knowledge that is not >>amenable to the scientific method? >>The scientific method is concerned with measureable aspects of our >>sense-impressions. >Slightly more than that. >It is concerned with consensus reality. In my consensus reality, reality is objective, and admits of no consensus. Can we all agree that, in reality, reality is what it is, no matter what we agree? From Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it Thu Dec 16 20:08:31 2004 From: Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it (Amara Graps) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 21:08:31 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bill of Rights- Security Edition Message-ID: <20041216200552.M84329@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> http://www.securityedition.com/ What is the "Security Edition" ? The First Ten Amendments to the constitution of the United States printed on sturdy, pocket-sized, pieces of metal. The next time you travel by air, take the Security Edition of the Bill of Rights along with you. When asked to empty your pockets, proudly toss the Bill of Rights in the plastic bin. ------ (great idea! ) Amara From harara at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 16 20:14:56 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:14:56 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God In-Reply-To: <200412161956.iBGJuW008546@tick.javien.com> References: <200412161956.iBGJuW008546@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041216120454.0294aaf0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> The history of science finds more and more phenomena which were understood as supernatural to have ultimately scientific explanations, so same become natural. An example is ball lightning. It is no major specuation that hallucination coupled with strong stimulation of "this is centrally and ulitimately important" (probably a function of the RAS) would create experiences of the Numinous and Spiritual. The relative rarity and detailed differences between these events have prevented the usual scientific investigations, which require repeated examples to verify conjectures. The flip side of all this is my vision of the Spiritual Nano Store, with shelves like a health food store, with bottles labled things like "Angelic Ascencion", "Dante's Inferno, Level 3", "Pentetcostal Hallelujia", "The Quaker Ezperience" and so on. Inside is a small pill with a few nanites which enter your brain and run for a few hours. I want to clearly distinguish between my cynicism about the super natural nature of supernatuality and the valid and useful psycholgical value of same. BTDT, BTW. >By supernatural, I mean what is meant in the ordinary sense of the world: >whatever is not of the natural world. My belief is that the natural world >stands >to the supernatural as the mind to the body. No description of the body >and its >motions, no matter how accurate, is sufficient to describe the meaning >which the >mind puts upon it. As far as biologist is concerned, the determination of >a man >to do a certain act, which he sets in motion his body to do, is >supernatural to >the science of biology: it stands behind it, cannot be explained in terms >of it, >and informs it with meaning. If a man is hallucinating because he is drunk, >there is a natural explanation for his visions; if he is seeing visions >because >he is visited by a Spirit, there is no natural explanation. ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From harara at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 16 20:20:52 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:20:52 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God In-Reply-To: <200412162003.iBGK3V009840@tick.javien.com> References: <200412162003.iBGK3V009840@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041216121635.0294ad80@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Hardly. If "your reality" correlated with "my reality" gives a high score, we have communion. Repeat for all "other realities" and the subset giving the highest score can be denoted "consensus reality" Science is good at coming up with high scores in this department. > >It is concerned with consensus reality. > >In my consensus reality, reality is objective, and admits of no consensus. > >Can we all agree that, in reality, reality is what it is, no matter what >we agree? ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 16 20:31:40 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 20:31:40 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God In-Reply-To: <200412162003.iBGK3V009840@tick.javien.com> References: <200412162003.iBGK3V009840@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41C1F0AC.60106@neopax.com> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: >>>>I do have one question for you, people have been claiming supernatural >>>>experiences for thousands of years but not one has ever been verified; If >>>>it's real why do you suppose this is the one area of knowledge that is not >>>> >>>> >>>amenable to the scientific method? >>> >>> > > > >>>The scientific method is concerned with measureable aspects of our >>>sense-impressions. >>> >>> > > > >>Slightly more than that. >>It is concerned with consensus reality. >> >> > >In my consensus reality, reality is objective, and admits of no consensus. > >Can we all agree that, in reality, reality is what it is, no matter what we agree? > > > I cannot agree with that except as an act of faith. Maybe the universe, brains, neural structures etc are simply theories that Mind has come up with to explain itself. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 16 20:33:56 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 20:33:56 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God In-Reply-To: <200412161956.iBGJuW008546@tick.javien.com> References: <200412161956.iBGJuW008546@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41C1F134.9080202@neopax.com> john-c-wright at sff.net wrote: >She is correct to upbraid me, for my reply was less sober than so profound a >topic requires, not to mention what courtesy requires. My apologies, for I meant >not to sound dismissive. My intent, since I have already been too prolix on a >topic where, honestly, I have nothing original to say, was to be brief; instead, >it seems I was short with her. > >By supernatural, I mean what is meant in the ordinary sense of the world: >whatever is not of the natural world. My belief is that the natural world stands >to the supernatural as the mind to the body. No description of the body and its >motions, no matter how accurate, is sufficient to describe the meaning which the >mind puts upon it. As far as biologist is concerned, the determination of a man >to do a certain act, which he sets in motion his body to do, is supernatural to >the science of biology: it stands behind it, cannot be explained in terms of it, > > So it's the next level up of emergent phenomena >and informs it with meaning. If a man is hallucinating because he is drunk, >there is a natural explanation for his visions; if he is seeing visions because >he is visited by a Spirit, there is no natural explanation. > > Yet there is a huge grey area. I have taken LSD and things I have perceived when my consciousness expanded have been true and valuable insights. I have also perceived 'God' in this manner, although not as you have apparently done. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 16 21:07:24 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:07:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Bill of Rights- Security Edition In-Reply-To: <20041216200552.M84329@ifsi.rm.cnr.it> Message-ID: <20041216210724.29746.qmail@web81604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Amara Graps wrote: > http://www.securityedition.com/ > > What is the "Security Edition" ? > > The First Ten Amendments to the constitution of the > United States > printed on sturdy, pocket-sized, pieces of metal. > > The next time you travel by air, take the Security > Edition of the > Bill of Rights along with you. When asked to empty > your pockets, > proudly toss the Bill of Rights in the plastic bin. Cute. Except: > You need to get used to offering up the bill of > rights for inspection and government workers need to > get used to deciding if you'll be allowed to keep > the Bill of Rights with you when you travel. The "inspection" will be just seeing that it's a simple piece of metal, with total ignorance of the specific words engraved on it. You'll likely be allowed to keep those pieces of metal, but whether you'll be allowed to keep the rights they proclaim is a different story. Try offering them as a defense to any degree to a security officer, and that will likely only hasten your exit from the group of citizens allowed to fly on standard commercial aviation: if an officer's procedure and the guiding law that allows it come into conflict, usually the officer's procedure wins out, especially in the short term. Symbolic, and in practice possibly detrimental. From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 16 21:40:04 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:40:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041216121635.0294ad80@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041216214004.14656.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> A high score is not a consensus. A 90% agreement on 'reality' leaves 10% outside of it. --- Hara Ra wrote: > Hardly. If "your reality" correlated with "my reality" gives a high > score, > we have communion. Repeat for all "other realities" and the subset > giving > the highest score can be denoted "consensus reality" Science is good > at > coming up with high scores in this department. > > > >It is concerned with consensus reality. > > > >In my consensus reality, reality is objective, and admits of no > consensus. > > > >Can we all agree that, in reality, reality is what it is, no matter > what > >we agree? > > ================================== > = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = > = harara at sbcglobal.net = > = Alcor North Cryomanagement = > = Alcor Advisor to Board = > = 831 429 8637 = > ================================== > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 16 21:41:21 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 08:41:21 +1100 Subject: Damien grants psi evidence (was Re: [extropy-chat] John Wright Finds God) References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> Damien Broderick wrote: >>As for psi phenomena, there is plenty of experimental evidence. > > Granting this (as I do, to the horror of many extropes), .... That's interesting. I'd normally rate your baloney filters pretty highly, so I wonder what experimental evidence of what psi phenomena you'd grant? Brett Paatsch From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 16 22:20:26 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:20:26 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 08:41 AM 12/17/2004 +1100, Brett Paatsch wrote: >>>As for psi phenomena, there is plenty of experimental evidence. >>Granting this (as I do, to the horror of many extropes), .... > >That's interesting. I'd normally rate your baloney filters pretty >highly, so I wonder what experimental evidence of what psi >phenomena you'd grant? The margins of this email are too narrow to give the full evidence. Look, e.g., at the material I've url'd in previous posts, from Professor Jessica Utts (and her skeptical foe Professor Ray Hyman) at http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/ perhaps starting with her stuff linked from: That assessed material is acknowledged not to be the strongest operational data derived from the Stargate program, which remains classified, so disagreements persist. Still, Utts makes a fair case for psi. A more adventurous glimpse (with lots of laffs) is Jim Schnabel's REMOTE VIEWERS. Research continues. I think I provided an url recently to an interesting protocol by Prof Suitbert Ertel, who claims to be getting robust, repeatable psi effects, using a haptic protocol, by screening his subjects in advance and concentrating thereafter on those who aced the screen; some will have done so by chance fluctuation, and hence will fall to chance subsequently; the `psi stars', it is supposed, will persist. (And obviously those screening data are not added back in as part of Ertel's evidential data, as skeptics will routinely surmise on the assumption that all lab parapsychologists are fools or rogues.) (And of course most professional astrologers, tea-readers and `psychics' *are* fools or rogues.) Damien Broderick From rafal at smigrodzki.org Fri Dec 17 00:52:39 2004 From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:52:39 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God References: <200412161956.iBGJuW008546@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <008201c4e3d2$b7001610$7b88bc3f@dimension> ----- Original Message ----- From: > > By supernatural, I mean what is meant in the ordinary sense of the world: > whatever is not of the natural world. My belief is that the natural world > stands > to the supernatural as the mind to the body. No description of the body > and its > motions, no matter how accurate, is sufficient to describe the meaning > which the > mind puts upon it. As far as biologist is concerned, the determination of > a man > to do a certain act, which he sets in motion his body to do, is > supernatural to > the science of biology: it stands behind it, cannot be explained in terms > of it, > and informs it with meaning. If a man is hallucinating because he is > drunk, > there is a natural explanation for his visions; if he is seeing visions > because > he is visited by a Spirit, there is no natural explanation. > ### This is indeed quite interesting: You adduce an analogy between different levels of abstract, objective (or intersubjective) description levels of natural phenomena, and the physical vs. noumenal aspects of our existence. It is true that as far as a the ordinary biologist is concerned, many elements of human action are somewhat too complex to be accommodated by the conceptual framework of his theories: Yet, the evolutionary biologist will explain the meaning of many such actions within the larger context of the world, and a cognitive psychologist armed with fMRI and other techniques will explain even more. The different magisteria of natural sciences, from particle physics to systems theory, are a unity, not a dichotomy or plurality: they overlap and provide specialized tools for explanation of the physical world at increasing levels of complexity. "Explanation" here is meant as formation of models, carried within our mind, or in other devices, models that reflect reality, like noumena reflecting aspects of the surrounding world. The ability of such models to predict the future forms the basis for differentiating between true and false ones, which again parallels the criteria we use to assess our noumena - the ones which result in incorrect predictions (e.g. delusions of grandeur and might stemming from cocaine abuse), are seen as inferior. Presumably, with increasing sophistication of the natural sciences, acting in the orderly progression from the simple to the complex, we will be able to explain (in the above meaning), every single action of a human being. The "mind" will be brought into the same light that dispelled the vis vitalis and provided the understanding of the body as a physical object and of the life a cell as a physical process. Predictive models of human action, to be correct, will need to encompass all influences impinging on this human, and all spirits (even the ones of a non-alcoholic nature) will be described as well. In this interpretation, your analogy would not hold: there is only one world, and all mysteries (but not values) are reducible to equations and formulas. For me, the "meaning" or importance of the world is noumenal - an equation bereft of desire, the ineffable quality that seems to appear whenever information is being processed in certain ways inside brains, has no ethical subjectship. Thus, I concur with you that there is a dichotomy to the world, between objects that merely are, and the ones that feel - but the difference in one of attitude, not substance. Perhaps one might find a way of directly assessing the presence of noumena in a physical object. Perhaps it might be possible to build a device perfectly reproducing all the functions of a particular human brain, including a meaningful engagement in the debate about the meaning of life, or writing poetry, yet demonstrably devoid of the noumena of desire - in that case my attitude towards that physical object would greatly differ from my attitudes towards a fellow sentient. But then, maybe it's impossible to divorce some ways of processing information from their noumenal aspect, my knowledge of these matters is insufficient to opine with confidence. The noumenal world would be in either case "natural" in the sense of being subject to manipulation and prediction, and by itself this would not have any ethical (valuation-related) implications - the main ethical issue would still remain the presence or absence of desire. So, perhaps my views could be described as metaphysical and epistemological monism (one, all-encompassing, physical/mathematical, principally knowable world) combined with an ethical dualism (value as a noumenal entity, ultimately produced by, if not necessarily reducible to, physical processes), while you appear to be seeking justifications stemming from a more strictly dualist philosophy (a natural vs. supernatural world, with the unknowable, spiritual world imbuing the physical with value). This philosophical yearning for meaning is perhaps why your experience changed you, while, I suppose, I would brush off the Spirit without budging. Rafal From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Dec 17 01:19:10 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:19:10 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God References: <200412162003.iBGK3V009840@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <006101c4e3d6$69539b90$b8232dcb@homepc> John Wright wrote: > Can we all agree that, in reality, reality is what it is, no matter what > we agree? I can. Brett Paatsch From jonkc at att.net Fri Dec 17 05:28:07 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 00:28:07 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:John Wright Finds God References: <200412152104.iBFL4i019206@tick.javien.com><004601c4e399$509092d0$a6fe4d0c@hal2001> <41C1D61D.6090800@neopax.com> Message-ID: <00b801c4e3f9$6e0d1710$91ee4d0c@hal2001> Me: >> The compelling evidence was not gathered using good scientific methods >> and >> the evidence that was gathered using good scientific methods is not >> compelling. Dirk Bruere" > Like PEAR? Yes, exactly like PEAR. It must be embarrassing when even fellow parapsychologists, not exactly sticklers for good scientific method, can't stomach such shoddy experimental technique. I quote Hansen Utts Markwick from the "Journal" Parapsychology: "PEAR's methods made it easy to cheat. Without the use of randomly selected targets and adequate shielding of the agent from the percipient, it is virtually impossible to detect even simple trickery. [.] The PEAR remote-viewing experiments depart from commonly accepted criteria for formal research in science. In fact, they are undoubtedly some of the poorest quality ESP experiments published in many years." I do disagree with Mr. Markwick on one thing, I don't think you'd have to go back very many years to find equally poor ESP experiments, and yet again we find the less rigorous the experiment the stronger the ESP. Curious. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From sjatkins at mac.com Fri Dec 17 05:36:26 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 21:36:26 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright Finds God In-Reply-To: <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> Message-ID: <98001032-4FED-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> On Dec 15, 2004, at 11:24 AM, Dirk Bruere wrote: > John K Clark wrote: > >> I do have one question for you, people have been claiming supernatural >> experiences for thousands of years but not one has ever been >> verified; If it's >> real why do you suppose this is the one area of knowledge that is not >> amenable to the scientific method? >> > It is. > That's why chemistry developed out of alchemy. > As for psi phenomena, there is plenty of experimental evidence. > Not that is really vetted generally though to the best of my knowledge. If anyone knows of well vetted research that proves ESP exists then please let me/us know. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Fri Dec 17 06:44:26 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 22:44:26 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041216120454.0294aaf0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <200412161956.iBGJuW008546@tick.javien.com> <6.0.3.0.1.20041216120454.0294aaf0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <17FDB0C4-4FF7-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> On Dec 16, 2004, at 12:14 PM, Hara Ra wrote: > > The flip side of all this is my vision of the Spiritual Nano Store, > with shelves like a health food store, with bottles labled things like > "Angelic Ascencion", "Dante's Inferno, Level 3", "Pentetcostal > Hallelujia", "The Quaker Ezperience" and so on. Inside is a small pill > with a few nanites which enter your brain and run for a few hours. > Note to self: "Email in my next great idea before someone else beats me to it." I am restraining myself from yet another very extropic sci-fi explanation of God. - samantha From harara at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 17 08:10:24 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 00:10:24 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] John Wright finds God In-Reply-To: <17FDB0C4-4FF7-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> References: <200412161956.iBGJuW008546@tick.javien.com> <6.0.3.0.1.20041216120454.0294aaf0@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <17FDB0C4-4FF7-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041217000933.02954b40@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> take my idea and run with it.... >>The flip side of all this is my vision of the Spiritual Nano Store, with >>shelves like a health food store, with bottles labled things like >>"Angelic Ascencion", "Dante's Inferno, Level 3", "Pentetcostal >>Hallelujia", "The Quaker Ezperience" and so on. Inside is a small pill >>with a few nanites which enter your brain and run for a few hours. > >Note to self: "Email in my next great idea before someone else beats me to >it." > >I am restraining myself from yet another very extropic sci-fi explanation >of God. > >- samantha ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From pgptag at gmail.com Fri Dec 17 10:08:51 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:08:51 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The idea of technology enhancing performance everywhere will be normal Message-ID: <470a3c5204121702082887103b@mail.gmail.com> Always On: When Digital Natives start taking over, the idea of technology enhancing performance everywhere, in business as in sports, will be normal instead of nutty. As demographics shift, and the Digital Natives populate enterprises - that great bastion of Analogists - the mentality of using technology to solve nearly any issue will emerge. The need to effectively integrate information in and around organizations will not be viewed as a neat idea, but as a necessity, a crisis. When meetings are dominated by Digital Natives that spawn more and more Digital Immigrants, not only will folks be buying more iPods, but they will spend more on Web Services, they will push back on CIOs who say IT can't be done, CEOs will demand ubiquitous simple instantaneous database querying.... And we may debate whether cyborgs should be allowed into the technology Hall of Fame. "... Cause it's gonna be the future soon - And I won't always be this way, - When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away..." - Jonathan Coulton [I loved this quote] http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=7507_0_14_0_C From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Dec 17 11:33:28 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 22:33:28 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <00f701c4e42c$3aafa4e0$b8232dcb@homepc> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 08:41 AM 12/17/2004 +1100, Brett Paatsch wrote: > >>>>As for psi phenomena, there is plenty of experimental evidence. >>>Granting this (as I do, to the horror of many extropes), .... >> >>That's interesting. I'd normally rate your baloney filters pretty >>highly, so I wonder what experimental evidence of what psi >>phenomena you'd grant? > > The margins of this email are too narrow to give the full evidence. Look, > e.g., at the material I've url'd in previous posts, from Professor Jessica > Utts (and her skeptical foe Professor Ray Hyman) at > > http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/ > > perhaps starting with her stuff linked from: > > prepared a report assessing the statistical evidence for psychic > functioning in U.S. government sponsored research. The report was part of > a review done by the American Institutes of Research (AIR) at the request > of Congress and the CIA. > Thanks, I did read it. > That assessed material is acknowledged not to be the strongest operational > data derived from the Stargate program, which remains classified, so > disagreements persist. Still, Utts makes a fair case for psi. I think she makes a fair case that there's an anomoly that is statistically significant and reproducable and therefore worthy of further investigation. Brett Paatsch From amara at amara.com Fri Dec 17 14:35:10 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:35:10 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] John John Perry Barlow vs The Man Message-ID: Sadly, it looks like things didn't go so well for Barlow at his hearing. John Perry Barlow's account of the situation (I posted this before) http://barlow.typepad.com/barlowfriendz/2004/12/a_taste_of_the_.html Barlow's relevant legal documents http://www.barlowfriendz.net/busted/ From an attendee in the Courtroom: "Thursday 16th December 2004 In the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo" http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/weblog/nb.cgi/view/vitanuova/2004/12/16/1 "On Wednesday I went to Superior Court for the hearing on John Perry's motion to suppress. The defense claimed that the search at the airport in 2003 was not "reasonable" and therefore that evidence obtained from it should not be admitted. The Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo, is accustomed to dealing with cases that arose at the San Francisco Airport, but it's not particularly used to constitutional challenges to aviation screening procedures, nor to having multiple camera crews turn out for a single pre-trial evidentiary hearing in a misdemeanor drug possession case. " [many details deleted here.. you should real the full acount] "Despite the drama and entertainment that developed at the end of the defense testimony, the judge ruled against Barlow, denying the motion to suppress and ruling that the search was lawful and that the results of the search could be introduced into evidence against Barlow. In his ruling from the bench, there was not a lot of intricate logical argument about caselaw; instead, it was dominated by references to common sense. (In appellate courts, in my experience, and perhaps even in Federal trial courts, judges may be more apt to plunge into abstractions and theoretical principles and the categories drawn by caselaw; this judge seemed extremely disinclined to do that. I do keep in mind that he had only seen the case file for the first time two hours before, and that he was perhaps surprised by the explosion of highly abstract civil liberties arguments, some of them likely matters of first impression. I imagine that usually disputes in state trial courts are a good deal more concrete!). "The judge mentioned that the penalty Barlow would face, if convicted, would not be particularly severe, and seemed to express slightly obliquely the view that it would be in Barlow's best interest to plead guilty -- and that it was surprising that he hadn't done so, or would be surprising if he didn't do so. (I think there's also a class issue at work here. Most defendants can't afford to fight for principle and can at the very best afford to look out for themselves, not for the abstract rules by which the fourth amendment is brought to bear on a class of cases.) "The judge remarked that obviously it must not be the rule that screeners have to ignore contraband when they find it. So the question, he said, is whether they have a reason to look in the first place; if they have a reason to look, then they can use their own judgment -- and that's what Ms. Ramos did. When she shook the bottle and opened it, that didn't indicate that she was looking for drugs; perhaps she was stupid to do so, but being careless about one's own safety is not sufficient to make a search unreasonable under the fourth amendment. She used her own judgment about the nature of the threats and the best way of investigating them, which is a reasonable search. Hence Barlow's motion must be denied; his argument about reasonableness, while founded on a commendable concern with privacy, is too broad in its implications, because it would ultimately suggest that screeners must ignore contraband they find. "Apparently, Barlow did intend to suggest this. At least, he was prevented from introducing a lot of evidence about how screeners do things that are useful for finding drugs. At a minimum, Barlow wanted to suggest that screeners who are supposed to be looking for explosives should not be permitted to use search techniques or procedures that are specifically aimed at finding drugs rather than explosives (arguably, for example, shaking a bottle). -- Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR, Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it From amara at amara.com Fri Dec 17 14:47:03 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:47:03 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Crocheting the Lorenz manifold Message-ID: Cool Stuff! http://www.enm.bris.ac.uk/anm/preprints/2004r03.html Crocheting the Lorenz manifold by Hinke M Osinga and Bernd Krauskopf "This paper explains how one can crochet the Lorenz manifold, the two-dimensional stable manifold of the origin of the Lorenz system. " [Background info on the Lorenz attractor: "Chaos- What is it?" (Graps) http://www.amara.com/ftpstuff/Chaos.pdf] -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "The best presents don't come in boxes." --Hobbes From Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE Fri Dec 17 14:52:09 2004 From: Patrick.Wilken at Nat.Uni-Magdeburg.DE (Patrick Wilken) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:52:09 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] John John Perry Barlow vs The Man In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3A5C51DC-503B-11D9-BD91-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> Amara: But won't this will be appealed to a higher court? You wouldn't expect the lowest level court to be particularly interested in making a bold statement on the 4th amendment. best, patrick On 17 Dec 2004, at 15:35, Amara Graps wrote: > Sadly, it looks like things didn't go so well for Barlow at his > hearing. > > John Perry Barlow's account of the situation (I posted this before) > http://barlow.typepad.com/barlowfriendz/2004/12/a_taste_of_the_.html > > Barlow's relevant legal documents > http://www.barlowfriendz.net/busted/ > > > From an attendee in the Courtroom: > "Thursday 16th December 2004 > In the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo" > > http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/weblog/nb.cgi/view/vitanuova/2004/12/16/1 > > "On Wednesday I went to Superior Court for the hearing on John Perry's > motion to suppress. The defense claimed that the search at the airport > in 2003 was not "reasonable" and therefore that evidence obtained from > it should not be admitted. The Superior Court of California, County of > San Mateo, is accustomed to dealing with cases that arose at the San > Francisco Airport, but it's not particularly used to constitutional > challenges to aviation screening procedures, nor to having multiple > camera crews turn out for a single pre-trial evidentiary hearing in a > misdemeanor drug possession case. " > > [many details deleted here.. you should real the full acount] > > "Despite the drama and entertainment that developed at the end of the > defense testimony, the judge ruled against Barlow, denying the motion > to suppress and ruling that the search was lawful and that the results > of the search could be introduced into evidence against Barlow. In his > ruling from the bench, there was not a lot of intricate logical > argument about caselaw; instead, it was dominated by references to > common sense. (In appellate courts, in my experience, and perhaps even > in Federal trial courts, judges may be more apt to plunge into > abstractions and theoretical principles and the categories drawn by > caselaw; this judge seemed extremely disinclined to do that. I do keep > in mind that he had only seen the case file for the first time two > hours before, and that he was perhaps surprised by the explosion of > highly abstract civil liberties arguments, some of them likely matters > of first impression. I imagine that usually disputes in state trial > courts are a good deal more concrete!). > > "The judge mentioned that the penalty Barlow would face, if convicted, > would not be particularly severe, and seemed to express slightly > obliquely the view that it would be in Barlow's best interest to plead > guilty -- and that it was surprising that he hadn't done so, or would > be surprising if he didn't do so. (I think there's also a class issue > at work here. Most defendants can't afford to fight for principle and > can at the very best afford to look out for themselves, not for the > abstract rules by which the fourth amendment is brought to bear on a > class of cases.) > > "The judge remarked that obviously it must not be the rule that > screeners have to ignore contraband when they find it. So the > question, he said, is whether they have a reason to look in the first > place; if they have a reason to look, then they can use their own > judgment -- and that's what Ms. Ramos did. When she shook the bottle > and opened it, that didn't indicate that she was looking for drugs; > perhaps she was stupid to do so, but being careless about one's own > safety is not sufficient to make a search unreasonable under the > fourth amendment. She used her own judgment about the nature of the > threats and the best way of investigating them, which is a reasonable > search. Hence Barlow's motion must be denied; his argument about > reasonableness, while founded on a commendable concern with privacy, > is too broad in its implications, because it would ultimately suggest > that screeners must ignore contraband they find. > > "Apparently, Barlow did intend to suggest this. At least, he was > prevented from introducing a lot of evidence about how screeners do > things that are useful for finding drugs. At a minimum, Barlow wanted > to suggest that screeners who are supposed to be looking for > explosives should not be permitted to use search techniques or > procedures that are specifically aimed at finding drugs rather than > explosives (arguably, for example, shaking a bottle). > > > > -- > > Amara Graps, PhD > Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) > Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), > Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR, > Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 17 14:53:50 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:53:50 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] John John Perry Barlow vs The Man In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41C2F2FE.7040707@neopax.com> Amara Graps wrote: > "Apparently, Barlow did intend to suggest this. At least, he was > prevented from introducing a lot of evidence about how screeners do > things that are useful for finding drugs. At a minimum, Barlow wanted > to suggest that screeners who are supposed to be looking for > explosives should not be permitted to use search techniques or > procedures that are specifically aimed at finding drugs rather than > explosives (arguably, for example, shaking a bottle). > I would expect that in a proper search for explosives not only would bottles be shaken, but bottles not sealed by the manufacturer would be opened for cursory inspection. It is still extremely easy to smuggle bombs aboard aircraft if the right explosive (liquid) is used. As for batteries, detonators etc, can an X ray distinguishe between a detonator and an electrolytic cap in a laptop? -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From amara at amara.com Fri Dec 17 14:53:31 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:53:31 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] new book available: Volcanoes of Light Message-ID: new book available: Vulcani di Luce / Volcanoes of Light Photos: Marco Fulle Italian Text: Marco Fulle Corresponding English Text: Amara Graps http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/shop/volcanoesoflight-en.html "For the 10th anniversary of Stromboli online, we are proud to offer the first photo book featuring many images from SOL pages devoted to Sicilian volcanoes, and more: Over one fourth of the photos in this book have never been shown on SOL and anywhere. All photos maintain the high photographic standard that makes SOL a top quality website. There are 144 pages (width 24 cm, height 22 cm), 181 color photos, 56 of which in full page and 5 in double page. The book tells the tale of Stromboli's and Etna's eruptive history of the last decade via photos (two-four per double page) and thematic and evocative captions in English and Italian. Furthermore it describes the natural environment and its strong interrelationship with people living on those well-known volcanoes, Stromboli, Vulcano, and Etna." -- Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR, Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 17 16:02:31 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 08:02:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] John John Perry Barlow vs The Man In-Reply-To: <3A5C51DC-503B-11D9-BD91-000D932F6F12@nat.uni-magdeburg.de> Message-ID: <20041217160231.45793.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> State district courts are notoriously unconcerned with constitutional issues and refuse quite often to rule on the constitutionality of issues. When the facts 'clearly' show you did the act in question, the constitutionality of the law, or the methods of law enforcement, are rarely called into question, particularly when the defendant is arguing pro se. If you have good lawyers on your side, like Barlow apparently does, and the money to burn in their use, as he also seems to have, the district courts will rule against you if the prosecutors want them to if only to make you waste as much money and time and inconvenience as possible. It is purely for discouragements sake. Don't think for a minute that the judges and prosecutors are not on the same side. Few judges have not spent time as prosecutors and/or campaigned for their positions (officially or unofficially) on a hard anti-crime stance. --- Patrick Wilken wrote: > Amara: > > But won't this will be appealed to a higher court? You wouldn't > expect > the lowest level court to be particularly interested in making a bold > > statement on the 4th amendment. > > best, patrick > > > > > On 17 Dec 2004, at 15:35, Amara Graps wrote: > > > Sadly, it looks like things didn't go so well for Barlow at his > > hearing. > > > > John Perry Barlow's account of the situation (I posted this before) > > > http://barlow.typepad.com/barlowfriendz/2004/12/a_taste_of_the_.html > > > > Barlow's relevant legal documents > > http://www.barlowfriendz.net/busted/ > > > > > > From an attendee in the Courtroom: > > "Thursday 16th December 2004 > > In the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo" > > > > > http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/weblog/nb.cgi/view/vitanuova/2004/12/16/1 > > > > "On Wednesday I went to Superior Court for the hearing on John > Perry's > > motion to suppress. The defense claimed that the search at the > airport > > in 2003 was not "reasonable" and therefore that evidence obtained > from > > it should not be admitted. The Superior Court of California, County > of > > San Mateo, is accustomed to dealing with cases that arose at the > San > > Francisco Airport, but it's not particularly used to constitutional > > challenges to aviation screening procedures, nor to having multiple > > camera crews turn out for a single pre-trial evidentiary hearing in > a > > misdemeanor drug possession case. " > > > > [many details deleted here.. you should real the full acount] > > > > "Despite the drama and entertainment that developed at the end of > the > > defense testimony, the judge ruled against Barlow, denying the > motion > > to suppress and ruling that the search was lawful and that the > results > > of the search could be introduced into evidence against Barlow. In > his > > ruling from the bench, there was not a lot of intricate logical > > argument about caselaw; instead, it was dominated by references to > > common sense. (In appellate courts, in my experience, and perhaps > even > > in Federal trial courts, judges may be more apt to plunge into > > abstractions and theoretical principles and the categories drawn by > > caselaw; this judge seemed extremely disinclined to do that. I do > keep > > in mind that he had only seen the case file for the first time two > > hours before, and that he was perhaps surprised by the explosion of > > highly abstract civil liberties arguments, some of them likely > matters > > of first impression. I imagine that usually disputes in state trial > > courts are a good deal more concrete!). > > > > "The judge mentioned that the penalty Barlow would face, if > convicted, > > would not be particularly severe, and seemed to express slightly > > obliquely the view that it would be in Barlow's best interest to > plead > > guilty -- and that it was surprising that he hadn't done so, or > would > > be surprising if he didn't do so. (I think there's also a class > issue > > at work here. Most defendants can't afford to fight for principle > and > > can at the very best afford to look out for themselves, not for the > > abstract rules by which the fourth amendment is brought to bear on > a > > class of cases.) > > > > "The judge remarked that obviously it must not be the rule that > > screeners have to ignore contraband when they find it. So the > > question, he said, is whether they have a reason to look in the > first > > place; if they have a reason to look, then they can use their own > > judgment -- and that's what Ms. Ramos did. When she shook the > bottle > > and opened it, that didn't indicate that she was looking for drugs; > > perhaps she was stupid to do so, but being careless about one's own > > safety is not sufficient to make a search unreasonable under the > > fourth amendment. She used her own judgment about the nature of the > > threats and the best way of investigating them, which is a > reasonable > > search. Hence Barlow's motion must be denied; his argument about > > reasonableness, while founded on a commendable concern with > privacy, > > is too broad in its implications, because it would ultimately > suggest > > that screeners must ignore contraband they find. > > > > "Apparently, Barlow did intend to suggest this. At least, he was > > prevented from introducing a lot of evidence about how screeners do > > things that are useful for finding drugs. At a minimum, Barlow > wanted > > to suggest that screeners who are supposed to be looking for > > explosives should not be permitted to use search techniques or > > procedures that are specifically aimed at finding drugs rather than > > explosives (arguably, for example, shaking a bottle). > > > > > > > > -- > > > > Amara Graps, PhD > > Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) > > Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), > > Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR, > > Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 17 16:18:21 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 08:18:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] John John Perry Barlow vs The Man In-Reply-To: <41C2F2FE.7040707@neopax.com> Message-ID: <20041217161821.51632.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- Dirk Bruere wrote: > Amara Graps wrote: > > > "Apparently, Barlow did intend to suggest this. At least, he was > > prevented from introducing a lot of evidence about how screeners do > > things that are useful for finding drugs. At a minimum, Barlow > wanted > > to suggest that screeners who are supposed to be looking for > > explosives should not be permitted to use search techniques or > > procedures that are specifically aimed at finding drugs rather than > > explosives (arguably, for example, shaking a bottle). > > > I would expect that in a proper search for explosives not only would > bottles be shaken, but bottles not sealed by the manufacturer would > be > opened for cursory inspection. It is still extremely easy to smuggle > bombs aboard aircraft if the right explosive (liquid) is used. As for > batteries, detonators etc, can an X ray distinguishe between a > detonator and an electrolytic cap in a laptop? An xray machine is far more than an xray machine these days. They can distinguish between metals, semiconductors, organics, etc and can sniff nitrates, which is the primary flag of explosives. That they only said that he had some wires in a pocket of his bag was their pretext, it is clear that his position as founder of the EFF is the real cause of the search. There are multiple grades of persons on the no-fly list. The DHS and TSA have a well developed blacklist which government bureaucrats have shown a tendency to place people on for their anti-statist views alone. The number of people I know who get the full body search when flying has gone up significantly in the last year. Similarly, the number of people being investigated and prosecuted in the Free State movement is similarly climbing. I myself am now the target of a fishing expedition based on a very flimsy pretext that I happend to have had a case in the past year in a court where someone was allegedly threatened at some point in time for some reason. Barlow's big error was in carrying the drugs in his checked-in luggage. If you are travelling with contraband, either carry it on your person, or don't carry it at all. Unless you get a full pat-down, they won't find it on you. The new extensive pat-down procedures do call this into question, though. If there is a chance you will get singled out (and if you are an outspoken libertarian, you will), don't even try it, even if you have a doctors prescription for the pot in your home state. Airplanes are federal jurisdiction. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From jonkc at att.net Fri Dec 17 17:36:24 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:36:24 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com><093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001><41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com><6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com><002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> "Damien Broderick" Wrote: > http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/ I went to the page you cited with the intention on reading the entire thing but in the end I just glanced at it. I confess I totally lost interest when I read the following: "There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof, since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept the current collection of data." In other words Jessica Utts thinks the proof that this phenomena actually exists is as good as it's ever going to get and in her opinion it's good enough. In my wildest dreams I can't imagine Faraday saying that about electromagnetism 150 years ago, or a scientist today at CERN saying the same thing about a theory of particle physics that was far less radical than ESP. When I read those words my baloney detector went off big time! John K Clark jonkc at att.net From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 17 17:48:59 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 17:48:59 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com><093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001><41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com><6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com><002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <41C31C0B.7040905@neopax.com> John K Clark wrote: > "Damien Broderick" Wrote: > >> http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/ > > > I went to the page you cited with the intention on reading the entire > thing > but in the end I just glanced at it. I confess I totally lost interest > when > I read the following: > > "There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer > proof, > since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept > the > current collection of data." > > In other words Jessica Utts thinks the proof that this phenomena actually > exists is as good as it's ever going to get and in her opinion it's good > enough. In my wildest dreams I can't imagine Faraday saying that about > electromagnetism 150 years ago, or a scientist today at CERN saying > the same > thing about a theory of particle physics that was far less radical > than ESP. > When I read those words my baloney detector went off big time! > In other words there's no point rehashing the same old expts to try to convince the unconvincable - it's time to move on to new expts that may throw more light on mechanisms behinds psi phenomena.. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 17 17:50:43 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:50:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <20041217175043.25776.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- John K Clark wrote: > > In other words Jessica Utts thinks the proof that this phenomena > actually > exists is as good as it's ever going to get and in her opinion it's > good > enough. In my wildest dreams I can't imagine Faraday saying that > about > electromagnetism 150 years ago, or a scientist today at CERN saying > the same > thing about a theory of particle physics that was far less radical > than ESP. > When I read those words my baloney detector went off big time! That does sound fishy. What it needs, though, rather than dismissal, is for someone who is an avowed skeptic to replicate the exact same experiments. That is what a real scientist would do. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 17 17:57:40 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:57:40 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 12:36 PM 12/17/2004 -0500, John K Clark wrote: >I went to the page you cited with the intention on reading the entire thing >but in the end I just glanced at it. I know it's boring to say so, but isn't this precisely what Galileo's detractors did? They just *knew* he was talking crap, right from the get-go. >"There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof, >since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept the >current collection of data." > >In other words Jessica Utts thinks the proof that this phenomena actually >exists is as good as it's ever going to get Utts is saying that further research needs to explore *process*, rather than the simple reality of the phenomenon. She's also saying that the existing evidence is *already sufficiently strong* that those who remain skeptical after examining it are unlikely to change their minds. (I would say that about creationists and darwinism, for example.) She might be overstating the case, of course. You'll never know if you decline to read what she says. >In my wildest dreams I can't imagine Faraday saying that about >electromagnetism 150 years ago Faraday didn't waste his life on ever-more careful demonstrations meant to show nothing more than that electricity exists. >When I read those words my baloney detector went off big time! Oddly enough, when I read this sort of prima facie refusal to look closely at the extant evidence, a quite similar kind of detector goes off in my mind. Damien Broderick From jonkc at att.net Fri Dec 17 18:13:10 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 13:13:10 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com><093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001><41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com><6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com><002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <41C31C0B.7040905@neopax.com> Message-ID: <019801c4e464$350b92f0$99ee4d0c@hal2001> "Dirk Bruere" > In other words there's no point rehashing the same old expts > to try to convince the unconvincable To me her words were equivalent her to shouting at the top of her lungs, "LOOK AT ME DANCE NAKED IN THE MOOLIGHT, I AM A CRACKPOT!!" I do agree with you and Jessica Utts on one thing however, the proof that ESP exists is very definitely as good as it will ever get. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 17 18:24:04 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:24:04 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <20041217175043.25776.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> References: <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <20041217175043.25776.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217121132.01ac7788@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:50 AM 12/17/2004 -0800, Mike Lorrey wrote: This is very sensible. From my reading, though, what happens is that when a skeptical scientist is astonished by a student's positive results and tries to replicate, and gets positive results, and sets up a big program, and gets more positive results, he has become a `believer' and is no longer trusted. There might be more subtle problems. Psi, if it does indeed exist, looks (from the process end) more like the capacity to play the piano brilliantly, or run a mile in under 4 minutes. It isn't independent of humans, like electricity or the weather. (Well, *maybe* the weather.) Some clinical or hostile settings might well inhibit it, which will be regarded by knee-jerk skeptics as proof of its non-reality. The Tale of Sighs, Kings and Viziers Once there was a very up-to-date King, cold and severe by temperament and schooling, whose reign was marked by prudence, rationality and justice. Emotion was quite unknown to this ruler. In his studies, he had specialized in astronomy, geometry, systems analysis and noblesse oblige. To his considerable chagrin, his loyal subjects fiercely resisted many of his sensible edicts. At last he sought advice from his Vizier. `Unlike your Majesty,' this hapless fellow informed him, trembling, `many people are afflicted by, um, how might one put this--' `Spit it out, man!' `Uh, "sighing", your Grace.' `What!' `Your efficient programs clash with wishes produced by powerful emotions,' the Vizier blubbered. `What nonsense!' cried the King in outrage. `They are governed, as am I, by the conditioned impulse to seek pleasure and avoid pain. My writ optimizes these opportunities, and promotes correct reinforcement. "Sighs"? Bah! Show me laboratory examples--and no cheating, if you value your hands.' `Laboratory examples? I fear this is hardly possible,' the Vizier replied in great fear, for he knew the King rewarded unscientific hypotheses with aversive consequences. The King rolled his eyes terribly, and brandished a thick report. `Look here, then, explain this. My splendid Personnel Relocation Plan seems to be taking forever to get started.' `Oh, your Majesty, this is precisely what I mean. The major disruptive influence is what we term "falling in love", but unfortunately for your Planning Staff it occurs quite unpredictably.' `Never heard of such a thing outside fairy-stories,' the King snapped. `Besides,' he added craftily, `if it's unpredictable, how can it be used as an explanation?' One thumb stropped the brightly glinting edge of his ceremonial sword. `No, no, it is not altogether erratic, O Delight of Allah! Generally it is found among the young, though there are rumors that it can happen at any age. Bless me, in my own case, there's a beautiful young chantress...' At the King's frown, the Vizier coughed explosively. `Quite often it is found operating between members of the opposite sex, but is far from unknown in the alternative case.' `Spare me your idle rumors. Laboratory studies, you wretch!' `Jewel of the Day, it tends most regrettably to be inhibited by close observation, especially the presence of jeering witnesses.' `Off with his head,' cried the King. But being a rational man not influenced by prejudice, he established a small Research Institute. Ten thousand of his subjects were brought together under controlled conditions. Strict tests were run, in which measuring instruments were attached to each randomly allotted pair. Bright lights were focused on their every move, and the entire proceedings were videotaped. Short-term and longitudinal studies provided no conclusive proof of any `falling in love'. At the end of a decade's exhaustive work, the King was gratified to read the Institute's majority report, clinically affirming the non-existence of `sigh effects'. He was less pleased by a minority report that included unsubstantiated anecdotal cases and a statistical evaluation urging that the broad hypothetical category of `sentiment' deserved further research. The terrified dissenter was fetched before the throne. `Sire,' he insisted, `we have found that "sighing" can occur if our bright lights are replaced by candles and sweet music. There's also a definite statistical indication that hostile witnesses should be replaced by sympathetic observers bearing honeyed potions.' `Bah! Harrumph!' roared the King, waving graphs in the sweating air. `It says here that the "sentimental behavior" produced by these dubious conditions is not always "sighing" but sometimes "profound dislike".' `True, I fear. States of this kind are not stable, and can reverse abruptly. We tentatively label the most frequently observed phase transitions of this sort "having a fight" and "making up". The difference between the two can be extraordinarily subtle.' `Utter madness,' decided the King. `And what's this? "As time goes on, the early dramatic sigh effects deteriorate and often appear to vanish entirely"?' `I know, Sire, it affronts one's reason. But you'll note in paragraph XXIV (b) - sighing sometimes revives if one of the subjects with diminished "sentimental attachment" is introduced to another suitable partner. It doesn't always work,' he admitted sadly. `Disgusting nonsense,' the King decreed, slashing the minority report to shreds. `Your work is a grotesque example of shoddy thinking, poor controls, inadequate observation and unrepeatable experimentation. The Exchequer shall authorize no further funding for this lamentable farce. Off with his head!' After that, the King's scientists wisely omitted from their reports any statistical anomalies due to the so-called `sigh' effect, and life went on in the Kingdom in a perfectly scientific way. Damien Broderick From astapp at fizzfactorgames.com Fri Dec 17 19:45:04 2004 From: astapp at fizzfactorgames.com (Acy James Stapp) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:45:04 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence Message-ID: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACC0@amazemail2.amazeent.com> I'll just say that her analysis convinced me (pretty much as hardcore a rationalist as they come) that there is something to be investigated and we do need to determine its causal mechanisms. But I did read the entire article, refutations, and replies :) When her detractors come out and essentially say "We can't find any methodological or statistical problems, but there must be some! That's just crazy!" it tends to set off my tenure-protection detector. Acy -----Original Message----- From: John K Clark "Damien Broderick" Wrote: > http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/ I went to the page you cited with the intention on reading the entire thing but in the end I just glanced at it. I confess I totally lost interest when I read the following: "There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof, since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept the current collection of data." In other words Jessica Utts thinks the proof that this phenomena actually exists is as good as it's ever going to get and in her opinion it's good enough. In my wildest dreams I can't imagine Faraday saying that about electromagnetism 150 years ago, or a scientist today at CERN saying the same thing about a theory of particle physics that was far less radical than ESP. When I read those words my baloney detector went off big time! John K Clark jonkc at att.net From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Dec 17 20:06:16 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 07:06:16 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> John K Clark wrote: > "Damien Broderick" Wrote: > >> http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/ > > I went to the page you cited with the intention on reading the entire > thing > but in the end I just glanced at it. I confess I totally lost interest > when > I read the following: > > "There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer > proof, > since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept the > current collection of data." I read the same comment and had a similar reaction but I kept reading because Damien had offered it as a compelling example AND because I wanted to see if I could fault her method. > In other words Jessica Utts thinks the proof that this phenomena actually > exists is as good as it's ever going to get and in her opinion it's good > enough. > In my wildest dreams I can't imagine Faraday saying that about > electromagnetism 150 years ago, or a scientist today at CERN saying the > same thing about a theory of particle physics that was far less radical > than ESP. When I read those words my baloney detector went > off big time! Ultimately your baloney detector may be still be right but only by luck, on this occassion as you didn't read far enough. I read Utts's report, the response to it by Hyman which seemed to be from a real sKeptic, her response to that, and part of another report by May I think. For my part I am still sceptical that psi phenomena exists but on the basis of what I read I wouldn't class Utts as either a crank or a fool. What was missing for me was more detail about the psi phenomena itself. Yet the size of the effects reported (small), and the nature of the way in which they were reported, (with apparently good scientific method and a seemingly very capable understanding of statistics) didn't offer me reason enough to need to push further immediately. When, if, Damien, or Utts, offers some further evidence, I'd be ready to take a look at that now more confident that not everyone that is operating in the space is merely a believer. I would still suspect, as Damien seems to, that most that are in that area are cranks and fools. Brett Paatsch From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 17 20:51:43 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:51:43 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 07:06 AM 12/18/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: >Yet the size of the effects reported (small), and the nature of the >way in which they were reported, (with apparently good scientific >method and a seemingly very capable understanding of statistics) >didn't offer me reason enough to need to push further immediately. Utts observes that the small but fairly robust effect sizes are slightly larger than those relating daily doses of aspirin to mitigation of heart attack risk; this latter finding is regarded as well-established by the medical profession, and a double-blind test of the aspirin effect was shut down early because it would have been unethical to deny patients the benefit of the drug. Of course it's also obvious that psi effects *must* usually be small, since we don't see paranormal effects most of time. Experiments are designed to concentrate or elicit these effects, making them visible to an extent not found in ordinary daily life. >I would still >suspect, as Damien seems to, that most that are in that area are >cranks and fools. That's not quite what I said. The many, many `psychic' pests in the marketplace who prey on the gullible and vulnerable are probably liars and frauds (although if psi is indeed a human capacity, even they might sometimes gain some extra prowess via that route). Many of the lab parapsychologists do hold beliefs I regard as suspect or ludicrous; they include a greater than average proportion (among scientists) of believers in religion or spiritualist doctrines, and many are metaphysical dualists. That makes me more cautious in judging their findings, since they might be more prone to find `evidence' supporting their beliefs. But contemporary psi work is very well-designed. Even if `screening' runs are conducted less rigorously (self-testing and reporting, for example, to locate `high-scorers', some of whom will have scored well sheerly by chance, others by trickery), the subsequent tests in the lab are done with extreme care and many safeguards against fraud or, say, accidental leakage of target information. As for statistical competence, it's worth noting that Utts is a professor of statistics at UC, Davis, with a PhD in Statistics. This is not an argument from authority, but it does suggest that she's not reaching these conclusions out of ignorance. Damien Broderick From astapp at fizzfactorgames.com Fri Dec 17 20:54:23 2004 From: astapp at fizzfactorgames.com (Acy James Stapp) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:54:23 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Post-singularity subject rate of technological change Message-ID: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> I had a thought the other day that post-singularity, when our intellects are increasing at the rate of technology, won't the subjective rate of technological change become linear, even if the actual rate of change is exponential or superexponential? Thoughts? Acy -- Acy James Stapp / The Fizz Factor / Software Artificer Work 512-477-3499#249 / Cell 512-825-0966 / ICQ 12629994 There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. - S?ren Kierkegaard 1813-55 From pharos at gmail.com Fri Dec 17 21:25:08 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 21:25:08 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:51:43 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > Of course it's also obvious that psi effects *must* usually be small, since > we don't see paranormal effects most of time. Experiments are designed to > concentrate or elicit these effects, making them visible to an extent not > found in ordinary daily life. > > As for statistical competence, it's worth noting that Utts is a professor > of statistics at UC, Davis, with a PhD in Statistics. This is not an > argument from authority, but it does suggest that she's not reaching these > conclusions out of ignorance. > The problem with 'remote viewing' is that it is subjective. It is mostly based on a single judge saying how similar a rough sketch is to the chosen subject. The judge does not take into account how much *more* similar the sketch might be to many other subjects not under consideration. It is a bit like a 'cold-reader' fishing for hits among his audience. ' I have a young man here - Joe, John, James, etc. If you start with biased data, which itself will vary depending on the opinions of different judges, then the statistical analysis will be clever garbage. Utts commented in her 1995 paper: "8. There is compelling evidence that precognition, in which the target is selected after the subject has given the description, is also successful." So, either she now has time travel as well, or this is evidence that the whole process of matching rough sketches with selected pictures is a bag of worms. In 1995 she was also very keen on the Ganzfeld experiments which appeared to show results above chance level. However a re-analysis in 1999 casts doubt on the previous reported successes. New Analyses Raise Doubts About Replicability of ESP Findings Utts herself says that esp effects are not replicable because humans aren't like that. "the best hitters in the major baseball leagues cannot hit on demand. Nor can we predict when someone will hit or when they will score a home run. In fact, we cannot even predict whether or not a home run will occur in a particular game." But, after analysis, over a long series of trials, they will be above average. So for any particular test case, esp (if it exists) is pretty well useless. Nothing there for the scientific method to get its teeth into. I'll carry on believing it is all clever rubbish until much better evidence is available. BillK From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 17 22:07:34 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:07:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217121132.01ac7788@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041217220734.3509.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote: > > The Tale of Sighs, Kings and Viziers > > Once there was a very up-to-date King, cold and severe by temperament > and schooling, whose reign was marked by prudence, rationality and > justice... This is brilliant. Did you write this, Damien? BTW: I'd just title it "Sigh Effects" so it doesn't sound so much like a fairy tale until one has good and started reading it... ;) ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 17 22:15:26 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:15:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Post-singularity subject rate of technological change In-Reply-To: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> Message-ID: <20041217221527.82777.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> --- Acy James Stapp wrote: > I had a thought the other day that post-singularity, when our > intellects are increasing at the rate of technology, won't the > subjective rate of technological change become linear, even if the > actual rate of change is exponential or superexponential? Actually, as complexity increases exponentially, real performance increases may follow a diminishing returns curve, particularly as humanity drifts off into so many diverse directions that subjective productivity is a serious boat anchor on further acceleration. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Jazz up your holiday email with celebrity designs. Learn more. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 17 22:18:35 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:18:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041217221836.10391.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- BillK wrote: > But, after analysis, over a long series of trials, they will be above > average. Isn't that all that anybody expected from the average weatherman unti quite recently? ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 17 22:35:46 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:35:46 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217161059.01a384e0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:25 PM 12/17/2004 +0000, BillK wrote: >The problem with 'remote viewing' is that it is subjective. The problem with `memory' is that it is subjective. My god, no wonder I can't remember anything these days! >It is >mostly based on a single judge saying how similar a rough sketch is to >the chosen subject. Generally this isn't true. Are you making these objections up as you go along? Most sophisticated RV trials, of the kind used in the military and CIA programs, employ rankings from several judges (who are *always* blind to the particular target array used in the trial), and the `remote viewer' produces a number of sketches and verbal descriptions. Sometimes these are subsequently binarized (inside/outside, light/dark, etc). >The judge does not take into account how much >*more* similar the sketch might be to many other subjects not under >consideration. The PEAR protocol developed an empirical listing of how frequently each choice had been made in the past, compared with the contents of the possible options, and so on. But so what, even in those cases where this is true? Data is doubtless lost by brute ranking, but at least this can't *add* ambiguity and complexity. >It is a bit like a 'cold-reader' fishing for hits among >his audience. ' I have a young man here - Joe, John, James, etc. So what, even if that were true? It's done blind. There's no-one who knows the damned target who is also in a position to be fished (well, except paranormally). >Utts commented in her 1995 paper: >"8. There is compelling evidence that precognition, in which the >target is selected after the subject has given the description, is >also successful." > >So, either she now has time travel as well Well, gee, yes. That's why it's called precognition, and has been for more than half a century. That's one reason why the purported process is dubbed `paranormal'. That's the main reason I find it worth exploring; if awareness is indeed four-dimensional (as many psi results imply; see Radin and Bierman on instrumented `presentiment' spikes prior to Ss' exposure to disturbing targets), there are interesting technologies in the offing. >In 1995 she was also very keen on the Ganzfeld experiments which >appeared to show results above chance level. However a re-analysis in >1999 casts doubt on the previous reported successes. > >New Analyses Raise Doubts About Replicability of ESP Findings > The referenced paper, Milton and Wiseman, "Does Psi Exist? Lack of Replication of an Anomalous Process at Information Transfer," Psychological Bulletin 125(4): 387-391), has been subject to criticism in its turn. See, e.g., http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_1_66/ai_84547069 >for any particular test case, esp (if it exists) is pretty >well useless. >Nothing there for the scientific method to get its teeth into. That is a big problem, but that's why stochastic analysis was invented. It will take even more cleverness and persistence to work around psi lability and intermittence. Or it might all turn out to be bullshit. But the proof of that will have to be a lot more informed than your apparently off-the-cuff comments, Bill. Damien Broderick From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 17 22:41:21 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 22:41:21 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Post-singularity subject rate of technological change In-Reply-To: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> References: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> Message-ID: <41C36091.2060605@neopax.com> Acy James Stapp wrote: >I had a thought the other day that post-singularity, when our intellects are increasing at the rate of technology, won't the subjective rate of technological change become linear, even if the actual rate of change is exponential or superexponential? > >Thoughts? > > That exponential increase in scitech may be required to maintain apparent linear progress even now. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 17 22:46:19 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 22:46:19 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C361BB.30102@neopax.com> BillK wrote: >On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:51:43 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > > >>Of course it's also obvious that psi effects *must* usually be small, since >>we don't see paranormal effects most of time. Experiments are designed to >>concentrate or elicit these effects, making them visible to an extent not >>found in ordinary daily life. >> >>As for statistical competence, it's worth noting that Utts is a professor >>of statistics at UC, Davis, with a PhD in Statistics. This is not an >>argument from authority, but it does suggest that she's not reaching these >>conclusions out of ignorance. >> >> >> > >The problem with 'remote viewing' is that it is subjective. It is >mostly based on a single judge saying how similar a rough sketch is to >the chosen subject. The judge does not take into account how much >*more* similar the sketch might be to many other subjects not under >consideration. It is a bit like a 'cold-reader' fishing for hits among >his audience. ' I have a young man here - Joe, John, James, etc. >If you start with biased data, which itself will vary depending on the >opinions of different judges, then the statistical analysis will be >clever garbage. > > > I consider that, for scientific purposes, having two people involved is a waste of time. It would be far more productive IMO to concentrate on PK effects on machines eg random number generators. >Utts commented in her 1995 paper: >"8. There is compelling evidence that precognition, in which the >target is selected after the subject has given the description, is >also successful." > >So, either she now has time travel as well, or this is evidence that >the whole process of matching rough sketches with selected pictures is >a bag of worms. > > I think that may well be what is involved. I even suggested a hard science expt to test something similar, but never got any feedback on its viability from a theoretical POV. Here it is in case you are interested: _________ Something that has been on my mind for a few years, and I thought it was about time I exorcised it. It flows from a 'naive realism' concerning quantum measurement and embodies a number of dodgy 'ifs'. The latter lead to a simple experimental test. It begins with the Delayed Choice expt and a Cramer style interpretation of a 'backward in time signal' upon measurement that sets a 'real' unique path for the photon retrospecively. Given that view we have a temporal loop whose parameters can be changed according to where and when the measurement is made. The question that has nagged me is: Is that loop local limited to the photon/apparatus or does it essentially 're-run' the universe over that duration? To provide a test requires another dubious assumption. Namely that, if we 'rerun' the universe over again the results of a quantum measurement will not necessarily be the same. That they will still exhibit a random quality ie that re-runs will not be identical on a small enough scale. Anyway, to the test. An interferometer with (say) a 4uS transit time (eg monomode fibre in Sagnac configuration). We also have a random number generator based upon (say) a radioactive decay providing a single quantum event clocking a 0 or 1 from a high speed counter. Over a period of time the count should be fairly predictable statistically and evenly distributed between 0,1. However, what we do is to trigger a measurement on the interferometer within 4uS of getting an output from the random number generator of a 1. If the 're-run' is affecting the universe as a whole the result will be that the output of the RNG is skewed towards 0. Any comments and statements of impossibilities are welcome (as long as they are accompanied by an explanation). _________ -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 17 22:46:39 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:46:39 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <20041217220734.3509.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217121132.01ac7788@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <20041217220734.3509.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217164509.01af2920@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 02:07 PM 12/17/2004 -0800, Mike wrote: >This is brilliant. Why, thank you. >Did you write this, Damien? Part of my 1992 book about parapsychology, THE LOTTO EFFECT: TOWARDS A TECHNOLOGY OF THE PARANORMAL. (Published only in Oz, alas.) Damien Broderick From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Dec 17 22:55:52 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 09:55:52 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 07:06 AM 12/18/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: > >>Yet the size of the effects reported (small), and the nature of the >>way in which they were reported, (with apparently good scientific >>method and a seemingly very capable understanding of statistics) >>didn't offer me reason enough to need to push further immediately. > > Utts observes that the small but fairly robust effect sizes are slightly > larger than those relating daily doses of aspirin to mitigation of heart > attack risk; this latter finding is regarded as well-established by the > medical profession, ... Yes, a small robust effect can still be very useful if it holds true over the long term AND has some real practical application like aspirin in mitigating the risk of heart disease. I accept that. Utts report didn't convince me though, (nor in fairness does it try to as it is not about that), that the effect detected is likely to be as useful as aspirin. And perhaps it could be, perhaps there are real applications for even a 20% better than chance "remote viewing" service that was well characterised and on-sold on a strictly pay for results basis. If it could be used in casinos for instance it might be edge enough to beat the house edge on a roulette wheel. Or the transaction costs on futures markets. It was interesting (and perhaps unfortunate that) the test that could have had greatest commercial utility, the one involving detecting five bit streams of zeros and ones, did not achieve statistical significance. The effect doesn't do anything that matters enough, reliably enough that I can see. It hasn't been well enough characterised. This is quite a separate objection to one that would be that the effect isn't real at all. And it seems to be the critical way that it differs from the aspirin example. > ...and a double-blind test of the aspirin effect was shut down early > because it would have been unethical to deny patients the benefit > of the drug. > Of course it's also obvious that psi effects *must* usually be small, > since we don't see paranormal effects most of time. Experiments are > designed to concentrate or elicit these effects, making them visible to > an extent not found in ordinary daily life. And if psi effects in the real world happen to manifest only under stress, then ethical testing procedures may preclude finding them by generating the same stressors in the scientific testing environment. >>I would still suspect, as Damien seems to, that most that are in that >> area are cranks and fools. > > That's not quite what I said. The many, many `psychic' pests in the > marketplace who prey on the gullible and vulnerable are probably liars and > frauds (although if psi is indeed a human capacity, even they > might sometimes gain some extra prowess via that route). Fair enough. > ... contemporary psi work is very well-designed. Even if `screening' > runs are conducted less rigorously (self-testing and reporting, for > example, to locate `high-scorers', some of whom will have scored > well sheerly by chance, others by trickery), the subsequent tests in > the lab are done with extreme care and many safeguards against fraud > or, say, accidental leakage of target information. I agree with Bill's comments on "cold reading" and Hyman's that there seems to be a potential opportunity to improve the test protocols by ensuring that the judges subjectivity is better accounted for. The judge should be scoring not just matches as the judge sees them but actual matches that are objectively the same matches that the viewer makes. Take the judges subjectivity about what is a match out of the equation and I'd allow pretty much any screening of the potential subjects they like as long as the screening process is completely separate from the testing process. This objection is so trifling though, that I imagine some protocols perhaps carried out after 1995, would already have accomodated it. This area of inquiry may have merit in teaching the design and critique of good scientific tests even if the psi phenonoma investigated is not ultimately real. Brett Paatsch From reason at longevitymeme.org Fri Dec 17 23:14:16 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason .) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 17:14:16 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] a big boost for the M Prize Message-ID: <200412171714.AA180682950@longevitymeme.org> http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000334.php Onwards and upwards, it seems. I'm very pleased to see that the efforts and donations of the transhumanist community over the past 18 months have successfully boosted the M Prize to the point of attracting large donations. Reason Founder, Longevity Meme ---------------- Ammunition for the War on Aging - $100,000 sponsorship accelerator British Visionary supports mission of Methuselah Foundation with large gift WASHINGTON, DC For Immediate Release On November 23, 2004, British entrepreneur David Fisher, learned that the first Rejuvenation M Prize - the prize for Rejuvenation and reversal of aging in middle-aged mice ? was awarded to Dr. Stephen Spindler. Impressed by the power of Prizes to accelerate investment in scientific research to reverse aging, Fisher decided to donate well over $100,000 in cash to the Methuselah Foundation which the foundation will use to accelerate its efforts to grow the M Prize fund. "The biggest causes of suffering in the developed world are degenerative diseases, and by attacking the aging process itself, we can intervene in all of these simultaneously," said Fisher. "The Prize is obviously a model that works. Rather than funding only one group of researchers, it inspires scientists from all over the world to compete for the reward and recognition of a large, public prize. The success of the Ansari X Prize is an excellent example of this. I believe that the fundraising efforts that my donation will make possible will greatly increase the M Prize fund and most certainly bring about similar success." Fisher has also joined the Three Hundred, a group of devoted individuals who have committed to donating $1000 a year for the next twenty-five years to the M Prize fund. Membership in The Three Hundred has climbed dramatically since the announcement of Spindler's success. Fisher went on to say ?People from all over the world have joined The Three Hundred. Their commitment shows that ordinary people are willing to make extraordinary sacrifices in their everyday lives and budgets in order to bring about the reversal of aging. I?m following their example and hope I will be an example to others to join so the prize can grow in size and power as quickly as possible." Fisher's sponsorship is the first major donation to be given via the Methuselah Foundation's newly established affiliate in the United Kingdom. The Foundation?s UK affiliate was established to provide tax deductibility for donations by citizens of the United Kingdom and to generally extend the Methuselah Foundation's efforts to advance Rejuvenation research and results into the international sphere. The Methuselah Foundation will be adding more affiliate countries next year as it works to bring the strength of the international community to the cause ? and to increasingly incite the competitive spirit of nations to substantially increase support and research into ending the diseases and suffering caused by aging. For more information about The Methuselah Foundation, its M Prize competition and how to support the Foundation?s mission, see www.MPrize.org or contact us via e-mail at media at mprize.org. CONTACT: David Gobel : 202 306 0989 : media at mprize.org : http://www.mprize.org From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 17 23:39:00 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 17:39:00 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:55 AM 12/18/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: >I agree with Bill's comments on "cold reading" ... The judge >should be scoring not just matches as the judge sees them but actual >matches that are objectively the same matches that the viewer makes. > >Take the judges subjectivity about what is a match out of the equation This makes zero sense to me. Here's a rudimentary version of RV (or try this equally rudimentary version for a few weeks, as suggested previously on this list: http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/~fiona/GambIntro.html ): A randomizer machine draws out four possible targets without telling anyone which they are: a fluffy brown dog playing near a grassy knoll; a gorgeous photo of the Millau Bridge (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4095037.stm ), a plate of bacon and eggs, and a yacht surging on the high seas. One of these becomes the actual test target; nobody yet knows which. The RVer does his or her stuff, filling up pages of subjective responses. The judges look at the viewer's report: several drawings of a witch's hat, of a church steeple, of a man leaning over a rail vomiting. None of these matches any of the pictures. The test is obviously a failure. But wait, here's where the judges come in. They know that the mind elaborates partial information by `best guesses', which are somewhat mutable; perception is always a construct; we home in on a piece of trash that looks like a scurrying cat in twilight. So the judges muse. Hmm, the puking guy might have eaten the eggs, or might associate dogs with dog shit. The bridge, from some direction, could look like a witch's hat. But then both the hat and the steeple structurally resemble the view of the yacht more than they do the bridge piers, and the barfer is perhaps an association to a rough sea trip. So the judges rank the options 1. yacht, 2. bridge, 3. eggs, 4. dog. Their majority vote selects yacht. They go on their way, and are never heard from again. Perhaps the RVer is also shown the possible targets, and selects one as closest to the blurry psi perception. The target is disclosed to the experimenter who has also been blinded, and to the RVer. (Or sometimes *only* to the experimenter.) Gee, it's the yacht. We'll take that to be a hit. How does fishing come in? What cold reading? Of whom? Finally: a small effect can always be amplified, in principle, by redundancy and repetition. This was the approach I tested more than a decade ago using entries to Lotto. Three quarters of a billion guesses, in fact, made by millions of punters during a number of consecutive draws. Scaled `when winning/when not winning' analysis of the ranking of each option. Too bad, so sad, no blazingly obvious psi effect. A small anomaly was found even so, but not one I'd predicted, so no cigar. Did this prove to me that psi doesn't exist? No, but it suggested that using a vast unscreened population of guessers, even one as madly motivated a Lotto punters, was not a suitable approach. Damien Broderick From dirk at neopax.com Sat Dec 18 00:06:44 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 00:06:44 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217161059.01a384e0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217161059.01a384e0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C37494.6020107@neopax.com> Damien Broderick wrote: >> So, either she now has time travel as well > > > Well, gee, yes. That's why it's called precognition, and has been for > more than half a century. That's one reason why the purported process > is dubbed `paranormal'. That's the main reason I find it worth > exploring; if awareness is indeed four-dimensional (as many psi > results imply; see Radin and Bierman on instrumented `presentiment' > spikes prior to Ss' exposure to disturbing targets), there are > interesting technologies in the offing. If psi is real the technological payoffs could be enormous. FTL flight for starters. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sat Dec 18 04:16:06 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 15:16:06 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 09:55 AM 12/18/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: > >>I agree with Bill's comments on "cold reading" ... The judge >>should be scoring not just matches as the judge sees them but actual >>matches that are objectively the same matches that the viewer makes. >> >>Take the judges subjectivity about what is a match out of the equation > > This makes zero sense to me. ... Perhaps in my above comments I was being too lazy. As I was reading Hyman's report I excerpted the following into a side file, I suspect there a good chance that Bill read it too: "So, both the viewers and the judge quickly became convinced of the reality of remote viewing on the basis of the uncanny matches between the verbal descriptions and the actual target sites. The experimenters received a rude awakening when they discovered that, despite the striking matches observed between target and verbal description, the judge had matched the verbal protocols to the wrong target sites. When all parties were given the results the subjects could not understand how the judge could have matched any but the actual target site to their descriptions. For them the match was so obvious that it would be impossible for the judge to have missed it. The judge, on the other hand, could not accept that any but the matches he made could be paired with the actual target sites. This phenomenon of subjective validation is pervasive, compelling and powerful. Psychologists have demonstrated it in a variety of settings. I have demonstrated it and written about in the context of the psychic reading. In the present context, subjective validation comes about when a person evaluates the similarity between a relatively rich verbal description and an actual target or situation. Inevitably, many matches will be found. Once the verbal description has been judged to be a good match to a given target, the description gets locked in and it becomes virtually impossible for the judge to see the description as fitting any but the original target. I can imagine that the preceding paragraph might strike a reader as being unreasonable. Even allowing for subjective validation, the possibility that a viewer might accurately come up with secret code words and a detailed description of particular gantry is quite remote on the basis of common sense and sophisticated guessing. I understand the complaint and I realize the reluctance to dismiss such evidence out of hand. However, I have had experience with similarly compelling prima facie evidence for more than a chance match between a description and a target. In the cases I have in mind, however, the double blind controls were used to pair descriptions with the true as well as with the wrong target sites. In all these test cases with which I am familiar, the unwitting subjects found the matches between their descriptions and the presumed target equally compelling regardless of whether the presumed target was the actual or the wrong one. What this says about operational effectiveness, is that, for evaluation purposes, half of the time the viewers and the judges should be mislead about the what was the actual target. In these cases, both the interrogator and the viewer, as well as the judge, have to be blind to the actual targets. Under such conditions, if the judges and the others find the matches between the verbal descriptions and the actual targets consistently better than the matches between the verbal descriptions and the decoy targets, then this would constitute some evidence for the effectiveness of remote viewing. I can confidently predict, regardless of the outcome of such an evaluation, that many of the verbal descriptions when matched with decoy targets will be judged to be uncanny matches." Damien again, but with a protocol I'm not certain is exactly what Utts used: > A randomizer machine draws out four possible targets without > telling anyone which they are: a fluffy brown dog playing near a grassy > knoll; a gorgeous photo of the Millau Bridge > (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4095037.stm ), a plate of > bacon and eggs, and a yacht surging on the high seas. One of these > becomes the actual test target; nobody yet knows which. The RVer > does his or her stuff, filling up pages of subjective responses. The > judges look at the viewer's report: several drawings of a witch's > hat, of a church steeple, of a man leaning over a rail vomiting. None > of these matches any of the pictures. Not exactly, no. Not as exactly as would have been possible had the RVer instead been shown copies of the four pictures and asked which of the four best matched the one at location X that they could not see directly. > The test is obviously a failure. Or too demanding a test, too high a hurdle, for what might be a real but subtle and context sensitive phenomena. > But wait, here's where the judges come in. Either to make their judgements separately, or collectively. > They know that the > mind elaborates partial information by `best guesses', which are > somewhat mutable; perception is always a construct; we home > in on a piece of trash that looks like a scurrying cat in twilight. I grant that they'd know that. Certainly most folks with some psychology training or understanding would. > So the judges muse. Hmm, the puking guy might have eaten the > eggs, or might associate dogs with dog shit. The bridge, from some > direction, could look like a witch's hat. But then both the > hat and the steeple structurally resemble the view of the yacht > more than they do the bridge piers, and the barfer is perhaps > an association to a rough sea trip. So the judges rank the options 1. > yacht, 2. bridge, 3. eggs, 4. dog. Their majority > vote selects yacht. But do the judges do their musing individually and then vote without discussion as to the basis of their choices or are they allowed to converse, and perhaps explain and/or offer justifications for their choices or preferences in rankings such that they might influence each other? Judgements made in social contexts can differ from those made individually. Why, or if this could matter in this case I don't know, but it might. > They go on their way, and are never heard from again. Sure, thus avoiding any interaction with the RVer at all. > Perhaps the RVer is also shown the possible targets, and selects one as > closest to the blurry psi perception. Ok. But as the RVer would either be shown or not shown, by perhapsing like that we have two classes of protocol to consider instead of one. > The target is disclosed to the experimenter who has also been blinded, > and to the RVer. (Or sometimes *only* to the experimenter.) > > Gee, it's the yacht. We'll take that to be a hit. If the RVer has selected the yacht from the four possibilities and the target is a yacht then the judges rankings don't matter as there is nothing left for them to to judge. The experimenter alone could see that the target and the RVers selection are the either the same or not the same. As I understand it the judges are only there to increase the sensitivity of detection enough to pick up weak effects (nothing inherently wrong with that insofar as it goes, just so long as that is all the judges are really doing and they are not introducing a confounding variable of another sort. When the psi effect itself is posited to be weak but real then its all the more important that other confounding effects including weak ones are not unnecessarily introduced. Perhaps people - both judges and RVers musing or free associating are more likely to see some things, relationships, patterns etc than others and so our musings are not truly random but biased and perhaps biased similarly by our common evolutionary or cultural heritage even when we are not overtly aware of any bias). In the excerpt from Hyman above, I got the impression that the judge(s) might be introducing other effects. I'm not completely convinced that Hyman's criticism in relation to the judges specifically applied to Utts particular findings, its rather just that I can't remember her denying it in her reply to him so I creditted it as more likely to be valid. Alas, (or "sigh" :-), human judgements are made in such flimsy ways. That is why the burden of proving unusual stuff is so heavy. One has not only got to persuade, one has to hold the interest and the attention. > How does fishing come in? What cold reading? Of whom? It is not really fishing or cold reading but more what Hyman above calls subjective validation. There is in people a bias to finding something rather than nothing. To succeed rather than fail. To being included rather than excluded. To being significant rather than insignificant. This bias can often make us over estimate agreements and underestimate disagreements. Hymans point seemed to me to be that the agreements on matching might not actually be agreements on the same match. And he offered a suggestion (last para quoted above) for eliminating the problem. Its possible that groups of judges might converge on a similar attractive or plausible sounding stories for ranking things a particular way even if there is no real rational reason for prefering that story or ranking over other plausible ranking alternatives that might have been offered. I think cold reading arises to some extent because people want to be included, significant, agreeable, more than the alternatives, but "cold reading" isn't a base level explanation of anything its just an instance of a wider class of observed phenomena where what Hyman calls subjective validation seems to come into play. Whenever there is inherent ambiguity more people will interpret the data in ways that are positive or elevating to them and their world view (and their relations with others) than the alternatives. Brett Paatsch From deimtee at optusnet.com.au Sat Dec 18 04:36:55 2004 From: deimtee at optusnet.com.au (David) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 15:36:55 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C3B3E7.2090908@optusnet.com.au> > Finally: a small effect can always be amplified, in principle, by > redundancy and repetition. This was the approach I tested more than a > decade ago using entries to Lotto. Three quarters of a billion guesses, > in fact, made by millions of punters during a number of consecutive > draws. Scaled `when winning/when not winning' analysis of the ranking of > each option. Too bad, so sad, no blazingly obvious psi effect. A small > anomaly was found even so, but not one I'd predicted, so no cigar. Did > this prove to me that psi doesn't exist? No, but it suggested that using > a vast unscreened population of guessers, even one as madly motivated a > Lotto punters, was not a suitable approach. > > Damien Broderick > I assume someone must have already thought of the possibility that if PK effects are real then millions of punters all mentally commanding different numbers to be drawn may well cancel each other out. This leads to the idea that if a well known 'psychic' was to announce next weeks lotto numbers : 1/ given human psychology this would be widely reported in the news, 2/ many people would take out tickets with those numbers, 3/ if PK is real then thousands to millions of people all willing a particular result may affect the results. To help them work together it would be necessary for the 'psychic' to specify the order in which the numbers are drawn as well. Personally I'm fairly sure pk is not real, it violates too much of established physics. TP and RV I regard as unlikely, but I'm not as sure as I am about PK. Information transfer seems to be something that could slide around many of the laws of physics in a way that transfer of energy or momentum could not. -David ps. What was the unpredicted anomaly that was found? From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Dec 18 04:53:03 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 20:53:03 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c4e4bd$7e1bcec0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> John Clarke: >... her words were equivalent her to shouting at the top of her lungs, >"LOOK AT ME DANCE NAKED IN THE MOOLIGHT, I AM A CRACKPOT!!" I do agree with >you and Jessica Utts on one thing however, the proof that >ESP exists is very definitely as good as it will ever get... Hey, if she will agree to that, I will listen to her theories, and bring a flashlight. BillK: > > ... it's worth noting that Utts is a professor > of statistics at UC, Davis, with a PhD in Statistics... > Think of it this way: if there are 30,000 statistics and math PhDs in the world, it stands to reason that there is about a 63% chance that at least one of them would do a study which has a 4 sigma outcome by pure chance, which would puzzle the hapless scholar to the point of misleading herself. spike From harara at sbcglobal.net Sat Dec 18 04:55:55 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 20:55:55 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041217204935.0293e108@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Subjective Validation, RV'ing, et al. I personally knew some of the RV researchers back in the Glory Days of PSI, the 70s and the Stanford Research Institute project. I was, in an nutshell, less than impressed. A few years ago, Jean Millay (one of the folk I knew) published a book, "Multidimensional Mind" which presents the results of a few hundred RV sessions, complete with drawings, etc. With deep reluctance I read the thing. It is an extraordiary example of exactly the things which lead to a total conviction of a most unlikely effect. I will merely say that the term RV means "Recreational Vehicle" and the psi notion merely reinforces this meaning for me. ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 18 04:57:13 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 22:57:13 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217224924.01b59728@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 03:16 PM 12/18/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: >As I understand it the judges are only there to increase the sensitivity of >detection enough to pick up weak effects The judges are there precisely because of what Hyman noted: that the percipient sometimes follows his own associations down an idiosyncratic path, given partial and elusive contact with the target. So too can the judges, but by having several judges looking from a more distanced perspective, there's an enhanced chance for structural similarities to lead them to aspects of the target image subsequently masked in the percipient's near-hallucinatory ideation. Maybe in the long run this turns out not to be as effective as just showing the options to the RVer; if so, use that protocol henceforth. Or use both, adjusting the weights. But the key point is that *it doesn't matter* from the standpoint of evaluating the probabilities of the matches that occur. If the RVer and the judges are all obsessed by football and their mothers, those options will be called and matched very often; however, since targets of that sort will only come out of the randomizer infrequently, they will yield amazing hits every now and then and far more frequent errors the rest of the time. I can't believe this isn't obvious. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 18 05:07:54 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 23:07:54 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <41C3B3E7.2090908@optusnet.com.au> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C3B3E7.2090908@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217225835.01b59e28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 03:36 PM 12/18/2004 +1100, David wrote: >I assume someone must have already thought of the possibility that >if PK effects are real then millions of punters all mentally >commanding different numbers to be drawn may well cancel each >other out. This is one of the obvious possibilities parapsychologists thought of as quickly as you did. And it is apparent from the results of all the lottos ever conducted that if PK is real, it isn't cumulative in this way. How so? Because an enormous number of punters are guided by birthdays. That means they're all rooting (apologies to Aussies) for the range 1-31, especially 1-12. Birth years are less likely to have any bearing. There are other numbers known to get more or less than their fair share, depending on their position on the entry form (people dislike edges). My book shows which they are; by selecting your numbers from the dispreferred options, you'll increase your share of the winnings *if those numbers happen by chance to come up*. If group PK were in play, it's unlikely that any of the numbers 31 and up would *ever* be drawn. In reality, there's not much variation in the presentation histories of the randomized balls, as the null hypothesis predicts. >ps. What was the unpredicted anomaly that was found? Since you have an au @, David, you have a chance of finding the book and learning this Amazing Occult Secret! Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 18 05:23:45 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 23:23:45 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041217204935.0293e108@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.0.3.0.1.20041217204935.0293e108@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217231742.019bc150@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 08:55 PM 12/17/2004 -0800, Hara Ra wrote: >A few years ago, Jean Millay (one of the folk I knew) published a book, >"Multidimensional Mind" which presents the results of a few hundred RV >sessions, complete with drawings, etc. With deep reluctance I read the >thing. It is an extraordiary example of exactly the things which lead to a >total conviction of a most unlikely effect. Well, gosh, I don't know that she's such a dynamite example. Here's some of her wisdom, and a poll of her devoted followers: http://www.fmbr.org/editoral/letters/letters-may00.htm < In her new book Dr. Millay said, "Access to Higher Intelligence is hardwired into each human system. Our-free will involves developing the internal software to establish a conscious connection to Higher Intelligence and then choosing the belief system to interpret what is received through that channel"... < The questions on whether DNA or the atom were intelligent entities broke down as follows: for DNA 71% said Yes and 29% said No; and for the atom 56% said yes and 44% said No. These differences seemed to arise from variations within the respondents' belief system regarding the creation process. > This is like quoting one of the monster raving loonies on sci.physics.i-am-a-crackpot about relativity, and deciding Einstein must be full of crap. Damien Broderick From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sat Dec 18 05:49:23 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 16:49:23 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <000001c4e4bd$7e1bcec0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <025d01c4e4c5$53c44b40$b8232dcb@homepc> Spike writes: >> ... it's worth noting that Utts is a professor >> of statistics at UC, Davis, with a PhD in Statistics... >> > > Think of it this way: if there are 30,000 statistics and > math PhDs in the world, it stands to reason that there is > about a 63% chance that at least one of them would do a > study which has a 4 sigma outcome by pure chance, which > would puzzle the hapless scholar to the point of misleading > herself. A good explanation for how researchers can be almost cruelly mislead (by sheer bad luck), but it doesn't apply in this case. I'm not implying that Utts is mislead or misleading in other ways either btw. Utts was summarising the results of a field of research and its findings over time not just conducting a single stand alone exeriment herself. See Damien's earliest post in this thread for the links. Brett Paatsch From Walter_Chen at compal.com Sat Dec 18 06:10:54 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 14:10:54 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] (no subject) Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D1@tpeexg01.compal.com> ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Walter_Chen at compal.com Sat Dec 18 06:16:57 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 14:16:57 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D2@tpeexg01.compal.com> I must be dreaming. The list is full of all supernatural things now. Does it make more sense if the psi experiments are done in outer space (more free of all known external forces)? ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Dec 18 07:05:41 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 23:05:41 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <025d01c4e4c5$53c44b40$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <000001c4e4d0$057ec0e0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Brett Paatsch Spike writes: > > Think of it this way: if there are 30,000 statistics and > math PhDs in the world, it stands to reason that there is > about a 63% chance that at least one of them would do a > study which has a 4 sigma outcome by pure chance, which > would puzzle the hapless scholar to the point of misleading > herself. >A good explanation for how researchers can be almost cruelly >mislead (by sheer bad luck), but it doesn't apply in this case. >I'm not implying that Utts is mislead or misleading in other ways >either btw. >Utts was summarising the results of a field of research and its >findings over time not just conducting a single stand alone >exeriment herself. >See Damien's earliest post in this thread for the links. Brett Paatsch Ja I read that and get it. What I meant by a 4 sigma event is the general outcome of an arbitrary series of experiments. Firing up the old equations (from sooo very many years ago) I see that getting a 4 sigma outcome in an experiment is exactly as weird as getting a 1 sigma outcome in 5.6 trials, or a 2 sigma outcome in 2.7 trials, or a three sigma outcome in 1.57 trials. The case which might be most effective in convincing a mathematically sophisticated researcher that something is way broken in the universe is a series of 8.8 consecutive trials which had an outcome of half a sigma from the statistically expected value. But these are but more examples of events that are the same weirdness as a single 4 sigma event. Since the number of trials is ordinarily an integer, we can express 4 sigma events thus: 1 trials with a 4.00 sigma outcome is equi-weird to a 4 sigma event 2 trials with a 2.53 sigma outcome is equi-weird to a 4 sigma event 3 trials with a 1.86 sigma outcome is equi-weird to a 4 sigma event 4 trials with a 1.44 sigma outcome is equi-weird to a 4 sigma event 5 trials with a 1.15 sigma outcome is equi-weird to a 4 sigma event 6 trials with a 0.92 sigma outcome is equi-weird to a 4 sigma event 8 trials with a 0.60 sigma outcome is equi-weird to a 4 sigma event 10 trials with a 0.37 sigma outcome is equi-weird to a 4 sigma event 12 trials with a 0.20 sigma outcome is equi-weird to a 4 sigma event The formulas are in the enclosed spreadsheet, assuming ExI is set up to transmit enclosures. Is it? If Dr. Utts had any of the above happen to her, I am not surprised if she started casting about for weird explanations. If we assume 30,000 mathematically sophisticated researchers worldwide (admittedly a wiiiild ass guess on my part) we would expect a better than even chance one of them would have one of the above outcomes. spike -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spike'sReckons.xls Type: application/vnd.ms-excel Size: 18944 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Sat Dec 18 07:05:55 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 23:05:55 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <42EB5E0F-50C3-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Read it again. That is not what she said. She said effectively that if one is looking for statistically significant proof that ESP is real then one is wasting time as that level of proof is already in hand. She may be right or wrong about that but I wouldn't dismiss the entire quite well done piece just because she states her professional opinion on the evidence strongly. - s On Dec 17, 2004, at 9:36 AM, John K Clark wrote: > "Damien Broderick" Wrote: > >> http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/ > > I went to the page you cited with the intention on reading the entire > thing > but in the end I just glanced at it. I confess I totally lost interest > when > I read the following: > > "There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer > proof, > since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept > the > current collection of data." > > In other words Jessica Utts thinks the proof that this phenomena > actually > exists is as good as it's ever going to get and in her opinion it's > good > enough. In my wildest dreams I can't imagine Faraday saying that about > electromagnetism 150 years ago, or a scientist today at CERN saying > the same > thing about a theory of particle physics that was far less radical > than ESP. > When I read those words my baloney detector went off big time! > > John K Clark jonkc at att.net > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From sjatkins at mac.com Sat Dec 18 07:08:12 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 23:08:12 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <019801c4e464$350b92f0$99ee4d0c@hal2001> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <41C31C0B.7040905@neopax.com> <019801c4e464$350b92f0$99ee4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <94A5D9E8-50C3-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Seems to me that there is a lot of shouting going on. - s On Dec 17, 2004, at 10:13 AM, John K Clark wrote: > "Dirk Bruere" > >> In other words there's no point rehashing the same old expts >> to try to convince the unconvincable > > To me her words were equivalent her to shouting at the top of her > lungs, > "LOOK AT ME DANCE NAKED IN THE MOOLIGHT, I AM A CRACKPOT!!" > I do agree with you and Jessica Utts on one thing however, the proof > that ESP exists is very definitely as good as it will ever get. > > John K Clark jonkc at att.net > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From sjatkins at mac.com Sat Dec 18 07:19:43 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 23:19:43 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Post-singularity subject rate of technological change In-Reply-To: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> References: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> Message-ID: <306182A9-50C5-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> On Dec 17, 2004, at 12:54 PM, Acy James Stapp wrote: > I had a thought the other day that post-singularity, when our > intellects are increasing at the rate of technology, won't the > subjective rate of technological change become linear, even if the > actual rate of change is exponential or superexponential? > > Thoughts? > Probably not. It is doubtful for instance that human beings will want to let go of significant evolutionary programming that they have substantial parts of their identity associated with very quickly. But beyond a certain level of augmentation it is very doubtful that those old programs could be maintained at least not as part of identity. Some of them are known to significantly get in the way of higher levels of cognition and seriously warp our perception of reality. So no, I don't think our intelligence will improve linearly with the rate of technological advance in general. If we did change enough to incorporate change that quickly I don't believe that what we now think of as ourselves or as "human" would be more than a small set of subroutines in the corner of what we would become. - samantha From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sat Dec 18 08:18:58 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 19:18:58 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217224924.01b59728@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 03:16 PM 12/18/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: > >>As I understand it the judges are only there to increase the >>sensitivity of detection enough to pick up weak effects > > The judges are there precisely because of what Hyman noted: that the > percipient sometimes follows his own associations down an idiosyncratic > path, given partial and elusive contact with the target. So too can the > judges, but by having several judges looking from a more distanced > perspective, there's an enhanced chance for structural similarities to > lead them to aspects of the target image subsequently masked in the > percipient's near-hallucinatory ideation. > Maybe in the long run this turns out not to be as effective as just >showing the options to the RVer; if so, use that protocol henceforth. > Or use both, adjusting the weights. Because the 'just show the RVer the options' protocol would be easier in practice to implement than a protocol involving judges, this suggests that judges protocol is being used because the 'just show the RVer the options' protocol has already been tried and found to be unsatisfactory to the researchers. There would have needed to have been a motivating reason to add complexity (and therefore cost) to the simplest most obvious protocol that could work. > But the key point is that *it doesn't matter* from the standpoint of > evaluating the probabilities of the matches that occur. If the RVer and > the judges are all obsessed by football and their mothers, those options > will be called and matched very often; however, since targets of that sort > will only come out of the randomizer infrequently, they will yield amazing > hits every now and then and far more frequent errors the rest of the time. > I can't believe this isn't obvious. Well, you should probably reckon on losing some. And I reckon that you do so reckon. I think that your line of reasoning is obvious, but what is not obvious is that the same facts and experimental conditions you are describing either (a) matches exactly any average case that Utts is reporting on; (I don't think you are claiming it does) or b) could not potentially be better explained by a hypothesis other than that psi phenomena exists even in a weak form (I don't think your claiming that either). Brett Paatsch From scerir at libero.it Sat Dec 18 09:30:06 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 10:30:06 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D2@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <009601c4e4e4$298a6a70$2fbf1b97@administxl09yj> > I must be dreaming. > The list is full of all supernatural things now. It is 'Newtonmas effect'. But what about 'PK + MWI'? s. From Walter_Chen at compal.com Sat Dec 18 09:50:28 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 17:50:28 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D3@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: scerir > It is 'Newtonmas effect'. > But what about 'PK + MWI'? You mean PK works sometimes because the unfound force is transmitted through another universe? Maybe. I suggest that the psi experiments will be done in outer space to get more clean data. ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Dec 18 10:58:15 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 10:58:15 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217224924.01b59728@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 19:18:58 +1100, Brett Paatsch wrote: > I think that your line of reasoning is obvious, but what is not obvious is > that the same facts and experimental conditions you are describing either > (a) matches exactly any average case that Utts is reporting on; > (I don't think you are claiming it does) or > b) could not potentially be better explained > by a hypothesis other than that psi phenomena exists even in a weak form > (I don't think your claiming that either). > Perhaps wishful thinking is (in this case) weakening Damien's normally excellent critical thinking. See: for entries on almost 100 types of paranormal activities (I've never heard of some of them!) Especially: Ganzfeld experiments Remote viewing The psi assumptiom This last article says: "The psi assumption is the assumption that any significant departure from the laws of chance in a test of psychic ability is evidence that something anomalous or paranormal has occurred." In our universe a 'chance in a million' things happen every day. Life's like that. If you do 10,000 tests and find a 'slight' positive effect, then the next 10,000 tests might find the opposite. This logic applies no matter how many tests you do. And within those test runs you will find short runs of 100% success and short runs of zero% success. That's what happens in a random universe. 'Random' doesn't mean 'always different' or 'no occasional patterns'. The 'laws of chance' do not stop a punter from sometimes picking eight winners in a row. And it doesn't mean he could tell the future either. BillK From dirk at neopax.com Sat Dec 18 14:36:47 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 14:36:47 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <009601c4e4e4$298a6a70$2fbf1b97@administxl09yj> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D2@tpeexg01.compal.com> <009601c4e4e4$298a6a70$2fbf1b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <41C4407F.3010202@neopax.com> scerir wrote: >>I must be dreaming. >>The list is full of all supernatural things now. >> >> > >It is 'Newtonmas effect'. >But what about 'PK + MWI'? >s. > > > Only works if the Many Worlds can collapse to one (or a few selected ones) -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Sat Dec 18 14:38:09 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 14:38:09 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D3@tpeexg01.compal.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D3@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <41C440D1.8050507@neopax.com> Walter_Chen at compal.com wrote: > > From: scerir > > It is 'Newtonmas effect'. > > But what about 'PK + MWI'? > > You mean PK works sometimes because the unfound force is transmitted > through another universe? > Maybe. I suggest that the psi experiments will be done in outer space > to get > more clean data. > I believe that psi is not a 'force' but a quantum statistical distortion effect amplified to macro level. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From dirk at neopax.com Sat Dec 18 14:41:57 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 14:41:57 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217225835.01b59e28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C3B3E7.2090908@optusnet.com.au> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217225835.01b59e28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C441B5.4080003@neopax.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 03:36 PM 12/18/2004 +1100, David wrote: > >> I assume someone must have already thought of the possibility that >> if PK effects are real then millions of punters all mentally >> commanding different numbers to be drawn may well cancel each >> other out. > > > This is one of the obvious possibilities parapsychologists thought of > as quickly as you did. And it is apparent from the results of all the > lottos ever conducted that if PK is real, it isn't cumulative in this > way. How so? Because an enormous number of punters are guided by > birthdays. That means they're all rooting (apologies to Aussies) for > the range 1-31, especially 1-12. Birth years are less likely to have > any bearing. There are other numbers known to get more or less than > their fair share, depending on their position on the entry form > (people dislike edges). My book shows which they are; by selecting > your numbers from the dispreferred options, you'll increase your share > of the winnings *if those numbers happen by chance to come up*. If > group PK were in play, it's unlikely that any of the numbers 31 and up > would *ever* be drawn. In reality, there's not much variation in the > presentation histories of the randomized balls, as the null hypothesis > predicts. Except: a) People have been found to score low when they were aiming high, and vice versa b) If there is a QM effect it would tend to manifest far more strongly when the 'wishing' was coincident, or very close in time, to the event being influenced. c) Most people are like me. They buy a ticket and then forget about it until the numbers are drawn and published, usually the next day. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From riel at surriel.com Sat Dec 18 14:51:55 2004 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 09:51:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <41C440D1.8050507@neopax.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D3@tpeexg01.compal.com> <41C440D1.8050507@neopax.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 18 Dec 2004, Dirk Bruere wrote: > I believe that psi is not a 'force' but a quantum statistical distortion > effect amplified to macro level. A small liberty of movement to go "sideways" in time, to choose which direction to take reality in ? Kind of like MWI, but with only one world, just (and let me choose a really bad analogy here) with one or more of the collapsed quantum string dimensions being time-like instead of space like. I have absolutely no idea if things could be like this, but why bother philosophising about things we know ? ;)n cheers, Rik -- He did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveler. The difference is partly one of time, he would explain. Where as the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he had felt most at home. -- Paul Bowles From riel at surriel.com Sat Dec 18 14:58:33 2004 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 09:58:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D3@tpeexg01.compal.com> <41C440D1.8050507@neopax.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 18 Dec 2004, Rik van Riel wrote: > I have absolutely no idea if things could be like this, > but why bother philosophising about things we know ? ;) Oh and for the record - I do not claim that anything I wrote in my previous message makes sense. It might be fun to expand the idea a bit though, since it could make for fun scifi ;) Rik -- He did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveler. The difference is partly one of time, he would explain. Where as the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he had felt most at home. -- Paul Bowles From dirk at neopax.com Sat Dec 18 15:04:06 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 15:04:06 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D3@tpeexg01.compal.com> <41C440D1.8050507@neopax.com> Message-ID: <41C446E6.2040905@neopax.com> Rik van Riel wrote: >On Sat, 18 Dec 2004, Dirk Bruere wrote: > > > >>I believe that psi is not a 'force' but a quantum statistical distortion >>effect amplified to macro level. >> >> > >A small liberty of movement to go "sideways" in time, to >choose which direction to take reality in ? > >Kind of like MWI, but with only one world, just (and let >me choose a really bad analogy here) with one or more of >the collapsed quantum string dimensions being time-like >instead of space like. > >I have absolutely no idea if things could be like this, >but why bother philosophising about things we know ? ;)n > > > Well, I recently posted in this thread my theory of what happens and how to duplicate it experimentally in an interferometer (without people being involved). -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 18 17:23:06 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 11:23:06 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217224924.01b59728@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218105904.01a09340@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 07:18 PM 12/18/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: >Because the 'just show the RVer the options' protocol would be easier >in practice to implement than a protocol involving judges, this suggests >that judges protocol is being used because the 'just show the RVer the >options' protocol has already been tried and found to be unsatisfactory >to the researchers. > >There would have needed to have been a motivating reason to add >complexity (and therefore cost) to the simplest most obvious protocol >that could work. As I said at some point, the margins of this email are too small. Here are two additional motives for using judges during the STAR GATE and research programs: If you ask for a remote view of one target out of 4 or 5, and then show the percipient a picture or multimedia display of the chosen option, or take him to the place to walk through up close, you can't also display the other non-chosen options without risking muddying the waters. But the key motive is probably that these protocols were developed for military intelligence, where the RVer was trying to gather information paranormally about some place or person he would never see in reality, possibly never get *any* feedback on. In that case, judges would probably be intelligence operatives who had provided the mission target or who perhaps possessed only some indistinct satellite pictures, etc. Does any of this work? Well, these programs were funded on an annual basis for more than a decade. Actually I'm less interested in remote viewing and Ganzfeld protocols than in much simpler experiments such as Suitbert Ertel's current trials where Ss draw numbered balls from a bag (with replacement) after guessing the numbers. Using pre-screened `star' Ss, Ertel claims a robust success rate averaging 70% where 50% +/- is expected by chance. Simple, elegant, totally pointless except as evidence of psi. Strangely enough, the obvious fallibilities of this test have also occurred to Ertel, who has set up procedures to obviate them. On a personal note: am I driven by an obsessive wish to believe, to find evidence for some magic in the world? Maybe, but I don't think so. I also think it'd be great if cold fusion were true, and it seems that some continuing work there is also worth noting, but I couldn't really care one way or the other. If marginal psi effects are real, they could indicate something interesting about consciousness, or whether we're in a tweakable simulation, or about time-reversal and entanglement in QT. In the short term, reliable technologies based on them would make somebody very rich; that was my main motivation in studying the Lotto data. Damien Broderick From jonkc at att.net Sat Dec 18 17:30:45 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 12:30:45 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com><093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001><41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com><6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com><002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> "Damien Broderick" > Utts is saying that further research needs to explore *process*, > rather than the simple reality of the phenomenon. Yes, I realize that is what she is saying, and that is why I say she is a crackpot. She used something called "meta-analysis", the idea is to statistically lump lots of different experiments done by different people at different times (42 as near as I can tell) and hope to get statistically relevant results even if none of the individual experiments can do so. This is a pretty dodgy technique even in the best of times but particularly bad in this case because no area of human behavior is more full of fraud, self deception, and stupidity than the investigation of the supernatural. With a reputation like that to live down and wish to be taken seriously in this field you must be more careful and honest than Caesar's wife. She wasn't. Nor is that the only problem, Ray Hyman Of the University of Oregon examined the series of experiments that gave the strongest ESP signal in Utts analysis, I quote: "My analysis demonstrated that certain flaws, especially quality of randomization, did correlate with outcome. Successful outcomes correlated with inadequate methodology." Hyman thinks that carefully randomizing targets is always important but concedes a reasonable person might have a different opinion, provided of course that the target is used just once... "but this was blatantly not the case" [.] "All of the significant hitting was done on the second or later appearance of a target. If we examined the guesses against just the first occurrences of targets, the result is consistent with chance." "The experimenter, who was not so well shielded from the sender as the subject, interacted with the subject during the judging process. Indeed, during half of the trials the experimenter deliberately prompted the subject during the judging procedure. This means that the judgments from trial to trial were not strictly independent." And on the basis of this Mickey Mouse study Utts says ESP is as well established as the law of conservation of momentum so further proof is unnecessary. Crackpot! > Faraday didn't waste his life on ever-more careful demonstrations > meant to show nothing more than that electricity exists. Faraday had some good experiments and interesting ideas but it would be decades after that before Maxwell put electromagnetic waves into mathematical form, and decades after that before Hertz actually proved that they exist by detecting them experimentally. To maintain Faraday would say the sort of thing Utts did, that his experiments were so good there is no need to even look for electromagnetic waves anymore, is an insult to his memory. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 18 17:40:50 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 11:40:50 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] aargh In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218105904.01a09340@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217224924.01b59728@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041218105904.01a09340@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218113424.01a51ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 11:23 AM 12/18/2004 -0600, I wrote: >Using pre-screened `star' Ss, Ertel claims a robust success rate averaging >70% where 50% +/- is expected by chance. Sorry, I hadn't been awake long when I wrote that. Ertel's set-up contains balls numbered 1 through 5, so the chance likelihood is 0.2, not 0.5. Which is why his Ss' results are so impressive. Here's the abstract of a recent poster (I hope the superscripts etc make it through the emailer): Psi test feats achieved alone at home: Do they disappear under lab control? [1] Suitbert Ertel [2] Abstract Extraordinary hit rates from multiple choice tests, obtained by participants alone in their homes, are ambiguous. On the one hand, their feats might reflect psi power manifesting itself better under informal home than under lab conditions. Yet hit excesses obtained without control might also be due to negligent or fraudulent conduct. One way out of this dilemma is to let participants complete psi tests at home and to invite high scorers thereafter to do additional runs under lab control. This strategy has been endorsed using N = 238 (sample I) and N = 47 (sample II) of student participants. Sample I (female 84%) completed the ball drawing test, version I. Table tennis balls are drawn from an opaque bag on which numbers 1 to 5 are written, each number on ten balls. Participants guess and draw numbers blind and record their guessed and drawn numbers (hit expectancy 20%). One test unit consists of six or eight runs comprising 60 trials each (total 360 or 480 trials). Participants shake the bag prior to each trial and put drawn balls back into the bag. Sixteen high scoring participants of sample I were also tested, using the same test, under lab control. Sample II (female 73%) completed the ball drawing test, version II. This test resembles test I except that green or red dots are sprinkled over the balls, participants guess numbers (five targets) and colours (two targets), the combined expectancy being 10%. Thirteen high scorers of sample II were also tested under lab control using a pearls drawing test where they draw one of five colours (no numbers, expectancy 20%). Hypotheses: 1. Hit rates of high scorers in home tests decline (due to less psi-conducive conditions under control and regression towards the mean). 2. Hit rates of high scorers under control score still significantly above chance (due to genuine psi which was also effective at home). Both hypotheses were confirmed with sample I and replicated with sample II. Sample I obtained an average ES = 0.369 (sd=.126) under home condition and an average ES = .122 (sd = .207) under control (ES = Z/root(Ntrials), the difference is significant (t (corr.smpls.) = -3.02, df = 15, p = .004, one-tailed). The significance of hit rates under control is p = <10-15 by Chi2 = 721.7, df = 16 (Chi2 = (Z)(Z) ). Sample II obtained an average ES = .275 (sd= .162) under home condition and an average ES = .098 (sd = .153) under control, the difference is significant (t = -3.00, df = 12, p = .006, one-tailed). The significance of hit rates under control is p = <10-15 by Chi2 = 223.9, df = 13. Surprisingly, three participants obtained significantly higher hit rates under control compared with their home performance. The issue of fraud and bias loses relevance in view of such finding. It is recommended to introduce the ?first-home-then-lab-test? strategy in parapsychological research on a broader scale. Once this strategy were generally applied, the widespread lamenting of psi researchers and their critics about tiny and elusive experimental psi effects might come to an end. [1] Based on a poster presentation at the 47th Convention of the Parapsychological Association, August 5-8, 2004 Vienna, Austria. [2] Georg-Elias-M?ller-Institut f?r Psychologie, G?ttingen, Germany. Email: sertel at uni-goettingen.de. Website: www.SuitbertErtel.net From fauxever at sprynet.com Sat Dec 18 17:54:37 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 09:54:37 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com><093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001><41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com><6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com><002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001><014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041217224924.01b59728@pop-server.satx.rr.com><031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041218105904.01a09340@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <00d401c4e52a$a474c640$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "Damien Broderick" > On a personal note: am I driven by an obsessive wish to believe, to find evidence for some magic in the world? Maybe, but I don't think so. ... Magic? Did someone say magic? Redcoat tell-all magician James Randi thinks ...: http://www.randi.org/jr/121704no.html#1 > ...In the short term, reliable technologies based on them would make somebody very rich; that was my main motivation in studying the Lotto data.: Rich? Did someone say rich? There's an application here (prize is $1,000,00) to anyone who can prove there *are* paranormal goings on: http://www.randi.org/research/index.html Olga From sentience at pobox.com Sat Dec 18 18:16:14 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:16:14 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] aargh In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218113424.01a51ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217224924.01b59728@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041218105904.01a09340@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041218113424.01a51ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C473EE.5010003@pobox.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 11:23 AM 12/18/2004 -0600, I wrote: > >> Using pre-screened `star' Ss, Ertel claims a robust success rate >> averaging 70% where 50% +/- is expected by chance. > > Sorry, I hadn't been awake long when I wrote that. Ertel's set-up > contains balls numbered 1 through 5, so the chance likelihood is 0.2, > not 0.5. Which is why his Ss' results are so impressive. > > Here's the abstract of a recent poster (I hope the superscripts etc make > it through the emailer): Damien, I see where he says that results under control are statistically significantly less good than results obtained at home. (What a surprise!) I don't see where it says 70% hits (20% expected) effect size. Say, remember that research on the power of prayer that claimed an effect size of 50% conceptions versus 25% conceptions? Remember how I said that this was a nice non-marginal effect size, and how the claim was much healthier than all these alleged marginal effects, because it was much easier to test? A nice, clear, claim - even though I expected it to turn out false? And then remember how that research turned out to be totally bogus? If this guy is getting an effect size of 70% hits on a 20% target, I like that. That's a nice, clear claim. Needless to say, it will also turn out to be totally bogus. Here's the sad thing about psi research that I discovered during my own investigation: The interesting results turn out to be just FAKE. You don't usually think of that when you're trying to explain a reported experimental result... but with psi, so it goes. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 18 18:17:14 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 12:17:14 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] double aargh Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218121010.0198f1f8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 11:23 AM 12/18/2004 -0600, I wrote, still incorrectly: >Using pre-screened `star' Ss, Ertel claims a robust success rate averaging >70% where 50% +/- is expected by chance. Sorry, I hadn't been awake long when I wrote that. Ertel's set-up contains balls numbered 1 through 5, so the chance likelihood is 0.2, not 0.5. Which is why his Ss' results are so impressive. =================== I'm going to stop now, because I've been winging it from memory instead of diligently looking up the actual results. When I said `success rate' which implies number of correct guesses) I should have said `excess above mean chance expectation'. And his controlled results in that poster were 28.08% cf. MCE of 20%, an excess not of 70% but of 40.40% This is still impressive, but not as wonderful as I'd suggested. Damien Broderick From sentience at pobox.com Sat Dec 18 18:38:55 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:38:55 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] double aargh In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218121010.0198f1f8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218121010.0198f1f8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C4793F.7020908@pobox.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > > I'm going to stop now, because I've been winging it from memory instead > of diligently looking up the actual results. When I said `success rate' > which implies number of correct guesses) I should have said `excess > above mean chance expectation'. And his controlled results in that > poster were 28.08% cf. MCE of 20%, an excess not of 70% but of 40.40% > This is still impressive, but not as wonderful as I'd suggested. I'm claiming this as another successful prediction, y'know. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 18 18:50:48 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 12:50:48 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] aargh In-Reply-To: <41C473EE.5010003@pobox.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217224924.01b59728@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041218105904.01a09340@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041218113424.01a51ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C473EE.5010003@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218123634.01b35e98@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 01:16 PM 12/18/2004 -0500, Eliezer wrote: >Damien, I see where he says that results under control are statistically >significantly less good than results obtained at home. (What a >surprise!) I don't see where it says 70% hits (20% expected) effect size. I cover my head with shame. I was hastily conflating several sources and percentages, and managed to screw it up not once but twice. Ertel's results will be published in Ertel, S. (2004). The ball drawing test. Psi from untrodden ground. In M. A. Thalbourne & L. Storm (Eds.), Parapsychology in the 21st Century: The Future of Psychical Research: McFarland. >If this guy is getting an effect size of 70% hits on a 20% target, I like >that. That's a nice, clear claim. Of course, and he'd be waltzing away with Randi's dough. But hey, 40% more hits than MCE, under controlled conditions, is surely interesting. > Needless to say, it will also turn out to be totally bogus. Eliezer's `What a surprise!' is *why* nobody uses the at-home results as *evidence*. It is a screening procedure, which also captures some Ss who have got high scores simply by chance, and who will fall away to chance in subsequent trials. The worst that can be said about it is that it might also screen for cheats and liars, who may be more likely to find loopholes in the experimental controlled runs. Maybe so, and hence the need for relentless scrutiny. Damien Broderick From w_scott_badger at yahoo.com Sat Dec 18 18:55:31 2004 From: w_scott_badger at yahoo.com (Scott Badger) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 10:55:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Longevity Attitude Survey In-Reply-To: <200412181817.iBIIHa001800@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <20041218185531.79961.qmail@web12201.mail.yahoo.com> Greetings, The members of Extropy Chat are invited to participate in a survey research project titled, ?The Longevity Attitude Survey?. It should take about 15 minutes of your time and focuses on your attitudes and beliefs regarding the significant extension of the maximum human life span. Five different areas of concern are addressed: Social, Feasibility, Ethical, Religious, and Teleological Issues. Your participation will be anonymous in that no identifying information will be collected. But please remember to mention your membership in this group when asked in the survey. Analysis will involve comparing the attitudes of various groups, identifying significant relationships between attitudes and demographic and personality variables, and determining the degree to which participants agree or disagree with various bioethicists (e.g. certain members of the President?s Council on Bioethics) who have expressed negative attitudes toward increasing our maximum life span. Does their ethical stance accurately reflect that of the citizenry? Extropy Chat members will be notified when the analysis is completed and a manuscript discussing the findings is available. A note of appreciation goes out to members of the Immortality Institute (imminst.org) who provided valuable feedback during the development phase of this survey. Thanks in advance for participating and let me know if you have any questions. Please read the informed consent page at: www.scottbadger.com/las/consent.htm Best wishes, Scott Badger, PhD University of Idaho From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 18 19:01:39 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:01:39 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] double aargh In-Reply-To: <41C4793F.7020908@pobox.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218121010.0198f1f8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C4793F.7020908@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218125402.01b46320@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 01:38 PM 12/18/2004 -0500, Eliezer wrote: >> his controlled results in that poster were 28.08% cf. MCE of 20%, an >> excess not of 70% but of 40.40% This is still impressive, but not as >> wonderful as I'd suggested. > >I'm claiming this as another successful prediction, y'know. Okay, but I wasn't writing a scientific paper for publication, I was babbling on an email list shortly after waking up. If you like, go back to my original blooper (70% hits rather than 50% hits) where the claimed excess is 40% above supposed chance expectation. This +40%, under control, was the datum lodged in my mind, then the rest was reconstituted in error from the incorrect p value. Do you predict *that* will be bogus? Damien Broderick From amara at amara.com Sat Dec 18 19:12:07 2004 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 20:12:07 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Ciao and Merry Newtonmas Message-ID: Hi folks... I'm taking a small holiday, and heading to (much) colder and snowier climates (Heidelberg, Riga, Tallinn). Merry Newtonmas, Merry Christmas, Buon Natale, Frohe Weihnachten, Priecigus Ziemas Svetkus, Mele Kalimimaka, Happy Holidays! May you all spend the holiday times with a smile on your face ... Amara -- *********************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ *********************************************************************** "There's only one thing more beautiful than a beautiful dream, and that's a beautiful reality." --Ashleigh Brilliant From scerir at libero.it Sat Dec 18 19:26:35 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 20:26:35 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001><41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C361BB.30102@neopax.com> Message-ID: <000501c4e537$7d7f4030$b8c61b97@administxl09yj> From: "Dirk Bruere" > It begins with the Delayed Choice expt and a Cramer > style interpretation of a 'backward in time signal' > upon measurement that sets a 'real' unique path > for the photon retrospecively. [...]. The question > that has nagged me is: Is that loop local limited > to the photon/apparatus or does it essentially 're-run' > the universe over that duration? It is a 'transaction', limited to the sources of advanced and retarded fields. The rest of the universe remains unchanged, independent. That said there is a real problem of definition of time(s). But the 'delayed choice' strategy is, perhaps, interesting. ESP domain Dirk | Walter Dirk figuring (or pre-figuring, or post-figuring) Walter's cards. Of course we must compare, in some place and time, Walter's outcomes and Dirk's results. Quantum Dirk/Two-slit Int. <--p1-- s ---p2--> Two-slit Int./Walter The source s emits entangled photons. p1 to Dirk's two-slit interferometer. p2 to Walter's two-slit interferometer. Dirk and Walter get similar interference patterns. No information if we compare these interference patterns. They are similarly random. Quantum Delayed Choice Dirk/Two-sl.I.<---p1-- s --p2--------------> Two-sl.I./Walter The source s emits two entangled photons. p1 to Dirk's Two-slit interferometer. p2 to Walter's Two-slit interferometer. Walter (who is far away from the source s of entangled photons) has time to choose if (or not) to put a lens inside his Two-slit interferometer. (Dirk _already_ got his spot on the screen, that is p1 already reached Dirk's screen in some place, and was registered). If Walter inserts a lens inside his interferometer, his interferometer becomes a Heisenberg microscope, imaging the two slits, thus Walter now knows the 'which way' of his photon p2. But if Walter knows the 'which way' of his photon, does he also change - given the strict correlation between momenta of entangled photons - Dirk's interference pattern (just one spot actually)? No, because Dirk's interference pattern (one spot) was registered _already_. No information, again, reaches Dirk, whatever Walter may choose, i.e. to insert, or not to insert, at a later time, a lens inside his interferometer? No possible 'back in time' information to Dirk? No possible 'back in time' information to Dirk. But if we compare Dirk's interference pattern (actually just one spot on a screen) and the 'later' Walter's choice (to insert, or not to insert, a lens inside his interferometer, as to trasform it in a Heisenberg microscope) we find that both the registered and experimental facts are consistent. In the sense that the registered position of Dirk's spot is always consistent with the 'later' choice by Walter. And this is, of course, a big surprise. From hal at finney.org Sat Dec 18 20:21:55 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 12:21:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence Message-ID: <20041218202155.EADB957E2F@finney.org> Dirk Bruere writes: > An interferometer with (say) a 4uS transit time (eg monomode fibre in > Sagnac configuration). We also have a random number generator based upon > (say) a radioactive decay providing a single quantum event clocking a 0 > or 1 from a high speed counter. > Over a period of time the count should be fairly predictable > statistically and evenly distributed between 0,1. > However, what we do is to trigger a measurement on the interferometer > within 4uS of getting an output from the random number generator of a 1. > If the 're-run' is affecting the universe as a whole the result will be > that the output of the RNG is skewed towards 0. > Any comments and statements of impossibilities are welcome (as long as > they are accompanied by an explanation). See http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys314/lectures/dual4/dual4.html for a description of a delayed choice expt of the type I think you mean. The way I think of these is that the photon takes both paths. If both arms stay open, then the photon parts re-combine at the final beam splitter and we get interference. The output may go to only one of the detectors. If one arm gets blocked, that in effect performs a measurement when the photon gets to that point. At that point there is the effect of wave function collapse, and the photon gets localized to one of the two arms, at random. If in the blocked arm, the photon is absorbed. If in the other arm, the photon proceeds to the beam splitter and goes randomly to one of the two detectors. There's no real "delayed choice" from this perspective. You choose to open or close the arm before the photon gets to the blocker. You certainly can't make the choice after the photon has passed through! That would be true backwards in time causality. Proponents of a delayed choice interpretation suggest that the photon somehow has to decide whether it will be a particle or a wave at the time it enters the apparatus, before the choice to block or not is made. But really, that is a pretty absurd notion, that photons decide in this way. Hal From hal at finney.org Sat Dec 18 20:29:41 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 12:29:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence Message-ID: <20041218202941.BA21C57E2F@finney.org> Scerir writes: > If Walter inserts a lens inside his > interferometer, his interferometer becomes a Heisenberg > microscope, imaging the two slits, thus Walter now knows > the 'which way' of his photon p2. But if Walter knows > the 'which way' of his photon, does he also change > - given the strict correlation between momenta of entangled > photons - Dirk's interference pattern (just one spot actually)? > No, because Dirk's interference pattern (one spot) was registered > _already_. I disagree on what will happen in this experiment. Eliezer asked a similar question once. Unfortunately, I've never found a definitive explanation online about this seemingly paradoxical setup. To put it simply, the fact that Walter can do a measurement that will distinguish the 'which way' of photon p1 means that there can be no interference observed by Dirk. Only when there is no way to distinguish 'which way' can interference be seen. Whether Walter actually does the measurement or not doesn't matter. It only matters that he has the potential to do the experiment, that he has the information necessary to distinguish 'which way'. The mere potential will destroy the interference. It's exactly analogous to a simple two slit experiment where we measure which slit the particles go through, but then discard the results without looking at them. Closing our eyes won't make the diffraction pattern appear! The mere fact that we have collected 'which way' data, and have the potential to look at it, is enough to destroy the interference. Too much misleading information about quantum erasers and such is giving people an incorrect and oversimplified picture of how QM works. Hence, I predict that although Dirk can see interference with ordinary photon sources, he will not be able to see it with special photon sources of the type you have used here. He will not register the 'one spot' interference pattern no matter what Walter does. I wrote a much more detailed analysis of this on this list a couple of years ago. Hal From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 18 22:56:17 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 16:56:17 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218105904.01a09340@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217224924.01b59728@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <031801c4e4da$39200620$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041218105904.01a09340@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041218165203.01aceb00@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 11:23 AM 12/18/2004 -0600, I wrote: >Strangely enough, the obvious fallibilities of this test have also >occurred to Ertel, who has set up procedures to obviate them. Anyone interested in looking at his protocol in greater detail (in a paper from several years ago), and his own analysis of the risks, precautions and post-cautions, might turn to: http://www.psych.uni-goettingen.de/home/ertel/ertel-dir/downloads/ertelchapterwithfigurespdf.pdf People made angry by the very idea of psi will find aspects to infuriate them--`Psi-*missing*?? We call it *getting the wrong answer!!*' as Randi says blithely (I paraphrase). Others might care to examine Ertel's reasoning and results. Damien Broderick From pgptag at gmail.com Sun Dec 19 07:18:41 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 08:18:41 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Richard Morgan's website Message-ID: <470a3c5204121823185695e07d@mail.gmail.com> I am reading Broken Angels, it got bad critics here but I don?t see why, it is as good as Altered Carbon. For those who don't know (I found it five minutes ago) RM has a website: http://www.richardkmorgan.com/ From pgptag at gmail.com Sun Dec 19 07:29:02 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 08:29:02 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] DNA may hold key to information processing and data storage Message-ID: <470a3c52041218232966373db5@mail.gmail.com> The DNA molecule--nature's premier data storage material--may hold the key for the information technology industry as it faces demands for more compact data processing and storage circuitry. A team led by Richard Kiehl, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota, has used DNA's ability to assemble itself into predetermined patterns to construct a synthetic DNA scaffolding with regular, closely spaced docking sites that can direct the assembly of circuits for processing or storing data. The scaffolding has the potential to self-assemble components 1,000 times as densely as the best information processing circuitry and 100 times the best data storage circuitry now in the pipeline. Members of the team first published their innovation in 2003, and they have now refined the technique to allow more efficient and more versatile assembly of components. The new work, which was a collaborative effort with chemistry professors Karin Musier-Forsyth and T. Andrew Taton at Minnesota and Nadrian C. Seeman at New York University, is reported in the December issue of Nano Letters, a publication of the American Chemical Society. http://nanotechwire.com/news.asp?nid=1411 From sjatkins at gmail.com Sun Dec 19 08:44:48 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 00:44:48 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] John John Perry Barlow vs The Man In-Reply-To: <20041217161821.51632.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> References: <41C2F2FE.7040707@neopax.com> <20041217161821.51632.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <948b11e041219004433779d93@mail.gmail.com> Welcome to America! Go straight to jail! Do not collect dumb ideas of freedom if you should pass a copy of the Bill of Rights or Constitution on the way. - s On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 08:18:21 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey wrote: > > --- Dirk Bruere wrote: > > > Amara Graps wrote: > > > > > "Apparently, Barlow did intend to suggest this. At least, he was > > > prevented from introducing a lot of evidence about how screeners do > > > things that are useful for finding drugs. At a minimum, Barlow > > wanted > > > to suggest that screeners who are supposed to be looking for > > > explosives should not be permitted to use search techniques or > > > procedures that are specifically aimed at finding drugs rather than > > > explosives (arguably, for example, shaking a bottle). > > > > > I would expect that in a proper search for explosives not only would > > bottles be shaken, but bottles not sealed by the manufacturer would > > be > > opened for cursory inspection. It is still extremely easy to smuggle > > bombs aboard aircraft if the right explosive (liquid) is used. As for > > batteries, detonators etc, can an X ray distinguishe between a > > detonator and an electrolytic cap in a laptop? > > An xray machine is far more than an xray machine these days. They can > distinguish between metals, semiconductors, organics, etc and can sniff > nitrates, which is the primary flag of explosives. > > That they only said that he had some wires in a pocket of his bag was > their pretext, it is clear that his position as founder of the EFF is > the real cause of the search. There are multiple grades of persons on > the no-fly list. The DHS and TSA have a well developed blacklist which > government bureaucrats have shown a tendency to place people on for > their anti-statist views alone. The number of people I know who get the > full body search when flying has gone up significantly in the last > year. > > Similarly, the number of people being investigated and prosecuted in > the Free State movement is similarly climbing. I myself am now the > target of a fishing expedition based on a very flimsy pretext that I > happend to have had a case in the past year in a court where someone > was allegedly threatened at some point in time for some reason. > > Barlow's big error was in carrying the drugs in his checked-in luggage. > If you are travelling with contraband, either carry it on your person, > or don't carry it at all. Unless you get a full pat-down, they won't > find it on you. The new extensive pat-down procedures do call this into > question, though. > > If there is a chance you will get singled out (and if you are an > outspoken libertarian, you will), don't even try it, even if you have a > doctors prescription for the pot in your home state. Airplanes are > federal jurisdiction. > > ===== > Mike Lorrey > Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH > "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. > It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." > -William Pitt (1759-1806) > Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. > http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From pgptag at gmail.com Sun Dec 19 09:06:13 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 10:06:13 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] 'Artificial life' comes step closer Message-ID: <470a3c5204121901065912c585@mail.gmail.com> Researchers at Rockefeller University in the US have made the first tentative steps towards creating a form of artificial life. Their creations, small synthetic vesicles that can process (express) genes, resemble a crude kind of biological cell. The parts for their "vesicle bioreactors", as they call them, all come from diverse realms of life. The soft cell walls are made of fat molecules taken from egg white. The cell contents are an extract of the common gut bug E. coli, stripped of all its genetic material. This essence of life contains ready-made much of the biological machinery needed to make proteins; the researchers also added an enzyme from a virus to allow the vesicle to translate DNA code. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104483.stm From Walter_Chen at compal.com Sun Dec 19 10:22:59 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 18:22:59 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685D4@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: Damien Broderick > ... > < The questions on whether DNA or the atom were intelligent entities broke > down as follows: for DNA 71% said Yes and 29% said No; and for the atom 56% > said yes and 44% said No. These differences seemed to arise from variations > within the respondents' belief system regarding the creation process. > > This is like quoting one of the monster raving loonies on > sci.physics.i-am-a-crackpot about relativity, and deciding Einstein must be > full of crap. Depending on the definition of intelligence, at least some of your unique life history is closely encoded in DNAs. ******************** Source: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1386262004 "Delving into mind over matter" ... In his first book, It's The Thought That Counts, due to be published next year, he will put forward the scientific arguments about the mysterious mind-body connection and argue that powerful human states such as happiness and optimism can actually change your DNA. ... ********************* What about atoms? Is it possible that each atom contains some internal information of its own past history? For example, the atoms of my body could include some internal information of myself even after I become ashes? Just curious. ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From harara at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 19 16:31:38 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 08:31:38 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041217231742.019bc150@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <014901c4e473$dd904c90$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217142925.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <01a801c4e48b$8ef82270$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217171500.01b7cec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <022901c4e4b8$4b6f0960$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.0.3.0.1.20041217204935.0293e108@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217231742.019bc150@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041219083039.029ae530@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Precisely my point here. At 09:23 PM 12/17/2004, you wrote: >At 08:55 PM 12/17/2004 -0800, Hara Ra wrote: > >>A few years ago, Jean Millay (one of the folk I knew) published a book, >>"Multidimensional Mind" which presents the results of a few hundred RV >>sessions, complete with drawings, etc. With deep reluctance I read the >>thing. It is an extraordiary example of exactly the things which lead to >>a total conviction of a most unlikely effect. > >Well, gosh, I don't know that she's such a dynamite example. Here's some >of her wisdom, and a poll of her devoted followers: > >http://www.fmbr.org/editoral/letters/letters-may00.htm > >< In her new book Dr. Millay said, "Access to Higher Intelligence is >hardwired into each human system. Our-free will involves developing the >internal software to establish a conscious connection to Higher >Intelligence and then choosing the belief system to interpret what is >received through that channel"... > >< The questions on whether DNA or the atom were intelligent entities broke >down as follows: for DNA 71% said Yes and 29% said No; and for the atom >56% said yes and 44% said No. These differences seemed to arise from >variations within the respondents' belief system regarding the creation >process. > > >This is like quoting one of the monster raving loonies on >sci.physics.i-am-a-crackpot about relativity, and deciding Einstein must >be full of crap. > >Damien Broderick > > > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bjk at imminst.org Sun Dec 19 19:56:38 2004 From: bjk at imminst.org (Bruce J. Klein) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 13:56:38 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] ImmInst Update - Video: Alcor's Joe Waynick Message-ID: <41C5DCF6.3070201@imminst.org> IMMINST VIDEO Tour Alcor's Cryonics facility with Alcor Pres/CEO - Joe Waynick: http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=111&t=4879 IMMINST EVENT Potential ImmInst + NYTA meeting and dinner - Sat Feb 5, New York http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=159&t=4850 IMMINST NEWS The Prophet Of Immortality - Aubrey de Grey http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=69&t=4767 IMMINST CHAT Who Want to Life Forever? 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Freitas Jr., J.D. ? Human Body Version 2.0 - Raymond Kurzweil, Ph.D. ? Progress Toward Cyberimmortality - William Sims Bainbridge, Ph.D. ? Will Robots Inherit the Earth? - Marvin Minsky, Ph.D. ? Medical Time Travel: A Question of Science - Brian Wowk, Ph.D. ? Some Ethical and Theological Considerations - Brad F. Mellon, Ph.D. ? Superlongevity without Overpopulation - Max More, Ph.D. ? Upsetting the Natural Order - Mike Treder ? The Self-Defeating Fantasy - Eric S. Rabkin, Ph.D. ? Time Consciousness in Very Long Life - Manfred Clynes, Ph.D. ? Confessions of a Proselytizing Immortalist - Shannon Vyff ? Some Problems with Immortalism - Ben Best ? An Introduction to Immortalist Morality - Marc Geddes ? Should We Fear Death? - Russell Blackford, Ph.D. ? Who Wants To Live Forever? - Nick Bostrom, Ph.D. All profits donated to the Immortality Institute in support of its mission - conquer the blight of involuntary death. ISBN: 9875611352 Price: $17.60 http://www.imminst.org/book1 ABOUT IMMINST Immortality Institute: "For Infinite Lifespans" 501c3 Mission: "Conquer the Blight of Involuntary Death" Members: 1,883 - http://www.imminst.org/fullmembers From scerir at libero.it Sun Dec 19 20:50:39 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 21:50:39 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <20041218202941.BA21C57E2F@finney.org> Message-ID: <004a01c4e60c$66b6f980$2dc31b97@administxl09yj> From: "Hal Finney" > I disagree on what will happen in this experiment. > Eliezer asked a similar question once. Unfortunately, > I've never found a definitive explanation online about > this seemingly paradoxical setup. [...] Not sure there is a real disagreement, or a full disagreement. Maybe I was obscure, my fault. But these things are interesting and, imo, still not well fixed. (There is a strong disagreement even about Heisenberg's microscope gedanken experiment). I'll try, here below, to keep things as simple as I can, and to avoid obscurity (as much as I can!). Notice also that there is a wide range of "weird" effects, all based on entagled pairs, and each one has its peculiarity. This one (below) seems (to me) interesting, because it is simple, or it seems so :-). s c | r e | p1 <----- s -----> p2 e n | There is a source of entangled photons, p1 & p2. The correlation between p1 & p2 is of the kind "momentum/position". (For the other possible correlation, "time/energy", and related interesting interference experiments, see: http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td1604/Franson.pdf or "High-Visibility Interference in a Bell-Inequality Experiment for Energy and Time," by P. G. Kwiat, A. M. Steinberg, and R. Y. Chiao, in Physical Review A, Vol.47, page R2472, 1993). Now, p1 enters a two-slit interferometer, p2 goes left. 1) We decide not to perform measurements on p2. In this case we can ask: what can we say about the "spot" of p1 on the screen (of the two-slit interferometer)? Specifically, can we say that this "spot" pertains to some interference pattern or to some smooth distribution? As far as I know, there is no theoretical treatment of this question. Anyway the correct answer is the latter. The "spot" pertains to some smooth distribution. And the reason (I think you got this point perfectly) is that, since we did not perform any measurements on p2, we could still perform measurements on p2, and specifically we could still register (observe, detect) p2 on an optical plane which "images" the two slits of the interferometer. But - since there is a strict correlation between positions of p1 & p2 - knowing the position of p2, on the optical plane "imaging" the two slits of the interferometer, means knowing "which slit" the photon p1 entered. And knowing "which slit" p1 entered, in turn means "distinguishability" and no interference pattern. 2) We decide to perform a measurement on p2. Specifically we choose to register (observe, detect) p2 on an optical plane which "images" the two slits of the interferometer. Since there is a strict correlation between positions of p1 & p2, knowing the position of p2, on the optical plane "imaging" the two slits of the interferometer, means knowing "which slit" the photon p1 entered. And knowing "which slit" p1 entered in turn means "distinguishability" and no interference pattern. In this case we can ask: what can we say about the "spot" of p1 on the screen (of the two-slit interferometer)? Specifically, can we say that this "spot" pertains to some interference pattern or to some smooth distribution? The correct answer is the latter. Obviously. 3) We decide to perform a measurement on p2. Specifically we choose to measure the momentum of p2 on a specific optical plane. Measuring momentum of p2 means projecting the momentum state of p2 onto a momentum eigenstate and, since there is a strict correlation between momenta of p1 and p2, it also means projecting the momentum state of p1 onto a momentum eigenstate. Being p1 and p2 in momentum eigenstates, any possible information of positions vanished. Vanished, specifically, any possible information about "which slit" photon p1 entered. In this case we can ask: what can we say about the "spot" of p1 on the screen (of the two-slit interferometer)? Specifically, can we say that this "spot" pertains to some interference pattern or to some smooth distribution? The correct answer is the first one. Obviously. Since any possible information about the "which slit" was washed out by the momentum measurement performed on the photon p2. 4) Notice that since there is a symmetry between measurements performed on the photon p2 and measurements performed on photon p1 (they are entangled, strongly correlated both in position and in momentum) we can "reverse" what we said in the points above. In example a momentum measurement performed on the photon p1 can produce an interferential "spot" by p2. Etc. etc. 5) Notice also (but again I think you got this point perfectly) that, from the above, the "interpretation" of the "spot" on the screen depends strongly, or completely, on the measurements non performed on the photon p2 or, instead, on the measurements (position, or momentum) performed on the photon p2. (Notice also that, after measurements performed, photon p2 is destroyed). (All that just means that likewise ESP experiments, also here there is a necessity of comparing the outcomes registered at both "wings", for a correct interpretation. The weirdness of these phenomena is exactly in that comparation, since there is no possible, or there is no evident, flux of informations). 6) The point I was, perhaps, trying to make in the last post was: what if we implement a delayed choice in the situations above? That is to say: what. i.e., if the path of p2 is much longer than the path of p1? s c | r e | p1 <----- s ------------------------> p2 e n | Something new? Well, the only thing which changes here (i.e. the path of p2 is longer the path of p1) is that for the correct "interpretation" of the spot on the screen (interferential, or not) we must wait a longer time, i.e. that a measurement of momentum, or a measurement of position, will be performed, or _might_ be performed, in the future, on the photon p2, maybe on another galaxy (if there is enough coherence!). > I wrote a much more detailed analysis of this on this > list a couple of years ago. I'll check it. -serafino. From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Dec 19 22:41:09 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 09:41:09 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] How close are we to an iPod that can read ebooks to us? Message-ID: <010701c4e61b$d5a062a0$b8232dcb@homepc> I've been thinking about the success of iPods, the increasing availability of ebooks, often for free where the books are out of copyright, and the relative difficulty of reading in bed or comfortably and conveniently because laptops are still too cumbersome. I got to wondering what the technical barriers would be now to producing something like an iPod that could download ebooks and either, or preferrably both, read the text of those books to people who are either too lazy to change pages or perhaps because they want to have their hands free to drive or something else. This list has quite a few folk that are interested in computer technology, so my question is, how close are we to getting a general text to voice reading technology of a quality such that I as a reader could choose to a preferred voice (maybe Carl Sagan or someone doesn't matter who really) to read the text (an ebook) of my choosing to me? I haven't really kept track of developments in voice recognition for several years, and it could be that converting text from ebooks, is an easier exercise than converting joe and jane home pc users mutterings into something that can feed into a wordprocessor. Any thoughts? Brett Paatsch -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kurt at metatechnica.com Sun Dec 19 23:35:34 2004 From: kurt at metatechnica.com (Kurt Schoedel) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 15:35:34 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] PSI Phenomenon Message-ID: There are two reasons why I think psi phenomenon does not exist. The first is that the Amazing Randi has a standing offer of a $1 million prize for anyone who can reproduce such phenomenon under controlled conditions. Go to www.randi.org for the details, rules, and entry form. Consider Randi's offer an X-prize for the development of psi phenomenon. Perhaps Jessica Utts should apply for the prize. Has anyone contacted her about this? The second reason why I think psi phenomenon does not exist is because if it did, someone would have figured out who to use pre-cognition to make money in the financial markets. Perhaps Warren Buffet is so successful because he has psi ability and has used it consistantly to become the wealthiest investor of our time. Somehow I doubt this. If any traders really were using psi techniques to trade, word would eventually leak out and we would all know about it. Also, there would be books written on how to use psi to improve trading profitability and these books' techniques would be demonstrably workable. Kurt Schoedel MetaTechnica From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Dec 19 23:43:05 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 10:43:05 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Just a courtesy note re me missing list mail Message-ID: <014401c4e624$7c7833c0$b8232dcb@homepc> I've just discovered I'm not getting all Exi chat mail that the Exi bbs has. Probably an intermittent isp problem on my side. If I don't reply to something it might be I didn't see it. Sorry for the bandwidth taking, but might be worth mentioning in case others are missing mail as well. Brett -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 20 04:13:31 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 22:13:31 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Psi Phenomenon In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041219215525.01a1bec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 03:35 PM 12/19/2004 -0800, Kurt Schoedel wrote: >the Amazing Randi has a standing offer of a $1 million >prize for anyone who can reproduce such phenomenon under controlled >conditions. Go to www.randi.org for the details, rules, and entry form. >Consider Randi's offer an X-prize for the development of psi >phenomenon. Perhaps Jessica Utts should apply for the prize. Randi is a stage magician and self-publicist who sets the rules in the contest. He is not a scientist, and he is certainly very far from disinterested. Suppose the Vatican were running a prize at www.jesusfake.org offering a million dollars to anyone who could prove that Jesus was not the son of god, or had never performed miracles. What are the chances that anyone would win? Would leading atheists rush to try their luck? (In fact, there *is* just such a prize, run by some born-again lawyer. Give it a shot, report back.) >The second reason why I think psi phenomenon does not exist is because >if it did, someone would have figured out who to use pre-cognition to >make money in the financial markets. So one might suppose. But wait, it's worse. If psi is a faculty evolved by natural selection to take advantage of a natural affordance, prey should develop it to avoid detection and predators should use it to capture prey. Many iterations later, one might expect a standoff, except at the margins. Or perhaps it functions best at certain times (rather like our eyes, which are far more effective--despite the jeering of sight-skeptics--during the day when the sun is shining). And so on. Or perhaps precognition monitors a sheaf of the multiverse springing from this moment and fanning away from the most probable future to the least; financial futures are notably chaotic and perhaps for this reason there are many equally likely versions of the future. By contrast, perhaps some events are extremely likely (the sort that scientific predictions cope with quite well, given a good grasp of theory and boundary conditions). It might be that precognitions of an eclipse (which is almost inevitable) might have been fairly reliable via psi in the days before the mathematics of planetary dynamics provided a principled understanding. These kinds of objections (`If you're so psychic, why ain't you rich?') certainly must be considered, the more the merrier, but in the end controlled lab data, dry and awkward as it is, has to be the best basis for evaluation. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 20 05:37:20 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 23:37:20 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 12:30 PM 12/18/2004 -0500, John Clark wrote: >And on the basis of this Mickey Mouse study Utts says ESP is as well >established as the law of conservation of momentum so further proof is >unnecessary. Crackpot! For an interesting insight in what's going on here (both from me, and from adamant skeptics like John and Eliezer), take a look at these extracts from `Opposites detract', by Robert Matthews, visiting reader in science at Aston University, Birmingham, UK, in New Scientist vol 181 issue 2438 - 13 March 2004, page 38: ====================== [...] For years, well-designed studies carried out by researchers at respected institutions have produced evidence for the reality of ESP. The results are often more impressive than the outcome of clinical drug trials because they show a more pronounced effect and have greater statistical significance. What's more, ESP experiments have been replicated and their results are as consistent as many medical trials - and even more so in some cases (see Chart). In short, by all the normal rules for assessing scientific evidence, the case for ESP has been made. And yet most scientists still refuse to believe the findings, maintaining that ESP simply does not exist. Despite this relentless rejection of their work, parapsychologists such as those at the Koestler unit have ploughed on in search of clinching evidence they hope will convince the scientific community. Some believe it is a waste of time because the reality of ESP has now been put beyond reasonable doubt. Sceptics agree it is fruitless, but on the grounds that since ESP cannot exist, all positive results must be spurious. How has such a split arisen? After all, scientific evidence is supposed to drive everyone towards a single view of reality. Over the years, sociologists and historians have often pointed out the glaring disparity between how science is supposed to work and what really happens. While scientists routinely dismiss these qualms as anecdotal, subjective or plain incomprehensible, the suspicion that there is something wrong with the scientific process itself is well founded. The proof comes from a rigorous mathematical analysis of how evidence alters our belief in a scientific theory. And it is not so easy to write off. Its starting point is a profound result derived independently by the mathematicians Frank Ramsey and Bruno de Finetti in the 1930s. They showed that you can assign a number to the touchy-feely concept of belief using ideas drawn from probability theory. In particular, they proved that your faith in a theory can be quantified objectively on a scale ranging from near 0 for disbelief to near 1 for certainty. They also showed that scientific reasoning is logical provided your beliefs follow a rule known as Bayes's theorem. Widely used in probability theory, Bayes's theorem shows how the chances of an event happening change in light of developments, such as the odds of a horse winning a race given that it won its last one. Ramsey and de Finetti showed that exactly the same rule applies to updating belief in a theory as new evidence comes in. The good news is that their rule is very simple: just take your original level of belief and multiply it by the strength of the new evidence, as captured by the so-called likelihood ratio. This gives the relative probabilities of getting such evidence if the theory is true, compared to if it were false. The likelihood ratio is large if the findings are consistent with theory, thereby boosting your level of belief in it. But there is a nasty surprise lurking in the Ramsey-de Finetti analysis. How do you arrive at that original level of belief? In many scientific studies, there is a wealth of insight and evidence on which people can base their prior level of belief. But in novel or controversial areas of research, such as the paranormal, there isn't. And in those cases, it can only be based on gut feeling, instinct and educated guesses. In other words, it is entirely subjective. [...] While this prompts outrage among defenders of the scientific faith, many working scientists acknowledge that subjectivity plays a big role in their day-to-day thinking. Behind closed doors they routinely dismiss claims for, say, some new link between cancer and diet, simply because they find it implausible. Nor is such prejudice the preserve of the life sciences. Even theoretical physicists routinely resort to subjective arguments to see off awkward results. Hearing that his new theory of special relativity had lost out to rival theories in its first experimental test, Albert Einstein simply brushed the evidence aside, arguing that the other theories were less probable. Whether they realise it or not, scientists' thinking is influenced by Bayesian reasoning, and nowhere is this more apparent than in attitudes towards ESP research. By the standards of conventional science, the weight of evidence is now very impressive, but the scientific community refuses to accept the reality of ESP. Instead, they insist that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. This is the perfect example of Bayesian reasoning. But who decides when an "extraordinary" level of evidence has been reached? It is something that can, and clearly does, mean different things to different people. Ultimately, it is not strength of evidence, or lack of it, that has been at the heart of the controversy over ESP. Yet the response of sceptics has been the same: whatever was responsible for the positive findings, it cannot be ESP. Something else must have happened: some flaw in the experiment, say, or a slip-up in the data analysis. Perhaps even fraud. It is a response that provokes understandable resentment among parapsychologists. They complain that exactly the same approach could be used to reject unwelcome findings in any other field of science. It is too easy, they argue, for critics to dream up endless ways to explain positive ESP findings. Sceptics, meanwhile, insist it is only right to eliminate every alternative explanation before reaching a final conclusion. Bayes's theorem shows that both camps are right. But it also reveals another disturbing fact: wrangling over alternative explanations can never be ended objectively. The reason is that every attempt to test a scientific theory involves a slew of "auxiliary hypotheses" - assumptions made about the design of experiment, the data analysis, and even the mindset of the researchers. For instance, medics confronted with the results of a clinical trial they find implausible routinely check the researchers' affiliations to see if they have a reasons to show the results in a particular light. And perhaps this is justified, given that academic studies funded by industry are more prone to producing positive findings (New Scientist, 1 February 2003, p 8). If the medics do suspect that the research findings are skewed, they will water down their faith in the results no matter how statistically significant they may be. [...] Even so, it is only after all these alternative explanations have been dismissed that researchers can claim their results have been vindicated. Once again, the Ramsey-de Finetti analysis provides a mathematical rule for deciding when it is safe to say that evidence best matches the theory under test, rather than some auxiliary hypothesis. The bad news is that the rule demands estimates for the plausibility of competing explanations, which is again subjective. The worst suspicions of parapsychologists are thus entirely justified. It is impossible to find evidence for ESP that will win round the sceptics. But those who see this as final proof of the futility of parapsychology should ponder this: exactly the same holds true for all scientific research. There are always auxiliary hypotheses, and deciding whether the evidence backs them or the theory being tested is just a matter of judgement. The famous criterion of "falsifiability", the notion that scientific theories can never be proved, only disproved, is therefore a comforting myth. In reality, scientists can (and do) dream up ways to explain away awkward findings. The only difference with parapsychology is that scientists have no qualms about invoking everything from incompetence to grand conspiracy to explain the results. It therefore seems that all that parapsychologists can do is collect ever more evidence, in the hope of gradually persuading more scientists of the reality of ESP. In this, they are appealing to one of the central tenets of the scientific process: that as more evidence builds up, the case for a theory becomes ever stronger. Yet the mathematics of scientific inference reveals even this to be a myth. Bayes's theorem shows that belief in a theory increases with the strength of evidence. Mathematically, this is captured by the likelihood ratio (LR) - the likelihood of getting such evidence if the theory is true, compared to if it were false. So, for example, if the evidence is 10 times as likely to emerge if the theory is true rather than false, the LR is 10, and belief in the theory increases tenfold. If, however, the evidence is twice as likely to emerge if the theory is false, then the LR is 0.5, and the level of belief is halved. All of this is perfectly reasonable - except how do you convert raw data into the all-important LR? The answer is, there is no hard and fast rule. It is yet another occasion for judgement, opinion and educated guesswork. Subjectivity has once more reared its head, and this time it undermines the most cherished principle of the scientific process: that, in the end, the accumulation of evidence ensures the truth will come out. [...] The upshot could hardly be more different from the standard view of the scientific process. Both camps can look at precisely the same raw data and legitimately reach utterly different conclusions, because they have radically different models for the cause of the data. One camp insists that the results are more plausibly caused by of ESP than anything else; the other camp simply does not agree. It gets worse. As the evidence accumulates, the two camps will not only fail to reach consensus but actually be driven further apart - propelled by their different views about the LR. And worst of all, there is no prospect of such a consensus unless the two sides can agree about the cause of the data. [...] From sentience at pobox.com Mon Dec 20 06:26:44 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 01:26:44 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C670A4.2020809@pobox.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > > For an interesting insight in what's going on here (both from me, and > from adamant skeptics like John and Eliezer), take a look at these > extracts from `Opposites detract', by Robert Matthews, visiting reader > in science at Aston University, Birmingham, UK, in New Scientist vol 181 > issue 2438 - 13 March 2004, page 38: > ====================== > [...] > For years, well-designed studies carried out by researchers at respected > institutions have produced evidence for the reality of ESP. The results > are often more impressive than the outcome of clinical drug trials > because they show a more pronounced effect and have greater statistical > significance. What's more, ESP experiments have been replicated and > their results are as consistent as many medical trials - and even more > so in some cases (see Chart). In short, by all the normal rules for > assessing scientific evidence, the case for ESP has been made. And yet > most scientists still refuse to believe the findings, maintaining that > ESP simply does not exist. I should note that I also doubt medical trials that report marginal but statistically significant effects, on the basis that if parapsychologists and exit polls can be so wrong, the standard of proof is not high enough. > Whether they realise it or not, scientists' thinking is influenced by > Bayesian reasoning, and nowhere is this more apparent than in attitudes > towards ESP research. By the standards of conventional science, the > weight of evidence is now very impressive, but the scientific community > refuses to accept the reality of ESP. Instead, they insist that > extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Or to put it another way, extraordinary claims demand large effect sizes. If you've got someone flinging teacups around the room by telekinesis or predicting lottery numbers, that is a far better kind of evidence than a "statistically significant" marginal effect. I have to take into account the publication bias, and the fact that I don't trust psi researchers. More than once, as I said, some amazing result in psi has turned out to be simply faked. I should also note that there are papers on statistically significant marginal effects that show as large of an "anti-psi" effect as a psi effect, or that telekinesis works just as well if the targets are selected after the attempted sensing. I regard that as strong evidence that it is all just bad statistics. Why? Because on the hypothesis of bad statistics, we expect anti-psi just as significant as psi. We expect bogus statistical significance to be unaffected by such manipulations as selecting the targets after the attempted telekinesis takes place. As for attempts to say that it is precognition... good heavens, now you're adding in closed timelike curves? Imagine if Wood had removed the aluminum prism, Blondlot had stared wildly for a moment, and then cried: "Why, N-Rays are focused by a place aluminum prisms have previously been! They must travel through time!" He would have been laughed out of the house, and rightly so. Poor statistics and overactive imaginations are not affected by removing the prism, and that is why anti-psi, and versions of experiments with targets selected afterward, et cetera, still show statistically significant marginal effects. I want reproducibility. I want p<10^-6 - yes, 10^-6. I want useful technologies or macroscopically visible effects. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof: *Statistical significance of weak effects is not good enough*, and I regard psi as an excellent demonstration of this - that the standard tests of academia are too weak to weed out bogus claims. > The famous criterion of "falsifiability", the notion that scientific > theories can never be proved, only disproved, is therefore a comforting > myth. In reality, scientists can (and do) dream up ways to explain away > awkward findings. The only difference with parapsychology is that > scientists have no qualms about invoking everything from incompetence to > grand conspiracy to explain the results. Many past "successful" psi experiments have, *in fact*, been the products of everything from incompetence to grand conspiracy. I have to ask myself what kind of researcher goes to all the effort of getting a Ph.D. in parapsychology without being discouraged. Sure, maybe some of them are honest and competent researchers. Maybe the honest and competent ones report unsuccessful results in minor journals, except that one time out of 20 they achieve a "statistically significant" result by chance. And then there are the researchers who are dishonest, or incompetent, or who hope too much, or who apply ten statistical tests per experiment. We shall hear more from them than from the honest researchers, to be sure. Give me flying teacups! Give me lottery numbers! Claim Randi's prize! Do something *blatant*, and then I'll pay attention. What parapsychologists have demonstrated is that an academic field can subsist on marginal but "statistically significant" effects in the absence of any real subject matter. One does wonder how many other fields are doing the same. Maybe the time has come for the journals of the world to redefine p<0.001 as the statistical significance level - the stronger test wouldn't be strong enough to kill the field of parapsychology, but it would hurt it. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From pgptag at gmail.com Mon Dec 20 06:45:10 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 07:45:10 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Big names back stem-cell plan - California action forces hand in Washington Message-ID: <470a3c5204121922456b87169@mail.gmail.com> A group of prominent scientists, researchers and doctors is teaming up to push for a state law permitting embryonic stem-cell research in Washington. The effort, fueled by concerns that other states are poised to drain away top people and funding from the region's research institutions and biotechnology companies, aims to keep local researchers competitive in a science that many believe will yield cures for diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. "We don't want Washington state to be left behind on stem-cell research by default," said state Rep. Shay Schual-Berke (D-Normandy Park), who intends to be a lead sponsor for the stem-cell bill. The legislator's efforts come largely in reaction to aggressive new programs in other states, especially California, which has voted to pour billions of dollars directly into stem-cell research through its universities and other research institutions. http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2004/12/20/story1.html From hal at finney.org Mon Dec 20 07:26:39 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 23:26:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi Message-ID: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> Michael Kinsley's column this weekend had a tongue in cheek comment about the nature of disagreement: : Like you, I'm sure, I try to be a good sport about the inexplicable : fact that other people sometimes disagree with me. What other choice is : there? The nonsense that other people think is often amazing and always : disappointing -- but at this late date it's not really surprising, : is it? And other people are disappointing in so many ways. What's one : more? For all I know, you yourself may even disagree with me about this : or that, and I may disagree with you about the other. It's everywhere. : : And other people are so stubborn! Possibly unlike you, I actually get : paid to try to convince people that I am right and they are wrong, : and thank goodness I'm not paid on the basis of results. It's almost : enough to make you consider the possibility that other people are right : and you are wrong. Merely considering this possibility is therapeutic, : if you don't make a habit of it. The analysis Damien posted of disagreement about psi on the basis of Bayesian reasoning is OK as far as it goes, but it stops with the assumption that people have different priors. Where did those priors come from? Robin Hanson argues that we shouldn't assume people are born with different priors: we are all descendents of a common ancestor and in that sense we all have the same priors, with our different paths through time and evolution being mere information added to that original set of prior beliefs. We see here a good example of apparent sharp disagreement, between Damien and Eliezer for example; two people who probably respect each other and see each other as making a good faith attempt at being rational in their beliefs. How can they disagree? Doesn't Damien's deep study of the issues lend credibility to his relatively favorable assessment? And yet doesn't Eliezer's reputation for careful reasoning give credit to his own skepticism? Like the irresistable force meeting the immovable object, it's a paradox. It can't happen. One side or the other finally has to say, you're being irrational (or at least think it; they may be too polite to say it out loud). Another possibility is that they don't really disagree as much as they seem to. It could be that if they were forced to come up with a percentage estimate for the probability that psychic powers exist, they wouldn't be that far off. Maybe it is merely a matter of perspective, the glass being half full or half empty. So I'd be interested to hear estimates of the probability, from those who are willing to make a serious, unbiased and rational analysis based on the information available to them, including (of course) knowledge of other people's opinions on the subject. Hal From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 20 07:55:57 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 01:55:57 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> References: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041220014049.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 11:26 PM 12/19/2004 -0800, Hal wrote: >Another possibility is that they don't really disagree as much as >they seem to. It could be that if they were forced to come up with a >percentage estimate for the probability that psychic powers exist, they >wouldn't be that far off. Maybe it is merely a matter of perspective, >the glass being half full or half empty. I doubt it. Eliezer knows the glass is empty, and that in fact there's no glass. I still don't know. The evidence is slippery; some of it is largely masked (apparently) by security classification, but enough is public to make it seem worth pursuing; some is almost as preposterous as Cramer TI quantum theory and nonlocal entanglement. The penumbra of silly beliefs that accretes around psi fanciers turns me off big time, but that will blow away once the mechanism is found and some moderately reliable application is developed. On the other hand, I've been expecting such breakthroughs for some decades now, ever since statistically sophisticated specialists began exploring the paranormal with ever-more carefully designed electronic devices and computerized record-keeping, yet the phenomena do keep shifting and skidding away. But *not*, it seems, in the fashion of misunderstood outliers or of out and out liars. Meanwhile, people I really have no motive to distrust *except* for these declarations affirm that they've witnessed macroscale anomalies apparently associated with unmediated intention. If it ever happens to me, I'll conclude that psi is genuine. By contrast, if I have a flabbergasting mystical experience of the John Wright sort, I'll probably assume that my brain went on the fritz in a most agreeable or Rilkean-terrifying way. I do concur with Eliezer that real evidence will need to be p < 0.001, or less. This is increasingly a view shared by paranormalists like Professor Ertel. Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Mon Dec 20 08:18:56 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 08:18:56 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041220014049.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220014049.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 01:55:57 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > I do concur with Eliezer that real evidence will need to be p < 0.001, or > less. This is increasingly a view shared by paranormalists like Professor > Ertel. > Ertel is well-known to Randi. He has been trying for years to convince people that bits of astrology have a scientific basis (and failed). Then he tried to prove that dowsing really worked by re-examining data and doing really, really, complex statistical analyses that even the original dowsing supporters disagreed with. This attempt also failed. He also apparently thinks Uri Geller is a real psychic !!!!! Now he has gone back to the 1970's (pull a rabbit out of a hat style). His students pick a number one to five, put their hand into a bag, and pull out a table tennis ball (or a pearl), show it to the recorder and put it back in the bag. The possibilities for elementary sleight-of-hand (or other trickery) should be obvious. The students only have to get away with it a few times in each set of 60 trials to show significant results. This type of 'evidence' is worthless. You have to physically separate the guesser from the numbers. If these students actually can predict numbers in advance. then the lottery is a really excellent demonstration of their psi powers. No pressure - nobody is watching - just get the numbers right. No need to try for the Randi prize. BillK From jonkc at att.net Mon Dec 20 08:55:22 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 03:55:22 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com><093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001><41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com><6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com><002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001><6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com><004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <02cc01c4e671$bb5cf1a0$3bee4d0c@hal2001> Some Bozo in New Scientist wrote: > For years, well-designed studies carried out by researchers at > respected institutions have produced evidence for the reality of ESP. Seeing such words in print don't make it so > The results are often more impressive than the outcome of clinical > drug trials Ah., if you look at recent headlines that's not exactly a glowing testimonial. > In short, by all the normal rules for assessing scientific evidence, the > case for ESP has been made. I can say it even shorter, BALONEY. > And yet most scientists still refuse to believe the findings, > maintaining that ESP simply does not exist. That is the exact same song the ESP people have been singing for well over a century and except for the name in all that time absolutely nothing has changed, the evidence sucked then and it sucks now. Look at the letters Arthur Conan Doyle wrote to Harry Houdini, Doyle was complaining scientists were too narrow minded to embrace ESP . Doyle even thought Houdini was using real magic in his act and wouldn't believe him when Houdini insisted he was just an entertainer performing illusions. Sherlock Holmes would have been embarrassed by the naivety his creator. If there was anything to this alleged phenomenon you'd expect it to be at least a little better accepted by now; but if there was nothing to it I'd expect to see exactly what I do see, cranks still love it and science still hates it. Absolutely positively nothing has changed, zip, nada, zilch, zero. > the response of skeptics has been the same: whatever was responsible for > the positive findings, it cannot be ESP. Something else must have > happened: > some flaw in the experiment, say, or a slip-up in the data analysis. > Perhaps even fraud. A fortune teller committing fraud? NEVER! The very idea is inconceivable, and the researchers in this field are always so careful! John K Clark jonkc at att.net From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Mon Dec 20 12:28:53 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 07:28:53 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] How close are we to an iPod that can read ebooks to us? In-Reply-To: <010701c4e61b$d5a062a0$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <010701c4e61b$d5a062a0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: On Dec 19, 2004, at 5:41 PM, Brett Paatsch wrote: > I've been thinking about the success of iPods, the increasing > availability of ebooks, often for free where the books are out of > copyright, and the relative difficulty?of reading in bed?or > comfortably and?conveniently because laptops are still too cumbersome. > ? > I got to wondering what the technical barriers would be now to > producing something like an iPod that could download ebooks and > either, or preferrably both, read the text of those books to people > who are either too lazy to change pages or perhaps because they want > to have their hands free to drive or something else. > ? > This list has quite a few folk that are interested in computer > technology, so my question is, how close are we to getting a > general?text to voice reading technology of a quality such that I as a > reader could choose to?a preferred voice?(maybe Carl Sagan?or someone > doesn't matter who really) to read the text (an ebook)?of my choosing > to me? > ? > I haven't really kept track of?developments in voice recognition for > several years,?and it could be that converting text from ebooks,?is an > easier exercise than?converting joe and jane home pc users?mutterings > into something that?can feed into a wordprocessor. I have been using my Macintosh to read text to me since the 1980's. The voices are much better now than back then. AT&T has a series of natural voices, the kind used on interactive phone menus. They sound real. These can be purchases for Windows and will work with the built-in voices. You can tell it to read any text on your computer. I use these to make tapes to listen to on long commutes or to have my computer read to me. You can output the voice to any standard sound file, such as MP3. I assume you could then download the sound file to an iPod. I think what you want already exists and has for many years. I just wish regular print books were available in electronic formats. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 2381 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pgptag at gmail.com Mon Dec 20 14:15:59 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 15:15:59 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism 666: The Mark of the Beast Message-ID: <470a3c520412200615a0b5b3b@mail.gmail.com> The Economist on the End of the World, mentioning Kurzweil, Rael and The Beast, whose mark is seen by Rapturists in implantable chips and other human enhancement technologies. "Noting an exponential acceleration in the pace of technological change, futurologists like Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil think the world inhabits the "knee of the curve" - a sort of last-days set of circumstances in which, in the near future, the pace of technological change runs quickly away towards an infinite "singularity" as intelligent machines learn to build themselves. From this point, thinks Mr Moravec, transformative "mind fire" will spread in a flash across the cosmos. Britain's astronomer royal, Sir Martin Rees, relegates Mr Kurzweil and those like him to the "visionary fringe". But Mr Rees's own darkly apocalyptic book, "Our Final Hour", outdoes the most colourful of America's televangelists in earthquakes, plagues and other sorts of fire and brimstone." "Furnished with apocalyptic tracts from the Bible, believers scour news dispatches for clues that the Rapture is approaching. Some think implantable chips are a sign. The Book of Revelation features a "mark" that the Antichrist makes everybody wear "in their right hand, or in their foreheads". Rapturists have more than a hobbyist's idle interest in identifying this mark. Anyone who accepts it spends eternity roasting in the sulphurs of hell. (And, incidentally, the European Union may be "the matrix out of which the Antichrist's kingdom could grow.")" http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3490697 From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 20 15:01:50 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 09:01:50 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? Message-ID: <001101c4e6a4$d61a0130$be964c44@kevin> I have been noticing a trend toeards ever smaller payments for smaller and more personalized products and services. The internet has allowed for things such as individual downloads of songs. Many documents such as legal forms used to be able to be had for free via advertising supported income, but that is starting to fall away. Cell phone companies practically give their phones away, but when you get the phone, you buy ring tones, games, and other personalized services. Meanwhile, I have noticed another trend towards toll roads, toll bridges, etc. Pay-per-view television is also growing at an enormous rate. The fee per use market is booming. Newer technologies are making it possible to have payments conveniently deducted from your checking account without ever having to write a check, fill out a form, or carry cash. I was wondering if anyone had followed this through to the future. Does anyone here see a possible future where nearly everything is fee based? Will we be able to get rid of taxes entirely and instead have every trip down every road deducted according to that road's "value". Will that $75 payment for 500 worthless channels in TV become a thing of the past, instead allowing us to pay for each program as we watch it? Will the subscription services fall to the wayside as we are able to conveniently download the news directly to our phones...at a cost? Taking it further, will be be able to pay for each and every military operation as it occurs? Will we eventually be able to control government spending directly by haveing each and every service directly billed to us? Will we be able to help conservation and environmental efforts by having people pay for every trip down a road? Will people then choose to carpool, or simply make fewer trips to the grocery store? I don;t know if this has ever come up here, or if maybe I am just way off the deep end here. It just seems to me that we are on the verge of some really neat ways to fund public projects and change the disposable and wasteful mentality of the average American at the same time. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From es at popido.com Mon Dec 20 15:22:59 2004 From: es at popido.com (Erik Starck) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 16:22:59 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? Message-ID: <200412201522.iBKFMxh1031023@mail-core.space2u.com> On 2004-12-20 Kevin Freels wrote: >I have been noticing a trend toeards ever smaller payments for smaller and more personalized products >and services. Jeremy Rifkin writes about a subscription economy in his book The Age of Access: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1585420824/qid=1103555343/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-1252904-7536761?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 I think that's a more plausible future. For example, it's just a matter of time before the MP3 download sites will be subscription based, and then the movie and TV industry will go the same way (you will subscribe to access to a database of programs/movies). You don't buy a car, you lease it (that is, subscribe to the possibility of using it). Access to internet used to be a pay-per minute fee, now it's a fixed monthly one. Same thing will happen to wireless internet. The book has more examples. I suppose the small fee could be a middle step, but in the end it becomes too expensive to keep track of the purchases and too difficult for the consumer to understand what she pays for. Basically, it takes way too much energy to keep track of all the little expenses. -- Erik S. blog: framtidstanken.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 20 16:00:09 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 08:00:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041220160009.8664.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote:> > It gets worse. As the evidence accumulates, the two camps will not > only fail to reach consensus but actually be driven further apart - > propelled > by their different views about the LR. And worst of all, there is no > prospect of such a consensus unless the two sides can agree about the > cause of the data. ESP isn't the only thing in this arena. Cold fusion research has been piling up impressive results for several years now, results which are irrefutable, in their production of helium isotopes, continuous excess heat, etc. What opposes both of these areas of research is intitutional power, statism, pure and simple. Both areas of research bode ill for the centralization of power: if ESP is eventually developed into a real means of communication, it would be outside the control of the state. If cold fusion puts independent power production in the hands of average individuals, that would put them outside the state's control of the energy industry. Energy, and communications, two areas the state believes it has not only the right, but the ability, to control. These areas of research threaten that control. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do? http://my.yahoo.com From hal at finney.org Mon Dec 20 18:18:09 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 10:18:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? Message-ID: <20041220181809.DB96B57E2F@finney.org> Kevin Freels writes: > I was wondering if anyone had followed this through to the future. Does > anyone here see a possible future where nearly everything is fee based? > Will we be able to get rid of taxes entirely and instead have every trip > down every road deducted according to that road's "value". Will that $75 > payment for 500 worthless channels in TV become a thing of the past, > instead allowing us to pay for each program as we watch it? Will the > subscription services fall to the wayside as we are able to conveniently > download the news directly to our phones...at a cost? It's an interesting idea, and variants have been around for a while. The pre-web Xanadu proposal envisioned an Internet publishing medium based on micropayments, where authors could link to and include other pages but there would be royalty payments and commissions involved. A number of payment systems have been proposed to make micropayments (defined as payments too small to be handled efficiently by existing systems like credit cards) work better. But generally these concepts haven't succeeded. Back in 1996, occasional list member Nick Szabo wrote his analysis of why micropayments wouldn't work: The Mental Accounting Barrier to Micropayments, http://szabo.best.vwh.net/micropayments.html . He argues that it is generally too much work to keep track of whether each tiny action is worth its cost. A classic example was internet access; back then, many companies still charged per minute! People hated it. Today everyone uses a flat fee. Phone calls are moving in the same direction. As Kevin points out, there are some systems today where micropayments are being used successfully, such as the online music download services with songs costing less than a dollar. However other competitors are offering subscription based services where you can listen to as much music as you want for a fixed monthly fee. The catch is that when you discontinue the service, you lose all the songs you've downloaded, unlike iTunes et al where you get to keep your music. It remains to be seen which model will prevail. Micropayments do have advantages in principle. They can be more efficient economically by providing more information about the value of each increment of service. I envision a time when smart agents will assist people with the "mental accounting" that Nick refers to, so that micropayment systems are easier to use. You could have Kevin's universal toll road system, perhaps with charges varying per location and time of day, and some software that would plan your trip given various constraints you put in about total cost and desired time of travel. It would try different routes and times and figure out which was cheapest, like travel agent software programs do today for air travel. This could give us the economic advantages of fine granularity without imposing excessive mental costs on users. Hal From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 20 18:13:09 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 12:13:09 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: References: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220014049.01a72ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041220113932.01a43078@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 08:18 AM 12/20/2004 +0000, BillK wrote: >Ertel is well-known to Randi. He has been trying for years to convince >people that bits of astrology have a scientific basis (and failed). You mean the Gauquelin `Mars' effect? (Unknown to any traditional astrology system.) The one where CSICOP was caught fiddling the data in a lame attempt to falsify their own successful replication? It is to laugh. (I recall Eliezer some years ago citing the sTARbaby scandal as an example of how NOT to do debunking.) http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html >Now he has gone back to the 1970's (pull a rabbit out of a hat style). What hat? What rabbit? Oh, you mean a haptic protocol. Haptic, Bill, not hatic. >His students pick a number one to five, put their hand into a bag, and >pull out a table tennis ball (or a pearl), show it to the recorder and >put it back in the bag. The possibilities for elementary >sleight-of-hand (or other trickery) should be obvious. Mention some examples that Ertel hasn't guarded against. There probably are some. Suppose the students palmed a ball somehow and brought it out again next time? Then there'd be a visible excess of instances where the same number was called twice in a row, the second time correctly. Actually, as Ertel's paper shows, there are slightly *fewer* cases of this happening. I'm sure there are other fail points. Luckily, skeptics don't have to enumerate them because it's *obvious* that they must be in play, since we know without looking that this stuff is such *bullshit*. Unlike, interestingly enough, uploading, cryonics, superhuman AI, time-reversed particle theory, and all those topics also derided by most feet-on-the-ground skeptics. (This is not an argument for psi, just a sociological observation.) >This type of 'evidence' is worthless. You have to physically separate >the guesser from the numbers. It's true that such `evidence' has weaknesses if regarded purely as evidence; Ertel is looking to find regularities in a process he already regards as established. But his argument, which seems plausible, is that clinical lab tests eventually extinguish or suppress the subtle phenomena that experimenters are seeking, while putative ethologically grounded `real world'-style uses of psi (hand reaching for something unseen, becoming aware of a hidden watcher, etc) should be more easily elicited. Obviously this makes any experiment more vulnerable. It's the task of the experimenter to guard against tampering. >If these students actually can predict >numbers in advance. then the lottery is a really excellent >demonstration of their psi powers. Not so, because even Ertel's best subjects don't succeed 100% of the time. Redundancy can in principle concentrate a small effect size, but it starts to get very cumbersome. You can code for six winning Lotto numbers using 23 binary digits, but how many tedious or artfully diverse repetitions are required, given a small effect size, to make identification of each bit perfectly accurate? Answer: a hell of a lot. But this is quibbling, isn't it? If people have `psi powers', they should be able to levitate and see the lottery numbers in dreams whenever they want and read each others' minds like a conversation, shouldn't they? Well, no, actually. Only in the comics. Damien Broderick From wingcat at pacbell.net Mon Dec 20 18:56:48 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 10:56:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <20041220160009.8664.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041220185648.90215.qmail@web81603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mike Lorrey wrote: > Cold fusion > research has been > piling up impressive results for several years now, > results which are > irrefutable, in their production of helium isotopes, > continuous excess > heat, etc. But are they easily reproducible? If not, then even if they really do act as claimed, they're worthless. (And unlike humans, there are no ethical qualms about manufacturing the components - including, say, making sure the molecular structure is correct on the palladium - to optimize for reproducibility.) From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 20 19:34:44 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 11:34:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? In-Reply-To: <20041220181809.DB96B57E2F@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041220193444.20842.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Hal Finney wrote: > Kevin Freels writes: > > I was wondering if anyone had followed this through to the future. > Does > > anyone here see a possible future where nearly everything is fee > based? > > Will we be able to get rid of taxes entirely and instead have every > trip > > down every road deducted according to that road's "value". Will > that $75 > > payment for 500 worthless channels in TV become a thing of the > past, > > instead allowing us to pay for each program as we watch it? Will > the > > subscription services fall to the wayside as we are able to > conveniently > > download the news directly to our phones...at a cost? > > It's an interesting idea, and variants have been around for a while. > The pre-web Xanadu proposal envisioned an Internet publishing medium > based on micropayments, where authors could link to and include other > pages but there would be royalty payments and commissions involved. > A number of payment systems have been proposed to make micropayments > (defined as payments too small to be handled efficiently by existing > systems like credit cards) work better. But generally these concepts > haven't succeeded. I've been proposing similar solutions to the build-out problem that social network sites have, but in using peer-judged user content as currency to purchase greater access to the system. The problems that social network sites have are but a few: a) a tendency to explode in use in countries with poor consumer economies. Users from these economies do not have as high a Q factor for internet advertisers and thus keywords they generate are not worth as much. b) a tendency for users in some countries to treat building a social network as a sort of contest that needs 'winning', thus seeking to become 'friends' with many people that they not only do not know at all, but do not socialize with online at all either, do not know people they know, etc. Brazilians on Orkut, for example, or southeast asians on Friendster. Both of these behaviors result in a lot of users who a) do not generate original content, b) do not build social networks that reflect reality, and thus use up the capacity of the servers of the network without giving value to the provider in the form of marketable keywords, sellable network behavior, or sellable demographic data. Because of this, social networks tend to have a lot of difficulty building out their server farms and bandwidth to provide quality service to users, which is why intermittent site quality is a recurring problem. One solution I've proposed is for such sites to pay users who generate content with invites or other desirable features based on a) the number of sellable keywords, b) the amount of traffic that reads those keywords, and c) the ratings that that traffic might give for the content that contains those keywords. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From eugen at leitl.org Mon Dec 20 21:44:10 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 22:44:10 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] How close are we to an iPod that can read ebooks to us? In-Reply-To: <010701c4e61b$d5a062a0$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <010701c4e61b$d5a062a0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <20041220214410.GK9221@leitl.org> On Mon, Dec 20, 2004 at 09:41:09AM +1100, Brett Paatsch wrote: > Any thoughts? No line wraps. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 20 22:48:53 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 14:48:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <20041220185648.90215.qmail@web81603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041220224853.19379.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > --- Mike Lorrey wrote: > > Cold fusion > > research has been > > piling up impressive results for several years now, > > results which are > > irrefutable, in their production of helium isotopes, > > continuous excess > > heat, etc. > > But are they easily reproducible? If not, then even > if they really do act as claimed, they're worthless. > (And unlike humans, there are no ethical qualms about > manufacturing the components - including, say, making > sure the molecular structure is correct on the > palladium - to optimize for reproducibility.) >From what I've seen in the literature, people who stick to the experiments exactly, and that includes using the same source of the palladium electrodes (the US Navy's top researcher on this has studied the different performance of different sources of palladium) can obtain reproducable results. I remember when the original big rush occured in the late 80's/early90's and schools all over were claiming to be trying to replicate the experiment, but they didn't, really, because they never used the same materials from the same sources. What kind of science is that? Many never used palladium at all. Those that did never pre-treated the palladium to remove hydrogen from its crystalline structure and recharge it with deuterium. Reproducing an experiment requires that you reproduce every element of that experiment. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 20 23:46:36 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 17:46:36 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <41C670A4.2020809@pobox.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C670A4.2020809@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041220172510.01a70ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 01:26 AM 12/20/2004 -0500, Eliezer wrote: >I have to ask myself what kind of researcher goes to all the effort of >getting a Ph.D. in parapsychology without being discouraged. Perhaps the same kind who goes into AI without being discouraged. The kind with ambition to succeed in a task that many deride but which would have very large payoffs. As well, many of these researchers seem impelled by barely submerged spiritual yearnings, especially those who seek evidence of life after death and who theorize dualistic conceptions of the mind/soul. So it goes. Some of those who discover astonishing new things about physics are driven by the urge to find more horrible ways to kill many people; this does not invalidate their results. >Give me flying teacups! This is one of the paradoxes of accumulating knowledge. Alchemists start out seeking ways to turn base metals to gold, and find the secret of eternal youth; they end up paving the way for chemistry, whereupon the old claims and goals are put aside. It's true that there are still parapsychologists avid for floating speaking trumpets, tipping tables and ectoplasm, but they are few. This is not surprising, nor is it a scandal. >Give me lottery numbers! Give me some working AI code! >Claim Randi's prize! Eliezer, I thought you'd read Dennis Rawlins' excoriating essay on the sTARBABY fiasco? Has this portion slipped your mind? (It's a comment that echoes very many I've heard elsewhere.): < As part of this effort Randi asked my advice on the Helmut Schmidt parapsychology experiment which some CSICOPs had been investigating. I simply urged that it be approached with all the caution KZA had thrown to the winds in 1975 and 1976. He assured me how cautious he was in the testing for his well-publicized [then] $10,000 prize for proof of psychic abilities (for which he acts as policeman, judge and jury -- and thus never has supported my idea of neutral judgment of CSICOP tests. "I *always* have an out," he said. > Cambridge Physics Nobelist Brian Josephson recently complained about Randi's use of PR rather than scientific criteria for`failing' a paranormal claimant. I see his point, but have to admit that Randi was justified, since both claimants and Randi always agree in advance of the test to certain canons of success or failure. The claimant achieved her (bizarre) task to the muted tune of p < 0.02, but did not do as well as she'd said she would. Still, Josephson's complaint might be worth a glance (he's also an informed cold fusion fan): http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/propaganda/ How messy these controversies are! If only they were as clear-cut and self-evident as uploading and molecular nanotechnology. Damien Broderick From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Dec 21 00:22:39 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 19:22:39 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041220183523.01e6e1e0@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/20/2004, Damien Broderick quoted from Robert Matthews in New Scientist: >... by all the normal rules for assessing scientific evidence, the case >for ESP has been made. And yet most scientists still refuse to believe the >findings, maintaining that ESP simply does not exist. ... >How do you arrive at that original level of belief? ... subjectivity plays >a big role intheir day-to-day thinking. Behind closed doors they routinely >dismiss claims for, say, some new link between cancer and diet, simply >because they find it implausible. ... There are always auxiliary hypotheses, >and deciding whether the evidence backs them or the theory being tested is >just a matter of judgement. ... Subjectivity ... >undermines the most cherished principle of the scientific process: that, >in the end, the accumulation of evidence ensures the truth will come out. Even given these serious problems, it does seem that eventually the truth will come out. But that is not a vindication of existing academic institutions - the question is whether the truth would come out faster some other way. Complaints about subjectivity in evaluating the support that existing evidence gives hypotheses seem misdirected to me. Far too much goes on inside our minds, relative to our ability to communicate between minds, for us to make explicit all our reasons for all of our beliefs. So of course in the end a lot must come down to non-explicit analyses and judgements. There is no other option. The problem in my opinion is not that subjective judgements are required, but rather the skewed incentives to support standard vs non-standard judgements. I am now old enough to have seen this scenario played out several times: academic insiders have some conventional wisdom, and some group of relative outsiders challenge that conventional wisdom. Sometimes the outsiders are eventually vindicated, and other times they are not. The problem is that even when the outsiders are vindicated, it is the insiders that mostly win. At first the outsiders write, but cannot publish in as prestigious venues, or get as much support. Then at some point some insiders see that the tide will turn, and jump on the new area. (Insiders here are those that went to and teach at the top schools, that know editors at top journals, etc.) Those insiders that first jump are able to publish in the prestigious venues, and get substantial support, in terms or money and smart grad students to do the grunt work. They know the exact style that insiders require, and are invited to write the review articles and give the talks and the media interviews. Their papers will be cited as seminal and they will get the big prizes later. Some acknowledgement may be made of the outsiders earlier contributions, but they will be thought too sloppy, shrill, incomplete, informal, etc. to be considered having made the crucial innovation. Outsiders are often grateful at first, that these insiders have the connections, and lingo, and style, to get their ideas taken seriously. Some outsiders do not realize that they will soon be forgotten - while others are willing to accept this as the price for their ideas to win. Now one very nice feature of this whole system is that good ideas can win - insiders do not very strongly resist better ideas, an in fact can have strong incentives to look around for outside ideas that deserve to win. The main problem is that the insiders have too little incentive to create such ideas and develop them to the point where they can become a new fashion. This task falls to a legion of outsiders ever optimistic about their future fame. In some sense this story is parallel to how innovation in business works. Many fools think that it is enough to just have a good idea, and they send piles of business ideas to venture capitalists. But these VCs are mainly looking for who would be good people to implement some idea, and if it is not the folks who sent in the idea the VCs will happily steal the idea and give it to folks they think could better implement it. So most of the monetary rewards go to those who develop the skills needed to implement good ideas, while those who create good ideas get very little on average for their troubles. My proposed solution is to create betting markets on scientific ideas and on business ideas, so that those with better insight into what ideas will win can at least be rewarded by winning their bets. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Dec 21 00:34:14 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 19:34:14 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> References: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041220192329.02b26428@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/20/2004, Hal Finney wrote: >The analysis Damien posted of disagreement about psi on the basis >of Bayesian reasoning is OK as far as it goes, but it stops with the >assumption that people have different priors. Where did those priors >come from? Robin Hanson argues that we shouldn't assume people are born >with different priors: we are all descendents of a common ancestor and in >that sense we all have the same priors, with our different paths through >time and evolution being mere information added to that original set of >prior beliefs. Well that is one of the arguments we offer in http://hanson.gmu.edu/deceive.pdf but I think a stronger argument is in http://hanson.gmu.edu/prior.pdf >... One side or the other finally has to say, you're being irrational ... And given how common irrationality is, of course this has to be a pretty plausible hypothesis. Unfortunately, irrational people also usually do not admit that they are irrational, and instead think that those they disagree with are irrational. So the question is if really have any reasonable way to tell if it is you or they who is more irrational on this issue. >Another possibility is that they don't really disagree as much as >they seem to. Yes, sometimes people think they disagree when they really do not. But usually deeper probing finds real disagreements, so this can't be the explanation for most disagreement. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From sentience at pobox.com Tue Dec 21 00:39:33 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 19:39:33 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041220172510.01a70ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C670A4.2020809@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220172510.01a70ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C770C5.5070002@pobox.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 01:26 AM 12/20/2004 -0500, Eliezer wrote: > >> I have to ask myself what kind of researcher goes to all the effort of >> getting a Ph.D. in parapsychology without being discouraged. > > Perhaps the same kind who goes into AI without being discouraged. Yes! This is also a severe problem in AI! I went into AI because I thought the fate of the world was at stake, and therefore the problem absolutely had to be solved as early as possible, even if it seemed impossibly difficult. Even if the solution were 30 years off, I thought, I had to start immediately, for the sake of a hundred and fifty thousand souls annihilated each day. And therefore *despite* my realization that AI was huge and scary and incredibly hard to solve, I stuck with the problem, kept learning and studying and thinking, long enough to realize that there were big powerful solutions to match the big powerful problems. But why would *other* students, non-Singularitarians, still tackle the task of AGI after coming to that preliminary apprehension of the mountainous difficulty of the problem? Maybe the field scares off most researchers who are not massively overconfident. And they would take their tiny programs, and praise them to the stars, and to the media. And AI would acquire a poor reputation for overhyped promises, and a habit of inflating small techniques out of all proportion. I think, Damien, that a good part of the pathology of AI academia, is due to all the smart *non-overconfident* people having been scared away by a very scary-looking problem. Why *would* anyone tackle a problem that huge, this early, if they lacked the belief that the fate of the world at stake? >> Give me lottery numbers! > > Give me some working AI code! Hey, I'm not the one claiming to have already demonstrated statistically reliable reproducible precognition in the laboratory. Why *isn't* it straightforward, given a couple of thousand Ss, to produce winning lottery numbers? According to the claims made by the parapsychology researchers, they should easily be able to predict the winning Mega Ball. Having demonstrated this on a small scale, or bought ten thousand $2 winner tickets for a dollar apiece, it would be easy enough to scale up to a number of subjects that would let them predict the entire lottery number. Especially if they used an error-correcting code in the presentation of the coded Rhine cards to the Ss, who of course would not be told about the technological application of their precognition. (You can buy Mega Millions tickets 15 minutes before the deadline. Source: http://www.megamillions.com/aboutus/lottery_faq.asp) But, ooh, somehow I can predict that the phenomenon will mysteriously vanish as soon as we apply it to anything worthwhile! The thing about *real* statistically significant but small effects, Damien, is that they *don't* go away as soon as someone thinks up a good technological application. >> Claim Randi's prize! > > Eliezer, I thought you'd read Dennis Rawlins' excoriating essay on the > sTARBABY fiasco? Has this portion slipped your mind? (It's a comment > that echoes very many I've heard elsewhere.): True. I withdraw the above comment about Randi's Prize, and apologize. I knew better, but I got caught up in the heat of the argument. But, based on the claims made so far, with all the strength you attribute to their statistics, the parapsychologists should easily be able to win the lottery. If nothing else, they should be able to easily double their money by predicting the Mega Ball in the Mega Millions lottery. Real effects don't get smaller when you try to replicate them and then vanish entirely when you try to apply them in the real world. > Cambridge Physics Nobelist Brian Josephson recently complained about > Randi's use of PR rather than scientific criteria for`failing' a > paranormal claimant. I see his point, but have to admit that Randi was > justified, since both claimants and Randi always agree in advance of the > test to certain canons of success or failure. The claimant achieved her > (bizarre) task to the muted tune of p < 0.02, but did not do as well as > she'd said she would. Still, Josephson's complaint might be worth a > glance (he's also an informed cold fusion fan): p < 0.02? I bet Randi has been through this more than 50 times. He was foolish to permit 5 hits out of 7 as confirmation, merely p < 0.005. If he keeps that up, he's going to end up with egg on his face after 200 tries. I'm glad I don't have money riding on the Prize. Maybe Randi has (unforgivably) resorted to shenanigans to avoid paying, but *if so*, it's no wonder to me because he's declaring unsustainably low standards of proof. Two wrongs don't make a right, obviously - it's just more reason to be wary of the Randi Prize as purported evidence. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Tue Dec 21 01:00:54 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 12:00:54 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi References: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> Message-ID: <02e401c4e6f8$86431e40$b8232dcb@homepc> From: ""Hal Finney"" > The analysis Damien posted of disagreement about psi on the basis > of Bayesian reasoning is OK as far as it goes, but it stops with the > assumption that people have different priors. Where did those priors > come from? Robin Hanson argues that we shouldn't assume people are born > with different priors: we are all descendents of a common ancestor and in > that sense we all have the same priors, with our different paths through > time and evolution being mere information added to that original set of > prior beliefs. > > We see here a good example of apparent sharp disagreement, between > Damien and Eliezer for example; two people who probably respect each > other and see each other as making a good faith attempt at being rational > in their beliefs. > How can they disagree? They can seem to disagree simply by not having the same degree of committment to the issue under consideration. Eliezer seems to have set the threshold for the sort of evidence that he would require to be so high that its not likely to be forthcoming. He also seems influenced by having explored the terrain a bit before and having encountered fakes which is kind of annoying when it wastes time. I think ultimately Eliezer is protecting his time. He has a valid standpoint but not the only one. Damien on the other hand seems to be more willing in this case to accept a lower standard of evidence and to recognize that scepticism to be a virtue needs to be applied evenhandedly, or its not scepticism its just another sort of conservatism or bias. He can see, I think, the irony of cryonicists and friendly ai researchers almost beating up on another bunch of minority viewpoint holders with arguments that could be easily turned back on those that are making them. I can think of reasons why Damien might be more willing to spend time allowing lower standards of evidence to impress him than in this case than Eliezer. Damien is a writer. An understanding of where psi could be real and not conflict with science could help him write interesting books. Both Eliezer and Damien are in my opinion, rational, informed about the scientific method and genuine truthseekers but they are not equally interested in shining the light on the same yet to be illuminated spots. Both would loose interest in a conversation pretty quickly if they thought they were conversing with people that were not pretty rational. >Doesn't Damien's deep study of the issues lend credibility to his >relatively favorable assessment? Yes, for me, some. > And yet doesn't Eliezer's reputation for careful reasoning give credit > to his own skepticism? Generally, but Eliezer seems to have blind spots. > Like the irresistable force meeting the immovable > object, it's a paradox. It can't happen. One side or the other finally > has to say, you're being irrational (or at least think it; they may be > too polite to say it out loud). I don't think this is right. I think that Damien and Eliezer are simply managing uncertainty differently with respect to this topic. > Another possibility is that they don't really disagree as much as > they seem to. I think this is so. > It could be that if they were forced to come up with a > percentage estimate for the probability that psychic powers exist, they > wouldn't be that far off. That would be interesting but I don't know that either would be willing to assign probabilities to classes as wide as "psychic powers". Without wrestling with what "psychic powers" could mean specifically I think both would be reluctant to just guess. Maybe Eliezer would pretend to start with a rough idea that theres a 50/50 chance and then rapidly bring in "evidence" to knock the chances down such that it became harder for "psychic powers" to be given credence. Maybe Damien would do what I'd do and start with the idea that if some psychic powers of any strength could exists then the probability is greater than zero but unclear and work from there bringing in evidence. I don't know. > Maybe it is merely a matter of perspective, > the glass being half full or half empty. So I'd be interested to > hear estimates of the probability, from those who are willing to make > a serious, unbiased and rational analysis based on the information > available to them, including (of course) knowledge of other people's > opinions on the subject. I'd be interested to see Damien and Eliezer try to come up with a way to agree thats rational and would allow exploration to continue. I'm curious to see if your notion of Robins ideas about priors helps. I suspect Eliezer would be reluctant to play along with this because he'd not want to spend the time. This is an area more interesting to Damien. I don't mean to psychoanalyse either Eliezer or Damien. I do agree with you Hal and apparently Robin, that this sort of apparently disagreement between rational people is interesting and I am interested in seeing if ways can be found to make progress using this as an instance of a wider class of phenomenon. Brett Paatsch From Walter_Chen at compal.com Tue Dec 21 01:24:36 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 09:24:36 +0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA40685F4@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: Robin Hanson > ... > My proposed solution is to create betting markets on scientific ideas and on > business ideas, so that those with better insight into what ideas will win can > at least be rewarded by winning their bets. I bet human beings can invent a device to amplify the psi capability so that psi becomes useful (such as in communication). ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Dec 21 01:56:37 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 19:56:37 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <41C770C5.5070002@pobox.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C670A4.2020809@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220172510.01a70ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C770C5.5070002@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041220194631.019b3a40@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 07:39 PM 12/20/2004 -0500, Eliezer wrote: >Why *isn't* it straightforward, given a couple of thousand Ss, to produce >winning lottery numbers? I believe it would be. But wait. How would you propose to get hold of a couple of thousand *pre-screened, high-scoring* Ss? Some sort of glitzy TV show trawl, maybe. (Ever tried to set one of those up?) I used to have high hopes for the web, but plinking away from one link to the next while babbling instant messages (as most people seem to do on-line) is probably not the optimal environment for psi, or for writing great music or great code. I tried to cut through all this by looking at millions of votes actually cast by punters, moderately motivated; the very largest deviations from chance were remarkably associated with winning numbers, but by and large my expectation was falsified. If I'd been permitted to have access to many more weekly draw results I'd have gone further, using my first results as a probe, but the lottery owners came to their senses and shut me down. Too bad, so sad. When someone well-placed and with heaps of grant money finally does it, I might get a small footnote. Damien Broderick From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Tue Dec 21 02:07:12 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 13:07:12 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Betting Markets References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041220183523.01e6e1e0@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <030201c4e701$c9049200$b8232dcb@homepc> Robin Hanson wrote: > My proposed solution is to create betting markets on scientific > ideas and on business ideas, so that those with better insight > into what ideas will win can at least be rewarded by winning > their bets. I am an analyst that prefers to analyse interesting problems rather than mundane ones but I need to get paid for doing what I want to do in order to keep doing it. If there was a futures market where I could pit my judgement and analytical skills against others then I could effectively get paid for performance so long as some folk who are bullish on transhuman tech are willing to put their money where their mouths are. Currently there isn't sufficient incentive for me to spend the time critiquing some of the more interesting ideas that are held up in transhumanist circles. And I would just be an instance of a class. This means the ideas don't get the criticism they could to winnow out the good from the bad and accelerate the develpoment and implementation of the better ones If you can build a real money market, I'll come, and I'll bet, because the process of betting will reward me for doing analysis well. And whenever I have to pay I will pay for a lesson well learnt and financially empower someone I'd be happy to empower. I could use the market to hedge risk. I could use the market to aggitate to get big mouths both bears and bulls to put up or shut up. I can imagine the Smalley, Drexler debate being radically recast and progress accelerated if scientists (and analysts) had a better financial reason for joining it. What's the main problem at present? Is it that such markets can't be easily implemented without running awry of gambling laws? Regards, Brett Paatsch From sentience at pobox.com Tue Dec 21 02:48:37 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 21:48:37 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041220194631.019b3a40@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C670A4.2020809@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220172510.01a70ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C770C5.5070002@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220194631.019b3a40@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C78F05.3000006@pobox.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 07:39 PM 12/20/2004 -0500, Eliezer wrote: > >> Why *isn't* it straightforward, given a couple of thousand Ss, to >> produce winning lottery numbers? > > I believe it would be. But wait. How would you propose to get hold of a > couple of thousand *pre-screened, high-scoring* Ss? Some sort of glitzy > TV show trawl, maybe. (Ever tried to set one of those up?) If you can get 30% right answers instead of 20% right answers on a 1-in-5 problem, and you use an error-correcting code, you should be able to solve a 1-in-52 problem with 90% reliability using... um... damn, this should be simple. Hold on a second. Okay. Each answer starts out with prior odds of 1:51. We need posterior odds of 9:1. It follows that we need a likelihood ratio that favors the correct answer over each of the incorrect answers by 459:1. If we split up the lottery problem into many 1-in-5 problems using a decent code, then each right sign has a 30% chance of yielding that correct answer, and each incorrect sign has a 17.5% chance of yielding that incorrect answer. So each extra answer piled onto the correct sign, over and above that piled onto other signs, is worth .7 bits. log2(459) = 8.84. So we need an excess of 12 correct answers. To get this, we must ask 96 questions. I'm not sure I did the math correctly, but as Brett Pattsch points out, I'm not willing to spend that much time on it. Anyway, unreliable hurried back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that you ought to be able to select the right Mega Ball with 90% probability by asking 96 prescreened subjects, *or fewer* if you can ask them multiple questions. In fact, you ought to be able to reliably double your money in the Mega Millions lottery by asking twelve prescreened psychics for eight predictions on a 1-in-5 problem. For example, you might show them a matrix of eight boxes to be filled in with guesses, each set of signs visually different for each box, with the complete solution to be visually presented 20 minutes later. How much do you bet that if parapsychologists ran this experiment in some harmless, innocuous form that didn't involve predicting lottery numbers, why, they would report 30% correct answers instead of the expected 20%? Yet if we concede that the technology works, you can reliably double your money on the Mega Millions lottery. *Somehow*, I bet that the technique that worked so reliably in the laboratory will fail on this new problem. If you really believe in this, you ought to be able to write a Java applet that would ask people to guess signs to be presented 20 minutes later, screen the guessers, and then ask for the final lottery-critical digit at the appropriate time. You'd just need 96 post-screened subjects to guess one sign, or 12 screened subjects to guess 8 signs. Of course I may have made a mistake in the math. It's free money. FREEEE MONEEEEY! > I used to > have high hopes for the web, but plinking away from one link to the next > while babbling instant messages (as most people seem to do on-line) is > probably not the optimal environment for psi, or for writing great music > or great code. I tried to cut through all this by looking at millions of > votes actually cast by punters, moderately motivated; the very largest > deviations from chance were remarkably associated with winning numbers, > but by and large my expectation was falsified. If I'd been permitted to > have access to many more weekly draw results I'd have gone further, > using my first results as a probe, but the lottery owners came to their > senses and shut me down. Too bad, so sad. When someone well-placed and > with heaps of grant money finally does it, I might get a small footnote. You actually tried to investigate this? I concede ten bonus respect points. *However*, I'm still not shifting my focus of attention to psi until you actually do win the lottery. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Dec 21 02:49:54 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 20:49:54 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Moravec in SciAm Jan 05 Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041220204103.01b08ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Hans Moravec's robotics company (Seegrid Corp., founded in 2003) features in a Jan 2005 Scientific American profile, along with a pic of him looking Teutonically visionary and sort of digital on the contents page. From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Dec 21 03:11:11 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 22:11:11 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Betting Markets In-Reply-To: <030201c4e701$c9049200$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <093101c4e2d7$81f4da10$61ff4d0c@hal2001> <41C08F88.5070900@neopax.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041215134218.019d26b8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <002201c4e3b7$fbd66a70$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041216160438.01a13ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041220183523.01e6e1e0@mail.gmu.edu> <030201c4e701$c9049200$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041220214438.02af1cc8@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/20/2004, Brett Paatsch wrote: >If there was a futures market where I could pit my judgement >and analytical skills against others then I could effectively get paid >for performance so long as some folk who are bullish on transhuman >tech are willing to put their money where their mouths are. ... >If you can build a real money market, I'll come, and I'll bet, because >the process of betting will reward me for doing analysis well. ... >I can imagine the Smalley, Drexler debate being radically recast >and progress accelerated if scientists (and analysts) had a better >financial reason for joining it. >What's the main problem at present? Is it that such markets can't >be easily implemented without running awry of gambling laws? Yes, that is the first big hurdle. After that, then you can make money to the extent that others are fool enough to think they know more than they do, and you can resist that failing. Beyond that, one might get some of the donations now given to bigshots in the name of promoting progress, to instead subsidize such markets, which might better accomplish that goal. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From hal at finney.org Tue Dec 21 03:41:09 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 19:41:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Smart Drugs in LA Times Message-ID: <20041221034109.7E36057E2F@finney.org> The LA Times has a story today about smart drugs, http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-smartdrugs20dec20.story . They talk about Provigil, Ritalin and Aricept, as well as other drugs which are expected to come out in the next few years. The article characterizes these drugs as "Botox for the mind", suggesting that as baby boomers get into their 50s and beyond they will start using these drugs to maintain their mental sharpness. Generally it takes a favorable view towards the practice and suggests that smart drugs will soon be a routine part of American life. Even students are expected to benefit; in fact the article describes the widespread use of Ritalin while taking the MCAT (for medical school admissions). All in all it was an amazingly favorable presentation from a mainstream source. Hal From wingcat at pacbell.net Tue Dec 21 07:33:17 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 23:33:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Betting Markets In-Reply-To: <030201c4e701$c9049200$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <20041221073317.91934.qmail@web81601.mail.yahoo.com> --- Brett Paatsch wrote: > What's the main problem at present? Is it that such > markets can't > be easily implemented without running awry of > gambling laws? No - there are "idea futures" markets around, and they can be run for real money legally if you get the right approvals (or, at least, get the regulators to say in writing, "you'worth shutting down right now"). It seems that they're still catching on, though. See, for example, http://hanson.gmu.edu/ideafutures.html From pharos at gmail.com Tue Dec 21 09:23:26 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 09:23:26 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <41C78F05.3000006@pobox.com> References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C670A4.2020809@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220172510.01a70ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C770C5.5070002@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220194631.019b3a40@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C78F05.3000006@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 21:48:37 -0500, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > *However*, I'm still not shifting my focus of attention to psi until you > actually do win the lottery. > SKEPTIC PITIED Fayetteville man reluctant to embrace the unverifiable from www.theonion.com FAYETTEVILLE, AR?Craig Schaffner, 46, a Fayetteville-area computer consultant, has earned the pity of friends and acquaintances for his tragic reluctance to embrace the unverifiable, sources reported Monday. [image] Above: The tragically skeptical Schaffner. "I honestly feel sorry for the guy," said neighbor Michael Eddy, 54, a born-again Christian. "To live in this world not believing in a higher power, doubting that Christ died for our sins ? that's such a sad, cynical way to live. I don't know how he gets through his day." Coworker Donald Cobb, who spends roughly 20 percent of his annual income on telephone psychics and tarot-card readings, similarly extended his compassion for Schaffner. "Craig is a really great guy," Cobb said. "It's just too bad he's chosen to cut himself off from the world of the paranormal, restricting himself to the limited universe of what can be seen and heard and verified through empirical evidence." Also feeling pity for Schaffner is his former girlfriend Aimee Brand, a holistic and homeopathic healer who earns a living selling tonics and medicines diluted to one molecule per gallon in the belief that the water "remembers" the curative properties of the medication. "Don't get me wrong ? logic and reason have their place," Brand said. "But Craig fails to recognize the danger of going too far with medical common sense to the exclusion of alternative New Age remedies like chakra cleansing and energy-field realignment." Eddy said he has tried repeatedly to pull Schaffner back from the precipice of lucidity. "I admit, science might be great for curing diseases, exploring space, cataloguing the natural phenomena of our world, saving endangered species, extending the human lifespan, and enriching the quality of that life," Eddy said. "But at the end of the day, science has nothing to tell us about the human soul, and that's a critical thing Craig is missing. I would hate for his soul to be lost forever because of a stubborn doubt over the actual existence and nature of that soul." Gina Hitchens, a lifelong astrology devotee, blamed Schaffner's lack of faith on an accident of birth. "Craig can't entirely help himself, being a Gemini," Hitchens said. "Geminis are always very skeptical and destined to feel pain throughout life as a result of their closed-mindedness. If you try to introduce Craig to anything even remotely made-up, he starts going off about 'evidence this' and 'proof that.' If only the poor man were open-minded enough to stop attacking everything with his brain and just once look into his heart, he'd find all the proof he needed. But, sadly, he's unable to let even a little bit of imagination drive his core beliefs." Perhaps the person who pities Schaffner most is his brother Frank, a practicing Scientologist since 1991. "It's bad enough when someone has the ignorance to reject Dianetics in spite of its tremendous popularity," Frank said. "But Craig isn't even willing to try a free introductory course. Scientology has the potential to free humanity from the crippling yoke of common sense, unshackling billions from the chains of century after century of scientific precedent, and yet he still won't give it a try." "I realize that Craig seems very happy with his narrow little common-sense-based worldview," Frank continued, "but when you think of all the widely embraced beliefs that are excluded by that way of thinking, you have to feel kind of sad." ;) BillK From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Tue Dec 21 10:31:32 2004 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 11:31:32 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? In-Reply-To: <001101c4e6a4$d61a0130$be964c44@kevin> References: <001101c4e6a4$d61a0130$be964c44@kevin> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Kevin Freels wrote: >I was wondering if anyone had followed this through >to the future. Does anyone here see a possible future >where nearly everything is fee based? There's some Philip Dick novel out there where all doors require $0.25 to open. Not really the best place to live :-) Alfio From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Dec 21 11:29:40 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 03:29:40 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> References: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> Message-ID: <9A847C4C-5343-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> On Dec 19, 2004, at 11:26 PM, Hal Finney wrote: > > The analysis Damien posted of disagreement about psi on the basis > of Bayesian reasoning is OK as far as it goes, but it stops with the > assumption that people have different priors. Where did those priors > come from? Robin Hanson argues that we shouldn't assume people are > born > with different priors: we are all descendents of a common ancestor and > in > that sense we all have the same priors, with our different paths > through > time and evolution being mere information added to that original set of > prior beliefs. How is going all the way back to our common ancestor actually meaningful for establishing whether we have in common a set of priors actually relevant to the subject at hand? Surely not every prior encountered starting with that common root is relevant to whether ESP exists. I get suspicious when I see this long a stretch for an argument. > > We see here a good example of apparent sharp disagreement, between > Damien and Eliezer for example; two people who probably respect each > other and see each other as making a good faith attempt at being > rational > in their beliefs. How can they disagree? Doesn't Damien's deep study > of the issues lend credibility to his relatively favorable assessment? > And yet doesn't Eliezer's reputation for careful reasoning give credit > to his own skepticism? Actually, neither of these things is directly relevant. Both of them make the discussion more likely to be worth our while to follow though. > Like the irresistable force meeting the immovable > object, it's a paradox. It can't happen. One side or the other > finally > has to say, you're being irrational (or at least think it; they may be > too polite to say it out loud). It is not really a paradox. Their degree understanding of the facts of the matter and their degree of rationality leads them to different conclusions on this subject. It is possible that one of them errs more in either of these areas or even that they both error rather equally but along different vectors. The argument that it is a paradox if we have disagreement among rational thinkers assumes both perfect rationality and a perfect understanding of sufficient relevant information. Neither of these is likely to be an absolute. There is thus neither an irresistible force nor an immovable object present to fret over. - samantha From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Dec 21 11:42:56 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 06:42:56 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: <9A847C4C-5343-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> References: <20041220072639.F322A57E2F@finney.org> <9A847C4C-5343-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041221064027.02b8e6d8@mail.gmu.edu> At 06:29 AM 12/21/2004, Samantha Atkins responded to Hal Finney: >... The argument that it is a paradox if we have disagreement among >rational thinkers assumes both perfect rationality and a perfect >understanding of sufficient relevant information. Neither of these is >likely to be an absolute. There is thus neither an irresistible force >nor an immovable object present to fret over. You may be familiar with an argument that makes these two assumptions, but the argument that Hal and I have in mind does not. See: http://hanson.gmu.edu/deceive.pdf Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From pgptag at gmail.com Tue Dec 21 11:54:18 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 12:54:18 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Fwd: Artificial General Intelligence Research - Help Wanted In-Reply-To: <41C83BE0.8020101@cogical.com> References: <41C83BE0.8020101@cogical.com> Message-ID: <470a3c5204122103546e8603f1@mail.gmail.com> --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Hart Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 07:06:08 -0800 Subject: [futuretag] Artificial General Intelligence Research - Help Wanted To: futuretag at yahoogroups.com Hi All, AGIRI (the Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute) is pleased to launch a new drive to raise $80,000 dedicated to pure AGI research with a specific goal: to complete the next major milestone of Novamente development by the end of 2005. Milestone M10, shown in the Novamente Development Roadmap, is the deployment of a Novamente system specialized to control an embodied agent, interacting linguistically and "physically" with other agents and objects in a simulated world. For more information on the project, see the AGI-SIM Development Plan. AGIRI is also seeking capable programmers, for both volunteer and paid positions. We believe that upon completion of the AGI-SIM project, AGIRI will be well-poised to raise the larger-dollar research funding needed to move Novamente quickly toward its longer-term AGI goals. The AGI-SIM application of Novamente may also open up new commercial possibilities, for instance in the area of partnerships with firms developing mobile robotics technology. For more information about Novamente, see the new concise but deep single-page description located at the AGIRI home page, and the eight-page technical paper at Novamente: An Integrative Architecture for General Intelligence. A new series of books that will describe Novamente's conceptual and technical under-pinnings in great detail is due for publication in 2005. Read more about fundraising at AGIRI on the contributions page. Best Regards, from all of us at AGIRI -- AGIRI Team http://agiri.org From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 21 16:30:36 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:30:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041221163036.57722.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> --- Alfio Puglisi wrote: > On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Kevin Freels wrote: > > >I was wondering if anyone had followed this through > >to the future. Does anyone here see a possible future > >where nearly everything is fee based? > > There's some Philip Dick novel out there where all doors require > $0.25 to open. Not really the best place to live :-) It should be noted that you can make any utopia into a distopia if you charge too much to live there. One might say that absolute cost of living in all respects defines the plenum over which utopias and distopias are the extremes. $0.25 to use a door is distopic, except for those that appreciate the riff-raff being kept outside... ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Tue Dec 21 16:50:50 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:50:50 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? References: <001101c4e6a4$d61a0130$be964c44@kevin> Message-ID: <008b01c4e77d$3acbcea0$be964c44@kevin> Now that depends on the actual cost of opening the door though, doesn't it? If I lost $.50 of heating cost every time someone opened my door, I might well want to charge $.25. Especially if people that frequently open the door have no real reason to do so over and over again. :-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alfio Puglisi" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 4:31 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? > On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Kevin Freels wrote: > > >I was wondering if anyone had followed this through > >to the future. Does anyone here see a possible future > >where nearly everything is fee based? > > There's some Philip Dick novel out there where all doors require $0.25 to > open. Not really the best place to live :-) > > Alfio > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Tue Dec 21 16:57:19 2004 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 17:57:19 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? In-Reply-To: <008b01c4e77d$3acbcea0$be964c44@kevin> References: <001101c4e6a4$d61a0130$be964c44@kevin> <008b01c4e77d$3acbcea0$be964c44@kevin> Message-ID: That's assuming that the $.25 is going to you, not to the door manufacturer. If I remember correctly, you had to pay your own door to get out the house, or maybe in. So if you spent your last quarter at the bar, your home heating will be fine, but you'll suffer the cold anyway :-) In Douglas Adams' books, instead, doors are so happy to help humans that they loudly express their satisfaction every time they (automatically, of course) open for you. Actually I'm not sure of what's worse. Alfio On Tue, 21 Dec 2004, Kevin Freels wrote: >Now that depends on the actual cost of opening the door though, doesn't it? >If I lost $.50 of heating cost every time someone opened my door, I might >well want to charge $.25. Especially if people that frequently open the door >have no real reason to do so over and over again. :-) > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Alfio Puglisi" >To: "ExI chat list" >Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 4:31 AM >Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] A nickel and dime economy? > > >> On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Kevin Freels wrote: >> >> >I was wondering if anyone had followed this through >> >to the future. Does anyone here see a possible future >> >where nearly everything is fee based? >> >> There's some Philip Dick novel out there where all doors require $0.25 to >> open. Not really the best place to live :-) >> >> Alfio >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Dec 21 17:33:17 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 11:33:17 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C670A4.2020809@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220172510.01a70ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C770C5.5070002@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220194631.019b3a40@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C78F05.3000006@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041221112800.019cbd90@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:23 AM 12/21/2004 +0000, BillK fwd'd: >SKEPTIC PITIED >Fayetteville man reluctant to embrace the unverifiable > >from www.theonion.com That's hilarious! In case anyone was wondering, BTW, I haven't lost my mind; I agree entirely with the thrust of that amusing satire. Although (he added heavily), I'd probably change `unverifiable' to something like `publicly untestable' or even, at a pinch, that good old Popperian standby, `unfalsifiable'. Damien Broderick From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Dec 21 20:36:44 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 12:36:44 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism 666: The Mark of the Beast In-Reply-To: <470a3c520412200615a0b5b3b@mail.gmail.com> References: <470a3c520412200615a0b5b3b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <07723994-5390-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> I wonder how many of us do believe, as I do, that humanity is at a very important crossroads. Our science and technology has brought us to the point where our natural proclivities and desires are both magnified in their effects and capable of being satisfied on a scale undreamt of not long ago and largely undreamt of by the many even now. It is doubtless an overly simplistic view, but the world often seems to have roughly two choices as to its immediate destiny. On the one hand we can attempt to proceed more or less as we normally do in how our institutions, our economic and political activities and so on are structured, and perhaps most importantly in our fundamental assumptions about what is possible and reasonable in the world and just what is possible for us. I also believe, as I think most of us do, that our accelerating level of technological sophistication brings many of these assumptions into question. To name one relatively key assumption, the assumption of fundamental scarcity may well be a major driver in our institutions and interactions that turns out to be a false assumption given say, full MNT. If we are bound by the old assumption though we will fight against the creation of a world scene that actually embodies abundance instead of scarcity. We will continuously reinvent scarcity, cling to it, and strive to protect institutions and practices developed for operating under scarcity. We will even see the harbingers of greater abundance in each area, such as increasingly open and copious flow of information today, as evils to be stopped or shackled. I also hold to the notion that our increasingly accelerated technological means in service to an outdated set of assumptions and methodologies will lead to great chaos and oppression, perhaps so great as to be truly apocalyptic in the most negative sense. On the other hand, if we can adapt our institutions and our very selves to the possibilities of great abundance, of unlimited life spans, of the free flow of information and computational resources to all people we could well see a relative paradise on this earth and fairly quickly. The great rub is we ourselves. It is not at all clear how much and to what degree we can get out of our own way. This is more than a matter of simple desire to do so. Our very evolutionary programming places some limits on how much we can change how quickly to adapt to circumstances quite different than those we evolved to handle. We do not yet know what those limits are. One of the mistakes made by every utopian vision of the future is to assume too much malleability of human beings and by extension, our institutions. I am of the opinion that humanity is in the process of making deeply fundamental choices that will effect the destiny of this species. It depends on my current level of optimism and unbounded hope what I believe is the extent of the upside. It depends on my current level of cynicism, despair and being appalled at the news of today how utterly awful I think the opposite outcomes are likely to be. Apocalyptic movements and thinking are thus in my view a manifestation of quite real decision points at this time in human history. Dressing them up into fights between Good and Evil and Light and Dark Powers is not helpful. But just because we can look askance at many such movements past and present does not mean that we do not have very fundamental decision points that are ours to traverse. The ridiculousness of many of these movements does not mean that our own decisions and actions will not have truly epic import to the future of our species. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Dec 21 20:56:47 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 12:56:47 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi In-Reply-To: References: <200412131943.iBDJh5011123@tick.javien.com> <017d01c4e45e$f6f1b170$99ee4d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041217114504.01ac4520@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <004901c4e527$bcda39c0$b3f34d0c@hal2001> <6.1.1.1.0.20041219233226.019a1c28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C670A4.2020809@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220172510.01a70ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C770C5.5070002@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041220194631.019b3a40@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C78F05.3000006@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Dec 21, 2004, at 1:23 AM, BillK wrote: > > "Craig can't entirely help himself, being a Gemini," Hitchens said. > "Geminis > are always very skeptical and destined to feel pain throughout life as > a > result of their closed-mindedness. If you try to introduce Craig to > anything > even remotely made-up, he starts going off about 'evidence this' and > 'proof > that.' If only the poor man were open-minded enough to stop attacking > everything with his brain and just once look into his heart, he'd find > all > the proof he needed. But, sadly, he's unable to let even a little bit > of > imagination drive his core beliefs." > > Ah. No wonder I doubted mysticism despite my own mystical experiences. I'm a double Gemini! I am not only skeptical but skeptical regarding my skepticism. :-) - samantha From eugen at leitl.org Tue Dec 21 22:10:34 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 23:10:34 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] How close are we to an iPod that can read ebooks to us? In-Reply-To: References: <010701c4e61b$d5a062a0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <20041221221034.GY9221@leitl.org> On Mon, Dec 20, 2004 at 07:28:53AM -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > I have been using my Macintosh to read text to me since the 1980's. Oh yeah, the Amiga SPEAK: device. > The voices are much better now than back then. AT&T has a series of > natural voices, the kind used on interactive phone menus. They sound Lots of commercial products, hardware boxes included: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=speech+synthesizer&btnG=Search > real. These can be purchases for Windows and will work with the > built-in voices. You can tell it to read any text on your computer. I > use these to make tapes to listen to on long commutes or to have my I wish a had a longer commute... my dead tree backlog is not getting any shorter. > computer read to me. You can output the voice to any standard sound > file, such as MP3. I assume you could then download the sound file to > an iPod. I think what you want already exists and has for many years. > > I just wish regular print books were available in electronic formats. http://safari.ora.com http://www.google.com/search?q=bookwarez&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official For everything else there are scanners (new ones allow few s scan/page, with an edge not destroying book binding) and OCR. If you scan, please donate the content to the appropriate Gutenberg pirate channels. http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=%22information+wants+to+be%22&btnG=Search -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From dgc at cox.net Tue Dec 21 22:11:36 2004 From: dgc at cox.net (Dan Clemmensen) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 17:11:36 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Asprin, life-extension, and the current spate of pain-reliever problems In-Reply-To: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> References: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> Message-ID: <41C89F98.7070304@cox.net> Over the last month or so, several "new" pain relievers have been found to increase the risk of heart problems. In each case, the problems were uncovered in long-term studies. the big names (Viaoxx, Celebrex) are Cox-2 inhibitors but today is was announced that Naprosin is also statistically linked to increased heart problems in a long-term study. Naprosin in not a Cox-2 inhibitor. Here's a hypothesis: most people who take these drugs probably reduce their intake of Aspirin. Aspirin has been shown to have important beneficial effects in reducing heart (and other) problems when taken long-term. Possibly there is nothing wrong with the more modern and powerful pain relievers except that they cause people to reduce their use of Aspirin. A question for the list: does anyone know how to determine whether or not this effect has been examined? Disclosure: I've been taking one 325mg Aspirin tablet per day for ten years. This is just about my only move in the direction of life extension. I started doing this after reading one too many studies about the beneficial effects of Aspirin. I take 325mg rather than the 81mg "enteric-coated" Aspirin because the 325mg is cheaper per dose, and because the studies mostly showed good effects as a side-effect of large doses of Aspirin taken for other reasons. From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 21 22:44:44 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 14:44:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] How close are we to an iPod that can read ebooks to us? In-Reply-To: <20041221221034.GY9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20041221224444.70899.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> --- Eugen Leitl wrote: > > I wish a had a longer commute... my dead tree backlog is not getting > any shorter. I wish I could feed federal reserve notes made from dead trees into my computer to pay for ebooks. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Dec 21 23:41:44 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 17:41:44 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Aspirin, life-extension, and the current spate of pain-reliever problems In-Reply-To: <41C89F98.7070304@cox.net> References: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> <41C89F98.7070304@cox.net> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041221174055.019ed6c0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Here's a response to Dan's interesting suggestion from Steve Harris, MD: ============== COX-1 is the form of the enzyme found in all tissues. COX-2 is the form which is induced by, and contributes to, acute inflammation, but otherwise is normally not active (except in uninflammed kidney and brain, for reasons not obvious). Naprosyn and aspirin ARE COX-2 inhibitors; that's how they work. If they weren't, they wouldn't be much good for inflammation. It's just that they're not selective, and they inhibit COX-1 also, making them hard on the stomach. Since COX-1 is what's in platelets, that makes these drugs inhibit platelet function a bit, and therefore clotting. Aspirin does this at far lower doses than Naprosyn (salt form = naproxin), since its effect on COX-1 is irreversible; it binds to and "kills" the enzyme, so the effect lasts for the life of the platelet. Not so for Naprosyn. So if you're taking Naprosyn/naproxin (Aleve and others) there may be "holes" in your coverage of a few hours, where your clotting goes back to normal. That might happen early in the AM when you might be having your heart attack. Aspirin is a better drug to make sure those holes don't happen. Apparently Vioxx (which has so little COX-1 effect that it has NO effect on platelets), by some odd mechanism INCREASES clotting, over and above normal, in some other way. We don't know how-- it's the question of the hour. It wasn't suspected, to say the least, on theoretical grounds. And yes, the (small) dose of aspirin which Vioxx doubtless caused many people to forgo when they started on that drug, probably did help to increase this effect, and thus stroke and heart attack. This effect has been looked for in Celebrex, and does not seem to present. We are presented with the interesting hypothesis that maybe all NSAIDS are pro-clotting by their nature, for reasons unknown, BUT the effect is masked in dirty NSAIDS like aspirin and naproxin and ibuprofen, due to their COX-1 antiplatelet effects. So Celebrex has been carefully studied to see if it has the same problems as the two COX-2 selective NSAIDS which have had to be removed from the market. No stroke/MI effect has been detected so far. Unfortunately, Celebrex is not QUITE as selective as Vioxx, and it does have minor anti-clotting effects unlike Vioxx, so this hypothesis is not quite dead yet. Perhaps Celebrex is JUST dirty enough to not cause problems. Summary: Is the entire pro-clotting effect of Vioxx due to people stopping their aspirin or other non-selective COX inhibitor drugs (aka dirty NSAIDS)? No-- Vioxx users had increased risk over placebo users, independent of aspirin use. Vioxx does something to increase normal clotting. Did aspirin use-reduction contribute to the problem seen with Vioxx in the overall population? No doubt, but it's hard to say how much. We may never know. Interestingly, I always put my over-40 male patients and over-50 female patients taking Vioxx also on low-dose aspirin, if they had no other reason not to take it, simply because I knew that Vioxx was not helping with the known risk-reduction from anti-platelet therapy. But like most physicians I never in my wildest dreams thought Vioxx might be a pro-clotting drug like (say) estrogen. I was as much caught by surprise as any physician out there, by that. Nature is complicated, and theories are simple. Sometimes they fail. From max at maxmore.com Wed Dec 22 01:54:09 2004 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 19:54:09 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The BBC digitizes its archives for free Net access Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041221195318.035a5f70@pop-server.austin.rr.com> Sounds GOOD to me: Bringing the past to life The pros and pitfalls of the BBC's attempt to digitise its archives. http://www.spiked-online.com/printable/0000000CA7FD.htm _______________________________________________________ Max More, Ph.D. max at maxmore.com or max at extropy.org http://www.maxmore.com Strategic Philosopher Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org _______________________________________________________ From dgc at cox.net Wed Dec 22 02:48:49 2004 From: dgc at cox.net (Dan Clemmensen) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 21:48:49 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Aspirin, life-extension, and the current spate of pain-reliever problems In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041221174055.019ed6c0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> <41C89F98.7070304@cox.net> <6.1.1.1.0.20041221174055.019ed6c0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41C8E091.5020709@cox.net> Damien Broderick wrote: > Here's a response to Dan's interesting suggestion from Steve Harris, MD: > > ============== > > COX-1 is the form of the enzyme found in all tissues. COX-2 > is the form which is induced by, and contributes to, acute > inflammation, but otherwise is normally not active (except > in uninflammed kidney and brain, for reasons not obvious). [Snip] Thanks, Damien. extropy-chat is scary. In less than four hours, I received a highly competent response to a theoretical question. I had of course attempted to answer the question using Google before I asked the list. What Steve is saying is that Aspirin iinhibits Cox-1 and Cox2 at the same time. Users of Viaoxx and other Cox-1 inhibitors are losing Aspirin's inhibitory effect on Cox-1. Inhibiting Cox-2 results in reductions of inflammation, while inhibiting Cox-1 had other effects, both "good" and "bad." Steve, as a practicing MD, prescribes Aspirin to any patient taking Viaoxx ( and for whom Aspirin is not counterindicated.) This says that my hypothesis was pretty damn obvious to real-life practitioners. The moral of this story is: don't inhibit Cox-2 unless you also inhibit Cox-1. Survey: how many extropians are taking Aspirin? From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Dec 22 18:27:22 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 12:27:22 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Has everyone died and gone to Xmas? (Or Xmas office parties?) (Do they still do that, out there in the Real World?) Damien Broderick From max at maxmore.com Wed Dec 22 19:49:55 2004 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 13:49:55 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222134650.03a09d50@pop-server.austin.rr.com> >At 12:27 PM 12/22/2004, you wrote: >Has everyone died and gone to Xmas? Damien, I'm not dead yet! In the course of reviewing materials for my ManyWorlds work, I discovered this article in CIO magazine. Good to see the interest -- and sophisticated interest at that: More Than Human Fred Hapgood CIO, 12.15.04 http://www.cio.com/archive/121504/et_article.html http://www.cio.com/archive/121504/et_article.html?printversion=yes Transhumanism?the practice of enhancing people through technology?sounds like science fiction. But when it arrives (and it will), it will create unique problems for CIOs. Onward! Max _______________________________________________________ Max More, Ph.D. max at maxmore.com or max at extropy.org http://www.maxmore.com Strategic Philosopher Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org _______________________________________________________ From harara at sbcglobal.net Wed Dec 22 20:54:45 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 12:54:45 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism 666: The Mark of the Beast In-Reply-To: <07723994-5390-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> References: <470a3c520412200615a0b5b3b@mail.gmail.com> <07723994-5390-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041222124311.029617b8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> This theme's been around for a while. I remember the Bucky Fuller days, and then the Space Colonization days. I also think of how most plants grow, with a dozen or so cells at the growing tips which then specialize on to leaves, twigs, flowers, etc. Once specialized, their fate is determined. So, IMO, the beginnings of cladic formation. Example: as a cryonicist, I live from the pov of an immortalist. This is often subtle, but important in how I handle long range decisions. I have to discern if another is an immortal or not, it makes a difference in some cases. Brutal Example: Mortals are disposable. They die. If you don't get along with them, the issues die with them. Immortals, well, memories are forever, must handle more carefully. Even if the Earth Ossifies, in the process, those of us on the Extropian Clade will find the resources to go elsewhere, whether space colonies (affordable once nanotech arrives), uploads with cybertronioum off planet, cyborg bodies capable of free living on moon or mars or most moons and asteroids, settling in oort cloud or whatever. I kind of think "Old Humanity" is like Redwood Trees, magnificent in their own way, and living in their valleys in North California. Leave em there, visit now and then for the atmosphere. extrosnottily yours, samantha wrote: >I wonder how many of us do believe, as I do, that humanity is at a very >important crossroads. ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Dec 22 21:56:04 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 08:56:04 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> Damien wrote: > Has everyone died and gone to Xmas? I'm still out here too. I've been particularly interested in some of the discussion on Exi chat lately and I am impressed by the quality of some of the posts particularly in the John Wright finds God and the Damien grants psi evidence threads. Its good to see Harvey posting again and Eugen and I'd like to kick around some ideas in the How soon can we get an Ipod to read to us thread. Yet of all the ideas that are circulating in transhumanist circles the one that is the most interesting to me personally at present is Robin's futures market idea. If *only* it could be implemented in a real money way, I think it could be, amongst other perhaps even more important things, the great enabling and accelerating "idea" for many other ideas that are discussed in transhuman circles. This is because it would encourage sceptics and potentially knowledgable naysayers to join the discussion because their would be a financial return for their time invested if their criticisms on cryonics, molecular nanotech, particular proposals in ai and life extension turn out to be valid. I would immediately start using it to try and get some of the transhumanist optimists to break down their visionary claims into claims that could be *tested* against milestones in the short term like a year or so. When people like Chris Pheonix say Drexlers ideas in Nanosystems have never been successfully criticised I'd look to operationalise a bet with him, then that bet would provide the reason for doing some more research to flesh out my gut reactions and justify the times spents crafting the words properly to communicate to a wider audience before deliverin that criticism, or failing to, but failing too, in a useful and provocative way. Ditto for papers that purport to show that Cryonics will work in principle, in thinking of stuff by Ralph Merkle. I think I am a skeptic and would be a naysayer to most of the main transhumanist ideas. But I like the sort of people that will explore ideas like cryonics, ai, radical life extension, molecular nanotech rather than just dismiss those things out of hand because they seem unlikely. And they do seem unlikely on first impression to people who have experience in the development of technology and to people who have life experience where they have seen how politics and systemic problems can retard the rates of change. I don't think the optimism apparently felt by many posters to transhumanist lists is not well based to be honest. People like Jules Verne and Da Vinci have been imagining what technology could do for a long time. In every age it seems like people felt that they were on the cusp of something like a singularity and in every age what slowed the rate of progress was the mundane, non technological things. If the main thing stopping Robin's futures market ideas from being implemented and providing a mechanism for analysts to pit their skills against each other and to profit from the exchange is wowserish laws, then what would that say about the state of the world? We'd be living in a world where the best sort of free speech and the purest forms of the free market are already effectively denied to individuals who want to interact in ways that have no harmful bearing on others at all. It can be hard to develop what seem to be good ideas into real commercial opportunities. And Robins futures market idea is pretty esoteric. The applications for it in science and technology prediction and acceleration are not likely to be easily understood by legislators. My gut tells me that once started in a for real money way the idea will take off in a big way, but I don't completely trust my gut, and if Robin and others feel the same way and find other things more attractive or urgent to do with their time then it might not get started at all Anyway, the reason I haven't been posting is because I've been thinking and reading mostly links to stuff of Robin's that Adrian provided and wondering about the best ways to proceed. Cheers, Brett Paatsch From rhanson at gmu.edu Wed Dec 22 23:21:56 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 18:21:56 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/22/2004, Brett Paatsch wrote: >... Robin's futures market idea. If *only* it could be implemented in a >real money way, I think it could be, amongst other perhaps even more >important things, the great enabling and accelerating "idea" for many >other ideas that are discussed in transhuman circles. This is because it >would encourage sceptics and potentially knowledgable naysayers to join >the discussion ... Well to be fair, mature implementations many of the other ideas people talk about here would also be great enablers. The question is what are the chances of getting mature implementations how soon. There are far fewer technical hurdles to overcome with my concept, but perhaps more severe social hurdles. >If the main thing stopping Robin's futures market ideas from being >implemented ... is wowserish laws, then what would that say about the >state of the world? We'd be living in a world where the best sort of free >speech and the purest forms of the free market are already effectively >denied to individuals who want to interact in ways that have no harmful >bearing on others at all. Well surely a great many large social advances are prevented by laws. That is the nature of law as we know it - it is a crude instruments, costly to change, and the people who are effectively in charge of it know just about as little as it is possible to know about its effect. >It can be hard to develop what seem to be good ideas into real commercial >opportunities. And Robins futures market idea is pretty esoteric. The >applications for it >in science and technology prediction and acceleration are not likely to be >easily understood by legislators. >My gut tells me that once started in a for real money way the idea will >take off in a big way, but I don't completely trust my gut, and if Robin >and others feel the same way and find other things more attractive or >urgent to do with their time then it might not get started at all Well things are looking the best they've looked in the fifteen years I've been at this. The CFTC is considering making them more legal - I was just at conference on this. And a few dozen companies are experimenting with internal markets. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Wed Dec 22 23:43:58 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 18:43:58 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 22, 2004, at 4:56 PM, Brett Paatsch wrote: > Yet of all the ideas that are circulating in transhumanist circles the > one that is the most interesting to me personally at present is > Robin's futures market idea. Has anyone gotten any evidence that futures markets really can predict the future? I keep hearing the Iowa markets referenced as predicting political elections, but I can't see it in their historical data. Everything I found seems to show bad results or regular flip-flopping to the point that they don't predict anything. I would sure love to see real historical data showing predictions. My experience with future prediction in general is that it is wrong more often than not. > I think I am a skeptic and would be a naysayer to most of the main > transhumanist ideas. But I like the sort of people that will explore > ideas like cryonics, ai, radical life extension, molecular nanotech > rather than just dismiss those things out of hand because they seem > unlikely. And they do seem unlikely on first impression to people who > have experience in the development of technology and to people who > have life experience where they have seen how politics and systemic > problems can retard the rates of change. I seem to be more of a believer in these things compared to the general population. But I also seem to be more conservative than a lot of transhumanists. I think a lot of transhumanists get so gung-ho for this stuff that they hype themselves into an unrealistic frenzy. Many of our ideas will eventually happen. But they are not happening today. Even though new cancer cures get announced almost monthly, I don't expect cancer to be cured in a decade. Even though we keep "completing" the human genome, we keep discovering more genes or more coding or more interpretations that expand our research beyond what we thought was already complete. I don't expect human genetics to move from the realm of discovery to the realm of "well understood" science in a decade. Space exploration is a joke right now compared to earlier plans that were scrapped and unfunded. Robotics and AI are progressing ahead, but are still way behind earlier predictions. Basically, I think most of our predictions are wrong. We expect instant results too soon. While this seems more accurate than the general public that expects the status quo to last forever, it still is a misleading position that leads to faulty conclusions and poor planning. Look at all the dot-com information companies that failed because the big boom in a knowledge-based economy didn't turn out as big or as fast as we thought. > I don't think the optimism apparently felt by many posters to > transhumanist lists is not well based to be honest. People like Jules > Verne and Da Vinci have been imagining what technology could do for a > long time. In every age it seems like people felt that they were on > the cusp of something like a singularity and in every age what slowed > the rate of progress was the mundane, non technological things. This is the sad truth of human existence. Even with Moore's so-called law and exponential progress, it never is going to be as fast as our imagination wishes. > If the main thing stopping Robin's futures market ideas from being > implemented and providing a mechanism for analysts to pit their skills > against each other and to profit from the exchange is wowserish laws, > then what would that say about the state of the world? We'd be living > in a world where the best sort of free speech and the purest forms of > the free market are already effectively denied to individuals who want > to interact in ways that have no harmful bearing on others at all. All those people who believe in this market stuff need to face the fact that current markets don't believe it will work. Current investors aren't funding such a market. Current companies aren't researching such a market. The free-market forces are currently steering away from such a market. Maybe the free-market is wrong or doesn't work. But it certainly isn't pushing for future markets right now. Only a few rare visionaries are pushing this idea. > It can be hard to develop what seem to be good ideas into real > commercial opportunities. And Robins futures market idea is pretty > esoteric. The applications for it > in science and technology prediction and acceleration are not likely > to be easily understood by legislators. I am not sure it is understood by economists or scientists either. Someone needs to set up a working model that produces verifiable results. Then people will pay attention. Right now, the existing futures markets aren't making any well-publicized predictions that beat out other predictors. > My gut tells me that once started in a for real money way the idea > will take off in a big way, but I don't completely trust my gut, and > if Robin and others feel the same way and find other things more > attractive or urgent to do with their time then it might not get > started at all There must be a way to do this. Surely we could start a corporation and pay people a low salary to research market ideas, and given them bonuses based on which research turns out to be right. It doesn't have to follow the gambling or investment model to reward correct research and punish negative research. I can't imagine that it is really illegal or impossible to do this. My guess would be a lack of interest. Not enough people would really buy into this to make it work. The functionality of making it work or making it legal seems the least of the problems. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From rhanson at gmu.edu Thu Dec 23 00:21:39 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 19:21:39 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/22/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >>Yet of all the ideas that are circulating in transhumanist circles the >>one that is the most interesting to me personally at present is Robin's >>futures market idea. > >Has anyone gotten any evidence that futures markets really can predict the >future? I keep hearing the Iowa markets referenced as predicting >political elections, but I can't see it in their historical data. >Everything I found seems to show bad results or regular flip-flopping to >the point that they don't predict anything. I would sure love to see real >historical data showing predictions. Did you actually go look at the IEM web site and the many papers they have there? If so, you might have found: http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/archive/forecasting.pdf Did you look at any of the papers mentioning such claims and look up their citations? For example, re an extropian angle you might have found: http://hanson.gmu.edu/moretrue.pdf >My experience with future prediction in general is that it is wrong more >often than not. I predict the sun will come up tomorrow. I will keep making this prediction everyday for the next year. Go ahead, collect stats on how well I do. Betcha I'm right more often than not. >All those people who believe in this market stuff need to face the fact >that current markets don't believe it will work. Current investors aren't >funding such a market. Current companies aren't researching such a >market. The free-market forces are currently steering away from such a >market. Maybe the free-market is wrong or doesn't work. But it certainly >isn't pushing for future markets right now. Only a few rare visionaries >are pushing this idea. You are making this stuff up. You apparently have no idea what investors are doing. Try: Barbara Kiviat, The End Of Management?, Time, Inside Business, A4, July 12, 2004. http://hanson.gmu.edu/PAM/press/Time-7-12-04.htm >I am not sure it is understood by economists or scientists either. >Someone needs to set up a working model that produces verifiable >results. Then people will pay attention. There are many standard models of market microstructure which need little modification to apply to these markets. These models have been around for decades and make verifiable predictions about lab experiments and field data. For example, I applied such a model to the case of manipulators http://hanson.gmu.edu/biashelp.pdf and verified a prediction in a lab experiment http://hanson.gmu.edu/biastest.pdf >Right now, the existing futures markets aren't making any well-publicized >predictions that beat out other predictors. By "well-publicized" you mean you haven't heard of them. You really need to do a little homework if you want to have anything useful to say about this topic. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 23 00:31:17 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 19:31:17 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <41CA11D5.5070206@pobox.com> Robin Hanson wrote: > > I predict the sun will come up tomorrow. I will keep making this > prediction everyday for the next year. Go ahead, collect stats on how > well I do. Betcha I'm right more often than not. What exact probability do you assign? Now you've got me curious. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Dec 23 00:41:33 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 19:41:33 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <64CB3C56-547B-11D9-9236-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 22, 2004, at 6:21 PM, Robin Hanson wrote: > Well things are looking the best they've looked in the fifteen years > I've been at this. The CFTC is considering making them more legal - I > was just at conference on this. And a few dozen companies are > experimenting with internal markets. Robin, do futures markets only work as a form of betting? I know that in most markets, you actually purchase a product or an option to buy a product at a set price. If the price goes up or down, you win or lose as its value changes. That's the basic function of ownership. But aren't futures markets just betting? You have no property. You bet on an outcome and someone else pays in cash if you win. No ownership or value changes occur. Is this the fundamental problem with getting futures markets legalized? Or am I missing the point here? (I have not specifically researched the legality of futures markets myself.) If ownership does not occur, then there might be a number of other methods other than a buyer/seller market to implement such an idea. Would any system that rewards good predictions and punishes bad predictions be useful? If people could make money with good predictions and lose money with bad predictions, would that be "close enough" to a futures market? -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From duggerj1 at charter.net Thu Dec 23 01:01:17 2004 From: duggerj1 at charter.net (duggerj1 at charter.net) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 19:01:17 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night Message-ID: <3k70mg$jj8cbo@mxip15a.cluster1.charter.net> Wednesday, 22 December 2004 > > Has everyone died and gone to Xmas? > Nope--we've just all gone to work in high-security buildings where the chief thrill comes from flaunting long hair before humorless military types! > (Or Xmas office parties?) > > (Do they still do that, out there in the Real World?) > Beats me. My job lies pretty far from the Real World. Jay Dugger : Til Eulenspiegel http://www.owlmirror.net/~duggerj/ Sometimes the delete key serves best. From rhanson at gmu.edu Thu Dec 23 01:17:45 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:17:45 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <64CB3C56-547B-11D9-9236-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <64CB3C56-547B-11D9-9236-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222200654.02b64268@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/22/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >Robin, do futures markets only work as a form of betting? I know that in >most markets, you actually purchase a product or an option to buy a >product at a set price. If the price goes up or down, you win or lose as >its value changes. That's the basic function of ownership. But aren't >futures markets just betting? You have no property. You bet on an >outcome and someone else pays in cash if you win. No ownership or value >changes occur. The fundamental economic distinction is between common values and private values. A common value asset has the same (relative) value for everyone in the end, while the value of a private value asset varies from person to person. Most retail markets, from flea markets to grocery stores, trade mostly private value assets. The buyer values the item more than the seller, so they trade. They both full well know this. Virtually all of the financial markets you know of trade basically common value assets. Sure, there are a few people whose value for the asset differs, but the vast majority of traders would get the same value from holding the asset for a long time. Most traders in financial markets are speculators, who are essentially betting. For every winner there is a loser. If I buy IBM and it goes up I win, but only because the person I bought it from lost. To not make a bet you just buy an index fund of all the assets - relative to such an index fund every other asset trade is a bet. The fact that some common value markets trade "real physical things" while other markets trade paper whose value depends on what some other people will do later is way beside the point. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Thu Dec 23 01:21:01 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:21:01 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <41CA11D5.5070206@pobox.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <41CA11D5.5070206@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222201830.02b6d9a8@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/22/2004, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: >>I predict the sun will come up tomorrow. I will keep making this >>prediction everyday for the next year. Go ahead, collect stats on how >>well I do. Betcha I'm right more often than not. > >What exact probability do you assign? Now you've got me curious. Well for the purposes of the above discussion all I needed was p/(1-p) >> 1 But if I have to pick a number I'd say p/(1-p) ~ 10^4 to 10^5 Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Dec 23 01:30:43 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:30:43 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <430686AD-5482-11D9-9236-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 22, 2004, at 7:21 PM, Robin Hanson wrote: > On 12/22/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >>> Yet of all the ideas that are circulating in transhumanist circles >>> the one that is the most interesting to me personally at present is >>> Robin's futures market idea. >> >> Has anyone gotten any evidence that futures markets really can >> predict the future? I keep hearing the Iowa markets referenced as >> predicting political elections, but I can't see it in their >> historical data. >> Everything I found seems to show bad results or regular flip-flopping >> to the point that they don't predict anything. I would sure love to >> see real historical data showing predictions. > > Did you actually go look at the IEM web site and the many papers they > have there? If so, you might have found: > http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/archive/forecasting.pdf That is still a draft. I will read it and see if it has anything new. However, the abstract does seem to confirm that the Iowa prediction markets were previously known to predict elections only a day or so ahead. It states that no long-term analysis had previously been performed. If this paper has something new, that would be great news. Otherwise, the state of the art up until this paper, and confirmed by this paper, seems dismal. > Did you look at any of the papers mentioning such claims and look up > their citations? No, I took a more direct route of looking at their historical data and analyzing it myself. I could find no predictive value. Most of them converged on the wrong answer or flip-flopped so much that no answer was chosen until just before the election. If new analysis methods can be discovered to extract any predictive value out of this mess, I will be happy to utilize it. > For example, re an extropian angle you might have found: > http://hanson.gmu.edu/moretrue.pdf Thanks, I will look a this as well. >> My experience with future prediction in general is that it is wrong >> more often than not. > > I predict the sun will come up tomorrow. I will keep making this > prediction everyday for the next year. Go ahead, collect stats on how > well I do. Betcha I'm right more often than not. If you think that is really a good counter-example to my complaints, I must not be making myself very clear. I am not looking for obvious predictions that anybody can make, or predictions that add no new information above what everyone knows or assumes. What I want is new information, or predictive value of something that is not obvious. This would be a useful prediction. The history of such "useful" predictions of the future are more often wrong than not. >> All those people who believe in this market stuff need to face the >> fact that current markets don't believe it will work. Current >> investors aren't funding such a market. Current companies aren't >> researching such a market. The free-market forces are currently >> steering away from such a market. Maybe the free-market is wrong or >> doesn't work. But it certainly isn't pushing for future markets >> right now. Only a few rare visionaries are pushing this idea. > > You are making this stuff up. You apparently have no idea what > investors are doing. Try: > > Barbara Kiviat, > -660965,00.html>The End Of Management?, Time, Inside Business, A4, > July 12, 2004. http://hanson.gmu.edu/PAM/press/Time-7-12-04.htm I'm not talking about you or some investors. Most investors are not at the level that you have achieved. Most investors are not aware of, participating in, or clamoring for futures markets. You are an intelligent, but sadly, rare individual. Most investors are not so much. > There are many standard models of market microstructure which need > little modification to apply to these markets. These models have been > around for decades and make verifiable predictions about lab > experiments and field data. For example, I applied such a model to > the case of manipulators http://hanson.gmu.edu/biashelp.pdf and > verified a prediction in a lab experiment > http://hanson.gmu.edu/biastest.pdf I meant models that can predict individual stocks or make futures predictions. If there really were a model that consistently beat the market, everybody would be using it to get rich. I did not mean to say that there are no models in economic theory or of the market. I meant that there aren't clear cut predictive methods that can be shown to people how to predict the market and get rich. Or, in the case of futures markets, determine which predictions are right and which are wrong ahead of time. >> Right now, the existing futures markets aren't making any >> well-publicized predictions that beat out other predictors. > > By "well-publicized" you mean you haven't heard of them. You really > need to do a little homework if you want to have anything useful to > say about this topic. As I said, I researched the Iowa markets, and could not see any predictive value in them. Maybe they have more complicated mathematical analyses that can prove a statistical edge in predictions that were not available before. But a quick-and-dirty look at their predictions and the outcomes didn't show any obvious trend. I would be happy to stand corrected. I would love to latch onto any tool, market or method that consistently predicts the future. But past claims have failed to pan out when I looked at them. I will be glad to review the references you give to catch up on new claims and new methods. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From fauxever at sprynet.com Thu Dec 23 01:42:27 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 17:42:27 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc><6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu><64CB3C56-547B-11D9-9236-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222200654.02b64268@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <000a01c4e890$a964d9b0$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "Robin Hanson" > For every winner there is a > loser. If I buy IBM and it goes up I win, but only because the person I > bought it from lost. Depends. Sometimes you buy from a "short" position, in which case you may have bought (and subsequently profited) from someone who sold to you when the stock was going down (and from which *that* person profited, because that's how a short position works - *one can lose one's shirt on a short*, in other words, if the stock goes *up!*). Also, there could be several players profiting from a stock on the way up (in a long position). Several players can profit, each one selling "too soon." But a profit is a profit (so it does not always follow that the person from whom you may have bought IBM necessarily lost). Olga From rhanson at gmu.edu Thu Dec 23 01:59:02 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:59:02 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <430686AD-5482-11D9-9236-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <430686AD-5482-11D9-9236-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222204653.02b75360@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/22/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >>>My experience with future prediction in general is that it is wrong >>>more often than not. >> >>I predict the sun will come up tomorrow. I will keep making this >>prediction everyday for the next year. Go ahead, collect stats on how >>well I do. Betcha I'm right more often than not. > >If you think that is really a good counter-example to my complaints, I >must not be making myself very clear. I am not looking for obvious >predictions that anybody can make, or predictions that add no new >information above what everyone knows or assumes. What I want is new >information, or predictive value of something that is not obvious. >This would be a useful prediction. The history of such "useful" >predictions of the future are more often wrong than not. Make up your mind what standard you want to impose. If all you want is new information, then all you need is a source that predicts slightly better than other sources. It need not be very accurate, just more accurate than the alternatives. The cites I mentioned show that these markets meet this standard. >I meant models that can predict individual stocks ... I did not mean >to say that there are no models in economic theory or of the market. What you said before is: >Someone needs to set up a working model that produces verifiable results. >Then people will pay attention. The whole point of having the best possible estimate is that you can't predict future values better with anything else. If you had a model that predicted stock prices better than the current price, that would mean the current price wasn't the best estimate. Such a model would go against my core suggestion of using prices as our best available estimates. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Thu Dec 23 02:04:36 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:04:36 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <000a01c4e890$a964d9b0$6600a8c0@brainiac> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <64CB3C56-547B-11D9-9236-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222200654.02b64268@mail.gmu.edu> <000a01c4e890$a964d9b0$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222210140.02b61578@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/22/2004, Olga Bourlin wrote: >From: "Robin Hanson" > > For every winner there is a loser. If I buy IBM and it goes up I win, > > but only because the person I bought it from lost. > >... there could be several players profiting from a stock on the way up >(in a long position). Several players can profit, each one selling "too >soon." But a profit is a profit (so it does not always follow that the >person from whom you may have bought IBM necessarily lost). The correct standard to use is economic profit, not accounting profit. Economic profit takes into account opportunity costs. If the person who sold it to me had kept it they would have made more, so relative to what they would have made, they lost by selling it to me. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 23 03:17:37 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 22:17:37 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222201830.02b6d9a8@mail.gmu.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <41CA11D5.5070206@pobox.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222201830.02b6d9a8@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <41CA38D1.10602@pobox.com> Robin Hanson wrote: > On 12/22/2004, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > >>> I predict the sun will come up tomorrow. I will keep making this >>> prediction everyday for the next year. Go ahead, collect stats on >>> how well I do. Betcha I'm right more often than not. >> >> What exact probability do you assign? Now you've got me curious. > > Well for the purposes of the above discussion all I needed was p/(1-p) >> 1 > But if I have to pick a number I'd say p/(1-p) ~ 10^4 to 10^5 Interesting. That was just about exactly my own answer - 99.98% to 99.999%. Though as we may only make a single bet to sum up our uncertainty, I would say 99.99%. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 23 04:01:31 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:01:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night Message-ID: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> How the heck can you guys say that there is as much as one chance in ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The sun has after all risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like 30 years' worth. Hal From sjvans at ameritech.net Thu Dec 23 03:56:58 2004 From: sjvans at ameritech.net (Stephen Van_Sickle) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 19:56:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041223035658.22966.qmail@web81208.mail.yahoo.com> --- Hal Finney wrote: > How the heck can you guys say that there is as much > as one chance in > ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The > sun has after all > risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like > 30 years' worth. And that is about the number that I have personally experienced. Anything more is hearsay. From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 03:59:05 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 14:59:05 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <0b0a01c4e8a3$befe0bd0$b8232dcb@homepc> Robin Hanson wrote: > There are far fewer technical hurdles to overcome with my concept, but > perhaps more severe social hurdles. Its because the technical hurdles are comparatively small that I think the social hurdles are probably less so as well. Into social I am reading also legal and political. I think I could have predicted that the terrorism prediction application would get hit on the head by politicians and the political process (and I think I agree with them in that instance) but I don't see why other applications such as predicting the rate at which classes and instances or hyped scientific claims couldn't still be politically and legally doable. My impression is that the gambolling laws were not really laid down to *intentionally* prevent the free development of this sort of thing, but rather than this sort of thing is getting hit as collateral damage if it is. If that is the case it might not be that hard to get a for real money prototype up somewhere in the world (perhaps the UK, perhaps Gibraltar, possibly here in Australia - I'm just guessing and picking up on hints in what I've read). For a real money market, personally I could accept paying domestic tax on winnings, especially if I could claim a deduction on any losses. I really see this a far closer to commodities trading where what I'd be hedging would be my time versus my money. Both are valuable to me. What I can't do at present is propose contracts along the lines of say, that stem cell research will see kidneys, livers, hearts, eyes, generated and available for off the shelf purchase by 2015. Maybe this is a smart bet, or a dumb bet, or even a poorly formed bet, but I can't see why governments of the world should care that I want to make that SORT of bet with others who want to bet with me. And if a lot of folk with inside knowledge on the tech state of the art get involved in such bets them we (ie. people and governments observing the bets) would get accurate indications of how far away certain things are in the world not just in their own country. >If the main thing stopping Robin's futures market ideas from being >>implemented ... is wowserish laws, then what would that say about the >>state of the world? We'd be living in a world where the best sort of free >>speech and the purest forms of the free market are already effectively >>denied to individuals who want to interact in ways that have no harmful >>bearing on others at all. > > Well surely a great many large social advances are prevented by laws. That > is the nature of law as we know it - it is a crude instruments, costly to > change, and the people who are effectively in charge of it know just about > as little as it is possible to know about its effect. I had the opportunity to see that that is true on a number of different fronts over a couple of decades. Most recently I've seen it play out in Australia where I was involved in lobbying for progressive stem cell laws. >>It can be hard to develop what seem to be good ideas into real commercial >>opportunities. And Robins futures market idea is pretty esoteric. The >>applications for it in science and technology prediction and acceleration >> are not likely to be easily understood by legislators. >> >>My gut tells me that once started in a for real money way the idea will >>take off in a big way, but I don't completely trust my gut, and if Robin >>and others feel the same way and find other things more attractive or >>urgent to do with their time then it might not get started at all > > Well things are looking the best they've looked in the fifteen years > I've been at this. The CFTC is considering making them more legal - I was > just at conference on this. And a few dozen companies are experimenting > with internal markets. As a person that wants to use the service "more" legal doesn't really help me. How much more is more on the sliding scale of legal :-) Things are either legal (and lawful) or illegal and unlawful. Its that simple. Unfortunately, there are a great deal of laws, many of them badly made and it is almost impossible for a person who is not a lawyer (and for many lawyers) to stay on top of them all especially if the market one wants to operate in is an international one. If I could find a way to help you make this real Robin I'd be interested in doing it. I took a look at the link Adrian offered to your web site but some of the links relating to the state of the laws were dead. If transhumanists around the world are looking for something to focus on that would make a practical difference then I'd suspect that finding a way to make it possible for two analysts (transhumanists or otherwise) to place a bet over the internet legally might be just about the best thing they could do. And understanding why their governments won't allow them to, if they won't would be very informative too. It might not be obvious that its about the best thing they could do. But I reckon it would be anyway. Perhaps I'm subjective. Brett Paatsch PS: It is progress to have private companies looking at doing projects on this internally but for my money that is still missing the main point. It needs to be for real money and it needs to be a near global market so that the right subject matter experts (who and whatever they are) can get involved in it. A real money prototype might seed into something else but without the real money it just isn't real to me at all. Everyone values their time and their money. A lot of the other stuff are fuzzy values. From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 23 04:27:00 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 23:27:00 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> Message-ID: <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> Hal Finney wrote: > How the heck can you guys say that there is as much as one chance in > ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The sun has after all > risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like 30 years' worth. That was before people started playing around with AI. 99.99% would correspond to a 50% chance of a rogue AI disassembling the Sun in the next 20 years, with the probability distributed evenly over time (Poisson process). -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Dec 23 04:36:26 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:36:26 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <0b0a01c4e8a3$befe0bd0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <000001c4e8a8$fa704cf0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Brett Paatsch: ...My impression is that the gambolling laws were not really laid down to *intentionally* prevent the free development of this sort of thing... What? There are laws against gay or light-hearted recreational activity for diversion or amusement? spike From fauxever at sprynet.com Thu Dec 23 04:44:16 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:44:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat Message-ID: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> Call me moralistic, but I find this revolting (even while acknowledging potential residual gains in perfecting the science of cloning - though housepets): http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/12/22/state1724EST0109.DTL Olga From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 23 04:44:40 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 22:44:40 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] gambolling laws In-Reply-To: <000001c4e8a8$fa704cf0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <0b0a01c4e8a3$befe0bd0$b8232dcb@homepc> <000001c4e8a8$fa704cf0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222224229.019a9b10@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 08:36 PM 12/22/2004 -0800, Spike wrote: >Brett Paatsch: > >...My impression is that the gambolling laws were not really laid down >to *intentionally* prevent the free development of this sort of thing... > > >What? There are laws against gay or light-hearted >recreational activity for diversion or amusement? Yes, but mostly they only pertain to lambs. (Well, and some benighted precincts do still object to `gay recreational activity'.) Damien Broderick From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 04:45:54 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:45:54 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> Message-ID: <0b2b01c4e8aa$4946fd50$b8232dcb@homepc> Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Hal Finney wrote: >> How the heck can you guys say that there is as much as one chance in >> ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The sun has after all >> risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like 30 years' worth. > That was before people started playing around with AI. 99.99% would > correspond to a 50% chance of a rogue AI disassembling the Sun in the next > 20 years, with the probability distributed evenly over time (Poisson > process). This is an excellent example of the sort of conviction I'd like to bet against using real money. If Eliezers claim and line of reasoning is rational and he had money to bet with me (say US$1000) I'd proceed to formalising a bet with him that would either allow him to take my money to do with as he sees fit or me to take his to do with as I see fit. Say Eliezer was right, not only would I pay him, I'd be greatful for the education he'd given me and much more aware of the nature of existential risks I face. Say I was right, then I might say a good, bright guy like Eliezer from wasting a huge chunk of his life. He'd be out US$1000 but he's a young guy and a genuine truthseeker he could find plenty of other things to do with even only another four score years and ten. But where I stand in relation to Eliezer at present, from my point of view, is that he is making claims that are extraordinary and for me to properly evaluate them I'd have to spend a lot of time. So we have an impass. We in practice I assume that Eliezer is wrong because its too much of an investment of time for me to find out if he's right. Eliezer can cope with my disbelief easily. Others believe him. But he can't teach me and get some of my money because I have the same aversion to wasting time as he does. A for-real money futures market would change that dynamic. Brett Paatsch. From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 04:49:43 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:49:43 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) References: <000001c4e8a8$fa704cf0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <0b3601c4e8aa$d1939150$b8232dcb@homepc> Spike wrote: > Brett Paatsch: > > > ...My impression is that the gambolling laws were not really laid down > to *intentionally* prevent the free development of this sort of thing... > > > > What? There are laws against gay or light-hearted > recreational activity for diversion or amusement? There probably should be a law against not spell checking gamballing, gambelling... ah gambling. Thanks Spike. I talk clearer than I type. I hope. Brett From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Dec 23 04:57:36 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 23:57:36 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> Message-ID: <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 22, 2004, at 11:27 PM, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Hal Finney wrote: >> How the heck can you guys say that there is as much as one chance in >> ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The sun has after all >> risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like 30 years' worth. > > That was before people started playing around with AI. 99.99% would > correspond to a 50% chance of a rogue AI disassembling the Sun in the > next 20 years, with the probability distributed evenly over time > (Poisson process). I will bet any amount of money that the sun will still exist 20 years from now. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 23 05:00:06 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 23:00:06 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> References: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222225439.01a44d08@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 08:44 PM 12/22/2004 -0800, Olga wrote: >Call me moralistic, but I find this revolting (even while acknowledging >potential residual gains in perfecting the science of cloning - though >housepets): > >http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/12/22/state1724EST0109.DTL I'm taken aback, Olga. Look at the sort of thing that's being said in that story in defense of `moralism': < "It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible," said David Magnus, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford. "For $50,000, she could have provided homes for a lot of strays." Animals rights activists complain that new feline production systems aren't needed because thousands of stray cats are euthanized each year for want of homes. > To which I say: Fuck the hell off, Mr. Magnus, and mind your own dagnabbed business. The woman can do *whatever she wants* with her own money, however odd it seems to others. If `Animals rights activists' are so upset, let them turn their own homes into giant catariums. Hey, let them sell their houses and invest the dough in cat refuges, while sleeping in cardboard boxes. That would also be an odd choice, but it'd be *their* choice, not someone else's. Damien Broderick From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 23 05:05:34 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 00:05:34 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > On Dec 22, 2004, at 11:27 PM, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > >> Hal Finney wrote: >> >>> How the heck can you guys say that there is as much as one chance in >>> ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The sun has after all >>> risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like 30 years' worth. >> >> That was before people started playing around with AI. 99.99% would >> correspond to a 50% chance of a rogue AI disassembling the Sun in the >> next 20 years, with the probability distributed evenly over time >> (Poisson process). > > I will bet any amount of money that the sun will still exist 20 years > from now. Are you sure? An FAI could take apart the Sun too, y'know. You could lose the bet, and still be alive to pay it. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From fauxever at sprynet.com Thu Dec 23 05:11:53 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:11:53 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat References: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> <6.1.1.1.0.20041222225439.01a44d08@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <006601c4e8ad$eb393e40$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "Damien Broderick" > At 08:44 PM 12/22/2004 -0800, Olga wrote: > > >Call me moralistic, but I find this revolting (even while acknowledging > >potential residual gains in perfecting the science of cloning - though > >housepets): > > > >http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/12/22/state1 724EST0109.DTL > > I'm taken aback, Olga. Look at the sort of thing that's being said in that > story in defense of `moralism': > > < "It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible," said David Magnus, > co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford. "For $50,000, > she could have provided homes for a lot of strays." I am an unapologetic speciesist. $50,000 donated to science or something progressive would have been OK with me. $50,000 to replace Snookums ("dead is dead") with another cat that looks-just-like Snookums is obscene IMO. I agree people can do whatever they want with their money - and they do! (you know, peeing-vodka-ice-sculptures - what's not to love?). I am not an animal rights activist - didn't mean to give you that impression. Olga From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Dec 23 05:19:33 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:19:33 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <0b3601c4e8aa$d1939150$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <000001c4e8af$05f61270$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Spike wrote: > What? There are laws against gay or light-hearted > recreational activity for diversion or amusement? There probably should be a law against not spell checking gamballing, gambelling... ah gambling. Thanks Spike. I talk clearer than I type. I hope. Brett What was the name we decided on last time this came up? It was the name of the class of typos that spell a different word, so that a spell checker would not notice or object. I am particularly interested in these, for you may recall my concern for emergent AI, which would learn of humans from the most immediately and readily available source of information to an AI: internet chat archives. Any computer program would be really good and fast at looking up unfamiliar words, but would perhaps be poor at recognizing things that our human minds grasp so easily, such as the words gambolling and gambling sound alike, and so are often mistakenly interchanged. To a machine that does not hear speech, but only read, the words gambolling and gambling are not strikingly similar. In the (very silly) 1986 movie Short Circuit, an emergent AI learned about humanity by watching TV and reading thru Ally Sheedy's collection of books (back in the days when she was still wildly babe-alicious.) In 1986 they had no foresight regarding an internet. The emergent AI will be so puzzled, I fear, by this class of error that it may decide to demerge back into ordinary software, all because of the class of typos in which no actual spelling or grammatical errors occur, yet the resulting sentence means something completely different from that which was intended. What did we call that last time? spike From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 05:35:35 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 16:35:35 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) References: <000001c4e8af$05f61270$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <0b6901c4e8b1$39ea2c40$b8232dcb@homepc> Spike wrote: > What was the name we decided on last time this came up? > It was the name of the class of typos that spell a different > word, so that a spell checker would not notice or object. > I am particularly interested in these, for you may recall > my concern for emergent AI, which would learn of humans from > the most immediately and readily available source of information > to an AI: internet chat archives. I do recall the conversation. Which I am glad of, as I forget lots of stuff and its good to remember sometimes, but, also not so glad of, because I'm making the same mistakes when I try and type fast to keep conversational flows in something like real time. > Any computer program would be really good and fast at > looking up unfamiliar words, but would perhaps be poor at > recognizing things that our human minds grasp so easily, > such as the words gambolling and gambling sound alike, and > so are often mistakenly interchanged. To a machine that > does not hear speech, but only read, the words gambolling > and gambling are not strikingly similar. > > In the (very silly) 1986 movie Short Circuit, an emergent > AI learned about humanity by watching TV and reading thru > Ally Sheedy's collection of books (back in the days when > she was still wildly babe-alicious.) In 1986 they had > no foresight regarding an internet. > > The emergent AI will be so puzzled, I fear, by this class of > error that it may decide to demerge back into ordinary > software, all because of the class of typos in which no > actual spelling or grammatical errors occur, yet the resulting > sentence means something completely different from that which > was intended. > > What did we call that last time? Its a homophone, rather than a homonym? Same sound, (or nearly), different spelling. If I recall, last time I thought it was a homonym and Olga pointed out it was a homophone. But I'm not certain. Brett From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Dec 23 05:39:47 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:39:47 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222225439.01a44d08@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <000001c4e8b1$d9996260$6401a8c0@mtrainier> < "It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible," said David Magnus, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford. "For $50,000, she could have provided homes for a lot of strays." Animals rights activists complain that new feline production systems aren't needed because thousands of stray cats are euthanized each year for want of homes. > When in college my sweetheart and I were hiking some distance from civilization when an apparently-abandoned half starved young cat ran up to us and began attempting to devour us. Neither of us being cat people, we tried to shoo it away, but the poor kitten decided we were its last chance of survival, which we most likely were. We ended up taking him home and feeding the famished beast. In its own simplified cat way, it came to the conclusion: people = food, no people = no food, people = good. That cat would always attempt to be in physical contact with a person, any person, at all times if at all possible. I lived in a frat house, there were always guys hanging around, so the cat always had someone to touch. If one allowed him to do so, the cat would leap upon one's shoulders and attempt to lie across one's neck, with legs hanging in front like a feather boa. If one did not physically remove the pestiferous creature, he would stay that way, even falling asleep draped over one's neck. Oddest thing you ever saw. If we had had him cloned, surely the genetically identical offspring would not take up these evidently starvation-induced endearing behaviors. spike From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 23 05:54:02 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 00:54:02 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <006601c4e8ad$eb393e40$6600a8c0@brainiac> References: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> <6.1.1.1.0.20041222225439.01a44d08@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <006601c4e8ad$eb393e40$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <41CA5D7A.4020108@pobox.com> Olga Bourlin wrote: > > I am an unapologetic speciesist. $50,000 donated to science or something > progressive would have been OK with me. $50,000 to replace Snookums ("dead > is dead") with another cat that looks-just-like Snookums is obscene IMO. > > I agree people can do whatever they want with their money - and they do! > (you know, peeing-vodka-ice-sculptures - what's not to love?). > > I am not an animal rights activist - didn't mean to give you that > impression. "Well, let's get one thing straight: I think people should have a right to be stupid and, if they have that right, the market's going to respond by supplying as much stupidity as can be sold." -- Greg Burch -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 05:56:42 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 16:56:42 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat References: <000001c4e8b1$d9996260$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <0b8001c4e8b4$2d1b07c0$b8232dcb@homepc> Spike > If we had had him cloned, surely the genetically identical > offspring would not take up these evidently starvation-induced > endearing behaviors. Surely not, I agree. His experiences shaped his neural net in conjunction with his genes. Both genes and experience matter and there is an interplay between them. He isn't him, you aren't you, and I aren't I on the basis of genes alone any more than a recipe produces the same cake at varying temperatures of oven. The same recipe has a better chance of producing a similar or even very similar cake as last time if you keep the processing conditions constant. But of course with cakes its easier to keep the conditions constant than with people and animals (like mammals) because other people and animals are what we interact with. Brett From fauxever at sprynet.com Thu Dec 23 06:10:14 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 22:10:14 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat References: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> <6.1.1.1.0.20041222225439.01a44d08@pop-server.satx.rr.com><006601c4e8ad$eb393e40$6600a8c0@brainiac> <41CA5D7A.4020108@pobox.com> Message-ID: <001701c4e8b6$11a98230$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "Eliezer Yudkowsky" > "Well, let's get one thing straight: I think people should have a right to > be stupid and, if they have that right, the market's going to respond by > supplying as much stupidity as can be sold." > -- Greg Burch Yes, a good one. I thought I'd seen everything there was to see regarding the pampering of pets after I saw the likes of "pet boutiques" and "pet day spas" springing up in Seattle over the past few years, but I've heard that *cosmetic* animal plastic surgery is starting to make inroads. What's next? - a reality show a la The Swan ... for our four-legged friends? Olga From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Dec 23 09:14:41 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 01:14:41 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Aspirin, life-extension, and the current spate of pain-reliever problems In-Reply-To: <41C8E091.5020709@cox.net> References: <725F1C117A3EF440A4190D786B8053FE01F3ACCD@amazemail2.amazeent.com> <41C89F98.7070304@cox.net> <6.1.1.1.0.20041221174055.019ed6c0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41C8E091.5020709@cox.net> Message-ID: <13F0F4D0-54C3-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> It is indeed wondrous scary how fast a query sometimes gets answered here! I had a very drastic ankle injury two decades ago that often acts up and is getting more arthritic over time. For a while I was taking Celebrex nearly every day. I stopped taking it some months back as I did not like the list of possible side-effects. I found that careful exercise and build up of strength in the injured leg did more to increase the time between flare-ups and lessen the severity. I stopped taking aspirin for two reasons: a) members of my family die from bleed-outs (various type of hemorrhage) more often than from clotting problems; b) I started and am maintaining an aerobic and strength training program that further decreases risk. -s On Dec 21, 2004, at 6:48 PM, Dan Clemmensen wrote: > Damien Broderick wrote: > >> Here's a response to Dan's interesting suggestion from Steve Harris, >> MD: >> >> ============== >> >> COX-1 is the form of the enzyme found in all tissues. COX-2 >> is the form which is induced by, and contributes to, acute >> inflammation, but otherwise is normally not active (except >> in uninflammed kidney and brain, for reasons not obvious). > > [Snip] > > Thanks, Damien. > > extropy-chat is scary. In less than four hours, I received a highly > competent response to a theoretical question. I had of course > attempted to answer the question using Google before I asked the list. > > What Steve is saying is that Aspirin iinhibits Cox-1 and Cox2 at the > same time. Users of Viaoxx and other Cox-1 inhibitors are losing > Aspirin's inhibitory effect on Cox-1. Inhibiting Cox-2 results in > reductions of inflammation, while inhibiting Cox-1 had other effects, > both "good" and "bad." > > Steve, as a practicing MD, prescribes Aspirin to any patient taking > Viaoxx ( and for whom Aspirin is not counterindicated.) This says that > my hypothesis was pretty damn obvious to real-life practitioners. > > The moral of this story is: don't inhibit Cox-2 unless you also > inhibit Cox-1. > > Survey: how many extropians are taking Aspirin? > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Dec 23 09:38:32 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 01:38:32 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222134650.03a09d50@pop-server.austin.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222134650.03a09d50@pop-server.austin.rr.com> Message-ID: <690547CC-54C6-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Interesting article. It brings up a point I have made a few times. If all goes well the time will come when it is expected that anything a person experiences is remembered in perfect detail and capable of being shared in full fidelity with others. Anything less would be directly un-extropic as it would be placing limitations on the fidelity and power of our minds. From this it may follow that any assumption of relative inability to fully remember and communicate in order to lock in profits is an un-extropic way of conducting business. If legal restraints lock in such levels of inability then this is imho a criminally un-extropic exercise of force. Intellectual property laws as they now stand do a poor job of actually rewarding innovation and have many devastatingly nasty side-effects including potentially outlawing our own future. We need to do better. The neurosecurity stuff is interesting. If my brain is relatively open to would-be neuro-hackers isn't their brain and intention, much less action possibly obvious and capable of raising alarm? This gets into issues of privacy inside our very heads which is another can of worms. I sure as hell would not want some corporate CIO wonk deciding what patches to put in my brain just because I am doing some work for their corporation! I especially would not want them or anyone else trying to draw rough analogies to guide actions on my head and capabilities from a much simpler and far less complex and delicate set of current security scenarios. The suggested "solutions" here aren't even terribly workable at rather coarse granularities of software components. VPN for the brain is one of the more shudderingly hideous ideas I've contemplated in a while. - samantha On Dec 22, 2004, at 11:49 AM, Max More wrote: > >> At 12:27 PM 12/22/2004, you wrote: >> Has everyone died and gone to Xmas? > > Damien, > > I'm not dead yet! > > In the course of reviewing materials for my ManyWorlds work, I > discovered this article in CIO magazine. Good to see the interest -- > and sophisticated interest at that: > > More Than Human > Fred Hapgood > CIO, 12.15.04 > http://www.cio.com/archive/121504/et_article.html > http://www.cio.com/archive/121504/et_article.html?printversion=yes > > Transhumanism?the practice of enhancing people through > technology?sounds like science fiction. But when it arrives (and it > will), it will create unique problems for CIOs. > > Onward! > > Max > > > _______________________________________________________ > Max More, Ph.D. > max at maxmore.com or max at extropy.org > http://www.maxmore.com > Strategic Philosopher > Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org > _______________________________________________________ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Dec 23 09:49:48 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 01:49:48 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism 666: The Mark of the Beast In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041222124311.029617b8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> References: <470a3c520412200615a0b5b3b@mail.gmail.com> <07723994-5390-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> <6.0.3.0.1.20041222124311.029617b8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Dec 22, 2004, at 12:54 PM, Hara Ra wrote: > > > So, IMO, the beginnings of cladic formation. Example: as a cryonicist, > I live from the pov of an immortalist. This is often subtle, but > important in how I handle long range decisions. I have to discern if > another is an immortal or not, it makes a difference in some cases. > Brutal Example: Mortals are disposable. They die. If you don't get > along with them, the issues die with them. Immortals, well, memories > are forever, must handle more carefully. > Here is something for your further consideration. Every single person in the world is a potential immortal. Each person who has not consciously decided this is possible and desirable is merely not yet conscious and affirming of their potential. This does not mean they are "disposable". It means that an immortal is about to die real death needlessly out of ignorance! Another thought is that it is very unlikely that an immortal would fail to forgive some email slight you experienced with one another back when you both were young barely conscious and unaugmented raw as programmed by brute evolution alone intelligences. Our perspective needs to shift. I think that our morality will shift a great deal when we learn to think of one another this way. I believe we will learn a lot of compassion along the way. - s From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Dec 23 09:54:46 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 01:54:46 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <20041223035658.22966.qmail@web81208.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041223035658.22966.qmail@web81208.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Dec 22, 2004, at 7:56 PM, Stephen Van_Sickle wrote: > > --- Hal Finney wrote: > >> How the heck can you guys say that there is as much >> as one chance in >> ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The >> sun has after all >> risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like >> 30 years' worth. > > And that is about the number that I have personally > experienced. Anything more is hearsay. > What we know through science about the sun is hearsay? -s From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Dec 23 09:57:03 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 01:57:03 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> References: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: I don't see anything about this that I consider at all revolting. What do you find so? - s On Dec 22, 2004, at 8:44 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > Call me moralistic, but I find this revolting (even while acknowledging > potential residual gains in perfecting the science of cloning - though > housepets): > > http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/12/22/ > state1724EST0109.DTL > > Olga > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Dec 23 10:04:27 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 02:04:27 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <0b8001c4e8b4$2d1b07c0$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <000001c4e8b1$d9996260$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <0b8001c4e8b4$2d1b07c0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <08042C79-54CA-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> On Dec 22, 2004, at 9:56 PM, Brett Paatsch wrote: > Spike >> If we had had him cloned, surely the genetically identical >> offspring would not take up these evidently starvation-induced >> endearing behaviors. > > Surely not, I agree. His experiences shaped his neural net in > conjunction with his genes. Both genes and experience matter > and there is an interplay between them. > > He isn't him, you aren't you, and I aren't I on the basis of genes > alone any more than a recipe produces the same cake at varying > temperatures of oven. Dunno. Some of the separated at birth identical twin literature suggests that genetics have more impact on subsequent choices and behavior than the above would suggest. - samantha From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 10:40:24 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:40:24 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat References: <000001c4e8b1$d9996260$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <0b8001c4e8b4$2d1b07c0$b8232dcb@homepc> <08042C79-54CA-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <0c5301c4e8db$cf0946b0$b8232dcb@homepc> Samantha Atkins wrote: > > On Dec 22, 2004, at 9:56 PM, Brett Paatsch wrote: > >> Spike >>> If we had had him cloned, surely the genetically identical >>> offspring would not take up these evidently starvation-induced endearing >>> behaviors. >> >> Surely not, I agree. His experiences shaped his neural net in >> conjunction with his genes. Both genes and experience matter >> and there is an interplay between them. >> >> He isn't him, you aren't you, and I aren't I on the basis of genes alone >> any more than a recipe produces the same cake at varying >> temperatures of oven. > > Dunno. Some of the separated at birth identical twin literature suggests > that genetics have more impact on subsequent choices and behavior than the > above would suggest. Ultimately any analogy will break down. But I'm pretty happy with the above one for present purposes. I don't imply that genes don't matter they do, a lot. Exactly how much they matter in relation to determining complex behaviours is still unknown. A good book popular science book on this would be Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate. You mentioned recently that you were a double gemini. A comment that I took to mean that you and your twin are both geminis. If you happened to be an identical twin and raised with you twin then you'd probably be in just about the best possible position to know that even subtle changes in environment produce difference in personality, behavior and environment. I don't think the state of scientific knowledge at any level of abstraction from molecular biology to developmental biology is good enough to say with certainty exactly what combination of genetics and environment is responsible for the phenotypic behavior of Spikes cat. I'm confident that the cat's brain when it produced the behavour Spike reports though would have been developmentally influenced by learning. And learning will have affected the shape of the neural net to some extent. I stand ready to have my explanation refuted, supported or extended by subject matter experts (or otherwise) armed with facts but I made only a fairly modest analogy and I thought it was sufficient for the purpose. Brett Paatsch From pharos at gmail.com Thu Dec 23 11:02:47 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:02:47 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <0c5301c4e8db$cf0946b0$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <000001c4e8b1$d9996260$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <0b8001c4e8b4$2d1b07c0$b8232dcb@homepc> <08042C79-54CA-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> <0c5301c4e8db$cf0946b0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:40:24 +1100, Brett Paatsch wrote: > You mentioned recently that you were a double gemini. A comment that > I took to mean that you and your twin are both geminis. If you happened > to be an identical twin and raised with you twin then you'd probably be in > just about the best possible position to know that even subtle changes > in environment produce difference in personality, behavior and > environment. > No. A double Gemini means that the Sun sign and the Ascendant (or Rising) sign is also in Gemini. The Ascendant is the degree of the ecliptic which is rising over the Eastern horizon at the precise time and place of an individual's birth. Of course, the Moon sign is also important for a basic reading. A full reading will take into account the signs of all the planets (even those unknown to the ancient astrologers), the Houses, the aspects between the planets, etc., etc, It all gets rather complicated, but it is still crap. BillK From rhanson at gmu.edu Thu Dec 23 11:18:48 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 06:18:48 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061728.02cbe490@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/22/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >I will bet any amount of money that the sun will still exist 20 years from >now. Ah, but at what odds? How about my penny to your million dollars? Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 11:54:50 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:54:50 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061728.02cbe490@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <0c6601c4e8e6$35177b70$b8232dcb@homepc> Robin Hanson wrote: > On 12/22/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >>I will bet any amount of money that the sun will still exist 20 years from >>now. > > Ah, but at what odds? How about my penny to your million dollars? I'll give you odds Robin, and I'll provisionally promise to stake US$1000 that the sun will still exist in 20 years, but nothing is agreed until all is agreed and we'd need two things, first a way to implement the bet for real money that is fully legal and then to discuss the exact odds. The first has to happen first ;-) Brett Paatsch PS: I'm not kidding. From rhanson at gmu.edu Thu Dec 23 12:15:13 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 07:15:13 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <0b0a01c4e8a3$befe0bd0$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <0b0a01c4e8a3$befe0bd0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061932.02cc2420@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/22/2004, Brett Paatsch wrote: >>Well things are looking the best they've looked in the fifteen years >>I've been at this. The CFTC is considering making them more legal - I >>was just at conference on this. And a few dozen companies are >>experimenting with internal markets. > >As a person that wants to use the service "more" legal doesn't really >help me. How much more is more on the sliding scale of legal :-) It is already legal in the sense that if you spent a million dollars going through the usual hoops to lobby the CFTC you could do it. Problem is, the sort of markets can't generate enough revenue to pay such a high cost. So the idea is to bring down the cost. The lower the cost, the more chances a market can pay that cost. And so the "more" legal such betting becomes. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From mbb386 at main.nc.us Thu Dec 23 12:26:21 2004 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 07:26:21 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> References: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: Well, the article certainly showed some revolting attitudes. Imagine saying it should not be done/made because it is used for frivolous purposes or because only the wealthy can take advantage of it! Geez. That's how stuff comes into common use, through improved techniques and demand. Which is driven by money. From folks who have the money to spend. Personally I think cloning your own cat a frightful waste of money, but it's not *my* money so IMHO the lady can do as she wishes. Regards, MB On Wed, 22 Dec 2004, Olga Bourlin wrote: > Call me moralistic, but I find this revolting (even while acknowledging > potential residual gains in perfecting the science of cloning - though > housepets): > > http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/12/22/state1724EST0109.DTL > From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 12:26:01 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:26:01 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <0b0a01c4e8a3$befe0bd0$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061932.02cc2420@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <0c8901c4e8ea$90468af0$b8232dcb@homepc> Robin Hanson wrote: > On 12/22/2004, Brett Paatsch wrote: >>>Well things are looking the best they've looked in the fifteen years >>>I've been at this. The CFTC is considering making them more legal - I >>>was just at conference on this. And a few dozen companies are >>>experimenting with internal markets. >> >>As a person that wants to use the service "more" legal doesn't really >>help me. How much more is more on the sliding scale of legal :-) > > It is already legal in the sense that if you spent a million dollars > going through the usual hoops to lobby the CFTC you could do it. How do you know the figure would be $1million instead of say $500,000? > Problem is, the sort of markets can't generate enough revenue to > pay such a high cost. So the idea is to bring down the cost. The > lower the cost, the more chances a market can pay that cost. And > so the "more" legal such betting becomes. Or alternatively you plan to pitch to players that stake more on the bets. How do you know the market can't pay the costs? Do you know what your target market is? Brett Paatsch From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Dec 23 13:37:21 2004 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 07:37:21 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222134650.03a09d50@pop-server.austin.rr.co m> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222134650.03a09d50@pop-server.austin.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20041223073413.02188448@pop-server.austin.rr.com> At 01:49 PM 12/22/2004, Max wrote: >CIO, 12.15.04 >http://www.cio.com/archive/121504/et_article.html >http://www.cio.com/archive/121504/et_article.html?printversion=yes > >Transhumanism?the practice of enhancing people through technology?sounds >like science fiction. But when it arrives (and it will), it will create >unique problems for CIOs. This is a great Newtonmas present! Thank you - :-) Natasha Natasha Vita-More http://www.natasha.cc [_______________________________________________ President, Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org [_____________________________________________________ Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture http://www.transhumanist.biz -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Dec 23 13:39:21 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 14:39:21 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20041223133921.GQ9221@leitl.org> On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 12:05:34AM -0500, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Are you sure? An FAI could take apart the Sun too, y'know. You could lose > the bet, and still be alive to pay it. While you could do some pretty good large scale engineering in 20 years, I doubt the physical laws allow much stellar disassembling in that time frame. Nobody here is an SI, sure. There might be some loopholes we're not yet aware of. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From fauxever at sprynet.com Thu Dec 23 15:06:48 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 07:06:48 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat References: <000001c4e8b1$d9996260$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0b8001c4e8b4$2d1b07c0$b8232dcb@homepc><08042C79-54CA-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com><0c5301c4e8db$cf0946b0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <00a701c4e901$073e77b0$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "BillK" > No. A double Gemini means that the Sun sign and the Ascendant (or > Rising) sign is also in Gemini. The Ascendant is the degree of the > ecliptic which is rising over the Eastern horizon at the precise time > and place of an individual's birth. Of course, the Moon sign is also > important for a basic reading. A full reading will take into account > the signs of all the planets (even those unknown to the ancient > astrologers), the Houses, the aspects between the planets, etc., etc, > > It all gets rather complicated, but it is still crap. Yes. It's all Taurus. Olga From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 23 15:43:22 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 07:43:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <006601c4e8ad$eb393e40$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <20041223154322.36695.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> --- Olga Bourlin wrote: > > > > < "It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible," said David > Magnus, > > co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford. "For > $50,000, > > she could have provided homes for a lot of strays." > > I am an unapologetic speciesist. $50,000 donated to science or > something progressive would have been OK with me. $50,000 to replace > Snookums ("dead is dead") with another cat that looks-just-like > Snookums is obscene IMO. That $50k is helping advance the science to the point where reliable human cloning will be possible. Most of that cost is legal and R&D overhead for advancing the legality, affordability, and reliability of cloning in our society. I want to see a lot more pet cloning going on. Firstly, people will learn through exposure to pet cloning that cloning doesn't produce a carbon copy of the previous individual. THe real public fear with cloning is the "Body Snatchers" psychosis, of being replaced by a replicant. Real cloning doesn't work that way, a clone is nothing more than a twin sibling, and people need to learn that truth. Pet cloning is a great entree to teach that lesson to society, as pet owners come to understand that their pet clone is not the same as their original pet. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From fauxever at sprynet.com Thu Dec 23 15:49:17 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 07:49:17 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat References: <002c01c4e8aa$0fbf0dc0$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <002101c4e906$f60e62b0$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "Samantha Atkins" > I don't see anything about this that I consider at all revolting. What > do you find so? 1. Literally treating pets like members of the family (I only alluded to this in another post yesterday - it hasn't anything to do directly with the Copycat article) is nuts, and I consider people whose main focus in life is their pet(s) a bit coo coo. Whether they have money: http://corporate.americangreetings.com/topstories/summerpatriotic02.html ... or whether they're not-so-rich (has anyone here seen this movie?): http://www.ebertfest.com/six/gates_of_heaven_review.htm 2. And assuaging one's sense of loss by spending $50,000 to clone one's pet is something I consider even more revolting than spending $50 on Poochie's manicure - but, again, I did admit there could be some positive unintended consequences to be gained here for the science of cloning. Of course, I agree that people can do whatever they want with their money. But in the Marketplace of Ideas, I still like to get up on my "moralistic" soapbox from time to time ... (as well as listen to others with *their* ideas). Olga From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Dec 23 16:01:58 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:01:58 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Dec 23, 2004, at 12:05 AM, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Harvey Newstrom wrote: >> On Dec 22, 2004, at 11:27 PM, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: >>> Hal Finney wrote: >>> >>>> How the heck can you guys say that there is as much as one chance in >>>> ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The sun has after >>>> all >>>> risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like 30 years' worth. >>> >>> That was before people started playing around with AI. 99.99% would >>> correspond to a 50% chance of a rogue AI disassembling the Sun in >>> the next 20 years, with the probability distributed evenly over time >>> (Poisson process). >> I will bet any amount of money that the sun will still exist 20 years >> from now. > > Are you sure? An FAI could take apart the Sun too, y'know. You could > lose the bet, and still be alive to pay it. I do not believe AI can advance that far in 20 years. I don't believe we will have the technology to disassemble the sun in 20 years. I don't believe reproducing nanites or nanites that can survive the sun's heat will be developed in 20 years. I don't believe a space ship capable of carrying such a project to the sun will be available in 20 years. I don't believe humans will be rearranging planets and starts within 20 years. I think such predictions are beyond the realm of even fantasy within 20 years. I wouldn't even read a science fiction story that had such plot elements within 20 years. It is too unbelievable. And I will bet any amount of money against it, and retire rich in 20 years. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Dec 23 16:02:03 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:02:03 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061728.02cbe490@mail.gmu.edu> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061728.02cbe490@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: On Dec 23, 2004, at 6:18 AM, Robin Hanson wrote: > On 12/22/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >> I will bet any amount of money that the sun will still exist 20 years >> from now. > > Ah, but at what odds? How about my penny to your million dollars? I will gladly take such a bet. I know a penny isn't really worth the trouble of even betting, but it is virtually impossible for me to lose. I assume that you are willing to risk this because the risk of a penny is so small. I think that the risk that we can actually build a friendly AI that progresses to the point of disassembling the sun within 20 years is even a smaller risk. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Dec 23 16:09:03 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 08:09:03 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> ... Personally I think cloning your own cat a frightful waste of money, but it's not *my* money so IMHO the lady can do as she wishes. Regards, MB Keep in mind that when people do things like this, the money isn't actually *destroyed* but rather it merely changes hands. In this case, that transaction is one I would welcome. spike From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 23 16:25:26 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 16:25:26 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <00a701c4e901$073e77b0$6600a8c0@brainiac> References: <000001c4e8b1$d9996260$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0b8001c4e8b4$2d1b07c0$b8232dcb@homepc><08042C79-54CA-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com><0c5301c4e8db$cf0946b0$b8232dcb@homepc> <00a701c4e901$073e77b0$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <41CAF176.4000508@neopax.com> Olga Bourlin wrote: >From: "BillK" > > > >>No. A double Gemini means that the Sun sign and the Ascendant (or >>Rising) sign is also in Gemini. The Ascendant is the degree of the >>ecliptic which is rising over the Eastern horizon at the precise time >>and place of an individual's birth. Of course, the Moon sign is also >>important for a basic reading. A full reading will take into account >>the signs of all the planets (even those unknown to the ancient >>astrologers), the Houses, the aspects between the planets, etc., etc, >> >>It all gets rather complicated, but it is still crap. >> >> > >Yes. It's all Taurus. > > > So there's no correlation between the season of conception/birth and (say) personality? Was there in times past, when food was seasonal/scarce? -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.4 - Release Date: 22/12/2004 From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Dec 23 17:26:10 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 12:26:10 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: On Dec 22, 2004, at 7:21 PM, Robin Hanson wrote: > On 12/22/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > Did you actually go look at the IEM web site and the many papers they > have there? If so, you might have found: > http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/archive/forecasting.pdf This paper claims that existing evidence only shows the Iowa markets predicting elections 24 hours before the election. They claim that no evidence has been seen or analysis performed on longer-term predictions. I find it hard to believe that in the history of that market, nobody tried to analyze the data. More likely, I believe that like me, nobody was able to extract evidence of long-term predicitons. This seems to support my previous research and discount years of previous claims made by people for the Iowa market. Given such an admission, I had (have?) high hopes that this new paper would give such evidence. However, it has been in "working draft" stage for two and a half years, and was never actually completed, peer-reviewed and finally published. If tis paper is providing the proof, why has it never been finished? If it is accurate that no previous analysis exists, and this "first" analysis has been left unfinished after two and a half years, I am left with the idea that no final analysis showing good results actually exists. I am skeptical that such evidence will be presented anytime soon. A single unpublished, unpeer-reviewed, and seemingly abandoned/unfinished paper does not carry a lot of weight with me. Especially when this paper itself confirms that no other evidence exists besides this paper. The data presented in this paper shows very small sample sizes and very large variability with no consistency between elections. The paper itself says that there is no way to calculate margin for error, so it is not clear if the sample size is large enough (which I doubt) or the variability/randomness is small enough (which I doubt). For example, the look at presidential elections only shows four elections. One was less accurate than polls most of the time. One consistently grew less accurate over time as the election approached. That's two out of the four elections that don't look good to me. I also disagree with the measurement methodology in some places. They take the last market price at the end of the last day of any polling period, while the polls data are averaged over those days. Shouldn't the same measuring method be used for both? Shouldn't the market data be averaged over the polling period also? Otherwise, we aren't just comparing polls to this market, but comparing earlier days polls with later market values. This doesn't seem consistent or fair. Also, the data only shows whether the market "beats" the polls, but doesn't show how much. I think being wildly wrong should weight more than being a fraction of a percent right, but the calculations aren't made this way. They also seem to chose arbitrary dates to look at. Why not choose evenly spaced dates or look at the continuous graphs? The graphs don't look as good as the snapshots do. The market is often wrong for weeks or months at a time. It also flip-flops in its predictions on many of the graphs. These almost daily errors and reversals are not reflected in the snapshots data. I will admit that I did not do math like this in my analysis. I looked at their historical graphs online. They show the markets flip-flopping back and forth, and long periods of being wrong. Even if they statistically turn out to be more right than wrong at the end, it is wildly inconsistent. There is no point at which we can look at a future election and calculate who the winner should be. The calculation changes almost daily. The final time of convergence to the correct answer ranged from weeks to days and in some graphs never occurs until the final day. This seems to make predictability difficult. Even if the math works out (which has never been published in final form or peer-reviewed), it still looks like it will be a "significant" few percent more accurate, but not enough to make it a prediction tool. If it predicted the 2000 election by 49.9 to 50.1 instead 49.8 to 50.2, that doesn't give enough of an edge to predict presidential elections in advance. > Did you look at any of the papers mentioning such claims and look up > their citations? > For example, re an extropian angle you might have found: > http://hanson.gmu.edu/moretrue.pdf Nice paper *about* predictions, but little evidence of historical success or specific methods. > You are making this stuff up. You apparently have no idea what > investors are doing. Try: > > Barbara Kiviat, > -660965,00.html>The End Of Management?, Time, Inside Business, A4, > July 12, 2004. http://hanson.gmu.edu/PAM/press/Time-7-12-04.htm Let me be clearer. I am not saying that "nobody" is doing this. I am saying that "virtually nobody" is doing this. A few minor counter-examples can't change the fact that 99% of investors have never heard of this stuff. 99% of the markets do not include idea futures. This is not the mainstream market of today. The stuff being referenced here is more of a proof-of-concept demonstration, not real mainstream markets based on these ideas. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 23 17:44:47 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 09:44:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) Message-ID: <20041223174447.F0A9057E2B@finney.org> Robin writes: > Problem is, the sort of markets can't generate enough revenue to > pay such a high cost. So the idea is to bring down the cost. The > lower the cost, the more chances a market can pay that cost. And > so the "more" legal such betting becomes. Part of the problem is that the benefits of the market are distributed and do not return only to its creators. Anyone who can see the market prices gains value from this information about the future. In that sense, running a futures market is a public good. It is no wonder that such markets are under-provided in our society. Hal From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 23 18:04:57 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 10:04:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night Message-ID: <20041223180457.31A8657E2D@finney.org> Robin wrote: : I predict the sun will come up tomorrow. I will keep making this : prediction everyday for the next year. Go ahead, collect stats on : how well I do. Betcha I'm right more often than not. Eliezer wrote: > What exact probability do you assign? Now you've got me curious. Robin wrote: : Well for the purposes of the above discussion all I needed was p/(1-p) >> 1 : But if I have to pick a number I'd say p/(1-p) ~ 10^4 to 10^5 Eliezer wrote: > Interesting. That was just about exactly my own answer - 99.98% to > 99.999%. Though as we may only make a single bet to sum up our > uncertainty, I would say 99.99%. Okay, so let me offer this bet to Eliezer: my $10,000 to your $1, that the sun will rise tomorrow. Here is how I propose to do it. I will send you a check for $10,000. I will trust you not to cash it unless the sun doesn't rise tomorrow. If the sun does rise as usual, you will send me back the uncashed check along with a one dollar bill. Or, if you want, you can decide to continue the bet each day and then, once a week, you can send me $7 if the sun has continued to rise on schedule. The series of bets can be terminated by either party. For me, this works out pretty good. I can treat my wife to a free weekly Starbucks decaf latte (and continue to draw interest on the $10,000 in the bank, for they don't know that I have an uncashed check out). The main downside is the slight risk that you may succumb to temptation and cash the check, but I think your goals would discourage cheating like that. What do you think? Hal From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Dec 23 18:26:11 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:26:11 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061932.02cc2420@mail.gmu.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <0b0a01c4e8a3$befe0bd0$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061932.02cc2420@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <1EF47D70-5510-11D9-90E4-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 23, 2004, at 7:15 AM, Robin Hanson wrote: > It is already legal in the sense that if you spent a million dollars > going through the usual hoops to lobby the CFTC you could do it. > Problem is, the sort of markets can't generate enough revenue to > pay such a high cost. So the idea is to bring down the cost. The > lower the cost, the more chances a market can pay that cost. And > so the "more" legal such betting becomes. What about a non-market service that does something similar? Suppose I set up a research club on a website. Anybody can sell research reports supporting a particular prediction. These reports are then sold at whatever price the person wants to set. People can download these free to review (like shareware), but are not supposed to keep them without paying. A person who disagrees with a report can purchase the report for future reference. All reports purchased through this website have a double-your-money-back guarantee. If the prediction turns out as the report states, the report writer legitimately keeps all money from all sales of the accurate report. However, if the prediction turns out wrong, the report writer must refund double the selling price to all purchasers, because the research turned out to be bogus and the prediction inaccurate. Returning double the selling price means they refund the original purchase price, plus a penalty of the same amount for selling a flawed report with an inaccurate prediction. Example: I predict US troops will still be deployed in Iraq one year from now. I write a research paper to support my position. I sell it on the research club website for $1000 a copy. People download my paper and review it. Those who strongly disagree buy it. (I hope they write refutations and publish their own counter-papers, but this is not required.) After a year, if US troops are still deployed in Iraq, I keep $1000 for every report purchased. If US troops are not deployed in Iraq, I return all moneys and pay $1000 for every report purchased. This scheme allows me to make $1000 on every report if I am right, but I lose $1000 on every report if I am wrong. Purchasers will lose $1000 on every report if I am right, but they gain $1000 on every report if I am wrong. Each purchase only entitles the user to one copy. If they want more copies, they can buy as many copies as they want. They will pay for all the copies or receive refunds for all the copies. Thus, each person can purchase as many or as few copies of each prediction as they like. Note that I am not a lawyer! But in my non-expert opinion, this is not betting or investing. You are buying copies of the report. You are paying for the research. As long as it turns out to be accurate, the original purchase of the white-paper stands. If it turns out to be wrong, the double-your-money-back guarantee rectifies the sale of a defective product. No one will lose money with nothing in return. Purchasers only lose money by purchasing good reports with accurate predictions. There is always an exchange of money for a product, and the product is guaranteed to be accurate. The purchase price is for the report only. No investment, ownership, or shares of anything is involved. The prices do not fluctuate or change based on demand or market share. No one will buy items in hopes of selling them at a higher price late. No betting or gambling in involved. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 23 18:47:11 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:47:11 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <20041223180457.31A8657E2D@finney.org> References: <20041223180457.31A8657E2D@finney.org> Message-ID: <41CB12AF.8050707@pobox.com> Hal Finney wrote: > Robin wrote: > : I predict the sun will come up tomorrow. I will keep making this > : prediction everyday for the next year. Go ahead, collect stats on > : how well I do. Betcha I'm right more often than not. > > Eliezer wrote: > >>What exact probability do you assign? Now you've got me curious. > > Robin wrote: > : Well for the purposes of the above discussion all I needed was p/(1-p) >> 1 > : But if I have to pick a number I'd say p/(1-p) ~ 10^4 to 10^5 > > Eliezer wrote: > >>Interesting. That was just about exactly my own answer - 99.98% to >>99.999%. Though as we may only make a single bet to sum up our >>uncertainty, I would say 99.99%. > > Okay, so let me offer this bet to Eliezer: my $10,000 to your $1, > that the sun will rise tomorrow. Here is how I propose to do it. > I will send you a check for $10,000. I will trust you not to cash it > unless the sun doesn't rise tomorrow. If the sun does rise as usual, > you will send me back the uncashed check along with a one dollar bill. > > Or, if you want, you can decide to continue the bet each day and then, > once a week, you can send me $7 if the sun has continued to rise on > schedule. The series of bets can be terminated by either party. A problem is that the probability of my surviving a win, is significantly lower than the probability of a win. Furthermore, if I survive winning this bet, the money has less utility to my purpose afterward. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 23 19:01:32 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:01:32 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night References: <20041223180457.31A8657E2D@finney.org> <41CB12AF.8050707@pobox.com> Message-ID: <00c401c4e921$d1c381e0$1d06d545@kevin> Question. Whose point of view are you using for this? If Robin dies in the evening, does the sun still rise? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eliezer Yudkowsky" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 12:47 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] silent night > Hal Finney wrote: > > Robin wrote: > > : I predict the sun will come up tomorrow. I will keep making this > > : prediction everyday for the next year. Go ahead, collect stats on > > : how well I do. Betcha I'm right more often than not. > > > > Eliezer wrote: > > > >>What exact probability do you assign? Now you've got me curious. > > > > Robin wrote: > > : Well for the purposes of the above discussion all I needed was p/(1-p) >> 1 > > : But if I have to pick a number I'd say p/(1-p) ~ 10^4 to 10^5 > > > > Eliezer wrote: > > > >>Interesting. That was just about exactly my own answer - 99.98% to > >>99.999%. Though as we may only make a single bet to sum up our > >>uncertainty, I would say 99.99%. > > > > Okay, so let me offer this bet to Eliezer: my $10,000 to your $1, > > that the sun will rise tomorrow. Here is how I propose to do it. > > I will send you a check for $10,000. I will trust you not to cash it > > unless the sun doesn't rise tomorrow. If the sun does rise as usual, > > you will send me back the uncashed check along with a one dollar bill. > > > > Or, if you want, you can decide to continue the bet each day and then, > > once a week, you can send me $7 if the sun has continued to rise on > > schedule. The series of bets can be terminated by either party. > > A problem is that the probability of my surviving a win, is significantly > lower than the probability of a win. Furthermore, if I survive winning > this bet, the money has less utility to my purpose afterward. > > -- > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 23 19:00:22 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:00:22 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] will the sun rise? In-Reply-To: References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041223125150.01b14f70@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 11:01 AM 12/23/2004 -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >I do not believe AI can advance that far in 20 years. I don't believe we >will have the technology to disassemble the sun in 20 years. I don't >believe reproducing nanites or nanites that can survive the sun's heat >will be developed in 20 years. I don't believe a space ship capable of >carrying such a project to the sun will be available in 20 years. I don't >believe humans will be rearranging planets and [stars] within 20 years. I agree, but some of these elements can be reframed. We started by talking about `the sun not rising'. Since the sun *never* rises (we just rotate toward it), the proposition is already lost. More in keeping with the spirit of ordinary usage, we could see the same effect if the *Earth* were disassembled appropriately; that's more doable, but probably not in the time frame proposed. But wait, who said anything about AIs and humans being the only players? We have absolutely no way to estimate how soon we might experience an intervention by extraterrestrials attracted here by old radio signals. Who knows what tricks such advanced beings might play on us? Then there's the whole simulation postulate... It gets hard to be entirely sure that `the sun also rises'. BTW: Could people *please* change subject lines as the topics wander? Damien Broderick From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Dec 23 19:19:14 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 14:19:14 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <690547CC-54C6-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222134650.03a09d50@pop-server.austin.rr.com> <690547CC-54C6-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <88A3DE2E-5517-11D9-90E4-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 23, 2004, at 4:38 AM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > The neurosecurity stuff is interesting. If my brain is relatively > open to would-be neuro-hackers isn't their brain and intention, much > less action possibly obvious and capable of raising alarm? This gets > into issues of privacy inside our very heads which is another can of > worms. I sure as hell would not want some corporate CIO wonk > deciding what patches to put in my brain just because I am doing some > work for their corporation! I especially would not want them or > anyone else trying to draw rough analogies to guide actions on my head > and capabilities from a much simpler and far less complex and delicate > set of current security scenarios. The suggested "solutions" here > aren't even terribly workable at rather coarse granularities of > software components. VPN for the brain is one of the more > shudderingly hideous ideas I've contemplated in a while. This is why I am focussing my career on IT security. I believe that this is a prerequisite to all future technologies such as AI, robotics, nanotech, VR, space travel, biotech, neurotech, mega-scale engineering, etc. Besides just making technology a possibility, we also need to make sure it has effectiveness, efficiency, reliability, compliance, confidentiality, integrity and availability. This is as vital as reproducing scientific experiments, testing medicines or checking mathematical calculations. Without these assurances, the technology is still in the unverified experimental stage. My entire career is spent finding flaws in technology that designers and implementors don't know are there. They build systems to do what they want, and usually have no idea how they can fail or be hacked in radically unexpected ways. The failure rates of technology is increasing as complexity is increasing. Until we learn to control technology better, the future technologies will become overwhelmed by complexity issues at a scale not seen today. Future tech requires speed, reliability and flexibility that is just not available in previous technologies. Even today, the biggest threats to our computers are crashes, vulnerabilities, and deliberate attacks. The alleged capability of the technology is the least of our concerns. I am a professional paranoid and skeptic. I get paid to tell people how things can go wrong or be made to go wrong. This is not quite the same thing as being a pessimist. I actually have to prove my claims, and then develop countermeasures to prevent such problems. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 23 19:49:58 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 14:49:58 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] will the sun rise? In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041223125150.01b14f70@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223125150.01b14f70@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41CB2166.5060705@pobox.com> Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > I do not believe AI can advance that far in 20 years. I don't believe > we will have the technology to disassemble the sun in 20 years. I don't > believe reproducing nanites or nanites that can survive the sun's heat > will be developed in 20 years. I don't believe a space ship capable of > carrying such a project to the sun will be available in 20 years. I > don't believe humans will be rearranging planets and stars within 20 > years. I think such predictions are beyond the realm of even fantasy > within 20 years. I wouldn't even read a science fiction story that had > such plot elements within 20 years. It is too unbelievable. > > And I will bet any amount of money against it, and retire rich in 20 > years. So you believe that it would be physically impossible to develop stellar disassembly technology within 10^51 Planck increments? I suppose you feel that, say, 10^52 Planck increments or 10^53 Planck increments would be more realistic? Only your first sentence was relevant. For the rest, I spoke of a superintelligence disassembling the Sun - not of humans undertaking the job. Never forget that you run on a 200Hz processor. Your timescale is not the timescale of physics. Unless you have set forth the physics of stellar disassembly and *calculated* the impossibility, I would not be so eager to make vast bets on the basis of intuition alone. I recently read a book on writing fiction which patiently explained to the would-be writer that "But it happened in real life!" is not a good excuse for an unbelievable plot element. Fiction, you see, must be believable, even if reality is not. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From duggerj1 at charter.net Thu Dec 23 19:55:41 2004 From: duggerj1 at charter.net (duggerj1 at charter.net) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:55:41 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night Message-ID: <3k70mg$jkg8o0@mxip15a.cluster1.charter.net> > > From: Eliezer Yudkowsky > Date: 2004/12/22 Wed PM 11:05:34 CST > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] silent night > > Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > > > On Dec 22, 2004, at 11:27 PM, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > > > >> Hal Finney wrote: > >> > >>> How the heck can you guys say that there is as much as one chance in > >>> ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The sun has after all > >>> risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like 30 years' worth. > >> > >> That was before people started playing around with AI. 99.99% would > >> correspond to a 50% chance of a rogue AI disassembling the Sun in the > >> next 20 years, with the probability distributed evenly over time > >> (Poisson process). > > > > I will bet any amount of money that the sun will still exist 20 years > > from now. > > Are you sure? An FAI could take apart the Sun too, y'know. You could lose > the bet, and still be alive to pay it. > Perhaps, but then the bet no longer depends on Earth's rotation. I might bet any creature powerful enough to dismantle a star without exterminating local life will have restraint enough to avoid taking the action. > -- > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > Jay Dugger : Til Eulenspiegel http://www.owlmirror.net/~duggerj/ Sometimes the delete key serves best. From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 23 20:02:08 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:02:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <3k70mg$jkg8o0@mxip15a.cluster1.charter.net> References: <3k70mg$jkg8o0@mxip15a.cluster1.charter.net> Message-ID: <41CB2440.6010906@pobox.com> duggerj1 at charter.net wrote: > > Perhaps, but then the bet no longer depends on Earth's rotation. I might > bet any creature powerful enough to dismantle a star without > exterminating local life will have restraint enough to avoid taking the > action. But the Sun is wasting entropy! Okay, I can see an FAI (especially a CV) waiting another thousand years to take apart the Sun, while the humans get over their sentimentality. (What's a thousand years out of a billion already wasted? A sunk cost, that's what.) Maybe humans shall always be sentimental, and we'll leave the Sun of Earth to burn out and get icky on its own, even though we disassemble the other stars as soon as a lightspeed probe can reach them. But I can also see a powerful argument for turning off the Sun. It's wasting electricity, and the utility bills are just unimaginable. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From eugen at leitl.org Thu Dec 23 21:36:57 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:36:57 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] will the sun rise? In-Reply-To: <41CB2166.5060705@pobox.com> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223125150.01b14f70@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB2166.5060705@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 02:49:58PM -0500, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > So you believe that it would be physically impossible to develop stellar > disassembly technology within 10^51 Planck increments? I suppose you feel > that, say, 10^52 Planck increments or 10^53 Planck increments would be more > realistic? Control disappears well before Planck scale. To the best of our knowledge machines are restricted to condensed phase between 0 and a couple of kK. That limits the autoamplification rate quite noticeably. > Only your first sentence was relevant. For the rest, I spoke of a > superintelligence disassembling the Sun - not of humans undertaking the job. If you base your claims on fairy-tale physics, they're not claims. > Never forget that you run on a 200Hz processor. Your timescale is not the You don't "run" on a "processor", and it's most assuredly not "200 Hz". It doesn't matter how fast you can think, but how you quickly you can move stuff. Without breaking your machine which does the moving. > timescale of physics. Unless you have set forth the physics of stellar You have to autoamplify and get out the gravity well to next big pile of atoms (predispersed material in shallow gravity wells, preferrably, and these are many lightminutes away) and disperse that into a large circumsolar machine. This is readily feasible within 20 years. I can't put a lower limit to it, but it could be a couple of years, and maybe even months (I doubt latter, though). Assuming controlled disassembly (with lifted material not lost but contained), how quickly could you lift noticeable amount of material, using the star itself and external fusion as power input? Assuming you could catalyze matter-energy conversion (we have no idea this is ok with physics), would asymmetric explosive stellar ablation (with most material lost into space) qualify as disassembly? > disassembly and *calculated* the impossibility, I would not be so eager to > make vast bets on the basis of intuition alone. I don't understand the whole motivation behind betting at all. > I recently read a book on writing fiction which patiently explained to the > would-be writer that "But it happened in real life!" is not a good excuse > for an unbelievable plot element. Fiction, you see, must be believable, > even if reality is not. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 22:21:40 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:21:40 +1100 Subject: Collateral public good (was Re: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day etc..) References: <20041223174447.F0A9057E2B@finney.org> Message-ID: <0d2e01c4e93d$c6c56a80$b8232dcb@homepc> Hal Finney wrote: > Robin writes: >> Problem is, the sort of markets can't generate enough revenue to >> pay such a high cost. So the idea is to bring down the cost. The >> lower the cost, the more chances a market can pay that cost. And >> so the "more" legal such betting becomes. > > Part of the problem is that the benefits of the market are distributed > and do not return only to its creators. I don't see that as necessarily a problem Hal. Why do you? I'm beginning to wonder if *I* am mistaken, or if those that are also interested in the futures market idea don't fully realise what the potential is. > Anyone who can see the market > prices gains value from this information about the future. In that sense, > running a futures market is a public good. I could accept a little collateral public good. Hey call me old fashioned. >It is no wonder that such markets are under-provided in our society. Cynicism Hal? Brett Paatsch From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 23 22:37:39 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 17:37:39 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] will the sun rise? In-Reply-To: <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> References: <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223125150.01b14f70@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB2166.5060705@pobox.com> <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <41CB48B3.9040405@pobox.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 02:49:58PM -0500, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > >>So you believe that it would be physically impossible to develop stellar >>disassembly technology within 10^51 Planck increments? I suppose you feel >>that, say, 10^52 Planck increments or 10^53 Planck increments would be more >>realistic? > > Control disappears well before Planck scale. To the best of our knowledge > machines are restricted to condensed phase between 0 and a couple of kK. That limits > the autoamplification rate quite noticeably. Mm... if we assume that our model of physics is not going to change significantly in the 21st century, as it did in the 20th, then I agree that operating with nucleons in the kiloKelvin range would prevent you from completing operations at Planck speeds. It would still run faster than neurons, though, so the subjective feeling that "20 years is not a long time, while 2000 years is a long time" is just as silly a guide to our expectations of how long it takes to develop solar disassembly tech. Actually... I'm not sure I agree with this, if you're talking about cognition rather than motor actions (see below). Maybe you could run a photonic computing operation closer to Planck speeds, though it had better be reversible. I don't see how you could actually get within ten orders of magnitude of Planck speeds, but you could get closer. I am just making the point that from the perspective of physics, a human is a glacier; a gigantic, motionless monument. >>Never forget that you run on a 200Hz processor. Your timescale is not the > > You don't "run" on a "processor", and it's most assuredly not "200 Hz". It > doesn't matter how fast you can think, but how you quickly you can move > stuff. Without breaking your machine which does the moving. Are these not essentially the same problem? Well, maybe if you presume a pre-existing object to operate on, like the Sun, then you could compute faster than you could change the pre-existing system. >>timescale of physics. Unless you have set forth the physics of stellar > > You have to autoamplify and get out the gravity well to next big pile of > atoms (predispersed material in shallow gravity wells, preferrably, and these are many lightminutes > away) and disperse that into a large circumsolar machine. This is readily > feasible within 20 years. I can't put a lower limit to it, but it could be a > couple of years, and maybe even months (I doubt latter, though). I don't see why you would doubt the months, if you rushed as fast as possible. Transit time from asteroid belt to solar system of days is feasible if you are willing to expend lots of fuel, same for putting gross materials where you want them and transforming them into machinery - presuming that is how you are disassembling the Sun. It's a question of how much energy you're willing to waste. > Assuming you could catalyze matter-energy conversion (we have no idea this is > ok with physics), would asymmetric explosive stellar ablation (with most material > lost into space) qualify as disassembly? One suspects that the primary issue would not be speed as such, but choosing a balance of speed, power expenditure, and material lost, which minimizes entropy loss and hence maximizes the calculations performable with the winnings. Does it take more energy to rush machinery into solar orbit, than the Sun wastes over that time? -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From mbb386 at main.nc.us Thu Dec 23 22:46:56 2004 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 17:46:56 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: Precisely. :) And as someone else mentioned (Mike Lorrey?) this $50,000 will (much of it, probably) be put to good use improving the technology. Happy Newtonmass to you all. :) Regards, MB On Thu, 23 Dec 2004, spike wrote: > > ... > > Personally I think cloning your own cat a frightful waste of money, > but it's not *my* money so IMHO the lady can do as she wishes. > > Regards, > MB > > > Keep in mind that when people do things like this, > the money isn't actually *destroyed* but rather it > merely changes hands. In this case, that transaction > is one I would welcome. > > spike > From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 23 23:01:08 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:01:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Collateral public good (was Re: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day etc..) Message-ID: <20041223230108.8DBCF57E2B@finney.org> Hal Finney wrote: > It is no wonder that such markets are under-provided in our society. Brett Paatsch replied: > Cynicism Hal? No, just economics! It is a well known result that public goods are under provided in a free market. Information markets are (impure) public goods. There are positive externalities in operating such a market, and there is no mechanism to capture the benefits which other people derive and use them to fund the market. It might be possible to try to keep the results secret and available only to subscribers, but the amount of information is so slight, just the current price for each commodity, that it would be difficult to enforce an embargo on the data. Plus the barriers to entry are pretty low (at least initially) so one could expect competition to quickly arise if the market's operations became profitable. On the other hand there might be network effects; a well established market would have high liquidity that a newcomer would be hard pressed to match, like eBay does. Hal From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 23 22:51:20 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 14:51:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Collateral public good (was Re: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day etc..) In-Reply-To: <0d2e01c4e93d$c6c56a80$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <20041223225120.31523.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Brett Paatsch wrote: > Hal Finney wrote: > > > Robin writes: > >> Problem is, the sort of markets can't generate enough revenue to > >> pay such a high cost. So the idea is to bring down the cost. The > >> lower the cost, the more chances a market can pay that cost. And > >> so the "more" legal such betting becomes. > > > > Part of the problem is that the benefits of the market are > distributed > > and do not return only to its creators. > > I don't see that as necessarily a problem Hal. Why do you? > > I'm beginning to wonder if *I* am mistaken, or if those that are > also interested in the futures market idea don't fully realise what > the potential is. > > > Anyone who can see the market > > prices gains value from this information about the future. In that > sense, > > running a futures market is a public good. > > I could accept a little collateral public good. Hey call me old > fashioned. That any market provides positive externalities to all doesn't make it a public good. Hal seems to be slipping into some marxist bogosity here. ANY free economic exchange provides benefits to all involved if all are looking to maximize their rational long term self interest. The presence of NYSE benefits a lot more people than just the owners of broker seats on the exchange, pretty much everyone benefits from its existence. That doesn't make it a public good. A public good is something which cannot pay for itself without the state using its authority to make everyone 'pay their fair share'. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From hal at finney.org Thu Dec 23 23:16:48 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:16:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Real money betting markets Message-ID: <20041223231648.CEDA457E2B@finney.org> There are some jurisdictions where a real-money Idea Futures (IF) market would seem to be possible. There are a number of real-money betting markets available today, but none of them seem particularly oriented towards ideas or policy proposals. Probably the most famous is Tradesports.com, which as the name suggests mostly bets on sports but does have some current-events and politics bets. Intrade.com says "Intrade is a trading exchange for Politics, Current Events, Financial Indicators, Weather & other Unique Contracts." I think they may be the same as tradesports under a different name, though. Terrorxchange.com is another one focusing on current events, nominally terrorism related but actually with a broader focus. Newsfutures.com does seem to have a few technology claims: human cloning, the Higgs boson, on the race between Mars rovers Spirit vs Opportunity; and the fate of the Huygens probe to Titan next month. MIT Technology Review is running Innovationfutures.com , which uses play money but offers real prizes to the big winners every month. They're really good prizes, too, iPods and TiVos and such - I might sign up and hope to get lucky. However it has only a few claims and none are very far out. Plus I would be concerned about cheating in a play money market - FX has had problems with players secretly running multiple accounts and arranging for one to win at the expense of the others, inflating its score. A big problem with even the technology-supporting markets is that the claim creation process seems to be extremely limited, so we see spotty and random coverage. But given that the basic betting operation is legal (or at least legal "enough"), I don't see why a real money IF couldn't happen too. Now, from ten years of playing the play-money IF game, Foresight Exchange, www.ideosphere.com , I will say that it is much harder than you might think to create good, bettable and judgeable claims. We have had a number of extremely controversial outcomes over the years, and I am sure that if real money were involved, people would have sued. This may be one reason why these commercial markets prefer to make their own claims. They may feel that they can come up with ones where the judgement will be clean and they will be less likely to be fighting it out in court. Hal From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 23 23:11:18 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 10:11:18 +1100 Subject: Newtonmass? (was Re: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat) References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> MB wrote: > Happy Newtonmass to you all. :) Well you too MB, if it's a good thing. But what is this Newtonmass stuff? Was Isaac Newton born on 25 December or something? Is it considered that that is perhaps a relatively greater or clearer cause for celebration than the current conventional or fashionable alternatives? I understand that there used to be a feast of Saturnia or some such thing but fashions come and go. But Newtonmass? I don't exactly understand it. Brett Paatsch From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Thu Dec 23 23:29:10 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 18:29:10 -0500 Subject: Newtonmass? (was Re: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat) In-Reply-To: <0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <41CB54C6.30204@humanenhancement.com> Brett Paatsch wrote: > MB wrote: > >> Happy Newtonmass to you all. :) > > > Well you too MB, if it's a good thing. > But what is this Newtonmass stuff? > Was Isaac Newton born on 25 December or something? > > Is it considered that that is perhaps a relatively greater or clearer > cause for celebration than the current conventional or fashionable > alternatives? I understand that there used to be a feast of Saturnia > or some such thing but fashions come and go. > But Newtonmass? I don't exactly understand it. > Brett Paatsch Ayup; Sir Isaac was born on December 25th. Pity his birthday keeps getting eclipsed by that middle-eastern myth... Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com From dirk at neopax.com Thu Dec 23 23:31:31 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:31:31 +0000 Subject: Newtonmass? (was Re: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat) In-Reply-To: <0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <41CB5553.30301@neopax.com> Brett Paatsch wrote: > MB wrote: > >> Happy Newtonmass to you all. :) > > > Well you too MB, if it's a good thing. > But what is this Newtonmass stuff? > Was Isaac Newton born on 25 December or something? > > Is it considered that that is perhaps a relatively greater or clearer > cause for celebration than the current conventional or fashionable > alternatives? I understand that there used to be a feast of Saturnia > or some such thing but fashions come and go. > But Newtonmass? I don't exactly understand it. > Brett Paatsch > > Try the Real Thing http://www.e-sheep.com/Saturnalia/01.html -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.4 - Release Date: 22/12/2004 From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 23 23:33:03 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 17:33:03 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Newtonmass? In-Reply-To: <0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 10:11 AM 12/24/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: >what is this Newtonmass stuff? Newtonmass is what used to cause gravity, before Einsteincurvature was invented. Newtonmas is a holiday a couple of days from now. Newtonms is the girl Newton never married. Or maybe his sister. Or, strictly speaking, both. If he had one, which seems unlikely since his father died before he was born. Before *Isaac* was born, that is. But at least we don't have to worry about his mother having been a virgin. I mean, she *was* a virgin at one time, just not when Isaac was born. >Was Isaac Newton born on 25 December or something? So Google assures us. Damien Broderick From Walter_Chen at compal.com Thu Dec 23 23:34:59 2004 From: Walter_Chen at compal.com (Walter_Chen at compal.com) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 07:34:59 +0800 Subject: Newtonmass? (was Re: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat) Message-ID: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com> > From: Brett Paatsch > But what is this Newtonmas stuff? For theists, it's Christmas. For atheists, it's Newtonmas or Einsteinmas or Scerirmas or ... Newton or Einstein or Scerir are like our gods. ================================================================================================================================================================ This message may contain information which is private, privileged or confidential of Compal Electronics, Inc. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender and destroy/delete the message. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information, by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. ================================================================================================================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Thu Dec 23 23:36:54 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 18:36:54 -0500 Subject: Newtonmass? (was Re: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat) In-Reply-To: <41CB5553.30301@neopax.com> References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> <41CB5553.30301@neopax.com> Message-ID: <41CB5696.3040006@humanenhancement.com> Dirk Bruere wrote: > Brett Paatsch wrote: > >> MB wrote: >> >>> Happy Newtonmass to you all. :) >> >> >> >> Well you too MB, if it's a good thing. >> But what is this Newtonmass stuff? >> Was Isaac Newton born on 25 December or something? >> >> Is it considered that that is perhaps a relatively greater or clearer >> cause for celebration than the current conventional or fashionable >> alternatives? I understand that there used to be a feast of Saturnia >> or some such thing but fashions come and go. But Newtonmass? I don't >> exactly understand it. >> Brett Paatsch >> >> > Try the Real Thing > Coca-Cola? From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 24 00:31:11 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 16:31:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Newtonmass? In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041224003111.73650.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com> Speaking of Newton, I just finished reading Neal Stephenson's novel Quicksilver and am starting The Confusion, in which Newton is a relatively prominent character. Has anyone read these Baroque Cycle novels and what is your opinion of them and the portrayal of Newton? --- Damien Broderick wrote: > At 10:11 AM 12/24/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: > > >what is this Newtonmass stuff? > > Newtonmass is what used to cause gravity, before Einsteincurvature > was > invented. > > Newtonmas is a holiday a couple of days from now. > > Newtonms is the girl Newton never married. Or maybe his sister. Or, > strictly speaking, both. If he had one, which seems unlikely since > his > father died before he was born. Before *Isaac* was born, that is. But > at > least we don't have to worry about his mother having been a virgin. I > mean, > she *was* a virgin at one time, just not when Isaac was born. > > >Was Isaac Newton born on 25 December or something? > > So Google assures us. > > Damien Broderick > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Fri Dec 24 01:07:59 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 20:07:59 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <41CB6BEF.8010907@humanenhancement.com> spike wrote: >... > >Personally I think cloning your own cat a frightful waste of money, >but it's not *my* money so IMHO the lady can do as she wishes. > >Regards, >MB > > >Keep in mind that when people do things like this, >the money isn't actually *destroyed* but rather it >merely changes hands. In this case, that transaction >is one I would welcome. > Precisely; it's not for us to say what someone wants to spend their money on (is it any worse to spend $50,000 on a cloned pet than a Lexus?). Plus, let us remember that this can only be a Good Thing for those of us who think that reproductive cloning is itself a Good Thing. Dolly was the prototype that only ran on the test-track and the wind tunnel. Little Nicky is the first production model; the production line is still ramping up. I await the day we can visit a showroom. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Fri Dec 24 01:22:58 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 20:22:58 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <20041223154322.36695.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041223154322.36695.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41CB6F72.7070400@humanenhancement.com> Mike Lorrey wrote: >Real cloning doesn't work that way, a clone is >nothing more than a twin sibling, and people need to learn that truth. >Pet cloning is a great entree to teach that lesson to society, as pet >owners come to understand that their pet clone is not the same as their >original pet. > One of the things I do to make that point is to point out that a clone is a "delayed twin". Once they grasp the fact that the technology isn't much more than the already-accepted (by everyone whose name doesn't begin with a "K" and end with "ass") technology of IVF, combined with the quite natural phenomenon of twins, they don't seem to be quite so hostile. Not that they embrace it, but they don't think it's a non-starter... Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Dec 24 01:25:44 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 12:25:44 +1100 Subject: Jurisdictions Re: [extropy-chat] Real money betting markets References: <20041223231648.CEDA457E2B@finney.org> Message-ID: <0da601c4e957$7d821480$b8232dcb@homepc> Hal Finney wrote: > There are some jurisdictions where a real-money Idea > Futures (IF) market would seem to be possible. Lets just find one where its *definitely* possible. Because if there isn't any such one then that is a definite showstopper. By this I mean lets just find one, for a start, where its legal to set the market up with an internet interface. I don't mean nickel and dime academic markets like the IEM where the limit is $500. I mean a real one where there would be effectively no upper limit to the size of the "bet". By all means we can add to the list later but at the moment I'd like to know that at least one place in the world is definitely doable. (Robin seems to think the US is one but the cost is $1million). There is a free speech and free market principle to this. If there isn't one place on the planet where such a market could be based and accessed by you and I (or any two ostensibly free citizens in a free world) to contract between ourselves voluntarily and in such a way that harms no one else then the world is already a closed shop. Brett Paatsch From john at aculink.net Fri Dec 24 01:35:31 2004 From: john at aculink.net (John M) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 17:35:31 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Newtonmass? In-Reply-To: <20041224003111.73650.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200412240135.iBO1ZA032442@tick.javien.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat- > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey > Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 4:31 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Newtonmass? > > Speaking of Newton, I just finished reading Neal Stephenson's novel > Quicksilver and am starting The Confusion, in which Newton is a > relatively prominent character. Has anyone read these Baroque Cycle > novels and what is your opinion of them and the portrayal of Newton? I can proudly say I've just finished all 2624 pages of this series, and the holidays are here just in time; though the first couple'a thousand pages are entertaining, I really need a break. Overall, I enjoyed the books, though there are some things (Enoch Root, for instance) that I wish had been filled in a bit more. Unfortunately I don't know that much about Newton's 'real' life, so can't comment on the second part of your question. I do know that it's tough reading historical fiction like this; fact and fiction start getting mixed up after a while (oh wait, was Newton really down with Alchemy, or was that just some fiction I read?). Anyway, Happy Holidays all. From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Dec 24 02:12:53 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:12:53 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <41CB6F72.7070400@humanenhancement.com> References: <20041223154322.36695.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> <41CB6F72.7070400@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <51A6EC47-5551-11D9-AFA9-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 23, 2004, at 8:22 PM, Joseph Bloch wrote: > One of the things I do to make that point is to point out that a clone > is a "delayed twin". Once they grasp the fact that the technology > isn't much more than the already-accepted (by everyone whose name > doesn't begin with a "K" and end with "ass") technology of IVF, > combined with the quite natural phenomenon of twins, they don't seem > to be quite so hostile. But it also seems much less interesting. People will pay $50K for a clone of their pet because they think it is somehow their pet reincarnated. Would people pay $50K for a similar looking kitten from the same litter as their pet? I doubt it would be worth that much to them. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 24 02:39:47 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 20:39:47 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Darwinmas! References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com> Message-ID: <001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> RE: Newtonmass? (was Re: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat)Merry Darwinmas everyone! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Fri Dec 24 02:45:52 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:45:52 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <51A6EC47-5551-11D9-AFA9-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20041223154322.36695.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> <41CB6F72.7070400@humanenhancement.com> <51A6EC47-5551-11D9-AFA9-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <41CB82E0.6090501@humanenhancement.com> Harvey Newstrom wrote: > But it also seems much less interesting. People will pay $50K for a > clone of their pet because they think it is somehow their pet > reincarnated. Would people pay $50K for a similar looking kitten from > the same litter as their pet? I doubt it would be worth that much to > them. I suppose it all depends on how you look at it. Are we interested in getting positive publicity and funding through false general impressions? That gets more up-front funding. Or are we interested in educating people about the true impact of emergent technologies such as cloning? That gets more long-term acceptance. Honestly, there are arguments on both sides. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com From sentience at pobox.com Fri Dec 24 02:49:58 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:49:58 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Darwinmas! In-Reply-To: <001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com> <001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> Message-ID: <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> Kevin Freels wrote: > Merry Darwinmas everyone! Darwin was not born on Dec 25th. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 24 03:06:46 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:06:46 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Darwinmas! In-Reply-To: <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com> <001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041223210447.01b09ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:49 PM 12/23/2004 -0500, Eliezer wrote: >Kevin Freels wrote: >>Merry Darwinmas everyone! > >Darwin was not born on Dec 25th. Neither was Christ, of course. But `Darwinmas' is an ugly maladroit mutation, and will never survive the test of natural selection. Damien Broderick From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 24 03:08:15 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 19:08:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <51A6EC47-5551-11D9-AFA9-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <20041224030815.97939.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Harvey Newstrom wrote: > But it also seems much less interesting. People will pay $50K for a > clone of their pet because they think it is somehow their pet > reincarnated. Would people pay $50K for a similar looking kitten > from the same litter as their pet? I doubt it would be worth that > much to them. Hey, some people need to spend $50 large to learn an important lesson. Then again, if they had the pet since infancy anyways, the pet's personality likely had a lot to do with how the owner raised it. Any discrepancies, then, could be chalked up to the fact that the owner didn't do EXACTLY everything they did with the previous pet over again. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 24 03:09:54 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 19:09:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Darwinmas! In-Reply-To: <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20041224030955.21470.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Kevin Freels wrote: > > Merry Darwinmas everyone! > > Darwin was not born on Dec 25th. However, don't forget that Mikeymas is on February 10th, which IS, in fact, an official holiday, at least in Lowell, MA. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Dress up your holiday email, Hollywood style. Learn more. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Fri Dec 24 03:16:42 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:16:42 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Darwinmas! In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041223210447.01b09ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com> <001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223210447.01b09ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41CB8A1A.4060100@humanenhancement.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 09:49 PM 12/23/2004 -0500, Eliezer wrote: > >> Kevin Freels wrote: >> >>> Merry Darwinmas everyone! >> >> >> Darwin was not born on Dec 25th. > > > Neither was Christ, of course. But `Darwinmas' is an ugly maladroit > mutation, and will never survive the test of natural selection. > > Damien Broderick Well... considering that "Christ" was never a real person in the first place, saying that he was never born is something of a truism. But even given the myths about his birth, it is clear that if he was supposed to be born sometime _other_ than winter. Shepherds don't have their flocks this time of year. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 24 03:41:44 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:41:44 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Sheepmas! In-Reply-To: <41CB8A1A.4060100@humanenhancement.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com> <001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223210447.01b09ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB8A1A.4060100@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041223213830.01b40488@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 10:16 PM 12/23/2004 -0500, Joseph (an auspicious name under the circs) wrote: >Shepherds don't have their flocks this time of year. This is a misunderstanding based on a faulty translation dating back to Elizabethan times. The shepherds weren't watching their flocks, they were washing their frocks. Getting ready for a big Christmas party. Damien Broderick From spike66 at comcast.net Fri Dec 24 03:47:51 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 19:47:51 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002d01c4e96b$5add1fb0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat >> Keep in mind that when people do things like this, >> the money isn't actually *destroyed* but rather it >> merely changes hands. In this case, that transaction >> is one I would welcome. >Precisely. :) And as someone else mentioned (Mike Lorrey?) this >$50,000 will (much of it, probably) be put to good use improving the >technology...MB We both understate the case. If cloning becomes a cottage industry (and why not? How much bulky equipment would be needed?) then the practioners might put into place some critical puzzle pieces that may some day help the medics take a few stem cells from our flab, clone it to make arbitrarily many, then use those to generate replacement organs which will not have all those pesky autoimmune system and ethical issues attached, for it was never anything other than our own stem cells. Future historians may trace the greatest breakthroughs in medical science to people wanting to clone their favorite pets. spike From dirk at neopax.com Fri Dec 24 03:58:22 2004 From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 03:58:22 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <002d01c4e96b$5add1fb0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <002d01c4e96b$5add1fb0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <41CB93DE.5040303@neopax.com> spike wrote: >Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat > > > >>>Keep in mind that when people do things like this, >>>the money isn't actually *destroyed* but rather it >>>merely changes hands. In this case, that transaction >>>is one I would welcome. >>> >>> > > > > >>Precisely. :) And as someone else mentioned (Mike Lorrey?) this >>$50,000 will (much of it, probably) be put to good use improving the >>technology...MB >> >> > > >We both understate the case. If cloning becomes a cottage >industry (and why not? How much bulky equipment would be >needed?) then the practioners might put into place some >critical puzzle pieces that may some day help the medics >take a few stem cells from our flab, clone it to make >arbitrarily many, then use those to generate replacement >organs which will not have all those pesky autoimmune >system and ethical issues attached, for it was never anything >other than our own stem cells. Future historians may trace >the greatest breakthroughs in medical science to people >wanting to clone their favorite pets. > >spike > > > IIRC the Schwartzenegger film 'Seventh Day' had a company called 'Re-pet'. -- Dirk The Consensus:- The political party for the new millenium http://www.theconsensus.org -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.4 - Release Date: 22/12/2004 From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Fri Dec 24 04:07:41 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:07:41 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Sheepmas! In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041223213830.01b40488@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com> <001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223210447.01b09ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB8A1A.4060100@humanenhancement.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223213830.01b40488@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41CB960D.4000709@humanenhancement.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 10:16 PM 12/23/2004 -0500, Joseph (an auspicious name under the > circs) wrote: > >> Shepherds don't have their flocks this time of year. > > > This is a misunderstanding based on a faulty translation dating back > to Elizabethan times. The shepherds weren't watching their flocks, > they were washing their frocks. Getting ready for a big Christmas party. > > Damien Broderick > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > How helpful. From spike66 at comcast.net Fri Dec 24 04:17:04 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 20:17:04 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] root lives In-Reply-To: <200412240135.iBO1ZA032442@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000001c4e96f$6d085200$6401a8c0@mtrainier> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John M Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 5:36 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Re: Newtonmass? John M wrote: I can proudly say I've just finished all 2624 pages of this series, and the holidays are here just in time; though the first couple'a thousand pages are entertaining, I really need a break. Overall, I enjoyed the books, though there are some things (Enoch Root, for instance) that I wish had been filled in a bit more... Root evidently didn't perish on page 541 of Cryptonomicon. Read that passage over, see how many different ways it can be interpreted. The Root business drove me to distraction, thinking it was a critical error in an otherwise excellent book. But I no longer think it was an error, but rather a bizarre plot device. Who was the guy who walked out under the blanket, if not Root's "corpse"? spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 24 04:41:04 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:41:04 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Sheepmas! In-Reply-To: <41CB960D.4000709@humanenhancement.com> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com> <001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223210447.01b09ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB8A1A.4060100@humanenhancement.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223213830.01b40488@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB960D.4000709@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041223223755.01b34480@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 11:07 PM 12/23/2004 -0500, Joseph Bloch wrote: >>_______________________________________ >>extropy-chat mailing list >>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat >> >How helpful. >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat Don't be like that. This is the season of good will, of merriment, of optional stupidity. Oh, wait. Damien Broderick From robwilkes at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 24 04:49:29 2004 From: robwilkes at satx.rr.com (Rob Wilkes) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:49:29 -0600 Subject: Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] silent night Message-ID: <01C4E941.A9C320E0.robwilkes@satx.rr.com> Um, I know I'm being a smartass here but the sun cannot be dissassembled. It is a plasma and thus, is already in pieces. Does that settle the wager either way? Rob On 23 Dec 2004 Harvey Newstrom wrote: On Dec 23, 2004, at 12:05 AM, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Harvey Newstrom wrote: >> On Dec 22, 2004, at 11:27 PM, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: >>> Hal Finney wrote: >>> >>>> How the heck can you guys say that there is as much as one chance in >>>> ten thousand that the sun won't rise tomorrow? The sun has after >>>> all >>>> risen for much more than 10,000 days. That's like 30 years' worth. >>> >>> That was before people started playing around with AI. 99.99% would >>> correspond to a 50% chance of a rogue AI disassembling the Sun in >>> the next 20 years, with the probability distributed evenly over time >>> (Poisson process). >> I will bet any amount of money that the sun will still exist 20 years >> from now. > > Are you sure? An FAI could take apart the Sun too, y'know. You could > lose the bet, and still be alive to pay it. I do not believe AI can advance that far in 20 years. I don't believe we will have the technology to disassemble the sun in 20 years. I don't believe reproducing nanites or nanites that can survive the sun's heat will be developed in 20 years. I don't believe a space ship capable of carrying such a project to the sun will be available in 20 years. I don't believe humans will be rearranging planets and starts within 20 years. I think such predictions are beyond the realm of even fantasy within 20 years. I wouldn't even read a science fiction story that had such plot elements within 20 years. It is too unbelievable. And I will bet any amount of money against it, and retire rich in 20 years. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC ******************************************** From spike66 at comcast.net Fri Dec 24 05:27:12 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:27:12 -0800 Subject: Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <01C4E941.A9C320E0.robwilkes@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <000001c4e979$3f3d8ed0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Rob Wilkes ... I don't believe we will have the technology to disassemble the sun in 20 years... It isn't just the technology Rob. We merely *start* to disassemble the sun, first thing you know we have a bunch of solar-system-first enviro-kooks claiming it will somehow impact the earth's climate adversely, holding protest rallies, passing laws, that kinda thing, sheesh. spike From alex at ramonsky.com Fri Dec 24 06:27:52 2004 From: alex at ramonsky.com (Alex Ramonsky) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 06:27:52 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Sheepmas! References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com> <001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223210447.01b09ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB8A1A.4060100@humanenhancement.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223213830.01b40488@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41CBB6E8.2060402@ramonsky.com> ...Oooh Arrrr these hypothetical shepherds anyway? AR *********** Damien Broderick wrote: > At 10:16 PM 12/23/2004 -0500, Joseph (an auspicious name under the > circs) wrote: > >> Shepherds don't have their flocks this time of year. > > > This is a misunderstanding based on a faulty translation dating back > to Elizabethan times. The shepherds weren't watching their flocks, > they were washing their frocks. Getting ready for a big Christmas party. > > Damien Broderick > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From harara at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 24 06:13:05 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:13:05 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism 666: The Mark of the Beast In-Reply-To: References: <470a3c520412200615a0b5b3b@mail.gmail.com> <07723994-5390-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> <6.0.3.0.1.20041222124311.029617b8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041223221023.02971198@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Agreed, each is potentially immortal. Please do not assume that if I see someone as a mortal that I have any desire to treat them in any different manner. I think that long lives will teach all of us to be more considerate. >Samantha: > >I think that our morality will shift a great deal when we learn to think >of one another this way. I believe we will learn a lot of compassion >along the way. ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== From jonkc at att.net Fri Dec 24 06:51:08 2004 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 01:51:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Merry Darwinmas! References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com><001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> Message-ID: <02c301c4e985$008c66a0$d5ef4d0c@hal2001> "Eliezer Yudkowsky" > Darwin was not born on Dec 25th. Charles Darwin was born on February 12 1809, on the exact same day several thousand miles away in Kentucky Abraham Lincoln was born. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From sentience at pobox.com Fri Dec 24 07:24:08 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 02:24:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Holiday calendar (was: Merry Darwinmas!) In-Reply-To: <02c301c4e985$008c66a0$d5ef4d0c@hal2001> References: <483D64E30D008A4E930645FE7B92CEA406863D@tpeexg01.compal.com><001d01c4e961$d60be5e0$1d06d545@kevin> <41CB83D6.10208@pobox.com> <02c301c4e985$008c66a0$d5ef4d0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <41CBC418.4020307@pobox.com> John K Clark wrote: > "Eliezer Yudkowsky" > >> Darwin was not born on Dec 25th. > > Charles Darwin was born on February 12 1809, on the exact same day > several thousand miles away in Kentucky Abraham Lincoln was born. Does anyone know Stanislav Petrov's birthday? If not, we can celebrate September 26th as Petrov Day. http://www.google.com/search?q=man+who+saved+the+world Is there a Transhumanist Holiday Calendar somewhere? If not, I hereby declare it to reside at: http://sl4.org/wiki/HolidayCalendar -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From scerir at libero.it Fri Dec 24 07:58:35 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 08:58:35 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Newtonmass? References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <007701c4e98e$5ef244e0$0cb91b97@administxl09yj> > >Was Isaac Newton born on 25 December or something? > So Google assures us. http://www.born-today.com/Today/12-25.htm http://www.born-today.com/Today/12-24.htm From neuronexmachina at gmail.com Fri Dec 24 08:34:04 2004 From: neuronexmachina at gmail.com (Neil Halelamien) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 03:34:04 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears" Message-ID: Over on Transterrestrial Musings I saw a link to a set of interesting observations by a reporter at a genetics policy conference titled "Babies by Design": http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2111204& If I had been at the conference I would have likely laughed along heartily at the jokes made at the expense of unknowledgeable laymen, although in reality that would be somewhat of a guilty pleasure. Even though we may enjoy mocking the vast majority of society who fear the unknowns of transhumanist technologies, I suspect that doing so will lead to significant problems in the future. I sincerely believe that it's of the utmost importance to try to assuage the public's fears about these sorts of technologies, and I don't think simply touting their expected benefits will be enough. Just look at what happened with genetically modified foods and nuclear power. -- Neil From scerir at libero.it Fri Dec 24 08:51:55 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:51:55 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <007701c4e98e$5ef244e0$0cb91b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <007301c4e995$d2648b20$2eba1b97@administxl09yj> Are there sci-fictions suggesting the 3?K cosmic background radiation to consist of e.m. transmissions of long-dead civilizations? s. From sjatkins at gmail.com Fri Dec 24 10:47:38 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 02:47:38 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <948b11e04122402472b1841ca@mail.gmail.com> Wow! Where on earth did they get these scientists and people supposedly on "our side"? Are we sure they aren't plants to make genetic research look scary, irresponsible, arrogant and not at all wise? Perhaps they aren't but they sure as hell aren't doing us or themselves a lot of good with some of this material. Perhaps it is to be expected. If you separate science and reason from all that "separate magisteria" stuff dealing with things that "really matter" like morals, values, wisdom and such as far as most of the world is concerned, then the science and reason folk might tend to be a just a tad ungrounded and seemingly not quite aware of the real people involved. I've seen such in some doctors at least. - samantha On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 03:34:04 -0500, Neil Halelamien wrote: > Over on Transterrestrial Musings I saw a link to a set of interesting > observations by a reporter at a genetics policy conference titled > "Babies by Design": > > http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2111204& > > If I had been at the conference I would have likely laughed along > heartily at the jokes made at the expense of unknowledgeable laymen, > although in reality that would be somewhat of a guilty pleasure. Even > though we may enjoy mocking the vast majority of society who fear the > unknowns of transhumanist technologies, I suspect that doing so will > lead to significant problems in the future. > > I sincerely believe that it's of the utmost importance to try to > assuage the public's fears about these sorts of technologies, and I > don't think simply touting their expected benefits will be enough. > Just look at what happened with genetically modified foods and nuclear > power. > > -- Neil > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From hemm at openlink.com.br Fri Dec 24 11:21:00 2004 From: hemm at openlink.com.br (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:21:00 -0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><007701c4e98e$5ef244e0$0cb91b97@administxl09yj> <007301c4e995$d2648b20$2eba1b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <014001c4e9aa$a5eecfa0$fe00a8c0@HEMM> Never heard of any. But I wouldn't buy the concept anyway. Perhaps state that the CBR could be used as a carrier for those messages would be more plausible. ----- Original Message ----- From: "scerir" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 6:51 AM Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question Are there sci-fictions suggesting the 3?K cosmic background radiation to consist of e.m. transmissions of long-dead civilizations? s. _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Dec 24 12:47:57 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 07:47:57 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <41CB82E0.6090501@humanenhancement.com> References: <20041223154322.36695.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> <41CB6F72.7070400@humanenhancement.com> <51A6EC47-5551-11D9-AFA9-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CB82E0.6090501@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <09A05FEA-55AA-11D9-9767-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 23, 2004, at 9:45 PM, Joseph Bloch wrote: > I suppose it all depends on how you look at it. Are we interested in > getting positive publicity and funding through false general > impressions? That gets more up-front funding. Or are we interested in > educating people about the true impact of emergent technologies such > as cloning? That gets more long-term acceptance. > > Honestly, there are arguments on both sides. Funny you should use the word "honestly". "Honestly" there are arguments on one side only. "Dishonstly" there are arguments for positive publicity and funding through false general impressions. I have never believed that the ends justified the means. This is not a sustainable strategy. It will eventually be discovered, and will ultimately do more harm than good. I wish all transhumanists believed as I do. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Dec 24 12:48:02 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 07:48:02 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears" In-Reply-To: <948b11e04122402472b1841ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <948b11e04122402472b1841ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <0CA5A5CB-55AA-11D9-9767-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 24, 2004, at 5:47 AM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > Wow! Where on earth did they get these scientists and people > supposedly on "our side"? Are we sure they aren't plants to make > genetic research look scary, irresponsible, arrogant and not at all > wise? Perhaps they aren't but they sure as hell aren't doing us or > themselves a lot of good with some of this material. > > Perhaps it is to be expected. If you separate science and reason > from all that "separate magisteria" stuff dealing with things that > "really matter" like morals, values, wisdom and such as far as most of > the world is concerned, then the science and reason folk might tend to > be a just a tad ungrounded and seemingly not quite aware of the real > people involved. I've seen such in some doctors at least. Sadly, I've seen such attitude in transhumanists frequently. Many of us get so caught up in ideas that we lose touch with reality. Kill everybody and scan their dead brains into a computer. Destroy the earth for spare parts. Disassemble the sun because we don't need it anymore. Give robot big brothers power of humanity. Release untested nanobots and viruses into the environment because it is too costly to wait. Pollute all we want because we'll fix it later. Don't send a probe to Pluto because it will be disassembled before we get there. We are living in a computer simulation. We can commit suicide and appear in a parallel universe. We can kill people as long as we copy them first. Mortals are only temporary and aren't as important as us immortals. Plant false warning labels on natural foods. Plant false verses in the Koran to sabotage some religions. Release genetically modified fish into the environment as a publicity stunt. Upload people against their will for their own good. Don't allow accurate labeling of genetically modified foods because the general public is too stupid to make an informed decision. Let's engineer memes to fool the "proles" into proper modes of thinking. Does any of this sound familiar to readers of this list? We have argued all of these topics in this forum. There have been some of "us" arguing on both sides of the issue. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From pharos at gmail.com Fri Dec 24 13:05:22 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 13:05:22 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question In-Reply-To: <007301c4e995$d2648b20$2eba1b97@administxl09yj> References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <007701c4e98e$5ef244e0$0cb91b97@administxl09yj> <007301c4e995$d2648b20$2eba1b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:51:55 +0100, scerir wrote: > Are there sci-fictions suggesting > the 3?K cosmic background radiation > to consist of e.m. transmissions > of long-dead civilizations? Try "Written on the Wind" by David D. Levine August 2002 a message encoded in the three-degree background radiation or "Time" by Stephen Baxter 1999 Malenfant tunes in to Feynman Radio signals interference in the background radiation of the Big Bang. He does indeed discover a message from the future. or "Signal to Noise" by Eric S Nylund 1999 Jack discovers something cloaked in the hiss of background radiation streaming past the Earth from deep space: a message from an alien civilization. I cannot recommend any of these stories as I haven't read them. BillK From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 24 15:54:59 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:54:59 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><007701c4e98e$5ef244e0$0cb91b97@administxl09yj><007301c4e995$d2648b20$2eba1b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <002601c4e9d0$ec96c630$1d06d545@kevin> Baxter's "Manifold Time" was very good. ----- Original Message ----- From: "BillK" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 7:05 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question > On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:51:55 +0100, scerir wrote: > > Are there sci-fictions suggesting > > the 3?K cosmic background radiation > > to consist of e.m. transmissions > > of long-dead civilizations? > > Try "Written on the Wind" by David D. Levine August 2002 > a message encoded in the three-degree background radiation > or > "Time" by Stephen Baxter 1999 > Malenfant tunes in to Feynman Radio signals interference in the > background radiation of the Big Bang. He does indeed discover a > message from the future. > or > "Signal to Noise" by Eric S Nylund 1999 > Jack discovers something cloaked in the hiss of background radiation > streaming past the Earth from deep space: a message from an alien > civilization. > > I cannot recommend any of these stories as I haven't read them. > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From rhanson at gmu.edu Fri Dec 24 17:00:13 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (rhanson at gmu.edu) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 12:00:13 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] On Vacation Message-ID: <751d1ce7516ca5.7516ca5751d1ce@gmu.edu> I'm on vacation for the next week, and so won't be able to respond to various threads until then. Robin D. Hanson, Asst Prof Economics, hanson.gmu.edu MSN 1D3, George Mason Univ., Fairfax, VA 22030 From spike66 at comcast.net Fri Dec 24 17:21:26 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:21:26 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question In-Reply-To: <007301c4e995$d2648b20$2eba1b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <000d01c4e9dd$03969160$6401a8c0@mtrainier> They are far too pervasive and uniform to be explained this way. s -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of scerir Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 12:52 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question Are there sci-fictions suggesting the 3?K cosmic background radiation to consist of e.m. transmissions of long-dead civilizations? s From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Dec 24 17:37:09 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 11:37:09 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears" In-Reply-To: <948b11e04122402472b1841ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <948b11e04122402472b1841ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041224113555.01a6d548@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 02:47 AM 12/24/2004 -0800, samantha wrote: >Wow! Where on earth did they get these scientists and people >supposedly on "our side"? Are we sure they aren't plants to make >genetic research look scary, irresponsible, arrogant and not at all >wise? For a much weirder and more repellent version, see Saletan's earlier essay: http://www.slate.com/id/2110670/ Damien Broderick From fauxever at sprynet.com Fri Dec 24 17:44:53 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:44:53 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Newtonmass? References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <007701c4e98e$5ef244e0$0cb91b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <02ef01c4e9e0$46a5e5c0$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "scerir" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 11:58 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Newtonmass? > > >Was Isaac Newton born on 25 December or something? > > > So Google assures us. > > http://www.born-today.com/Today/12-25.htm > http://www.born-today.com/Today/12-24.htm > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From fauxever at sprynet.com Fri Dec 24 17:55:27 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:55:27 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Newtonmass? References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <007701c4e98e$5ef244e0$0cb91b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <02f401c4e9e1$c0cb0320$6600a8c0@brainiac> From: "scerir" > > >Was Isaac Newton born on 25 December or something? > > > So Google assures us. > > http://www.born-today.com/Today/12-25.htm > http://www.born-today.com/Today/12-24.htm Merry Crispness! I read The Naked Civil Servant some 20 years ago and thought Quentin Crisp was just great. In my imaginings (I meander there a lot), I thought it would be so much fun to give a grand tea party in his honor (at the time I lived in a house that was perfectly suited for this purpose). Never in my wildest dreams did I seriously think it would happen ... but, to make the long story short, it did. I was also able to play a delicious joke on Quentin Crisp (but that's another long story). In any case, Quentin Crisp was born on December 25, too - so to me, that day is "Merry Crispness.": http://www.born-today.com/Today/12-25.htm Olga From scerir at libero.it Fri Dec 24 18:11:02 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 19:11:02 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><007701c4e98e$5ef244e0$0cb91b97@administxl09yj><007301c4e995$d2648b20$2eba1b97@administxl09yj> <014001c4e9aa$a5eecfa0$fe00a8c0@HEMM> Message-ID: <036601c4e9e3$ee610440$a9c11b97@administxl09yj> From: "Henrique Moraes Machado" > Never heard of any. But I wouldn't buy the concept anyway. > Perhaps state that the CBR could be used as a carrier > for those messages would be more plausible. Yes, I'm trying to figure how an e.m. message coming from a long-dead civilization would be now, given all that CBR noise, the red-shift, and all the rest. s. From scerir at libero.it Fri Dec 24 18:28:05 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 19:28:05 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question References: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier><0d5101c4e944$b5c74580$b8232dcb@homepc><6.1.1.1.0.20041223172210.01afcec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com><007701c4e98e$5ef244e0$0cb91b97@administxl09yj><007301c4e995$d2648b20$2eba1b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <036b01c4e9e6$4fc6e040$a9c11b97@administxl09yj> From: "BillK" > Try "Written on the Wind" by David D. Levine, August 2002 > or "Time" by Stephen Baxter, 1999 > or "Signal to Noise" by Eric S Nylund, 1999 THanks. Sci-fi poets look much smarter than sci-sci professionals, as usual. s. A physicist, working in that field, suggested the sci-fi book "Wheelers", by I. (Ian?) Stewart & J. Cohen, N.Y. 2001. From scerir at libero.it Fri Dec 24 18:54:49 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 19:54:49 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] sci-fi question References: <000d01c4e9dd$03969160$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <037201c4e9ea$0bde8cd0$a9c11b97@administxl09yj> From: "spike" > They are far too pervasive and uniform > to be explained this way. Yes. The problem, essentially, would be how to distinguish e.m. messages (from CBR). In general a message transmitted over a limited channel (limited bandwith) is not easily distinguishable from random noise to a receiver who is not familiar with the language, or the coding, of that message. The question, here, is whether an "efficient" transmission of e.m. messages (they can encode information using direction, or timing, or polarization, or energy, or ...) would be distinguishable from black-body radiation, or from 3?K. CBR. "Efficient" here means, essentially, "reasonable" energy budget per unit of time. (A similar speculation could be made about efficient transmission of messages using particles other than photons. In this case the parameter would be that of Hawking black-hole radiation, maybe!). s. From hal at finney.org Fri Dec 24 20:00:35 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 12:00:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears" Message-ID: <20041224200035.CA47157E2B@finney.org> Harvey Newstrom writes: > Sadly, I've seen such attitude in transhumanists frequently. Many of > us get so caught up in ideas that we lose touch with reality. > > Kill everybody and scan their dead brains into a computer. Destroy the > earth for spare parts. Disassemble the sun because we don't need it > anymore. Give robot big brothers power of humanity. Release untested > nanobots and viruses into the environment because it is too costly to > wait. Pollute all we want because we'll fix it later. Don't send a > probe to Pluto because it will be disassembled before we get there. We > are living in a computer simulation. We can commit suicide and appear > in a parallel universe. We can kill people as long as we copy them > first. Mortals are only temporary and aren't as important as us > immortals. Plant false warning labels on natural foods. Plant false > verses in the Koran to sabotage some religions. Release genetically > modified fish into the environment as a publicity stunt. Upload people > against their will for their own good. Don't allow accurate labeling > of genetically modified foods because the general public is too stupid > to make an informed decision. Let's engineer memes to fool the > "proles" into proper modes of thinking. Your list conflates several different kinds of issues and produces some misleading results. Imagine a list of great evils of the world: war, child molestation, homosexuality, and terrorism. Obviously one item has been slipped in there and doesn't belong. The other three do not involve meaningful consent, and that distinguishes them. In the same way, I think we should distinguish items on your list which are immoral because they involve manipulating people or doing things to them without their consent, from items which don't have this property but which you personally don't like. You may have unintentionally slipped some of your personal dislikes in among a list of immoral actions. Here is how I would categorize them: Immoral actions because of lack of consent: Kill everybody and scan their dead brains into a computer. We can kill people as long as we copy them first. Mortals are only temporary and aren't as important as us immortals. Upload people against their will for their own good. Release untested nanobots and viruses into the environment because it is too costly to wait. Pollute all we want because we'll fix it later. Release genetically modified fish into the environment as a publicity stunt. Immoral actions because of manipulation: Plant false warning labels on natural foods. Plant false verses in the Koran to sabotage some religions. Let's engineer memes to fool the "proles" into proper modes of thinking. Don't allow accurate labeling of genetically modified foods because the general public is too stupid to make an informed decision. Questionable morality depending on the circumstances in terms of whether consent was achieved: Destroy the earth for spare parts. Disassemble the sun because we don't need it anymore. Give robot big brothers power of humanity. Beliefs without issues of consent Don't send a probe to Pluto because it will be disassembled before we get there. We are living in a computer simulation. We can commit suicide and appear in a parallel universe. A few comments on certain issues. "Pollute all we want because we'll fix it later." I evaluated this in the context of someone polluting and causing immediate harm to others without their consent. If we were talking about society deciding that it made more economic sense to pollute more today and fix it using the greater wealth of the future, I'd say that is OK reasoning for society to use. "Don't allow accurate labeling of genetically modified foods because the general public is too stupid to make an informed decision." I don't agree with the reasoning in this statement as it is an immoral attempt at manipulation. I also view it as immoral to forbid people from labelling their foods. However I would say it is moral not to force people to label their foods (which is different from forbidding them to label their foods). "Give robot big brothers power of humanity." I think what you mean is creating very powerful robots and turning over to them power over humanity. I would agree that this is immoral without some social process to elicit consensus. Likewise with enormous solar system engineering processes which will have major impact on the people living here. As for the last three, they are beliefs about the nature of reality and are not moral questions. Hal From bryan.moss at dsl.pipex.com Fri Dec 24 19:55:00 2004 From: bryan.moss at dsl.pipex.com (Bryan Moss) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 19:55:00 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41CC7414.2090807@dsl.pipex.com> Neil Halelamien wrote: >http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2111204& > > I think I must be missing something. The article seems to focus on the authors rather silly interpretation of the lectures and a (perhaps) legitimate criticism of (one part of) one bioethicists talk. The only concern I take away from this article is the continuing danger of an ethics that puts itself before science, as if scientists should only pursue that which self-appointed "ethicists" approve, and deifies the "laypersons" viewpoint, as if ignorance of an issue amounts to some sort of special purity when deciding whether it's ethical or not. The only thing mild horror and confusion at using a modified HIV virus as therapy proves is that the entire notion of trying to have a "public dialogue" about a professional subject continues to be perverse and ridiculous. BM From scerir at libero.it Fri Dec 24 20:18:32 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 21:18:32 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence References: <20041218202155.EADB957E2F@finney.org> Message-ID: <005c01c4e9f5$bdb2d690$d6c51b97@administxl09yj> From: "Hal Finney" > Proponents of a delayed choice interpretation > suggest that the photon somehow has to decide > whether it will be a particle or a wave at the > time it enters the apparatus, [...] > But really, that is a pretty absurd notion, > that photons decide in this way. Yes, that is the point. There are situations ( see J.A. Wheeler here http://www.irims.org/blog/figures/ ) in which the outcome (i.e. wave or particle) depends on "where" you measure, or on "when" you measure. There are situations (theoretical! no exp. has been performed) in which the measurement is performed in the same "where" and in the same "when", by a detector or by a different detector, and the outcome is different (wave in the first case, particle in the latter case). Meaning, perhaps, that the measurement apparatus may have some retro-causal effect on the very formation of the interference pattern. There are situations (experiments with entangled photons) in which we can not say anything untill both photons have been registered. See, i.e., http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9903047 (the abstract saying that 'experimental results demonstrated the possibility of simultaneously observing both particle-like and wave-like behavior of a quantum via quantum entanglement' is manifestly wrong). Or, from another p.o.v., http://people.bu.edu/alexserg/TwoNotTwo.pdf For a good collection of experiments (quantum optics, entangled photons, quantum holography, etc.) see: http://www.loqnl.ufal.br/publications/list.html http://people.bu.edu/alexserg/references.html Birgit Dopfer thesis here is a masterpiece, but she does not write in english :-) http://www.quantum.univie.ac.at/publications/thesis/ Outstanding papers are http://physics.sejong.ac.kr/~particle/paper/RMP0S274.pdf http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~simons/ Publikationen/RevModPhys99.pdf http://www.ap.univie.ac.at/users/Gregor.Weihs/photonintro.pdf From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Dec 24 20:17:01 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 15:17:01 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears" In-Reply-To: <20041224200035.CA47157E2B@finney.org> References: <20041224200035.CA47157E2B@finney.org> Message-ID: On Dec 24, 2004, at 3:00 PM, Hal Finney wrote: > Your list conflates several different kinds of issues and produces some > misleading results. I was merely listing things that scare the public. For that purpose, all the things I listed apply. Your list provides further details about why each item is scary, and then groups them into categories. Good work! I think this further supports my point rather than refuting it. > In the same way, I think we should distinguish items on your list which > are immoral because they involve manipulating people or doing things to > them without their consent, from items which don't have this property > but > which you personally don't like. You may have unintentionally slipped > some of your personal dislikes in among a list of immoral actions. > Here > is how I would categorize them: Agreed. My list was from the public's point of view. To determine which items belong and which don't, we certainly do need further analysis. > Immoral actions because of lack of consent: > Immoral actions because of manipulation: > Questionable morality depending on the circumstances in terms of > whether consent was achieved: > Beliefs without issues of consent I think we are agreed on all these categories. It looks like most of my points definitely belong in the list of scary things. > As for the last three, they are beliefs about the nature of reality and > are not moral questions. Yes, but they imply moral choices based on questionable or controversial beliefs. People who hold these beliefs tend to impose their choices on people who don't hold these beliefs. Unless there is a general consensus about the nature of reality, such decisions are nothing more than "faith-based" programs. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From jrd1415 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 25 02:02:19 2004 From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 18:02:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <0b8001c4e8b4$2d1b07c0$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <20041225020219.14316.qmail@web60007.mail.yahoo.com> Regarding the cat of spike's story, --- Brett Paatsch wrote: > His experiences shaped his neural net in > conjunction with his genes. Both genes and > experience matter and there is an interplay > between them. > > He isn't him, you aren't you, and I aren't I on the > basis of genes alone... This is an oft repeated factoid--the nature/nurture mixed influence effect. Yet how true is it really? I think there is a presumption that among humans--the "you' and "I" in "...you aren't you, I aren't I..." above--that behaviors are shaped more, maybe substantially, maybe predominantly by experience. According to this view, experience informs judgment which then influences future behavior. I do not think this is the case to anywhere near the degree it is assumed. I think self-consciousness, cognition, and judgment are but an insubstantial patina glistening atop the legacy of several billion generations of evolved fleshy deterministic instincts. Are there twins, separated at birth, who many years later, despite divergent life experiences, are strikingly similar, not just physically, but behaviorally? Is this generally the case? And I see many animals which, absent cognition, nevertheless demonstrate very complex, genetically predetermined behaviors. Behaviors not learned, but rather built in. Humans are subject to the same inheritance, but deceive themselves about just how 'instinctive' their behaviors actually are. Just my two cents. YMMV. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo From jrd1415 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 25 06:04:20 2004 From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 22:04:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <001701c4e8b6$11a98230$6600a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <20041225060420.13512.qmail@web60008.mail.yahoo.com> --- Olga Bourlin wrote: > I thought I'd seen everything there was to see > regarding the pampering of > pets after I saw the likes of "pet boutiques" and > "pet day spas" springing > up in Seattle over the past few years, but I've > heard that *cosmetic* animal > plastic surgery is starting to make inroads. What's > next? Pet cryonics. Why spend 50 G's for a copy, when $30G + (the pet fee) gets you the real thing plus some nifty **perks**? Best, Jeff Davis "My guess is that people don't yet realize how "handy" an indefinite lifespan will be." J Corbally __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Dec 25 06:16:38 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 22:16:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears" In-Reply-To: <41CC7414.2090807@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <20041225061638.94258.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Moss wrote: > Neil Halelamien wrote: > > >http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2111204& > > > > > > I think I must be missing something. The author misrepresented the anti position with that emotional reaction of the woman at the end. The scientists were not laughing at people's fears, they were laughing at people's ignorance (like the legislators who were ignorantly afraid of 'eating DNA'). The fear of the luddites is primarily because of ignorance of biological facts, of cellular metabolism and structure, and of how DNA works. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From jrd1415 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 25 06:23:18 2004 From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 22:23:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: Follow the money was RE: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <000001c4e909$bf489900$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <20041225062318.35327.qmail@web60001.mail.yahoo.com> --- spike wrote: > > Keep in mind that when people do things like this, > the money isn't actually *destroyed* but rather it > merely changes hands. In this case, that > transaction is one I would welcome. An exceedingly excellent point, one which deserves repeated attention. Whenever you hear that the govt. spends X millions or billions, it is obvious who pays (the pay-up-or-go-to-jail taxpayer), but WHO GETS THE LOOT, 'cause what really motivates the transaction is the thievin' weasels on the receiving end. But you're not supposed to notice that, or if you do, you're supposed to hope for some crumbs to trickle down your way. Whoops! Sorry. Never mind. Grrrr. Time to go shopping,...and forget. Best, Jeff Davis "It is as morally bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it." -Edmund Way Teale, "Circle of the Seasons" __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Jazz up your holiday email with celebrity designs. Learn more. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 25 06:38:34 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 00:38:34 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225002213.019d00a0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> You remember Lindy England, right? Abu Ghraib? You might have noticed the sudden flash meme of people `doing the Lindy'. That's being photographed standing sideways with a cigarette (or pen) hanging out the side of your smirking mouth, one arm kinked across your body, thumb up, the other hand pointing at some scowling victim's groin. There was at least one big tasteless website with zillions of these pictures. It's gone. Google knows nothing of it. (As far as I can tell.) No cache link. Same, by and large, with England herself, and those images. One or two in articles, NONE in Google Images. Jeeves knows a bit more. Is this a whiff of Orwell? Google playing along? Damien Broderick From sjatkins at gmail.com Sat Dec 25 09:40:35 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 01:40:35 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears" In-Reply-To: <20041225061638.94258.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> References: <41CC7414.2090807@dsl.pipex.com> <20041225061638.94258.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <948b11e0412250140aeff2d@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 22:16:38 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey wrote: > > The author misrepresented the anti position with that emotional > reaction of the woman at the end. The scientists were not laughing at > people's fears, they were laughing at people's ignorance (like the > legislators who were ignorantly afraid of 'eating DNA'). The fear of > the luddites is primarily because of ignorance of biological facts, of > cellular metabolism and structure, and of how DNA works. > Do scientists and pro-tech folks never laugh at people's fears? Are you speaking here of only this one piece or the fear some floks have towared these things in general? Are you sure you can support a statement that folks are primarily afraid out of ignorance of biological facts in either case? Are you doing a bit of the same, belittling any legitimate fears by only harping on the ones you can or claim you can ascribe to ignorance? Seems to me there are more than a few folks who are quite well informed in relevant areas that also express some fears and trepidation. We should at the least address those. - samantha From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Dec 25 15:52:48 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 07:52:48 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225002213.019d00a0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> ... Damien Broderick Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events You remember Lindy England, right? Abu Ghraib? It's gone. Google knows nothing of it. (As far as I can tell.) No cache link. Same, by and large, with England herself, and those images. One or two in articles, NONE in Google Images... Damien Lindy who? Abu what? (cue eerie Twilight Zone music). When I see things like this, especially this time of year, I am struck by how kind, forgiving and non-retaliatory Rudolph must have been, even after an evidently hellish fawnhood. Had it been me, after I came thru in a real pinch and now all the reindeer loved me and were shouting out with glee and all that, I might have responded: to HELL with all you antler boys and your silly reindeer games, that YOU never let ME play because of my facial disfigurement, my different ABILLLLITYYYYY! Get it? Differently AAAABLLLED? I shoulda let you all fly into a foggy mountainside in Canada somewhere! Fools! I'll destroy them all! muahhhahahahahahaaaaa. That sort of thing. {8^D Merry Newtonmas all! spike (Damien, why were you searching for those kinds of photos on Christmas eve? {8^D) From hkhenson at rogers.com Sat Dec 25 16:56:34 2004 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 11:56:34 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] will the sun rise? In-Reply-To: <41CB48B3.9040405@pobox.com> References: <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223125150.01b14f70@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB2166.5060705@pobox.com> <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20041225115154.032c3380@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> At 05:37 PM 23/12/04 -0500, Eliezer wrote: snip >One suspects that the primary issue would not be speed as such, but >choosing a balance of speed, power expenditure, and material lost, which >minimizes entropy loss and hence maximizes the calculations performable >with the winnings. Does it take more energy to rush machinery into solar >orbit, than the Sun wastes over that time? I remember the results of a calculation someone made (Drexler?) that taking Jupiter apart would require about 3 Sun-centuries of energy. Even if the Sun is burning 1500 tons of matter to energy per second, it is still a slow burn rate. Keith Henson From brian at posthuman.com Sat Dec 25 16:59:44 2004 From: brian at posthuman.com (Brian Atkins) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 10:59:44 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225002213.019d00a0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225002213.019d00a0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <41CD9C80.9050309@posthuman.com> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/07/1442217 -- Brian Atkins Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.singinst.org/ From hkhenson at rogers.com Sat Dec 25 18:42:41 2004 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 13:42:41 -0500 Subject: Collateral public good (was Re: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day etc..) In-Reply-To: <20041223230108.8DBCF57E2B@finney.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20041225132741.03287050@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> At 03:01 PM 23/12/04 -0800, you wrote: >Hal Finney wrote: > > It is no wonder that such markets are under-provided in our society. > >Brett Paatsch replied: > > Cynicism Hal? > >No, just economics! It is a well known result that public goods are under >provided in a free market. Information markets are (impure) public goods. >There are positive externalities in operating such a market, and there >is no mechanism to capture the benefits which other people derive and >use them to fund the market. This is not entirely true. In my odd journey through cult land into exile, I have come to realize that traditional economics doesn't capture a good fraction of human motivation. The brain reward mechanisms evolved in the Stone Age and are still there. Humans value "status" and attention (status is somewhat the integral of the attention you get). There is a reason, status was and to a considerable extent still is deeply coupled to your chances of "reproductive success." The exact same brain reward circuits are the reason we (some anyway) can be addicted to drugs. >It might be possible to try to keep the results secret and available >only to subscribers, but the amount of information is so slight, just the >current price for each commodity, that it would be difficult to enforce >an embargo on the data. Plus the barriers to entry are pretty low (at >least initially) so one could expect competition to quickly arise if the >market's operations became profitable. On the other hand there might >be network effects; a well established market would have high liquidity >that a newcomer would be hard pressed to match, like eBay does. The people who put up the fantastic array of web pages and such incredible activities as Wikipedia are getting paid in attention and status among their peers. But Hal has good points here where the cost to obtain information gets too high to be a project you can fund as a hobby. Keith Henson From riel at surriel.com Sat Dec 25 19:06:35 2004 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 14:06:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: yOn Sat, 25 Dec 2004, spike wrote: > It's gone. Google knows nothing of it. (As far as I can tell.) No cache > link. In related news, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt It's quite spectacular for a robots.txt and indicative of just how many things the government would rather not see archived. -- "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan From sentience at pobox.com Sat Dec 25 19:45:20 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 14:45:20 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] will the sun rise? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20041225115154.032c3380@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> References: <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223125150.01b14f70@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB2166.5060705@pobox.com> <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041225115154.032c3380@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <41CDC350.7090809@pobox.com> Keith Henson wrote: > At 05:37 PM 23/12/04 -0500, Eliezer wrote: > > snip > >> One suspects that the primary issue would not be speed as such, but >> choosing a balance of speed, power expenditure, and material lost, >> which minimizes entropy loss and hence maximizes the calculations >> performable with the winnings. Does it take more energy to rush >> machinery into solar orbit, than the Sun wastes over that time? > > I remember the results of a calculation someone made (Drexler?) that > taking Jupiter apart would require about 3 Sun-centuries of energy. > Even if the Sun is burning 1500 tons of matter to energy per second, it > is still a slow burn rate. But you're going to have to shut it down eventually - not necessarily take it apart, maybe, but ensure that all that energy goes to perform useful computations. The only question is how much it pays to do it sooner, rather than later. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From megao at sasktel.net Sat Dec 25 21:02:08 2004 From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 15:02:08 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events-blocked site content? In-Reply-To: References: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <41CDD550.3050702@sasktel.net> I am wondering if I am the victim of poor search engine crawling or deliberate blocking again. The fix-it of the robots.txt file done on Nov 15 resulted in a fully searcheable site by Dec 01. about a week ago I again had no hits except for direct hits. I did the usual self-search for keywords on my site and came up empty. I tried shutting down the bloking cookie for logging my own visits and my visits log. However, the site is completely invisible to keyword searches ..... One thing I noticed is that google archives pictures sparately from text so I loaded several photo files linked by a keyword rich caption on the main page. Now to wait 5-15 days for that to be crawled and do a reverse search to see if the info on the captions is keyword searcheable. Keeping the content searcheable is becoming quite frustrating . What else should I look for to determine what is happening? Morris Rik van Riel wrote: >yOn Sat, 25 Dec 2004, spike wrote: > > > >>It's gone. Google knows nothing of it. (As far as I can tell.) No cache >>link. >> >> > >In related news, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt >It's quite spectacular for a robots.txt and indicative of >just how many things the government would rather not see >archived. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkhenson at rogers.com Sat Dec 25 21:17:01 2004 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 16:17:01 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] will the sun rise? In-Reply-To: <41CDC350.7090809@pobox.com> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20041225115154.032c3380@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223125150.01b14f70@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB2166.5060705@pobox.com> <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041225115154.032c3380@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20041225155029.032aebe0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> At 02:45 PM 25/12/04 -0500, Eliezer wrote: >Keith Henson wrote: >>At 05:37 PM 23/12/04 -0500, Eliezer wrote: >>snip >> >>>One suspects that the primary issue would not be speed as such, but >>>choosing a balance of speed, power expenditure, and material lost, which >>>minimizes entropy loss and hence maximizes the calculations performable >>>with the winnings. Does it take more energy to rush machinery into >>>solar orbit, than the Sun wastes over that time? >>I remember the results of a calculation someone made (Drexler?) that >>taking Jupiter apart would require about 3 Sun-centuries of energy. >>Even if the Sun is burning 1500 tons of matter to energy per second, it >>is still a slow burn rate. > >But you're going to have to shut it down eventually - not necessarily take >it apart, maybe, but ensure that all that energy goes to perform useful >computations. The only question is how much it pays to do it sooner, >rather than later. This makes the assumption that we can. David Criswell's thoughts here http://www.informationblast.com/Star_lifting.html does not make the case for getting it done quickly. In fact, lifting one percent of the mass would take on the order of 3 million years. Which does make the case that we better get started soon. :-) Of course there might be other ways to damp the fires, but that's outside of known physics. Keith Henson From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Dec 25 21:21:46 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 13:21:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <20041225212146.97125.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Damien would have found 1130 hits if he'd only misspelled Lindy Englund like West Virginian trailer trash would... It ain't a conspiracy, it's a conspellacy. --- spike wrote: > ... Damien Broderick > > Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events > > You remember Lindy England, right? Abu Ghraib? > > It's gone. Google knows nothing of it. (As far as I can tell.) No > cache > link. Same, by and large, with England herself, and those images. One > or > two in articles, NONE in Google Images... > > > Damien > > > Lindy who? Abu what? > > (cue eerie Twilight Zone music). > > When I see things like this, especially this time of > year, I am struck by how kind, forgiving and non-retaliatory > Rudolph must have been, even after an evidently hellish fawnhood. > > Had it been me, after I came thru in a real pinch and now > all the reindeer loved me and were shouting out with glee > and all that, I might have responded: to HELL with all you > antler boys and your silly reindeer games, that YOU never > let ME play because of my facial disfigurement, my different > ABILLLLITYYYYY! Get it? Differently AAAABLLLED? I shoulda > let you all fly into a foggy mountainside in Canada somewhere! > > Fools! I'll destroy them all! muahhhahahahahahaaaaa. > > That sort of thing. > > {8^D > > Merry Newtonmas all! > > spike > > (Damien, why were you searching for those kinds of photos on > Christmas eve? {8^D) > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 25 21:27:36 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 15:27:36 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: <20041225212146.97125.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> References: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <20041225212146.97125.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225152701.01b77f28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 01:21 PM 12/25/2004 -0800, Mike wrote: >Damien would have found 1130 hits if he'd only misspelled Lindy Englund >like West Virginian trailer trash would... Yep, so I've found: http://badgas.co.uk/lynndie/ Damien Broderick [urp] From pharos at gmail.com Sat Dec 25 21:28:01 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 21:28:01 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events-blocked site content? In-Reply-To: <41CDD550.3050702@sasktel.net> References: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <41CDD550.3050702@sasktel.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 15:02:08 -0600, Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc. wrote: > > Keeping the content searcheable is becoming quite frustrating . > What else should I look for to determine what is happening? > I mentioned back in Nov that you have omitted the tag from the start of your page source code. This element tells a browser that this page is an HTML document. If you omit it then anything reading your page has to make an assumption. Some crawlers may not assume the tag - I'm not expert enough in that area to say. It might make no difference, but why not just put the tag back in and see what happens? It can't hurt to code to html standards. :) BillK From pharos at gmail.com Sat Dec 25 21:36:40 2004 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 21:36:40 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225152701.01b77f28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <20041225212146.97125.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041225152701.01b77f28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 15:27:36 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 01:21 PM 12/25/2004 -0800, Mike wrote: > > >Damien would have found 1130 hits if he'd only misspelled Lindy Englund > >like West Virginian trailer trash would... > > Yep, so I've found: > So, having been teached to spoke and spell the English like properly has become a disadvantage in finding the info you are looking for? If Google misclassifies data, large parts of human knowledge and history could become lost. Or until a much better database system is developed. BillK From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sat Dec 25 22:00:41 2004 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 17:00:41 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: On Sat, 25 Dec 2004, spike wrote: > > When I see things like this, especially this time of > year, I am struck by how kind, forgiving and non-retaliatory > Rudolph must have been, even after an evidently hellish fawnhood. Was he really? http://buncombe.main.nc.us/~mbbweb/rudolphreindeer.jpg Regards, MB > > Had it been me, after I came thru in a real pinch and now > all the reindeer loved me and were shouting out with glee > and all that, I might have responded: to HELL with all you > antler boys and your silly reindeer games, that YOU never > let ME play because of my facial disfigurement, my different > ABILLLLITYYYYY! Get it? Differently AAAABLLLED? I shoulda > let you all fly into a foggy mountainside in Canada somewhere! > Yup! :) From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Dec 25 21:59:10 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 15:59:10 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: References: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <20041225212146.97125.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041225152701.01b77f28@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225155545.01a77ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:36 PM 12/25/2004 +0000, BillKwrote: > > >if he'd only misspelled Lindy Englund > > >like West Virginian trailer trash would... > >So, having been teached to spoke and spell the English like properly >has become a disadvantage in finding the info you are looking for? Now that Google's off the rewriting history hook, I still wonder why it didn't flash up one its usual: Did you mean: ...... ? The usual "diskrimination" ENTER => Did you mean: discrimination Damien Broderick From eugen at leitl.org Sat Dec 25 22:19:32 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 23:19:32 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225002213.019d00a0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <001101c4ea99$d16a0a60$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <20041225221932.GB9221@leitl.org> On Sat, Dec 25, 2004 at 07:52:48AM -0800, spike wrote: > (Damien, why were you searching for those kinds of photos on > Christmas eve? {8^D) Because censorship doesn't have particular holidays or particular seasons? Sad to see Google go, it was such a useful portal. Le roi est mort, vive le roi... -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From eugen at leitl.org Sat Dec 25 22:29:47 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 23:29:47 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] will the sun rise? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20041225115154.032c3380@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> References: <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> <20041223040131.8FE6857E2A@finney.org> <41CA4914.9020700@pobox.com> <2A0DC76A-549F-11D9-BDED-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CA521E.6000207@pobox.com> <6.1.1.1.0.20041223125150.01b14f70@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <41CB2166.5060705@pobox.com> <20041223213657.GX9221@leitl.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20041225115154.032c3380@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <20041225222947.GC9221@leitl.org> On Sat, Dec 25, 2004 at 11:56:34AM -0500, Keith Henson wrote: > I remember the results of a calculation someone made (Drexler?) that taking > Jupiter apart would require about 3 Sun-centuries of energy. Even if the > Sun is burning 1500 tons of matter to energy per second, it is still a slow IIRC it's about 2 MT/s. > burn rate. If you'd focus the entire solar output on Jupiter it would seem quite easy to achieve significant escape rate, given that it's all hydrogen, and escape velocity is only 60 km/s. Sun is harder because if you trap the radiation it will heat up and bloat up and simultaneously reduce the fusion rate. Perhaps you can blow off chunks of photosphere, by periodic/asymmetric feedback of the solar output. I don't see how this is a controlled disassembly process, though. Ditto Jupiter. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From duggerj1 at charter.net Sat Dec 25 23:38:48 2004 From: duggerj1 at charter.net (duggerj1 at charter.net) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 17:38:48 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity--Foresight Institute Membership Discount Ends Next Week Message-ID: <3k77vr$fh5106@mxip08a.cluster1.charter.net> Friday, 25 December 2004 Hello all: If you've ability to do so, please consider purchasing a Foresight Institute membership as a gift for someone you know. Such a purchase not only helps FI, it also helps the recipient. If no such person comes to mind, consider (graduate | college | high school) students of your acquaintance. If you know none, consider a local public school's gifted education program. If you still draw a blank, what about co-workers? None of them suitable? Ask a WTA Chapter or ExI member for suggestions. Finally, there's always yourself. The discounts end 31 December 2004. DISCLAIMER: I have Senior Associate membership. I do not get a commission on new memberships. FI has not asked me to do this. Jay Dugger : Til Eulenspiegel http://www.owlmirror.net/~duggerj/ Sometimes the delete key serves best. From spike66 at comcast.net Sun Dec 26 01:21:46 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 17:21:46 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001601c4eae9$44655e30$6401a8c0@mtrainier> On Sat, 25 Dec 2004, spike wrote: > > When I see things like this, especially this time of > year, I am struck by how kind, forgiving and non-retaliatory > Rudolph must have been, even after an evidently hellish fawnhood. Was he really? http://buncombe.main.nc.us/~mbbweb/rudolphreindeer.jpg Regards, MB oops, I think I may have used the vindictive reindeer gag a few years ago, doh. Growing old is hell. {8^D spike From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com Sun Dec 26 03:36:27 2004 From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 19:36:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Another Extropian for the Board of the World Transhumanist Association? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041226033627.73748.qmail@web41312.mail.yahoo.com> Dear Extropian friends, Greetings to you all from sunny and beautiful Venezuela:-) I encourage you to run for the coming WTA Board elections. At least one (if not more:-) of you could (and should:-) take the soon to be vacated 5 seats of the current WTA Board. Please, let me tell you that I will totally support you since I am working for a more "global" and "inclusive" WTA. Also, please, remember to sign up now for TransVision 2005 in Venezuela: www.TransHumanismO.org/tv05 This will be a wonderful event, with wonderful people in a wonderful country. There will also be many Extropians participating, including Natasha Vita-More, Max More, Anders Sandberg, and hopefully Robert Bradbury, Greg Burch, David McFadzaen, Robin Hanson, etc. You can buy very cheap plane tickets from anywhere in the North America to Venezuela if you plan in advance (less than $500, check travelocity.com for flexible dates:-). Besides the conference, we are also organizing some scuba-diving sessions and other tourist activities after TV05. We want to have many Extropians participants in TransVision 2005 and I welcome any questions or doubts directly to me: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com Have a very happy 2005, 2050, 2500, 5200......... Transhumanistically yours, Jos? Cordeiro (www.cordeiro.org) ExI and WTA Director "Hughes, James J." wrote: December 24, 2004 Dear WTA member, 1. Pledge Drive Results Wanted to write a quick note thanking those who responded to our December pledge drive. The drive netted: 3 new sustainer memberships ($250+) 10 new supporters ($20/$40 each) 3 gifts Amounting to a total of $1600 For our small, voluntary organization, with no foundation or corporate support, that means a lot. (Although keep in mind that just one of the bioconservative organizations, the Center for Genetics and Society, has an annual budget of $650,000, about 50x ours. Keep your gifts and memberships coming so we can keep our voice in the debate.) If you are trying to round out your charitable contributions for the year, you have another week to donate to the WTA in 2004: http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/donate/ 2. Membership WTA Membership now stands at 2817 Basic Members 138 Supporting Members 6 Sustaining Members 12 Lifetime Members The top ten countries by membership are: 1309 USA 256 UK 223 Canada 132 Australia 98 Finland 63 Germany 62 India 53 Sweden 47 Netherlands 41 Brazil 3. Welcome WTA Kenya! We also want to send out a hearty welcome to our newest chapter, the Transhumanist Association of Kenya. With the upcoming Transhumanism and Africa conference in Abuja, we hope that this second African transhumanist group will soon be joined by many more. 4. January Board Elections We will be holding an election for five seats on our ten-person Board of Directors in January. Please send me your candidacy statements if you are interested in running, or email me your questions if you want to know what the position entails. (For instance, our "Board meetings" are conducted on our 24/7/365 WTA Board email list - we only plan to hold one annual face to face Board meeting at the Caracas Transvision meeting.) These five Directors will serve terms from January 24 2005 to January 2007. The due date for candidacy statements is January 9. We will post the candidacy statements and open the poll on January 10. Polls will close on January 16 at midnight GMT. The new Board members will join the Board January 24. Previous candidacy statements can be reviewed at: http://www.transhumanism.org/board/Vote2002.htm http://www.transhumanism.org/board/Vote2003.htm http://www.transhumanism.org/board/Vote2004.htm Remember! Only Supporting, Sustaining and Lifetime Members can run for the Board, or vote in Board elections. You can upgrade your membership status here: http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/joinnow/ If you are unsure of your membership status, or whether you are in good standing, please contact me: director at transhumanism.org 5. Happy Holidays, If... Hope you are having a wonderful holiday, if this is indeed a holiday season in your country, and if you celebrate a holiday around Winter Solstice (WTAers do live in every corner of the globe after all, and have some pretty iconoclastic beliefs...) Talk to you again in the New Year. ------------------------ James Hughes Ph.D. Executive Director World Transhumanist Association http://transhumanism.org Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies http://ieet.org Box 128, Willington CT 06279 USA (office) 860-297-2376 director at transhumanism.org _______________________________________________ wta-announce mailing list wta-announce at transhumanism.org http://www.transhumanism.org/mailman/listinfo/wta-announce La vie est belle! Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra, Solar System, Milky Way, Multiverse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Sun Dec 26 06:20:01 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 01:20:01 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <09A05FEA-55AA-11D9-9767-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20041223154322.36695.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> <41CB6F72.7070400@humanenhancement.com> <51A6EC47-5551-11D9-AFA9-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <41CB82E0.6090501@humanenhancement.com> <09A05FEA-55AA-11D9-9767-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <41CE5811.9000604@humanenhancement.com> Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > On Dec 23, 2004, at 9:45 PM, Joseph Bloch wrote: > >> I suppose it all depends on how you look at it. Are we interested in >> getting positive publicity and funding through false general >> impressions? That gets more up-front funding. Or are we interested in >> educating people about the true impact of emergent technologies such >> as cloning? That gets more long-term acceptance. >> >> Honestly, there are arguments on both sides. > > > Funny you should use the word "honestly". "Honestly" there are > arguments on one side only. "Dishonstly" there are arguments for > positive publicity and funding through false general impressions. > > I have never believed that the ends justified the means. This is not > a sustainable strategy. It will eventually be discovered, and will > ultimately do more harm than good. I wish all transhumanists believed > as I do. I disagree. It depends on the means, and the ends. Some ends, such as the abolition of slavery, justify almost any means, including (to use historical example) the waging of an arguably unconstitutional and inarguably vicious and vastly destructive military action. You've doubtless heard of it... the Civil War? Or, since you live south of the Mason-Dixon line, the War of Northern Agression. Some means, on the other hand, are innocuous enough to justify their use in the pursuit of nearly any end that the user deems preferential. Heck, go no further than verbal pursuasion. One can use pursuasion in the employ of any cause, any end; it's deemed a fundamental right of being human. People only whine about it when they don't like those ends. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com From bjk at imminst.org Sun Dec 26 06:29:28 2004 From: bjk at imminst.org (Bruce J. Klein) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 00:29:28 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] ImmInst Update: Video, Tanya Jones (4 1/2 min) Message-ID: <41CE5A48.3000801@imminst.org> IMMINST VIDEO Tanya Jones, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, COO (4 1/2 Min Video) http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=111&t=4935 IMMINST CHAT Chat: Facts about ImmInst & life extension - Sun Dec 26 @ 8 PM Est http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=63&t=4937 IMMINST ARTICLES What is Immortality? Common definitions - Thor Christensen http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=106&t=4205 We are already immortal, What should we do with it? - Chip http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=67&t=4918 IMMINST EVENTS NYTA Meeting - Feb 5, 2005 - New York, NY - Will you attend? http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=159&t=4850 ImmInst Conference - Nov 5, 2005 - Atlanta, GA - Will you attend? http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=159&t=4651 IMMINST MAGAZINE Do you want to receive the PI magazine? [Full Member Access Only] http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=92&t=4924 IMMINST BOARD ELECTIONS Nominations taken for ImmInst directorship: [Full Member Access Only] http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=92&t=4661 MPRIZE Michael Cooper would like to drive us above the $100,000 mark: http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=142&t=4902 WTA Transvision 2005 - Caracas, Venezuela, July 22-24, 2005 http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=159&t=4822 IMMINST BOOK ?The Scientific Conquest of Death - Essays on Infinite Lifespans? ISBN: 9875611352 Price: $17.60 http://www.imminst.org/book1 ABOUT IMMINST Immortality Institute - Conquering the Blight of Involuntary Death Members: 1913, Full Members: 113, http://www.imminst.org/fullmembers From reason at longevitymeme.org Sun Dec 26 06:35:24 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 22:35:24 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <41CE5811.9000604@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: --> Joseph Bloch > Sent: Saturday, December 25, 2004 10:20 PM > Some ends, such as the abolition of slavery, justify almost any means, > including (to use historical example) the waging of an arguably > unconstitutional and inarguably vicious and vastly destructive military > action. You've doubtless heard of it... the Civil War? Or, since you > live south of the Mason-Dixon line, the War of Northern Agression. Not a very good example - slavery was a convenient fig leaf in that case. The war was fought over resources and centralization of power, as are most wars. The people of Great Britain managed to put slavery behind them without any comparable violence several decades earlier. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/miller1.html Britain heralded the end of slavery, in the Western world at least, with its Bill of Abolition, passed in 1807. This Bill made the African slave trade (but not slaveholding) illegal. Later that year the United States adopted a similar bill, called the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, which prohibited bringing slaves into any port in the country, including into the southern slaveholding states. Congress strengthened this prohibition in 1819 when it decreed the slave trade to be a form of piracy, punishable by death. In 1833, Britain enacted an Emancipation Law, ending slavery throughout the British Empire, and Parliament allocated twenty million pounds to buy slaves ? freedom from their owners. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer rightly described this action as one of the greatest acts of collective compassion in the history of humankind. This happened peacefully and without any serious slave uprisings or attacks on their former owners, even in Jamaica where a population of 30,000 whites owned 250,000 slaves. http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo17.html (On tariffs and protectionism of the time, part of a larger work). Reason Founder, Longevity Meme From pgptag at runbox.com Sun Dec 26 13:29:00 2004 From: pgptag at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 14:29:00 0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Another Extropian for the Board of the WorldTranshumanist Association? Message-ID: <200412261331.iBQDVu022262@tick.javien.com> As another current WTA Board member who (tries to) contribute to both organizations, I also wish to encourage motivated people to run for a seat on the WTA Board. Reading between the lines of Jose's note (please Jose correct me if I am wrong), I sense a feeling that the WTA is not "global" and "inclusive" enough. In some sense this is correct: for example racists and holy warriors of all sorts are just not welcome in the WTA. But barring such extremes, I believe all WTA voting members who wish to support the WTA with hard work, rationality and common sense, and who wish to do their best to work productively with other transhumanists who do not share precisely the same political or philosophical persuasion, are welcome to run for the Board. G. Jose Cordeiro wrote: __________ > Dear Extropian friends, > > Greetings to you all from sunny and beautiful Venezuela:-) > > I encourage you to run for the coming WTA Board elections. At least one(if not more:-) of you could (and should:-) take the soon to be vacated 5 seats of the current WTA Board. Please, let me tell you that I will totally support you since I am working for a more "global" and "inclusive" WTA. From hkhenson at rogers.com Sun Dec 26 14:11:46 2004 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 09:11:46 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: References: <41CE5811.9000604@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20041226082947.032a22e0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> At 10:35 PM 25/12/04 -0800, Reason wrote: >--> Joseph Bloch > > Sent: Saturday, December 25, 2004 10:20 PM > > > Some ends, such as the abolition of slavery, justify almost any means, > > including (to use historical example) the waging of an arguably > > unconstitutional and inarguably vicious and vastly destructive military > > action. You've doubtless heard of it... the Civil War? Or, since you > > live south of the Mason-Dixon line, the War of Northern Agression. > >Not a very good example - slavery was a convenient fig leaf in that case. >The war was fought over resources and centralization of power, as are most >wars. The people of Great Britain managed to put slavery behind them without >any comparable violence several decades earlier. This list is one of the few where evolutionary psychology is accepted background. Evolutionary psychology states that every one of our psychological traits including those leading to wars are the outcome of millions of years of evolution living in small tribes as hunter gatherers. "Centralization of power" wasn't a fact of life in those days, but resources were since human populations have always grown beyond the ecological limits. "War" (more like genocide) is a substantial factor in keeping chimpanzee population within the local ecological limits. So the trait has probably been under evolutionary selection pressure since our line split from the chimps. Further, the big thing in human development has been the ability to anticipate the future. So traits for going to war with neighbors when your group can anticipate a crunch would be favored. (There is an advantage in attacking first if you are going to do it at all.) High labor farming in the South was deeply dependant on slaves. In fact, a substantial fraction of the entire white population's income was dependant on slaves, and this was not just for those who owned slaves. Before the Civil War it was obvious to the southern whites that slavery was going to go, one way or the other (buy-outs and freeing children were under discussion). The analysis was correct. Once slavery did end, the former slaves continued to work the farms, but the amount of labor they put into farming for export fell between 1/4 and 1/2 and the Southern whites underwent economic privation (compared with the North) for the next century. Evolutionary psychology makes the case that a population of humans goes to war either because "war memes" build up on a population looking at bleak prospects or they are attacked. The two modes are additive and there are complicated feedback paths in the post hunter gatherer world. Unfortunately, knowledge of the psychological traits and conditions leading to wars does not seem to lead to solutions. Keith Henson From wingcat at pacbell.net Sun Dec 26 17:47:53 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 09:47:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <690547CC-54C6-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <20041226174753.39318.qmail@web81610.mail.yahoo.com> --- Samantha Atkins wrote: > The neurosecurity stuff is interesting. If my > brain is relatively > open to would-be neuro-hackers isn't their brain and > intention, much > less action possibly obvious and capable of raising > alarm? It would seem far more likely that the interface will be a hack target than the brain itself. The interface will, by necessity, be mass-produced and, whatever customization it does on the brain end, present a uniform interface to the outside world. Thus, there may be need for security against the interface - but the senses can be "hacked" (contrary to what the article says) with illusions and hallucinations, and there are already defense mechanisms to deal with these. The same mechanisms would seem likely to apply here (i.e., ignore or don't trust your implant if you think a hacker's feeding it bogus data). > This gets > into issues of privacy inside our very heads which > is another can of > worms. I sure as hell would not want some > corporate CIO wonk deciding > what patches to put in my brain just because I am > doing some work for > their corporation! And then there's the repo scenario. "Your bills are overdue. You've got a week to pay or we're taking the hardware back." "But it's already been installed in our employees!" (Above lines ripped from the NetRunner card game.) > I especially would not want > them or anyone else > trying to draw rough analogies to guide actions on > my head and > capabilities from a much simpler and far less > complex and delicate set > of current security scenarios. The suggested > "solutions" here aren't > even terribly workable at rather coarse > granularities of software > components. Especially bad was the suggestion to outsource parts of our minds. That seems to be analogous to corporations trying to outsource their core functionality - i.e., "We're in business because we do X better...except we're not doing X anymore, we've found someone else who does X better than us. So, uh, why are we in business again?" From wingcat at pacbell.net Sun Dec 26 18:29:24 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 10:29:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Long term truth In-Reply-To: <09A05FEA-55AA-11D9-9767-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <20041226182924.29953.qmail@web81609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Harvey Newstrom wrote: > On Dec 23, 2004, at 9:45 PM, Joseph Bloch wrote: > > I suppose it all depends on how you look at it. > Are we interested in > > getting positive publicity and funding through > false general > > impressions? That gets more up-front funding. Or > are we interested in > > educating people about the true impact of emergent > technologies such > > as cloning? That gets more long-term acceptance. > > > > Honestly, there are arguments on both sides. > > Funny you should use the word "honestly". > "Honestly" there are > arguments on one side only. "Dishonstly" there are > arguments for > positive publicity and funding through false general > impressions. > > I have never believed that the ends justified the > means. This is not a > sustainable strategy. It will eventually be > discovered, and will > ultimately do more harm than good. I wish all > transhumanists believed > as I do. Is this not one of the central themes of transhumanism? (Or viewable as such, anyway.) We seek to emphasize that which will benefit everyone (or at least us, but by nature it tends to benefit everyone) over the long term. A longer life span has little immediate impact: you'll probably live tomorrow whether or not cancer is cured, for example, but surviving each day for the next 100 years is a different story. Likewise, believing that Nature or God frowns on mankind's self-exploration and the development of technologies to improve the human condition may make one happy and fulfilled today, but it won't relieve the misery one may live in over several years. And so forth. Preaching the long term benefits of truth seems to always be a winning strategy, at least in the long term. From wingcat at pacbell.net Sun Dec 26 18:44:02 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 10:44:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041226184402.14108.qmail@web81603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Harvey Newstrom wrote: > I find it hard to believe that in the > history of that > market, nobody tried to analyze the data. More > likely, I believe that > like me, nobody was able to extract evidence of > long-term predicitons. How many people were working on it, for how long? And how much of their time was spent on it? They may have had other, more immediately important things to do, and essentially forgotten about this project. There's certainly been enough interest generated that some academics could further their careers by publishing an analysis actively finding no long-term predictive capability. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Although it most certainly is absence of evidence - that is, it looks like it might not be fair to say that the power of these markets has been "proven" beyond any need to research them further. From wingcat at pacbell.net Sun Dec 26 18:53:36 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 10:53:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <41CE5811.9000604@humanenhancement.com> Message-ID: <20041226185336.15481.qmail@web81603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Joseph Bloch wrote: > Some ends, such as the abolition of slavery, justify > almost any means, > including (to use historical example) the waging of > an arguably > unconstitutional and inarguably vicious and vastly > destructive military > action. You've doubtless heard of it... the Civil > War? Or, since you > live south of the Mason-Dixon line, the War of > Northern Agression. Check your history books. The Civil War wasn't originally about slavery. It was originally about the right of states to seceed. Slavery got tacked on afterwards. The outcome of the war accelerated what economics was proving anyway: slavery was inefficient, pure and simple. (Thus the South had less industry with which to crank out war material, which greatly contributed to its loss.) From benboc at lineone.net Sun Dec 26 21:36:37 2004 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:36:37 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: will the sun rise? (not if we dismantle it) In-Reply-To: <200412261900.iBQJ0F023142@tick.javien.com> References: <200412261900.iBQJ0F023142@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <41CF2EE5.4080800@lineone.net> 'Scuse me, but isn't the idea of dismantling the sun to avoid wasting energy rather missing the point? I thought that's what Dyson Spheres were for. It should be a bit easier to to build one of those than to take the sun apart. ben From fortean1 at mindspring.com Sun Dec 26 21:45:08 2004 From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 14:45:08 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Origin of The Sourcebook Project [Part 1 of 2] Message-ID: <41CF30E4.D9E7BDDD@mindspring.com> This article is fat-fingered from a reprint pamphlet mailed to me by the author. Any typo errors are mine. Corliss describes his relationship with several large groups: Fortean groups, Creationists, The Skeptics, The Media, and Mainstream Science. IMO, as an independent iconoclast Corliss has difficulty communicating with each of these groups. TWC A Search for Anomalies William R. Corliss Sourcebook Project P.O. Box 107 Glen Arm, MD 21057 < http://www.science-frontiers.com > Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 439-453, 2002 Since 1965 I have been culling systematically from the literature of science those observations that challenge reigning paradigms. The tangible result of the thousands of hours spent in libraries has been a series of Sourcebooks, Handbooks, and Catalogs that, at present, describe and evaluate roughly 2,000 anomalies ? about one-half of my total collection. Some of these anomalies are truly profound and have important implications for science, such as the quantization of astronomical redshifts; others are less significant, as is the recent discovery of that curious little door in one of the Great Pyramid's "air-shafts." Overall, this immense accumulation of anomalies will hopefully encourage new research projects, some paradigm shifting, perhaps even the emergence of yet-undreamed-of hypotheses that will better describe nature. This historical essay begins in 1951 with my astonishment at my unexpected discovery that important scientific anomalies not only exist but also are pervasive and abundant in the professional journals. The essay continues with the translation of these two epiphanies into the Sourcebook Project and the 36 books on anomalies that it has published so far. Keywords: anomalies, Sourcebook Project The Pivotal Role of Serendipity The Sourcebook Project really germinated in 1951 in an unexpected manner. To begin my search for anomalies, I first had to learn that they existed--- a reality not broached in the usual college science curriculum. I came across anomalies by accident. In 1951 I was working on the 184-inch cyclotron at the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California. On a day off, I happened to pick up for $2.00 in one of Berkeley's bookstores a used copy of George McCready Price's 1926 book, *Evolutionary Geology and the New Catastrophism*. That the word "catastrophism" would appear in the title of any geology book was shocking in those days, for uniformitarianism was dominant in the earth sciences. I do not recall my geology professor ever mentioning "castastrophism"! Even more surprising were Price's field observations that challenged what I thought were well-established truisms. To illustrate, Price pointed out many places on the planet where older rocks are superimposed upon younger rocks; for example, at Chief Mountain in Montana. There, an entire mountain of older rock rests upon much younger sediments. Price's book contained many more geological anomalies, some of which are now explained but many more that are not. So it was George McCready Price, who would today be called a creationist, who first made me aware that anomalies exist, at least in the field of geology. My second unanticipated discovery made me realize that anomalies were common in *all* branches of science. This happened in 1953 in the library at the University of Colorado when I was trying to find out what was known about the solar spectrum in the far ultraviolet. (The Physics Department had spectrograms of the sun taken at high altitudes during flights of captured V-2 German rockets.) Right next to a book I desired was Charles Fort's *The Book of the Damned*. Naturally, I had to take out that book, too. It turned out to be chock full of anomalies of all sorts, all of which Fort had extracted from major science journals prior to 1930. Fort designated these anomalies as "damned" because they were generally ignored by mainstream science. Fort's book concentrated on astronomy and geophysics. I was particularly intrigued by the examples of those strange explosive sounds heard in coastal regions around the world. The Barisal Guns in the Ganges Delta are perhaps the most famous. Around the coast of the North Sea, they are called "mistpouffers" or "fog guns." It was all certainly very fascinating, but I had to finish my education and start making some money for my family. Nevertheless, I now knew that scientific anomalies not only existed but were also spread throughout all of science. Serendipity struck again a decade later. By 1963 I had become disenchanted with industry and had started a career in freelance writing. (My wife said she would give me five years to make a go out of it.) Fortunately, I had a head start. I had already written a book on space propulsion, based on a course I taught at General Electric in Cincinnati, which had been published by McGraw-Hill (Corliss, 1960). This helped me get writing contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). These efforts took me frequently to Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library. These visits gave me the opportunity to verify some of the anomalies I had read about in Fort's *The Book of the Damned*, especially those curious mistpouffers! As I leafed through the pages of *Nature* circa 1898-1900, I found that Fort's research had been accurate but rather narrow. He had missed a lot of anomalies. Fort, it seems, was not particularly interested in archeology, geology, or biology. He had not even picked up on all those intriguing British stone circles, which were a favorite subject of Norman Lockyer, the editor of *Nature* around the turn of the century. Thus, it was once more made obvious to me that anomalies were ubiquitous and present in greater numbers than I had dreamed. Fort had been selective and had explored only part of the science literature and then only up to about 1930. There was a whole universe of anomalies waiting for me in the dusty stacks of Baltimore's main library and the easily accessible Library of Congress. At this point in the history of the Sourcebook Project (which hadn't even been christened yet), there was no thought of making a business out of anomalies. I first had to satisfy NASA, AEC, and NSF. Between 1963 and 1981, I wrote thirteen books for NASA on space flight (for three examples, see Corliss, 1965, 1967, 1972), a dozen educational booklets for AEC, and the same number of articles for *Mosaic*, a now-discontinued bimonthly magazine published by NSF. There were also several books written for New York publishers, including one I coauthored with Glenn Seaborg (Seaborg, 1971). A point to be made here is that a freelancer usually has extra time now and then to turn to other projects of interest; in my case, anomalies. And in the back of my mind, as you would expect in a writer, was the possibility of a book on anomalies. Something like *The Book of the Damned*, but updated and wider in scope. Because this book or, possibly a series of books, would be ferreting out and organizing anomalies from a wide spectrum of sources, I decided to name the venture The Sourcebook Project. Curiosity-Indulgence and Profitability In 1965, the major goal of the nascent Sourcebook Project was to satisfy personal curiosity. Such indulgence costs little, but to probe the unknown deeply and widely and then publish the anomalies uncovered requires more than casual interest. Organization, infrastructure, and funding are required. The present Sourcebook Project---still only a one-person endeavor---took 20 years (until 1985) to coalesce into a self-supporting enterprise. The profitability motive that was and still is absolutely essential to Project viability has necessarily produced an operating philosophy that differs somewhat from most other inquiries into the nature of the cosmos. I had and still have no institutional funding or infrastructure. This disconnect from most mainstream science efforts can be seen in the following three objectives that guide Sourcebook Project activities. 1. The primary objective of the Project has always been that of satisfying the curiosity of the author. This proclivity stimulated the search for anomalies and has sustained it for almost four decades. This innate curiosity has been vital because the financial rewards would have been much greater in my first career in engineering management. 2. Secondly, the Sourcebook Project must be self-supporting financially and develop its own infrastructure. As in any business, viability is one of the primary goals. This commercial focus had to exist because government, foundation, and private support have never been deemed likely. This premise has proven correct over the last four decades. 3. The third objective is the only overtly altruistic one. That is the potential value to science of the information acquired through the thousands of hours in libraries and its consolidation into accessible form both in books and CD-ROMs. The Search and Collection Beginning in the mid-1960s, every time I visited a library, I spent an hour or two combing through old volumes of science journals. The obvious place to begin was with the major, general-science journals *Nature* and *Science*. Every one of the hundreds of volumes of each of these two journals was scrutinized for anomalies. I moved next to *American Scientist* and science magazines such as *New Scientist* and *Scientific American*. There were also the major specialized journals to attend to: *Geology*, *Monthly Weather Review*, *Icarus*, *American Journal of Psychiatry*, *Antiquity*, etc. Over the years, some 15,000 volumes of major science publications have been examined. The identification and collection of anomalies was (and still is) a rather tedious task. The reward is that every trip to a library adds new anomalies to the burgeoning collection. It is a bit like fishing; boring most of the time until the big one bites! Obviously, I did not read every word of every article. Title pages were helpful. My eyes were peeled for key words like "enigma," "mysterious," "puzzling," "unsolved," "singular," and so on. The word "anomaly" was rarely used in the 1960-1990 time period in its present sense. Without question, I have missed many anomalies in my surveys. Some of these were discovered later when reference lists and relevant books were analyzed. Reviewers have pointed out others. *Nature* has been far and away the most useful general source. Its productivity, though, has changed with its editors. The *American Journal of Science*, founded in 1820, was a gold mine of anomalies of all sorts in the beginning. Now, 400 volumes later, it publishes mostly long, highly technical articles on geology and rarely provides me with new material. *Science*, too, has been variably useful. To illustrate: In its infancy, *Science* did not avoid parapsychology because its editor at the time, Simon Newcomb, like many prominent scientists in the late 1800s, did not discount psychic phenomenon. Bit by bit my anomaly collection grew. Unlike Fort, who had to jot down telegraphic (often unreadable) notes about phenomena, I had access to photocopiers. Today, my files bulge with perhaps 50,000 articles, letters, and brevia dealing with anomalies. I now estimate my collection holds about 4,000 distinct anomalies. This number could easily be increased simply by spending more time in libraries and tackling the thousands of unscanned journals. To appreciate what I have been extracting from the science literature, see the Appendix for a selection of about 100 anomalies from my files. Then multiply by 40! By 1972 I had enough material on hand to think about publishing some of it. I knew that no commercial publisher would sign on to a series of perhaps two dozen books. Just as certainly, no government agency or foundation would want to commit to such a long-term, controversial project. (While I was doing contract writing for NSF, discreet inquiries had validated this conclusion.) My decision was to self-publish my collection of anomalies and try to make it a profitable enterprise to boot. The Sourcebook Project has evolved in three phases, although the last two phases were not in the original plan. Phase I. The Sourcebooks In 1974, as an experiment, I began self-publishing a series of 10 loose-leaf notebooks called "Sourcebooks." The name was apt because they contained direct quotations from the older science journals with minimum interpretation and commentary. The first two volumes, entitled *Strange Phenomena I* and *II*, typify the set. They collected and categorized many of the geophysical anomalies I had gleaned from the literature. I engaged John C. Holden, a well-known science illustrator, to provide drawings for some of the phenomena. I continued the series with two volumes on archeology (*Strange Artifacts I* and *Strange Artifacts II*). Between 1975 and 1978, Sourcebooks in the fields of geology, astronomy, biology and psychology came off the press. Even though the Sourcebooks are now some 20 years old, a few orders for them still trickle in. About 30,000 copies have been sold down the years. Of course, orders for the Sourcebooks did not sell without some advertising effort. I used commercially available mailing lists and a few half-page display ads in *Science*, *Nature*, *Science News*, and a small handful of other science journals and magazines. Interestingly, the most productive ad appeared in *Sky & Telescope*. Individual books in the series were reviewed in *Nature*, *American Scientist*, and several other publications, including (to my astonishment) the *Village Voice*. These reviews obviously helped sales. The Sourcebooks differ markedly from the books of Charles Fort (*The Book of the Damned* was the first of a series of four). The material in the Sourcebooks is organized by subject and dispenses with the many brickbats tossed at science-in-general by Fort. The Sourcebooks are not confrontational but rather matter-of-fact quotations from the journals with minimum commentary. Phase I of the Sourcebook Project was financially successful, but not enough so as to sustain my family and put four children through college. In the 1970s, I continued to write, mainly for NASA, under contract. The resulting books were published by the U.S. Government Printing Office and, in a few cases, by commercial publishers under contract to NASA. One, entitled *Teleoperators and Human Augmentation*, was republished commercially. The last book I wrote for NASA was published in 1981, bearing the title: *Wind Tunnels of NASA*. The Sourcebooks, it turned out, had a unacceptable deficiency from the viewpoint of many libraries. They were ring-bound, and the pages could be and were removed by library clients. I could have gone on generating dozens of additional Sourcebooks, but to satisfy the library market, a new strategy was required. Phase II. The Handbooks Basically, the Sourcebooks were converted into hardcover books, but with more commentary, newer material, and many additional illustrations. The first Handbook, *Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena*, was self-published in 1977. The response was very encouraging with more good reviews in key science and library journals. In fact, the book caught on so well that Doubleday asked me to write a popularized version for them. This version appeared first as a quality paperback in 1983. It was later republished in hardcover form by two other publishers. Approximately 100,000 copies were sold altogether. In the meantime, the other five books in the Handbook series were being self-published. The second in the series, *Ancient Man*, has been reprinted several times and is still one of the Project's best-sellers. The final Handbook, *Unfathomed Mind*, came out in 1982. It is now out of print. Like the Sourcebooks, the Handbooks were marginally rewarding financially, and they were still fundamentally only reproductions of anomaly descriptions derived from the science literature. Background and significance were usually lacking. Furthermore, new anomalies were being added to the files at such a rapid rate that a new format was needed to accommodate this influx. More importantly, something had to be added to the books that indicated the potential impact of each anomaly and the quantity and quality of the observations that supported it. Phase III. The Catalog Series The "Catalog" concept goes far beyond the simple republication of the anomalous observations that characterize the Sourcebooks and the Handbooks. In the Catalogs, anomalies are singled out, closely defined, and then evaluated in terms of the quality of supporting data and how challenging they are to mainstream paradigms. Quotations from the original sources are still employed but they are shorter. More space is devoted to the background of the phenomena. I include examples of the anomalies and many references to aid future researchers. The catalog volumes are more focussed than the Handbooks. For example, the four geophysics Catalog are specialized as follows: * Luminous phenomena * Weather phenomena * Atmospheric-optics phenomena * "Oscillatory" phenomena (i.e., waves, tides, sound, earthquakes, etc.) The four Catalog volumes in geophysics were published by the Sourcebook Project between 1982 and 1984. (All Sourcebook Project publications in print are listed on my web site: < http://www.science-frontiers.com >). The Catalog concept advanced with three volumes on astronomy between 1985 and 1987. Geology came next, then biology and archeology. Roughly one Catalog volume has been published each year. As of 2002, there are 20 catalog volumes on the shelf. The task, however, is far from over. I contemplate six more volumes in archeology and three in psychology. Some time, I hope to return to biology, where the six extant volumes deal only with humans, the other mammals, and birds. I have immense, unused files on reptiles, fish, the arthropoda, plants, invertebrates, microorganisms, genetics, etc. Once I had hoped to complete the Catalog series in 25 volumes. Now, a total of 35 seems probable. The universe of anomalies has turned out to be expanding like the cosmos itself. On the economic front, the Catalogs have kept the Sourcebook Project solvent. Reviews have generally been very favorable. To maintain sales volume, I have relied mostly upon word-of-mouth and a mailing list developed over 35 years. My bimonthly mailings feature my newsletter, *Science Frontiers*, plus advertisements for related books by other publishers. Display ads and commercial mailing lists are now too expensive to employ. Happily, the Internet has come along and my web site has made up for the abandoned display ads and mailing lists. So much for the business aspects of the Sourcebook Project. Book marketing has made the Project viable and kept it free from the vicissitudes of commercial publishers and the dictates of institutions. Sourcebook Project Interfaces The Sourcebook Project has never solicited members, just customers. It is strictly a business without narrow philosophical or political goals. Over the years, though, some interesting interfaces with other organizations have developed. *Fortean groups* Relations have always been amicable with the International Fortean Organization (INFO), the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU, publisher of *Pursuit*), and the UK's *Fortean Times*. Although Fort's methodology has been valuable in developing the Sourcebook Project, I have tried to avoid the Fortean tendency to ridicule established science. Such bizarre and improbable Fortean phenomena as pyramidology and psychic archeology have generally been avoided. Indeed, the Project has been criticized as not being sufficiently Fortean; that is, not bizarre enough. This is quite true and can be explained by my almost total dependence upon mainstream science literature for source material. Newspapers are rarely used, the Internet is avoided totally. I very rarely use fringe magazines and the personal accounts that frequently turn up in the mail. As a result, perhaps, there are only a few dedicated Forteans on my customer list. Velikovskians, too, tend to ignore my self-published books, as do the cryptozoologists, ufologists, and those into psychic phenomena. However, the Sourcebook Project also carries roughly 100 books from other publishers. These cover tropics usually excluded from my Catalogs, such as Atlantis, intelligent design, the yeti, and even magic squares and humor. *Creationists* An interesting, informal, reciprocal interface prevails between the Sourcebook Project and the various creationist groups. The Catalogs and Handbooks, for example, contain much of interest to creationists in the fields of biology and geology. This occurs because I have amassed reports of phenomena that apparently challenge neo-Darwinism. Flowing in the other direction are observations that creationists have discovered in journals that I do not have the time to monitor. In addition, some individual creationists are particularly adept at finding flaws in widely accepted science paradigms, such as the continuity and integrity of the geological column and the utility of so-called vetigial organs. In this context, I emphasize that the Sourcebook Project intends to be value-free. Let the facts fall where they may! This Fortean skepticism about the value of theories-in-general doubtless annoys both creationists and their opponents. Theories are ephemeral, but facts live forever. *The Skeptics* One would expect a lively interface between the Sourcebook Project and the several groups of skeptics, as typified by the Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). After all, my Catalogs do challenge those paradigms the skeptics defend so ferociously. Actually, there has been no traffic whatsoever in either direction. While mainstream *Nature* has reviewed five of my books, the skeptics have shown no interest in evaluating any of the Sourcebook publications. The skeptics, it seems, are net skeptical of *established* paradigms, *only* those observations that threaten to disestablish them. [to be continued...] -- ?Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress.? Copyright 1992, Frank Rice Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.] From fortean1 at mindspring.com Sun Dec 26 21:46:12 2004 From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 14:46:12 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Origin of The Sourcebook Project [Part 2 of 2] Message-ID: <41CF3124.3C89E47@mindspring.com> [[continued...]] *The Media* The results of contacts with talk radio, TV programs, and newspapers have been disappointing. Since 1990 I have rejected all invitations for interviews and media events. The major factors in keeping the media at arm's length are their tendency to distort facts and not allow my review before publication or airing. Invitations from major publishers to write books on anomalies are now routinely turned down but usually for a different reason: It is more profitable and satisfying to self-publish and be able to control the format, content, and market-longevity of my books. *Mainstream Science* Early on, I hoped that experts in various disciplines would be interested in providing information or at least comments on drafts of material before publication. This interface was never established. Of course, a scientist's time is valuable and I cannot be considered a '"colleague"'! The Sourcebook Project is hardly part of the scientific community. There have been a few individual exceptions, but the reaction of mainstream science has been mainly via book reviews (generally favorable) and occasional references to my books in the journals. Some scientists do purchase books from the Project, including even some Nobelists. Generally speaking, though mainstream scientists are not good customers, despite the good reviews and several selections by book clubs. Some General Observations Who, then, does buy enough books to keep the Sourcebook Project in the black? Tests with ads and mailing lists indicate that it is not the Forteans, the creationists, the UFO crowd, the cryptozoologists, the parapsychologists, the Velikovskians, subscribers to *Fate*, or mainstream scientists. In fact, as Henry Bauer indicated in the recent *JSE* editorial (Bauer, 2001), it is not members of the SSE either. My theory is that each of the groups mentioned contains only a few "general-anomalists"; that is, individuals whose interests are much broader than those of the group they are associated with. The Sourcebook Project has tapped this dispersed population and is thus able to survive. It may be of interest to SSE members that only about 2% of them are on my mailing list, which length-wise is somewhat larger than the SSE membership list. This surprisingly small figure is also typical of members of Fortean groups, in fact, of *all* the specialty groups mentioned in the previous paragraph. Despite its charter, I believe the SSE is composed mainly of several small groups of specialists, with only a few generalists. That this may be so can be seen by comparing the subject matter in the Tables of Contents of several issues of the *JSE* with the topics listed in the Appendix. I see a wide disconnect between the two lists of topics. But it may be that those submitting articles to the *JSE* are not typical of the membership-as-a-whole. I don't know. Many of my customers also come from the general population of people with scientific training and interest, but who are not in academia or members of the specialty groups mentioned above. Medical doctors and engineers are perhaps the most prominent in this regard. Over the years, the archeology books offered by the Sourcebook Project have sold the best; those on parapsychology, the worst. In contrast, articles with a slant toward parapsychology are frequent in the *JSE* while archeology articles are nearly nonexistent. I have also noticed that scientists who specialize (and most do) will readily admit that anomalies exist in their fields of endeavor. In fact, they sometimes take pains to point out anomalies that I somehow missed in my literature research. However, these same scientists are often reluctant to admit that *all* other branches of science also exhibit anomalies. A scientist who admits the possibility that Nessie lives will not doubt the reality of the expanding universe. A scientist favorable to UFOs will not question neo-Darwinism. Scientists, like everyone else, prefer a broad, stable frame of reference, one without too many unknowns and uncertainties. But the Sourcebook Project claims that thousands of anomalies pervade all fields of knowledge. This assertion may be a little too unsettling to many. Conclusions The long hours spent in the dusty library stacks have proven intellectually rewarding to me. I intentionally avoid theorizing about what I have found over the past 40 years, for that would taint the objectivity of my continuing search. I claim only that there are a lot of anomalies out there, and that there are many more that I have not yet added to my collection. Every week the science journals bring new mysteries into my ken. I collect them like a philatelist does stamps. For every anomaly I have to remove from my album as having been explained, two new ones arrive to take its place with the next delivery of mail. Anomaly-collecting is obviously not science, for it assiduously eschews theories and the testing of theories. As I see it, the value of the Sourcebook Project to science is in its long lists of potential research areas. These lists demonstrate that science is far from complete. The Handbooks and Catalogs have the potential to stimulate the progress of science---and that is good. The more anomalies that are recognized, researched, and explained, the more accurate is our picture of the universe. Appendix: A Few Selected Anomalies ARCHEOLOGY 1. The "pit bands" of the Andes. The pits are about a meter deep and arranged regularly in bands about 24 meters wide. The bands run along the ridges for miles. 2. The stone meanders and labyrinths of the western U.S. 3. Boulders with triangular holes. Called "Viking mooring stones," there are hundreds in northeastern U.S. 4. Hundreds of large precision-crafted stone spheres in Costa Rica. These are near-perfect spheres made of hard granite! 5. The East Bay and Point Reyes walls, California. Builders and purpose unknown. 6. Incan stone masonry. Interlocking, precision-fitted, multi-ton stones, some with many corners. 7. Ancient Baalbek's massive, dressed Monolith, in Lebanon. (Weight: 1,100 tons) 8. The enigmatic stone blocks at Tiahuanaco (Bolivia) and at least one Inca site. These are huge, geometrically complex, fashioned out of hard rock, and seem to have no discernible purpose. 9. Scotland's ancient vitrified stone forts. (How did they melt granite?) 10. Enigmatic structures within the Great Pyramid. Examples: so-called air passage with secret door, sand-filled cavities, layered granite beams in King's Chamber, the mysterious sliding plugs, and several more really perplexing structures. 11. Ancient skeletons in North America with Caucasoid features, such as Kennewick Man, and others less-famous. 12. Trans-oceanic, pre-Columbian diffusion of plants and their products. Examples: maize to India, cocaine to Egyptian pharaohs, cotton, pineapples, and many more. 13. The Nazca lines, Santa Valley geoglyphs, and the huge Candelabra of the Andes---the latter visible from far out at sea! 14. Near-global existence of the cup-and-ring motif in old petroglyphs. 15. The ability of the ancient Egyptians to fashion narrow-necked, hollow vases out of obdurate granite with only copper tools. Also relevant, the precisely made, polished, multi-ton granite slabs in the Great Pyramid. 16. Mysterious Olmec origin. Their articles display apparent Chinese symbols and cultural characteristics. 17. Miniature buildings at some Maya sites and miniature subterranean tunnels (i.e., much too small for normal humans)! 18. The famed Baghdad battery. 19. The ancient Greek analog "computer." ASTRONOMY 1. Anomalous split of angular momentum between the sun and the planets. Most of it is in the planets. 2. Comet flare-ups far from sun. (Only supposed to happen close to sun.) 3. Historical record of bright objects appearing close to the sun. (Vulcan, the intramercurial planet.) 4. Mercury's puzzling high eccentricity, inclination, and its unexpected and offset magnetic field. 5. Anomalous transits of Jupiter by the Galilean satellites. Double shadows thrown on Jupiter; "hot" shadows, dark transits. 6. Lunar concentrations of mass (mascons), magnetism (magcons), radioactivity (radcons). 7. Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLPs). (Flares, color changes, obscurations, etc.) 8. Martian surface asymmetry. Half the planet is highly elevated; half, low. 9. Magnetic stripes on Mars. 10. Globular-cluster enigmas. (Great age, non-participation in galaxy motion, etc.) 11. Anomalous accelerating expansion of universe. 12. Anomalous precession of DI Herculis. (Challenges Einstein) 13. Quantized redshifts. Puts expanding-universe paradigm at risk. 14. Source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. 15. Absence of antimatter in universe. Should be as common as normal matter. 16. Anomalous rotation of galaxies implies existence of so-called "dark matter." 17. Discordant redshifts. Some objects, seeming physically connected, have radically different redshifts. (Halton Arp's heresy!) 18. Meteorite distribution anomalies. Concentrations in Antarctica and on Australia's Nullarbor plain. The "Iron Alley" in U.S., etc. 19. Antarctic meteorites differ markedly from those picked up elsewhere. 20. Meteors seen at altitudes so high that there should not be enough air-friction to make them visible. BIOLOGY 1. Avian feather-pattern-generation mechanisms not understood. Also applies to colorful seashells, butterflies, and other patterned organisms. 2. Inherited callosities in birds, such as the Ostrich. 3. Physiological convergence of Arctic and Antarctic birds, especially the alcids. They look alike but are not closely related. 4. Brood-parasitism anomalies, as in mimicry of appearance and voice by nestlings. 5. Unknown mechanism of inheritance of instincts. How is migratory information passed on genetically to young birds traveling without parents? (Example: the bronzed cuckoos of Australasia) 6. Avian "courts" and executions. 7. Unique, complex respiratory system of birds completely unlike any suggested ancestors. 8. Avian homing and navigation feats. Examples: homing pigeons and Arctic Terns. 9. Disturbed human behavior correlated with sun and moon. 10. Human intelligence correlated with birth-order and season of birth. 11. Anomalously large number of breaths and heartbeats per human lifetime as compared with other mammals. 12. Rapid, quantized growth spurts in human children. 13. Lack of biochemical value in human sleep. 14. Human mitochondria vastly different from those in other mammals. 15. Immortality of cancer cells. 16. Higher cancer incidence correlated with greater organism complexity. Why? 17. Fetal-graft enigma. Why does immune system not reject fetus? 18. Presence of much subcutaneous fat in humans as in many marine mammals. (The aquatic-ape theory.) 19. Experimental lack of memory traces. How is information stored in brain? 20. Human navigation sense. Human homing experiments. 21. Human diving reflex and, contradictorily, drowning proneness. 22. Parasite manipulation of human behavior. (Same for other mammals, birds, etc.) 23. Limits on the variability of domestic animals. No new species in breeding experiments. A big Darwin worry. 24. The puzzle of flavor aversion, especially in rats. 25. Deliberate use of medicinal plants by non-human mammals and birds. 26. Survival of the thylacine (marsupial wolf). (Some pretty good data here.) 27. Inheritance of the behavioral effects of rotation in rats. 28. Plants mimicking other plants even though they lack eyes. (Example: some mistletoes.) 29. Fishlike lures evolved and used by mussels, snapping turtles, and other species. 30. Worldwide synchronous flowering of bamboos. 31. Selfish DNA (or genes or viruses or proteins): the ultimate parasites. 32. Interplant communication ("tree-talk," for example), especially via airborne chemical signals. 33. Directed-mutation experiments. 34. Unknown cause of the Cambrian explosion of new life bauplans; (i.e.; new phyla). GEOLOGY 1. Controverted source of deep-focus earthquakes. 2. How are concretions formed? They exist in bizarre shapes in untold numbers. 3. The surprising existence of life at great depths in the earth's crust; that is, in the crevicular domain. 4. Unexplained origin of dolomite, some limestones, methane-hydrate deposits, and several other types of sedimentary rocks. The dolomite problem has bothered geologists for 100 years! 5. Coal anomalies. (Examples: anomalous fossils, frequent absence of plant fossils and vegetable structure, coal beds 50 feet thick and more present over wide geographical areas, and many more). 6. Cyclothems and rhythmites. Repetitious strata, sometimes hundreds of thousands of layers. 7. Polystrate fossils, especially vertical tree fossils penetrating millions of years (supposedly) of deposits, as at the Joggins formation in Canada. 8. Oriented lakes (Alaska) and the famed Carolina bays, the latter present in hundreds of thousands---all oriented. A meteor storm? 9. Cookie-cutter holes and resulting giant divots. Surprising number of these. 10. Several examples of devastated areas, especially in Brazilian jungle, suggesting *recent* Tunguska-like impacts. 11. The missing crater associated with the immense deposit of Australites (tektites). Given the extent and quantity of these tektites, there should be an immense, 700,000-year-old crater somewhere. 12. The famous mima mounds. Present in incredible numbers. How created? Some say "pocket gophers"! 13. Giant expansion-and-contraction polygons in soils. Hard-to-explain longrange order. 14. "Missing" strata at Grand Canyon and associated anomalies of formation. 15. Ancient, *uneroded*, elevated plains. Why no erosion over the eons? GEOPHYSICS 1. Ball lightning in its many guises. 2. Luminous bubbles in the atmosphere. Too many observations to dismiss offhand. 3. Earthquake lights. Abundant observations, especially from Japan. Mechanism uncertain. 4. Cold, ground-level flames and lights. (Will-o'-wisps) Not really explained completely. 5. Marine light wheels. One of the great unexplained phenomena. (Hundreds of sound observations) 6. White water or milky seas. Here, too, we have hundreds of good observations. 7. Shadow bands during solar eclipses. Many anomalous appearances; for example, giant bands, colored bands, bands moving in the wrong direction. 8. Conical hail, bizarrely shaped hail. These objects are reproduced and fall by the millions. The creative mechanism is unknown. 9. Hydrometeors. Some are from aircraft but others seem to be extraterrestrial. 10. Brontides and mistpouffers. Examples: Barisal guns, Lake Seneca guns, etc. Some are due to small methane-hydrate blowouts, particularly those in North Sea. 11. Sound of the aurora. Sounds from high-altitude meteors. Both species are thought to be electrophonic sounds. Also, some people "hear" radar pulses! 12. Rainbows with offset white arcs. They defy optical theory. 13. Offset solar halos and anomalous arcs. Also unexplained. 14. Sea seiches and "death waves." These are *not* tsunamis. 15. Transient all-sky brightenings. Good observations. Some are probably meteoric, others are unexplained. 16. Mountain-top glows, such as the famed Andes Lights. Often associated with seismic activity. 17. Luminous cores of some tornadoes. Probably related to the electrical effects of some strong tornadoes, as in burning and dehydration along paths. PSYCHOLOGY 1. The break-off phenomenon experienced by pilots. 2. Why do we need to sleep and dream? 3. Mathematical, calendar, and musical savants. 4. Genius correlated with mental illness! 5. Eidetic imagery. Usually lost in adulthood, but can sometimes be restored by hypnosis. 6. Exceptional and photographic memories. 7. Synaesthesia. Comes in many forms. Usually numbers or words and rendered in different colors. 8. Results of reincarnation research. Many examples from India of accurate memories of past lives, birthmark phenomena, etc. Can't really dismiss completely. 9. Hypnosis and its effect on color blindness. 10. Death and the "birthday phenomenon." 11. Phantom-limb phenomena. Many anomalies here. 12. Stigmata. 13. Blister-raising and skin-writing via hypnosis. 14. The Princeton experiments in psychokinesis. References Bauer, H. (2001). Editorial. *Journal of Scientific Exploration*, 15, 297-298. Corliss, W. R. (1960). *Propulsion Systems for Space Flight*. New York: McGraw-Hill. Corliss, W. R. (1965). *Space Probes and Planetary Exploration*. New York: Van Nostrand. Corliss, W. R. (1967). *Scientific Satellites*. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Corliss, W. R. (1972). *The Interplanetary Pioneers (3 vols.). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Seaborg, G. T., & Corliss, W. R. (1971). *Man and Atom*, New York: Dutton. -- ?Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress.? Copyright 1992, Frank Rice Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.] From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com Sun Dec 26 21:56:35 2004 From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 13:56:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Another Extropian for the Board of the WorldTranshumanist Association? Message-ID: <20041226215635.96210.qmail@web41311.mail.yahoo.com> Indeed, Giulio, we want "rational", "good", and "hard working" people in the WTA Board. As you pointed out, we would not want a Raelian, for example, or any "kooks" or "crazy" people. But Extropians, Singularitarians, Immortalists, and all other transhumanists are gladly welcome in the new WTA Board:-) Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: As another current WTA Board member who (tries to) contribute to both organizations, I also wish to encourage motivated people to run for a seat on the WTA Board. Reading between the lines of Jose's note (please Jose correct me if I am wrong), I sense a feeling that the WTA is not "global" and "inclusive" enough. In some sense this is correct: for example racists and holy warriors of all sorts are just not welcome in the WTA. But barring such extremes, I believe all WTA voting members who wish to support the WTA with hard work, rationality and common sense, and who wish to do their best to work productively with other transhumanists who do not share precisely the same political or philosophical persuasion, are welcome to run for the Board. G. Jose Cordeiro wrote: __________ > Dear Extropian friends, > > Greetings to you all from sunny and beautiful Venezuela:-) > > I encourage you to run for the coming WTA Board elections. At least one (if not more:-) of you could (and should:-) take the soon to be vacated 5 seats of the current WTA Board. Please, let me tell you that I will totally support you since I am working for a more "global" and "inclusive" WTA. La vie est belle! Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra, Solar System, Milky Way, Multiverse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Sun Dec 26 22:15:20 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 23:15:20 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: will the sun rise? (not if we dismantle it) In-Reply-To: <41CF2EE5.4080800@lineone.net> References: <200412261900.iBQJ0F023142@tick.javien.com> <41CF2EE5.4080800@lineone.net> Message-ID: <20041226221520.GI9221@leitl.org> On Sun, Dec 26, 2004 at 09:36:37PM +0000, ben wrote: > 'Scuse me, but isn't the idea of dismantling the sun to avoid wasting > energy rather missing the point? No. > I thought that's what Dyson Spheres were for. There are no spheres, only circumstellar device clouds, with actively controlled orbits. > It should be a bit easier to to build one of those than to take the sun > apart. You need a circumsolar device in order to at all to touch the star. Darwin drives for maximum habitat, that is, computation/Joule (signalling is relativistically constrained here, though). It depends on matter/energy ratio in the system. Ours seem to have enough matter to intercept all solar output, and even to put it all to good use. Maybe shutting the star down, and going for a slower burn might be more effective. Maybe not. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Mon Dec 27 01:35:09 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 20:35:09 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <20041226184402.14108.qmail@web81603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041226184402.14108.qmail@web81603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8B2A9CC4-57A7-11D9-AFCD-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 26, 2004, at 1:44 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > --- Harvey Newstrom wrote: >> I find it hard to believe that in the history of that >> market, nobody tried to analyze the data. More >> likely, I believe that like me, nobody was able to >> extract evidence of long-term predicitons. > > How many people were working on it, for how long? And > how much of their time was spent on it? They may have > had other, more immediately important things to do, The Iowa Markets have been operating for over 15 years. That's a long time for a "proof-of-concept" demonstration to be unable to show results, or to claim that nobody has even looked for results in all those years. On top of these claims, it is even more outrageous for some people to reference this as "proof" of anything, when the project itself insists that they have not documented any such evidence yet. > Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I know it's hard to provide evidence of a lack. But how long do we wait before beginning to wonder? After 15 years and still not having a successful review, I am beginning to wonder. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From wingcat at pacbell.net Mon Dec 27 01:55:59 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 17:55:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <8B2A9CC4-57A7-11D9-AFCD-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <20041227015559.61886.qmail@web81607.mail.yahoo.com> --- Harvey Newstrom wrote: > On Dec 26, 2004, at 1:44 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. > > I know it's hard to provide evidence of a lack. But > how long do we > wait before beginning to wonder? After 15 years and > still not having a > successful review, I am beginning to wonder. I agree that there is room for uncertainty. But if it's been 15 years and there really is no substance to this, then why hasn't anyone published a disproof? There appears to be neither proof nor disproof - and both of those pieces of evidence should be taken into account when trying to find the cause. From spike66 at comcast.net Mon Dec 27 02:22:20 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 18:22:20 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225155545.01a77ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <001201c4ebba$e8379e20$6401a8c0@mtrainier> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142566,00.html ...The statement said U.S. relief efforts were already underway to help people in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, a string of 1,192 coral atolls off the southwestern coast of India... Has anyone heard if Arthur C Clarke is accounted for? spike From sentience at pobox.com Mon Dec 27 02:21:46 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:21:46 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <20041227015559.61886.qmail@web81607.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041227015559.61886.qmail@web81607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41CF71BA.9020408@pobox.com> Adrian Tymes wrote: > --- Harvey Newstrom wrote: > >> On Dec 26, 2004, at 1:44 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> >>> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Yes it is. See the "Law of Conservation of Probability" in the _Intuitive Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning_. If A is evidence for B, not-A is necessarily evidence for not-B. >> I know it's hard to provide evidence of a lack. But how long do we >> wait before beginning to wonder? After 15 years and still not having >> a successful review, I am beginning to wonder. > > I agree that there is room for uncertainty. But if it's been 15 years > and there really is no substance to this, then why hasn't anyone > published a disproof? There appears to be neither proof nor disproof - > and both of those pieces of evidence should be taken into account when > trying to find the cause. If a supposed effect is tested using an experiment of high statistical power (that is, high probability of discovering an effect of the given magnitude supposing one exists), then the failure of that experiment to produce statistically significant results is evidence against the effect. This also follows simply from the Bayesian truism that if scientific confirmation is evidence for a proposition, then lack of scientific confirmation *where a good opportunity exists to confirm* is evidence against that proposition. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From reason at longevitymeme.org Mon Dec 27 02:26:50 2004 From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 18:26:50 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <001201c4ebba$e8379e20$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of spike > ...The statement said U.S. relief efforts were already underway to help > people in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, a string of 1,192 coral > atolls off the > southwestern coast of India... > > Has anyone heard if Arthur C Clarke is accounted for? Apparently he's fine: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134017&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=99& mode=thread&cid=11184762 "clarke is probably safe (unless he had a heart attack or something.) one of is houses is near mine, and the other is in the heart of the city. long story short .. he's gonna be ok." Assuming you want to take the word of /. posters on such weighty matters... Reason Founder, Longevity Meme From spike66 at comcast.net Mon Dec 27 02:40:01 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 18:40:01 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001401c4ebbd$608064f0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Apparently he's fine: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134017&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=99& mode=thread&cid=11184762 "clarke is probably safe (unless he had a heart attack or something)... Assuming you want to take the word of /. posters on such weighty matters... Reason Founder, Longevity Meme Thanks Reason, I'll take it in the absence of other reports. Damien, are you not personal friends with ACC? Please pray to him for me. Rather, post to him saying he has many friends and admirers wanting assurances of his safety. spike From spike66 at comcast.net Mon Dec 27 02:46:36 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 18:46:36 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] a series of unfortunate non-events In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041225155545.01a77ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <001501c4ebbe$4eeb8cf0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> At 09:36 PM 12/25/2004 +0000, BillKwrote: > > >if he'd only misspelled Lindy Englund > > >like West Virginian trailer trash would... Now that Google's off the rewriting history hook, I still wonder why it didn't flash up one its usual: Did you mean: ...... ? Damien Broderick Because there are skerjillions of sites that have the term EnglAnd, the country, perhaps enough of them such that an accidental Lindy occurrs in some small percentage of these, so that more sites have EnglAnd and Lindy than the correct target Lindy EnglUnd. Lets try it. Googling: Lindy England: 55,400 hits Lindy Englund: 1,130 hits Google is god. spike From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 27 03:14:32 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:14:32 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami References: <001201c4ebba$e8379e20$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <002e01c4ebc2$2fdc8360$3f1f4842@kevin> Once again, the "Evil" US is coming to the aid of foreign governments. We are just so horrible! Where are the FRENCH? From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Dec 27 03:21:00 2004 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 22:21:00 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Reviewers In-Reply-To: <20041226174753.39318.qmail@web81610.mail.yahoo.com> References: <690547CC-54C6-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20041226222036.032980f0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> I have an article for print that is close to completion. The tentative title is Memetics, Evolutionary Psychology, and the Origin of War. Obviously I can't just post it and ask for comment. So if any of you out there would be willing to review the article and send me comments on it, please email me and I will send you an off list copy soon as I get it done. Put Review in the subject so it doesn't get eaten by a filter. Thanks! Keith Henson From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Dec 27 03:26:57 2004 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 22:26:57 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Reviewer In-Reply-To: <20041226182924.29953.qmail@web81609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <09A05FEA-55AA-11D9-9767-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20041226222619.032adbd0@pop.brntfd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> I have an article for print that is close to completion. The tentative title is Memetics, Evolutionary Psychology, and the Origin of War. Obviously I can't just post it and ask for comment. So if any of you out there would be willing to review the article and send me comments on it, please email me and I will send you an off list copy soon as I get it done. Put Review in the subject so it doesn't get eaten by a filter. Thanks! Keith Henson From wingcat at pacbell.net Mon Dec 27 03:43:23 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 19:43:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <41CF71BA.9020408@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20041227034323.79260.qmail@web81607.mail.yahoo.com> --- Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > >> On Dec 26, 2004, at 1:44 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >>> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. > > Yes it is. See the "Law of Conservation of > Probability" in the _Intuitive > Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning_. If A is > evidence for B, not-A is > necessarily evidence for not-B. Technically true, but not quite the way I meant it. One can prove that there has not been much proof that idea futures markets can successfully predict things. But this lack of proof can back more than one scenario: 1. I.F. markets don't successfully predict things. 2. No one has spent the time to thoroughly study this either way, or at least the results of such studies fail to show up when we search for them. (A study locked away for nobody to ever see or know about has about the same practical effect as if the study was never done.) 3. Possibly others, which I'll ignore for now for sake of simplicity. We can further distinguish between cases 1 and 2 by whether anyone has published disproof of I.F. markets. Again, we find none. Therefore we can conclude that the lack of evidence is neither because I.F. markets prove things nor because I.F. markets disprove things, but merely points to a lack of studies. In practical English, many questions do not have simple yes-no answers. (Granted, most of these can be reduced to equivalent series of yes-no questions, but "can be" and "are" are two very different concepts.) This has several consequences that can be viewed as unfortunate, for example the inability of strict Bayesian reasoning to deal with these questions (unless care is taken to translate them into yes-no domains first, which was not done in this case). > If a supposed effect is tested using an experiment > of high statistical > power (that is, high probability of discovering an > effect of the given > magnitude supposing one exists), then the failure of > that experiment to > produce statistically significant results is > evidence against the effect. Again: we only see that there are no/few reports of successful experiments. But we also see that there are no/few reports of unsuccessful experiments. The conclusion is that no/few experiments - successful or not - have been reported on, not that the experiments were necessarily successful or not. One might wonder why those running the experiment, if successful, did not report. But one might also wonder why no one else (say, those competing for research funding with the I.F. markets) reported on their experiements if they were not successful. From fauxever at sprynet.com Mon Dec 27 07:28:16 2004 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 23:28:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Kurzweil In New York Times Message-ID: <000c01c4ebe5$a32733b0$6600a8c0@brainiac> So many pills, so little time: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/27/technology/27kurzweil.html Olga From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 27 16:34:15 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 08:34:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <20041226185336.15481.qmail@web81603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041227163415.98245.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > --- Joseph Bloch wrote: > > Some ends, such as the abolition of slavery, justify > > almost any means, > > including (to use historical example) the waging of > > an arguably > > unconstitutional and inarguably vicious and vastly > > destructive military > > action. You've doubtless heard of it... the Civil > > War? Or, since you > > live south of the Mason-Dixon line, the War of > > Northern Agression. > > Check your history books. The Civil War wasn't > originally about slavery. It was originally about the > right of states to seceed. Slavery got tacked on > afterwards. The outcome of the war accelerated what > economics was proving anyway: slavery was inefficient, > pure and simple. (Thus the South had less industry > with which to crank out war material, which greatly > contributed to its loss.) Actually, it was about a significant duty on the export of cotton and import of cloth to and from europe. Northern mill owners didn't want european competition for southern cotton supplies, or for souther clothing customers. They also were pro-abolition only in that they needed cheap black scab laborers to counteract the nascent labor movement. The south had less industry because they had few locations worth mining iron from and little hydropower. The idea that 'slavery is inefficient' relies on a pollyannish conception of what slaves did with their lives. While many worked in the fields, many others were blacksmiths, carpenters, millwrights, and engaged in many other trades. The idea that the cotton mill made their slavery obsolete is simplistic in the extreme. An illiterate slave vs an illiterate immigrant worker. Define how one is more 'efficient' than the other. The worker may be free to dream, to aspire, and to get educated if they so chose, but the worker is also free to participate in collective bargaining (violently so, in some circumstances). The Civil War ultimately happened because the US government didn't have the testicular fortitude to do what the British government had done in the 1830's: Britain's government spent $20 million to buy out the property rights of slave owners in Britain. Of course, the southerners likely belived that even if the US did do such a thing, they'd pay for it with taxes on southerners.... ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Dec 27 16:38:03 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 10:38:03 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <001401c4ebbd$608064f0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <001401c4ebbd$608064f0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041227103601.01ae7ce0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 06:40 PM 12/26/2004 -0800, Spike wrote: >Damien, are you not personal friends with ACC? Please pray >to him for me. Rather, post to him saying he has many friends >and admirers wanting assurances of his safety. Well, we've corresponded, shared a stage, that sort of thing. However, a mutual friend passed along the following message. Damien Broderick ======================== Thank you for your concern about my safety in the wake of Sunday's devastating tidal wave. I am enormously relieved that my family and household have escaped the ravages of the sea that suddenly invaded most parts of coastal Sri Lanka, leaving a trail of destruction. But many others were not so fortunate. For hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans and an unknown number of foreign tourists, the day after Christmas turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The Day After Tomorrow. Among those affected are my staff based at our diving station in Hikkaduwa and holiday bungalow in Kahawa - both beachfront properties located in areas worst hit. We still don't know the fully extent of damage as both roads and phones have been damaged. Early reports indicate that we have lost most of our diving equipment and boats. Not all our staff members are accounted for - yet. This is indeed a disaster of unprecedented magnitude for Sri Lanka which lacks the resources and capacity to cope with the aftermath. We are all trying to contribute to the relief efforts. We shall keep you informed as we learn more about what happened. Curiously enough, in my first book on Sri Lanka, I had written about another tidal wave reaching the Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in The Reefs of Taprobane, 1957). That happened in August 1883, following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same part of the Indian Ocean. Arthur Clarke 27 December 2004 From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 27 16:40:19 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 08:40:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas Message-ID: <20041227164019.62859.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl COOL TECH THIS WEEK: Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered Exoskeleton Suits -------------------------------------------------------------- A step closer to working ray guns, RoboPike and RoboTuna, and Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with the cutting-edge military tech news from the past week. By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, DefenseTech.org Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns Two of the heavyweights of the defense industry are teaming up to develop "a laser armed combat vehicle," Baltimore Business Journal says. Northrop Grumman, which is building the Army's Tactical High Energy Laser, will put together the ray gun. United Defense, maker of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, "will develop a hybrid [gas/electric] combat vehicle that would carry the laser weapon," according to the Journal. There's no contract with the Pentagon, yet, for such a weapon. But the partnership represents the rapid evolution of laser technology, company execs note. The Tactical High Energy Laser has had a number of successful tests, shooting down incoming rockets. The modified 747 Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless slumber, is beginning to make progress. More importantly, electric-powered lasers are finally starting to build up the power they need to work as weapons. In a few months, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and elsewhere plan to test a 25 kilowatt solid-state laser. If those trials work out as expected, the Defense Department will then start handing out grants for a laser with a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's widely-considered the threshold for ray gun action to begin. "Operational demonstrations and systems will become reality in the near future," Patrick Caruana, vice president of Space and Missile Defense for Northrop Grumman Space Technology, said in a press release. The vehicle is meant to fight off mortars, drones, and other threats from the air. To prove to the Pentagon that the machine is worth funding, "Northrop Grumman and United Defense are pursuing ground vehicle-based laser system demonstrations that will prove the effectiveness and utility of high-energy lasers against threats and will provide critical packaging and integration activities that will demonstrate the operational usefulness of these systems." There's More: One step forward, one step back. The Airborne Laser's first flight test in two years was cut short this week, after some "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space News says a cabin pressure problem was to blame. Robo-Crappie, Anyone? The People's Daily (China) reports that the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed an "underwater bionic robotic fish." Apparently these things are big in Asia. A Japanese toy company has a whole line of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An ammonite? Anywho ... at the bottom of the AFP wire story, I noticed a reference to "robotic lamprey parasites." I expected the typical "perfidious CHICOMs" story, but the article was actually all about research by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) into biomechanical robots--including the aforementioned robotic lamprey parasite. Did anyone else know that DARPA was funding an entire biomechanical bestiary, including birds and cockroaches? The FY 2005 Defense Budget contains $ 90 million in unclassified funding for "Biologically Based Materials and Devices," including $ 38 million for "Bioinspired and Bioderived Materials." Some of the fish-related work is being performed at MIT. Insomniacs may wish to peruse ?A Swimming Robot Actuated by Living Muscle Tissue? prepared by Drs. Hugh Herr and Robert G. Dennis for DARPA. Herr and Dennis detail the exploits of one RoboPike, which is the follow-on to -- I swear every word of this is true -- RoboTuna. I know you don?t believe me, so here is the fact sheet. -- Dr. Jeffrey Lewis Real-Life Exoskeletons Emerge I've got an itty-bitty article in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine, on real-life exoskeletons. You can read it here. But, to give you guys a window into how the editing process works, I thought I'd show you my first draft. It's a bit more florid, and less clear, than what finally appeared in print. It was just a few steps, clunky and deliberate, like a toddler's waddle. But to a far-flung group of engineers, soldiers, and science fiction fans, these strides, on a treadmill inside a University of California, Berkeley laboratory, couldn't have been more profound. Here was a man, walking naturally, more or less, with the help of a set of mechanical muscles wrapped around his legs ? a real-life exoskeleton. The ur-geek author Robert Heinlein first dreamed up the idea of soldiers stepping into suits of powered armor, to make them stronger and faster, in his 1959 classic Starship Troopers. Sigourney Weaver cemented the exoskeleton in the collective consciousness in 1986, when she donned a metallic over-suit in Aliens, and kicked some slimy, interstellar ass. In the real world, though, researchers struggled to replicate Sigourney's heroics. The exoskeletons they built were too stiff, too unnatural in their gait. Engineers would try to have them move as much like a human as possible. It never seemed to work. The problem was that researchers were trying too hard, Berkeley engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni finally realized. When people walk, they make an endless series of unconscious calculations and corrections to keep their stride. It's way too complicated a task for machines to handle. So instead of pre-programming the exoskeleton's every step, Kazerooni decided to let go. He set his exoskeleton up with a set of 40 sensors, and let it follow wherever the person inside wanted to wander. The result, called BLEEX (short for "Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton") is a set of modified combat boots, attached to what look like metal braces that snake up the sides of the legs. Those connect with a tough plastic vest and backpack, where the exoskeleton's brain ? a Pentium-5 equivalent processor -- sits. About 70 pounds of stuff can be crammed into the pack. But that load only feels like five pounds or so, once the exoskeleton is turned on; the mechanical legs pick up the rest. (BLEEX 2, slated for June, should be able to carry 150 pounds, and amble at a four mile-per-hour clip.) The Pentagon ? which has been funding much of Kazerooni's research ? wants the machine to ease the burden on G.I.s, who routinely haul more that a hundred pounds of gear into battle. But Kazerooni sees his exoskeleton as more than just a "war machine." The mechanical legs might someday help the elderly get around, he hopes. Replacing grandma's walker is a long way from Aliens. But at least it's real. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Jazz up your holiday email with celebrity designs. Learn more. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send a seasonal email greeting and help others. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 27 16:41:24 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 08:41:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas Message-ID: <20041227164124.98885.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl COOL TECH THIS WEEK: Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered Exoskeleton Suits -------------------------------------------------------------- A step closer to working ray guns, RoboPike and RoboTuna, and Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with the cutting-edge military tech news from the past week. By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, DefenseTech.org Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns Two of the heavyweights of the defense industry are teaming up to develop "a laser armed combat vehicle," Baltimore Business Journal says. Northrop Grumman, which is building the Army's Tactical High Energy Laser, will put together the ray gun. United Defense, maker of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, "will develop a hybrid [gas/electric] combat vehicle that would carry the laser weapon," according to the Journal. There's no contract with the Pentagon, yet, for such a weapon. But the partnership represents the rapid evolution of laser technology, company execs note. The Tactical High Energy Laser has had a number of successful tests, shooting down incoming rockets. The modified 747 Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless slumber, is beginning to make progress. More importantly, electric-powered lasers are finally starting to build up the power they need to work as weapons. In a few months, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and elsewhere plan to test a 25 kilowatt solid-state laser. If those trials work out as expected, the Defense Department will then start handing out grants for a laser with a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's widely-considered the threshold for ray gun action to begin. "Operational demonstrations and systems will become reality in the near future," Patrick Caruana, vice president of Space and Missile Defense for Northrop Grumman Space Technology, said in a press release. The vehicle is meant to fight off mortars, drones, and other threats from the air. To prove to the Pentagon that the machine is worth funding, "Northrop Grumman and United Defense are pursuing ground vehicle-based laser system demonstrations that will prove the effectiveness and utility of high-energy lasers against threats and will provide critical packaging and integration activities that will demonstrate the operational usefulness of these systems." There's More: One step forward, one step back. The Airborne Laser's first flight test in two years was cut short this week, after some "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space News says a cabin pressure problem was to blame. Robo-Crappie, Anyone? The People's Daily (China) reports that the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed an "underwater bionic robotic fish." Apparently these things are big in Asia. A Japanese toy company has a whole line of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An ammonite? Anywho ... at the bottom of the AFP wire story, I noticed a reference to "robotic lamprey parasites." I expected the typical "perfidious CHICOMs" story, but the article was actually all about research by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) into biomechanical robots--including the aforementioned robotic lamprey parasite. Did anyone else know that DARPA was funding an entire biomechanical bestiary, including birds and cockroaches? The FY 2005 Defense Budget contains $ 90 million in unclassified funding for "Biologically Based Materials and Devices," including $ 38 million for "Bioinspired and Bioderived Materials." Some of the fish-related work is being performed at MIT. Insomniacs may wish to peruse ?A Swimming Robot Actuated by Living Muscle Tissue? prepared by Drs. Hugh Herr and Robert G. Dennis for DARPA. Herr and Dennis detail the exploits of one RoboPike, which is the follow-on to -- I swear every word of this is true -- RoboTuna. I know you don?t believe me, so here is the fact sheet. -- Dr. Jeffrey Lewis Real-Life Exoskeletons Emerge I've got an itty-bitty article in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine, on real-life exoskeletons. You can read it here. But, to give you guys a window into how the editing process works, I thought I'd show you my first draft. It's a bit more florid, and less clear, than what finally appeared in print. It was just a few steps, clunky and deliberate, like a toddler's waddle. But to a far-flung group of engineers, soldiers, and science fiction fans, these strides, on a treadmill inside a University of California, Berkeley laboratory, couldn't have been more profound. Here was a man, walking naturally, more or less, with the help of a set of mechanical muscles wrapped around his legs ? a real-life exoskeleton. The ur-geek author Robert Heinlein first dreamed up the idea of soldiers stepping into suits of powered armor, to make them stronger and faster, in his 1959 classic Starship Troopers. Sigourney Weaver cemented the exoskeleton in the collective consciousness in 1986, when she donned a metallic over-suit in Aliens, and kicked some slimy, interstellar ass. In the real world, though, researchers struggled to replicate Sigourney's heroics. The exoskeletons they built were too stiff, too unnatural in their gait. Engineers would try to have them move as much like a human as possible. It never seemed to work. The problem was that researchers were trying too hard, Berkeley engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni finally realized. When people walk, they make an endless series of unconscious calculations and corrections to keep their stride. It's way too complicated a task for machines to handle. So instead of pre-programming the exoskeleton's every step, Kazerooni decided to let go. He set his exoskeleton up with a set of 40 sensors, and let it follow wherever the person inside wanted to wander. The result, called BLEEX (short for "Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton") is a set of modified combat boots, attached to what look like metal braces that snake up the sides of the legs. Those connect with a tough plastic vest and backpack, where the exoskeleton's brain ? a Pentium-5 equivalent processor -- sits. About 70 pounds of stuff can be crammed into the pack. But that load only feels like five pounds or so, once the exoskeleton is turned on; the mechanical legs pick up the rest. (BLEEX 2, slated for June, should be able to carry 150 pounds, and amble at a four mile-per-hour clip.) The Pentagon ? which has been funding much of Kazerooni's research ? wants the machine to ease the burden on G.I.s, who routinely haul more that a hundred pounds of gear into battle. But Kazerooni sees his exoskeleton as more than just a "war machine." The mechanical legs might someday help the elderly get around, he hopes. Replacing grandma's walker is a long way from Aliens. But at least it's real. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Jazz up your holiday email with celebrity designs. Learn more. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Dress up your holiday email, Hollywood style. Learn more. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From spike66 at comcast.net Mon Dec 27 18:19:58 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 10:19:58 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas In-Reply-To: <20041227164019.62859.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000001c4ec40$b56eb510$6401a8c0@mtrainier> The way this was written in the popular press is a little confusing. See below: -----Original Message----- From: Mike Lorrey Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html? ESRC=dod.nl COOL TECH THIS WEEK: Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered Exoskeleton Suits -------------------------------------------------------------- A step closer to working ray guns, RoboPike and RoboTuna, and Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with the cutting-edge military tech news from the past week. By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, DefenseTech.org Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns ... The modified 747 Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless slumber, is beginning to make progress... Im not sure what that comment means. ...More importantly, electric-powered lasers are finally starting to build up the power they need to work as weapons. In a few months, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and elsewhere plan to test a 25 kilowatt solid-state laser... Starting to build up the power to work as weapons? Were they joking? The power of the laser is not the recent breakthru, but rather its the mirror control needed to concentrate that power at some intermediate distance. Check out the airborne laser mirror control. ...If those trials work out as expected, the Defense Department will then start handing out grants for a laser with a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's widely-considered the threshold for ray gun action to begin... Hmmm, again this comment. Its all about concentrating the power, not about seeing how much power you can make. All you need to disable a rocket is to burn a hole in it. No need to actually blast it to shards, which would endanger the local enemy troops unnecessarily. Without the rockets and advanced weaponry, they are harmless as kittens anyway, so there is no need to slay or injure them. ... One step forward, one step back. The Airborne Laser's first flight test in two years was cut short this week, after some "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space News says a cabin pressure problem was to blame... This comment was made many places, but most of the time they were not careful to explain that it was not a problem with the laser itself. The flight crew cabin pressure is maintained higher than the area where the laser is carried in case of a leak of the highly toxic materials carried in the laser. With higher pressure in the cabin, the fumes would not get to the flight crew. Last I heard, it was a faulty pressure gage, not an actual failure of the pressure differential equipment. Robo-Crappie, Anyone? ...A Japanese toy company has a whole line of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An ammonite?... If you purchase one of these toy ammonites, you may not take it to church, for the Book of Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 3 saith: "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the lord, even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the lord forever... Well which is it, tenth generation, or forever? I think the latter, for Nehemiah chapter 13 verse 1 saith: "...the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of god forever..." Real-Life Exoskeletons Emerge ... article in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine, on real-life exoskeletons... Cool, I want one. I can fool with that in the parking lot outside the church they wont let me enter because of my ammonite. spike From hal at finney.org Mon Dec 27 20:17:29 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 12:17:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Origin of The Sourcebook Project [Part 1 of 2] Message-ID: <20041227201729.A3A1A57E2B@finney.org> I have one of Corliss's books, "Unusual Natural Phenomena", and I enjoy leafing through it from time to time. He uses an enticing structure where he starts with surprising but ultimately understandable effects, and gradually moves into utterly implausible ones. All are taken from real reports, and no doubt many of the more extreme ones are simply wrong, but where do we draw the line? We on this list seem to be vulnerable to beliefs which are not likely to be true. Many of us have our pet theories. Damien writes about psi; others believe that global warming is a conspiracy; we had long debates in previous years about how HIV doesn't cause AIDS; some here give credit to cold fusion; and I must admit that I have long been fascinated by UFO reports. I believe, based on reading Corliss's book and many years of conspiracy theory arguments on the net, that in almost any of these areas, and no doubt many others, if you look hard enough you can find seemingly credible evidence that the conventional wisdom is wrong. But the lesson I draw is not the simple one, that these unconventional beliefs are right. Rather, I suspect that the methodology we tend to use in these matters is badly biased and misleading. The world is a complicated place, and it's not easy to extract universal truths. I think many of us have a mistaken impression about how easy and certain the course is from observation to theory. The truth is that the world does not provide information openly. It is buried in noise, much more noise than we naively expect. Even false beliefs can appear in a manner which superficially presents a convincing case. Scientists, I think, see this first-hand. It is a myth that they run their experiments and let the data fall where they may. Scientists tinkering with their equipment and measurements and wrestle with their data, forcing them into the patterns which they believe are the true explanation. Others oppose them and try to force their own interpretations. Ultimately out of this battle a consensus emerges, as people judge which side is bending the facts more blatantly. Scientists know how easy it is to arrange observations to make a superficial case. They are the world's experts at this. And they know how little such a presentation actually means as a guide to truth. The lesson for the layman is the rule that I promoted a few months ago: believe the scientific consensus. Science is a social process, not something that can be evaluated by reading one side's biased presentation of evidence. The reason science is successful is precisely because the process of scientific consensus is not swayed by such presentations. Just like professional magicians aren't fooled by magic tricks, scientists are not fooled by evidence. They know that the world presents itself wrapped in falsehoods. It takes more than experiment and reasoning to reach the truth. The social process of scientific consensus is so far the best method that we have. Rejecting scientific consensus on the basis of personal investigation of the facts and evidence is likely to fail, paradoxical as it may seem. That's just how the world works. Hal From mlorrey at yahoo.com Mon Dec 27 20:50:28 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 12:50:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas In-Reply-To: <000001c4ec40$b56eb510$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <20041227205028.4428.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> The issue is that while DoD has built megawatt lasers, they are typically not in any way transportable. The THEL and the ABL are the first deployable laser systems, but they are still huge, with the first needing two trailers and the other a 747. While the THEL is 100kw, and is close to deployability, it still requires quite a bit to set up and can only defend one location and a fixed area around it. The 747 ABL is mobile, but is itself a vulnerable target and is intended for strategic anti-missile use. Making a truly mobile version at 25-50kw capable of unit-level defense against tactical weapons is what is really needed to defend against mortars, katyusha type rockets, artillery, etc.. Installed on a fighting vehicle capable of firing in motion, while moving with its unit, is what is really needed. Then we just need IED/mine sniffer bots. --- spike wrote: > The way this was written in the popular press is a little > confusing. See below: > > -----Original Message----- > From: Mike Lorrey > Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > > http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html? > ESRC=dod.nl > > COOL TECH THIS WEEK: > Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered Exoskeleton Suits > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > A step closer to working ray guns, RoboPike and RoboTuna, and > Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with the cutting-edge military > tech news from the past week. > > By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, DefenseTech.org > > Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns > > ... The modified 747 > Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless slumber, is beginning to > make > progress... > > > Im not sure what that comment means. > > > > ...More importantly, electric-powered lasers are finally starting to > build > up the power they need to work as weapons. In a few months, > researchers > at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and elsewhere plan to test a > 25 > kilowatt solid-state laser... > > > Starting to build up the power to work as weapons? Were they joking? > The power of the laser is not the recent breakthru, but rather its > the > mirror control needed to concentrate that power at some intermediate > distance. Check out the airborne laser mirror control. > > > ...If those trials work out as expected, the > Defense Department will then start handing out grants for a laser > with > a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's widely-considered the > threshold > for ray gun action to begin... > > > Hmmm, again this comment. Its all about concentrating the power, > not about seeing how much power you can make. All you need to > disable > a rocket is to burn a hole in it. No need to actually blast it to > shards, which would endanger the local enemy troops unnecessarily. > Without the rockets and advanced weaponry, they are harmless as > kittens anyway, so there is no need to slay or injure them. > > > > ... One step forward, one step back. The Airborne Laser's > first flight test in two years was cut short this week, after some > "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space News says a cabin > pressure > problem was to blame... > > > > This comment was made many places, but most of the time they > were not careful to explain that it was not a problem with > the laser itself. The flight crew cabin pressure is maintained > higher than the area where the laser is carried in case of a leak > of the highly toxic materials carried in the laser. With > higher pressure in the cabin, the fumes would not get to > the flight crew. Last I heard, it was a faulty pressure > gage, not an actual failure of the pressure differential > equipment. > > > > > Robo-Crappie, Anyone? > > ...A Japanese toy company has a whole line > of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An ammonite?... > > > If you purchase one of these toy ammonites, you may > not take it to church, for the Book of Deuteronomy > chapter 23 verse 3 saith: > > "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the > congregation of the lord, even to their tenth > generation shall they not enter into the congregation > of the lord forever... > > Well which is it, tenth generation, or forever? I > think the latter, for Nehemiah chapter 13 verse 1 saith: > > "...the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into > the congregation of god forever..." > > > > > Real-Life Exoskeletons Emerge > > ... article in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine, > on real-life exoskeletons... > > > Cool, I want one. I can fool with that in the parking > lot outside the church they wont let me enter because of > my ammonite. > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 28 00:27:05 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 16:27:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fwd: Re: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami Message-ID: <20041228002705.20002.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Ah, Kevin, we are the most wealthy nation, so it is assumed that we must pay the most. That being said, I'd suggest the US govt pro-rate support based on how cooperative local governments have been to the US war on terrorism. Oh, does that sound too insensitive? It's a two way street, but we've seen which way the traffic wants to flow already. --- Kevin Freels wrote: > From: "Kevin Freels" > To: "ExI chat list" > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami > Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:14:32 -0600 > > Once again, the "Evil" US is coming to the aid of foreign > governments. We > are just so horrible! Where are the FRENCH? > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send a seasonal email greeting and help others. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Tue Dec 28 00:27:38 2004 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 11:27:38 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Origin of The Sourcebook Project [Part 1 of 2] References: <20041227201729.A3A1A57E2B@finney.org> Message-ID: <0f8c01c4ec74$092e5790$b8232dcb@homepc> Hal Finney wrote: > Rejecting scientific consensus on the basis of personal investigation > of the facts and evidence is likely to fail, paradoxical as it may seem. > That's just how the world works. But this statement is a truism. Of course the scientific consensus is going to be right more often than not and so rejecting it is more likely to result in failure than accepting it. Yet all progress in science depends on some scientists being willing to take the opposite view. I think there is a difference between rejecting a scientific consensus having understood it and rejecting it without understanding. If lay folk (and practising scientists) make errors its far more likely to be in failing to understand the basis for an existing scientific consensus. Brett Paatsch From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Dec 28 00:48:43 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:48:43 -0600 Subject: anomalies and science (was: Re: [extropy-chat] Origin of The Sourcebook Project [Part 1 of 2]) In-Reply-To: <0f8c01c4ec74$092e5790$b8232dcb@homepc> References: <20041227201729.A3A1A57E2B@finney.org> <0f8c01c4ec74$092e5790$b8232dcb@homepc> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041227183449.01acd078@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 11:27 AM 12/28/2004 +1100, Brett wrote: >Hal Finney wrote: > >>Rejecting scientific consensus on the basis of personal investigation >>of the facts and evidence is likely to fail, paradoxical as it may seem. >>That's just how the world works. > >But this statement is a truism. Of course the scientific consensus is >going to be right more often than not and so rejecting it is more >likely to result in failure than accepting it. > >Yet all progress in science depends on some scientists being willing >to take the opposite view. Not the *opposite* view, necessarily, but often one at an odd angle (which, I suppose, ends by opposing key elements of the old view, although rarely by an A/not-A contrast). My problem with Hal's formulation is that it seems to imply that a `scientific consensus' is the same as a `consensus of recognized or certificated scientists', which is often the case but fails when an audacious or moldy hypothesis is rejected in a kneejerk fashion by many who haven't bothered to do their due diligence. In the case of psi, a few like Ray Hyman have put in the work, and while declaring the claims of psi highly improbably still say it's worth continuing with rigorous attempts to get the protocols as near perfect as possible. Some like Richard Wiseman and Sue Blakemore did a lot of research and decided it was a tangle of errors and wishful thinking. Other academics like Utts and Ertel have done the same spadework and concluded that the claims are effectively proved. Meanwhile, enormous numbers of psychologists, physicists, food technologists and proctologists feel sure that psi flies in the face of everything they learned at school, and that only an idiot would waste time actually *assessing the best evidence to date*. On the other hand, there *are* research programs in non-Mickey Mouse universities when these claims are still taken seriously and investigated, in the UK, the USA and various European countries. This is not the case, I think, in respect of UFOlogy, iridology, astrology and a lot of other dodgyologies. FWIW. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Dec 28 02:35:41 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 20:35:41 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: anomalies and science In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041227183449.01acd078@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <20041227201729.A3A1A57E2B@finney.org> <0f8c01c4ec74$092e5790$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041227183449.01acd078@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041227203405.01a276e8@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 06:48 PM 12/27/2004 -0600, I wrote: >Some like Richard Wiseman and Sue Blakemore Blackmore, of course. You know how it is with these mutable memes. Damien Broderick From maxm at mail.tele.dk Tue Dec 28 14:07:41 2004 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 15:07:41 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <002e01c4ebc2$2fdc8360$3f1f4842@kevin> References: <001201c4ebba$e8379e20$6401a8c0@mtrainier> <002e01c4ebc2$2fdc8360$3f1f4842@kevin> Message-ID: <41D168AD.3000304@mail.tele.dk> Kevin Freels wrote: >Once again, the "Evil" US is coming to the aid of foreign governments. We >are just so horrible! Where are the FRENCH? > What is this about? Do you know for a fact that the french (and the EU) isn't helping? What are you trying to say? -- hilsen/regards Max M, Denmark http://www.mxm.dk/ IT's Mad Science From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 28 15:14:46 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 07:14:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <41D168AD.3000304@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <20041228151446.27909.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- Max M wrote: > Kevin Freels wrote: > > >Once again, the "Evil" US is coming to the aid of foreign > governments. We > >are just so horrible! Where are the FRENCH? > > > > > What is this about? Do you know for a fact that the french (and the > EU) isn't helping? > > What are you trying to say? The official response of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs spokesfrog: "TIDAL WAVE IN ASIA I will read the statement I made on December 26, 2004: ?Following the earthquakes that struck several countries in southeast and south Asia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, taking into account the relief needs expressed by local authorities, is airlifting emergency aid, beginning with Sri Lanka. ?France is taking part in the assessment mission that the EU, whose efforts it supports, is sending to the area this evening, in liaison with the coordination put in place on the ground by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). ?The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (humanitarian action delegation) is sending a plane to Colombo tomorrow, Monday December 27, that will carry about 100 people: 60 rescue workers from the Interior Ministry, four rescue workers from the emergency SAMU services, about 20 people from the NGO ?Secouristes Sans Fronti?res,? crisis-support staff from the Ministry and eight members of the French Red Cross and ?Telecom without Frontiers.? The same flight will also carry humanitarian supplies (tarpaulins and tents) and equipment for drinking water. ?The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is studying the possibility of using this plane to bring back to France any French citizens in need in the region. ?The needs assessment is being conducted with the other countries in the region hit by the tidal waves, namely, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Malaysia and Thailand.? The situation on December 27, 2004 is as follows: 1 - The minister, Michel Barnier, is going to the region, first to Sri Lank then Thailand. He will leave in the late afternoon today on an plane that will be carrying emergency relief (tents, tarpaulins, blankets, water purification equipment, etc.), medical personnel and Foreign Ministry staff who will reinforce our personnel in these two countries. 2 - Arrangements in France: The Foreign Ministry?s crisis cell was operational as of 9 a.m. on Sunday, December 26 and can be accessed by dialing the following number: 01 45 50 34 60. A free-phone number is also available to the public: 0 800 174 174. The number of lines has been doubled in order to handle the many calls. We are in the process of augmenting our staff. Arrival in France: The three flights from the affected region will arrive at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, terminal 3, where they will be met by relief services (warm clothes, counselors, medical staff) organized by the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture. Special administrative formalities have been put in place to take account of the loss of official papers. 3 ? Provisional total: Three French victims have been identified at this point. " ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 28 16:01:19 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:01:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <41D168AD.3000304@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <20041228160119.62562.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Max M wrote: > > > What is this about? Do you know for a fact that the french (and the > EU) isn't helping? The EU is a larger economy now than the US, yet has pledged only $4 million up front to the US' $15 million, and a Norwegian UN official had the gall to say that the US was stingy and needed to 'raise taxes' to be more generous: U.N. official slams U.S. as 'stingy' over aid By Bill Sammon THE WASHINGTON TIMES The Bush administration yesterday pledged $15 million to Asian nations hit by a tsunami that has killed more than 22,500 people, although the United Nations' humanitarian-aid chief called the donation "stingy." "The United States, at the president's direction, will be a leading partner in one of the most significant relief, rescue and recovery challenges that the world has ever known," said White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy. But U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being "stingy" with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes were raised. "It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really," the Norwegian-born U.N. official told reporters. "Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become." [MSL - But this isn't Christmastime, according to the pro-UN PC lefties, these are merely 'the Holidays', which are a time of commercial self indulgence rather than a season of generosity and giving....] "There are several donors who are less generous than before in a growing world economy," he said, adding that politicians in the United States and Europe "believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It's not true. They want to give more." In response to Mr. Egeland's comments, Mr. Duffy pointed out that the United States is "the largest contributor to international relief and aid efforts, not only through the government, but through charitable organizations. The American people are very giving." Offers of aid have poured in from around the world in the past two days, with the European Union's executive arm releasing $4 million in emergency aid and pledging an additional $27 million. Canada and several European nations ? including Spain, Germany, Ireland and Belgium ? each pledged about $1 million yesterday. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell hinted that the $15 million U.S. offer was only the first installment of a larger aid package to those countries devastated by 30-foot waves triggered by a massive underwater earthquake. "We also have to see this not just as a one-time thing," he said. "Some 20-plus thousand lives have been lost in a few moments, but the lingering effects will be there for years. "The damage that was caused, the rebuilding of schools and other facilities will take time," he added. "So you need a quick infusion to stabilize the situation, take care of those who have been injured, get immediate relief supplies in, and then you begin planning for the longer haul." If that planning calls for significant food aid, the United States might have to scramble. "Even before the crisis in the Asia-Pacific region and the Indian Ocean, the demands for food aid were stretching capacity: demands in Sudan, demands in West Africa, demands in other areas hit by drought and fighting," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said. "So even though we're giving a lot, the demand is very high," he added. "We're going to have to look at, as we move forward, what we can do to meet that demand." Money and food are not the only types of aid being sent by the Bush administration. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) also is sending a 21-member disaster-relief team to the region. Also, the Pentagon has dispatched military patrol planes from the Pacific Fleet. President Bush has written letters of condolence to seven of the affected nations ? Bangladesh, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, the Maldives and Malaysia. Besides the United States, the largest single national donor was neighboring Australia, which offered $10 million and transportation aid. "Australia will and should give more," Prime Minister John Howard said. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies made an initial appeal of $6.7 million, which the federation says it will probably increase. Officials from relief agencies, including the Red Cross and other nongovernmental organizations, met yesterday in Geneva to coordinate their efforts. In New York, diplomats from six of the affected nations met with U.N. officials. The United Nations and other aid organizations have deployed hundreds of disaster-recovery and humanitarian-response teams to the region, and officials warn that the cost of the disaster could quickly reach "many billions of dollars." "We may only know the full effect of this emergency weeks from now," Mr. Egeland told reporters yesterday at the United Nations in New York. "The disaster affecting Southeast Asia is not the biggest in recorded history, but the effects could be the biggest because more people live in exposed areas than ever before." The tsunami-ravaged nations are particularly susceptible to epidemics as authorities struggle with thousands of corpses in unsanitary conditions. International organizations and nations including France, Japan, Israel, Kuwait, Hungary and others are sending medical personnel to some or all of the affected countries. "The principal danger is that of diseases transmitted through water, especially malaria and diarrhea, and infections caught through respiration," said Hakan Sandbladh, a Red Cross official in Geneva. Groups such as Doctors Without Borders warned that catastrophes tend to help localized illnesses turn into full-blown epidemics. The destruction of water and sewage pipes, the disruption of vaccination programs and the lack of attention to disease-carrying pests such as rats and mosquitoes exacerbated the risk, they said. In this situation, the stagnant pools of water created by the tsunami could boost the numbers of mosquitoes and other insects that transmit tropical maladies such as malaria and dengue fever. "The risk of epidemics is also linked to concentrations of people whose houses have been destroyed," said Pauline Horrill of Doctors Without Borders. Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reported that a tsunami alert system in Hawaii that warns Pacific countries about devastating tidal waves detected the earthquake that led to the destruction across Indian Ocean nations. But the absence of an alert system in Asia meant the information could not be sent out fast enough. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, established in 1949 after a huge wave killed more than 150 people in Hawaii, issued a bulletin at 3:14 p.m. local time or 8:14 a.m. in the affected area, when it detected an earthquake off Indonesia. The NOAA's information bulletin said there was a possibility of a tsunami near the earthquake's epicenter, but that no destructive threat existed in the Pacific. The huge tidal waves instead swept across the Indian Ocean, killing people in 10 countries from Indonesia to Somalia. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From es at popido.com Tue Dec 28 16:33:46 2004 From: es at popido.com (Erik Starck) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 17:33:46 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <20041228160119.62562.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <41D168AD.3000304@mail.tele.dk> <20041228160119.62562.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041228170956.053be600@mail.popido.com> At 17:01 2004-12-28 Mike Lorrey wrote: >--- Max M wrote: > > What is this about? Do you know for a fact that the french (and the > > EU) isn't helping? > >The EU is a larger economy now than the US, yet has pledged only $4 >million up front to the US' $15 million, and a Norwegian UN official >had the gall to say that the US was stingy and needed to 'raise taxes' >to be more generous: First of all Norway is not a member of the EU. Second of all, EU is a community of individual countries. The fact that EU sends $4million does not mean that the countries in Europe sends $4million together. Last but not least, I am not attacking or defending anyone here, I just think it's sad that even in times such as these, arguing over whose the baddest country for giving the least amount of money becomes even an issue. Thailand is a popular turist location for scandinavians. There are at least 1500 swedes missing in Thailand. Probably most of them are dead. Lots of them were children, bathing by the sea when the wave struck. Needless to say, the nation is in shock. I suppose other countries feel the same and share the same shock. The last number I heard was 50000 dead. Most probably that will increase. -- Erik From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 28 18:17:04 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 10:17:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041228170956.053be600@mail.popido.com> Message-ID: <20041228181704.42892.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> --- Erik Starck wrote: > At 17:01 2004-12-28 Mike Lorrey wrote: > >--- Max M wrote: > > > What is this about? Do you know for a fact that the french (and > the > > > EU) isn't helping? > > > >The EU is a larger economy now than the US, yet has pledged only $4 > >million up front to the US' $15 million, and a Norwegian UN official > >had the gall to say that the US was stingy and needed to 'raise > taxes' to be more generous: > > First of all Norway is not a member of the EU. Speaking of which, I don't see any releases on any Norwegian ministry or embassy sites of what their response is. > > Second of all, EU is a community of individual countries. The fact > that EU sends $4million does not mean that the countries in Europe > sends $4million together. Sweden has offered $1.5 million to the UN for the effort. Why they would put the money through that corrupt institution is beyond me, unless they want as little of the money as possible reaching victims. > > Last but not least, I am not attacking or defending anyone here, I > just think it's sad that even in times such as these, arguing over > whose the baddest country for giving the least amount of money > becomes even an issue. > Thailand is a popular turist location for scandinavians. There are at > least 1500 swedes missing in Thailand. Probably most of them are > dead. Lots of them were children, bathing by the sea when the wave > struck. Then it sounds like scandinavians need to be at the forefront, not griping about what others are doing. Austrialia has made the best start on things, putting $10 million forward and pledging to work on an ocean monitoring system for the Indian ocean like the Atlantic and Pacific already have. Being the closest anglosphere nation, it is understandable, though with as small a population as it has, the donation from the start is impressive. > > Needless to say, the nation is in shock. I suppose other countries > feel the same and share the same shock. > > The last number I heard was 50000 dead. Most probably that will > increase. No doubt. The last similar tsunami was Krakatoa and 36,000 died there, that we know of, when the population was much lower than today. I wouldn't be surprised to see the dead be over 100,000. Few countries are really prepared for tidal waves. The US is at grave risk (as is the caribean and SA) if a certain volcano in the Canaries collapses during its next eruption (as is being predicted). A 100 foot tidal wave is expected from this. Smart money would put a few tens of millions toward blasting the volcano apart bit by bit (if the Canaries will allow it). The odds of this are far greater than an asteroid or comet strike, and could do as much damage to the east coast of the US as an asteroid strike could. ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send a seasonal email greeting and help others. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From spike66 at comcast.net Tue Dec 28 18:49:13 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 10:49:13 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <20041228181704.42892.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000001c4ed0d$f30782d0$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Mike Lorrey: ...Few countries are really prepared for tidal waves. The US is at grave risk ... Smart money would put a few tens of millions toward blasting the volcano apart bit by ...===== Mike Lorrey Alternately we could set up an early warning system on the effected beaches, huge speakers mounted to the lifeguard towers, with seismic sensors. When an event is detected, the speakers could proclaim in all the local languages: get the fuuuuuck away from the beach! and grab a kid on your way out. spike From jay.dugger at gmail.com Tue Dec 28 19:04:30 2004 From: jay.dugger at gmail.com (Jay Dugger) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 13:04:30 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <20041228181704.42892.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041228170956.053be600@mail.popido.com> <20041228181704.42892.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5366105b041228110455ae8e8a@mail.gmail.com> Tuesday, 28 December 2004 https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp Enough said? -- Jay Dugger http://www.owlmirror.net/~duggerj/ Sometimes the delete key serves best. From maxm at mail.tele.dk Tue Dec 28 21:15:18 2004 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 22:15:18 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <20041228160119.62562.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041228160119.62562.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41D1CCE6.8030902@mail.tele.dk> Mike Lorrey wrote: >The EU is a larger economy now than the US, yet has pledged only $4 >million up front to the US' $15 million, and a Norwegian UN official >had the gall to say that the US was stingy and needed to 'raise taxes' >to be more generous > > I think you have misread it. It seems pretty clear from the text that he means the entire western hemisphere. Not especially the US. Besides, he is making a statement as a UN official. Not as a Norwegian nor as a European. > But U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan >Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were >being "stingy" with relief funds, saying there would be more available >if taxes were raised. > > It also seems that you choose to not to read: "Offers of aid have poured in from around the world in the past two days, with the European Union's executive arm releasing $4 million in emergency aid and pledging an additional $27 million." Clearly stating that $27 million more is on the way. Besides from that. My surprise was not really about amounts, but about the unnessecary attack on the French, which I don't understand. -- hilsen/regards Max M, Denmark http://www.mxm.dk/ IT's Mad Science From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 28 21:31:19 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 13:31:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <41D1CCE6.8030902@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <20041228213119.40244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com> --- Max M wrote: > Mike Lorrey wrote: > > I think you have misread it. It seems pretty clear from the text that > he means the entire western hemisphere. Not especially the US. > Besides, he is making a statement as a UN official. Not as a > Norwegian nor as a European. In which case, he should not be surprised at the stinginess of western nations toward the UN. Given that many billions of 'oil for food' monies were siphoned off by Annan's son and others (including Clinton pardonee Marc Rich), the UN is the LAST group we should be trusting with any money for this effort. > > It also seems that you choose to not to read: > > "Offers of aid have poured in from around the world in the past two > days, with the European Union's executive arm releasing $4 million in > emergency aid and pledging an additional $27 million." > > Clearly stating that $27 million more is on the way. And $20 million is on the way from the US in addition to the $15 million, plus a larger package is going to be based on what the first team evaluates is needed. Furthermore, keep in mind that most charitable programs in the US are private. Engelund's comments were judging the US' 0.13% of GDP on budgeted foreign aid, but that number ignores US contributions in Afghanistan, Iraq, as well as US agricultural assistance around the world, of which the US is the leader. Furthermore, it also ignores private aid through NGOs that operate off of private funds, not government subsidies. > > Besides from that. My surprise was not really about amounts, but > about the unnessecary attack on the French, which I don't understand. Max, you are not THAT obtuse. Please, the French are now proven "do as I say, not as I do" types, having continuously railed against the US 30+ nation "unilateral action" in Iraq, yet France chose to go it alone in Ivory Coast..... besides the French being a co-captain of the EU. So long as France is a leader of the EU, people in the US will tar everything an EU nation does in foreign policy with a French brush. Such is the result of 'assassination by association', which is another one of those two-way streets... ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Dec 28 21:42:54 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 13:42:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <41D1CCE6.8030902@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <20041228214254.18086.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com> --- Max M wrote: > > I think you have misread it. If I misread it, why did he rescind that comment today: "U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland rowed back from statements he made on Monday after an annoyed Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington was "the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world." Egeland told reporters on Tuesday: "I've been misinterpreted when I yesterday said that I believed that rich countries in general can be more generous." "It has nothing to do with any particular country or the response to this emergency. We are in early days and the response has so far been overwhelmingly positive," he said. "The international assistance that has come and been pledged from the United States, from Europe and from countries in the region has also been very generous," Egeland added. " ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Wed Dec 29 04:42:21 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 23:42:21 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat In-Reply-To: <20041227163415.98245.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041227163415.98245.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41D235AD.7000903@humanenhancement.com> Fascinating, if debateable (my own B.A. being in medieval/ancient European history rather than American history, I won't debate you, plus I don't really care all that much; there are innumerable other examples I could cite). But such quibbles are secondary to the point that the end does indeed sometimes justify the means. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com Mike Lorrey wrote: >--- Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > >>--- Joseph Bloch wrote: >> >> >>>Some ends, such as the abolition of slavery, justify >>>almost any means, >>>including (to use historical example) the waging of >>>an arguably >>>unconstitutional and inarguably vicious and vastly >>>destructive military >>>action. You've doubtless heard of it... the Civil >>>War? Or, since you >>>live south of the Mason-Dixon line, the War of >>>Northern Agression. >>> >>> >>Check your history books. The Civil War wasn't >>originally about slavery. It was originally about the >>right of states to seceed. Slavery got tacked on >>afterwards. The outcome of the war accelerated what >>economics was proving anyway: slavery was inefficient, >>pure and simple. (Thus the South had less industry >>with which to crank out war material, which greatly >>contributed to its loss.) >> >> > >Actually, it was about a significant duty on the export of cotton and >import of cloth to and from europe. Northern mill owners didn't want >european competition for southern cotton supplies, or for souther >clothing customers. They also were pro-abolition only in that they >needed cheap black scab laborers to counteract the nascent labor >movement. > >The south had less industry because they had few locations worth mining >iron from and little hydropower. The idea that 'slavery is inefficient' >relies on a pollyannish conception of what slaves did with their lives. >While many worked in the fields, many others were blacksmiths, >carpenters, millwrights, and engaged in many other trades. The idea >that the cotton mill made their slavery obsolete is simplistic in the >extreme. > >An illiterate slave vs an illiterate immigrant worker. Define how one >is more 'efficient' than the other. The worker may be free to dream, to >aspire, and to get educated if they so chose, but the worker is also >free to participate in collective bargaining (violently so, in some >circumstances). > >The Civil War ultimately happened because the US government didn't have >the testicular fortitude to do what the British government had done in >the 1830's: Britain's government spent $20 million to buy out the >property rights of slave owners in Britain. Of course, the southerners >likely belived that even if the US did do such a thing, they'd pay for >it with taxes on southerners.... > >===== >Mike Lorrey >Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH >"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. >It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." > -William Pitt (1759-1806) >Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. >http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com Wed Dec 29 05:56:13 2004 From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 21:56:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Year 2014: Googlezon.com Message-ID: <20041229055613.72645.qmail@web41301.mail.yahoo.com> http://epic.chalksidewalk.com/ Transhumanistically yours, La vie est belle! Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra, Solar System, Milky Way, Multiverse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wingcat at pacbell.net Wed Dec 29 08:18:24 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 00:18:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Year 2014: Googlezon.com In-Reply-To: <20041229055613.72645.qmail@web41301.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041229081824.56682.qmail@web81608.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jose Cordeiro wrote: > http://epic.chalksidewalk.com/ The projection makes one IMO fatally flawed assumption: that automated reccomendations work, and work really well. I, personally, am usually far more disserved than served by Amazon's reccomendation engine, and I see the links on Friendster reflecting more false friends rather than true communications. Perhaps if Friendster were linked to Gmail, with an option to promote/score higher those friends with whom a user exchanges email a lot - the real intent of which would be to weed out the vast array of false links, which were fed into the system but do not represent a true social tie. But I, and those I know the shopping habits of, treat Amazon like any other store and almost never use their reccomendations - except occasionally as shortcut links, when we were going to Amazon to buy that item in the first place as well as the item that caused the reccomendation, yet Amazon thinks its reccomendation had something to do with it because that's the link we followed. There's also the problem of taking snippets of different news stories out of context and creating a news article from them. It might make a good demo, but actually being able to understand the context enough to pull that off intelligibly in most real world cases would require far more AI progress than we're likely to see in the next 5.5 years (give or take half a year). See how slowly Babelfish has come along, for example. From pgptag at gmail.com Wed Dec 29 08:28:24 2004 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 09:28:24 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Human brain result of 'extraordinarily fast' evolution Message-ID: <470a3c5204122900286149ac89@mail.gmail.com> The Guardian - Emergence of society may have spurred growth - The sophistication of the human brain is not simply the result of steady evolution, according to new research. Instead, humans are truly privileged animals with brains that have developed in a type of extraordinarily fast evolution that is unique to the species. "Simply put, evolution has been working very hard to produce us humans," said Bruce Lahn, an assistant professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "Our study offers the first genetic evidence that humans occupy a unique position in the tree of life." Professor Lahn's research, published this week in the journal Cell, suggests that humans evolved their cognitive abilities not owing to a few sporadic and accidental genetic mutations - as is the usual way with traits in living things - but rather from an enormous number of mutations in a short period of time, acquired though an intense selection process favouring complex cognitive abilities. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1380407,00.html From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com Wed Dec 29 15:07:57 2004 From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 07:07:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Sir Arthur C. Clarke and the Sri Lankan tsunami Message-ID: <20041229150758.59274.qmail@web41309.mail.yahoo.com> Dear friends, The tragedy in Sri Lanka and around the Indian Ocean is terrible. Sir Arthur C. Clarke has just written to me this message indicating how to contribute. It is an irony that, when I met him a few moths ago in his Sri Lanka home, he told me so much about his love for the ocean and particularly scuba-diving (the most transhumanist experience that we can experience on Earth now, according to him). Another possibility is to contribute directly through the Internet through initiatives like this with Amazon and the Red Cross: http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/my-pay-page/PX3BEL97U9A4I/103-3061722-8087864 Transhumanistically yours, La vie est belle! Jos? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Jose, Thank you for your concern about my safety in the wake of last Sunday?s devastating tidal wave. I am enormously relieved that my family and household have escaped the ravages of the sea that suddenly invaded most parts of coastal Sri Lanka, leaving a trail of destruction. But many others were not so fortunate. For over two million Sri Lankans and a large number of foreign tourists holidaying here, the day after Christmas turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The Day After Tomorrow. My heart-felt sympathy goes out to all those who lost family members or friends. Among those who directly experienced the waves were my staff based at our diving station in Hikkaduwa, and my holiday bungalows in Kahawa and Thiranagama ­ all beachfront properties located in southern areas that were badly hit. Our staff members are all safe, even though some are badly shaken and relate harrowing first hand accounts of what happened. Most of our diving equipment and boats at Hikkaduwa were washed away. We still don't know the full extent of damage -- it will take a while for us to take stock as accessing these areas is still difficult. This is indeed a disaster of unprecedented magnitude for Sri Lanka, which lacks the resources and capacity to cope with the aftermath. We are encouraging concerned friends to contribute to the relief efforts launched by various national and international organisations. If you wish to join these efforts, I can recommend two options. - Contribute to a Sri Lanka disaster relief fund launched by an internationally operating humanitarian charity, such as Care or Oxfam. - Alternatively, considering supporting Sarvodaya, the largest development charity in Sri Lanka, which has a 45-year track record in reaching out and helping the poorest of the poor. Sarvodaya has mounted a well organised, countrywide relief effort using their countrywide network of offices and volunteers who work in all parts of the country, well above ethnic and other divisions. Their website, www.sarvodaya.lk, provides bank account details for financial donations. They also welcome contributions in kind -- a list of urgently needed items is found at: http://www.sarvodaya.lk/Inside_Page/urgently%20needed.htm There is much to be done in both short and long terms for Sri Lanka to raise its head from this blow from the seas. Among other things, the country needs to improve its technical and communications facilities so that effective early warnings can help minimise losses in future disasters. Curiously enough, in my first book on Sri Lanka, I had written about another tidal wave reaching the Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in The Reefs of Taprobane, 1957). That happened in August 1883, following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same part of the Indian Ocean. Arthur Clarke 29 December 2004 La vie est belle! Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra, Solar System, Milky Way, Multiverse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nedlt at yahoo.com Wed Dec 29 19:09:05 2004 From: nedlt at yahoo.com (Ned Late) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:09:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] yes, Virginia, feminazis do exist Message-ID: <20041229190905.97195.qmail@web61202.mail.yahoo.com> Valerie Solanas at one time tried to assassinate Andy Warhol. Her manifesto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUM_Manifesto Though ancient, it does illustrate a posture still existing today in some forms. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Wed Dec 29 22:38:10 2004 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 23:38:10 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <20041228214254.18086.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041228214254.18086.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: For those who didn't like the pissing contest about who gives more money, on Wikipedia there's a good overview of the amount of aid given (or promised) by each nation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_to_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake Alfio From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Dec 29 23:07:53 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:07:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041229230753.82447.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Isn't it nice to see countries and peoples competing over who is doing the most good in the world, for a change, though? --- Alfio Puglisi wrote: > > For those who didn't like the pissing contest about who gives more > money, > on Wikipedia there's a good overview of the amount of aid given (or > promised) by each nation: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_to_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake > > Alfio > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From es at popido.com Wed Dec 29 23:44:12 2004 From: es at popido.com (Erik Starck) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:44:12 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: References: <20041228214254.18086.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041230002316.0b089da0@mail.popido.com> At 23:38 2004-12-29 Alfio Puglisi wrote: >For those who didn't like the pissing contest about who gives more money, >on Wikipedia there's a good overview of the amount of aid given (or >promised) by each nation: > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_to_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake Considering that Sweden seems to be one of the countries with the most tourists in the area: http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=041229194343.wjtrut0g.xml ...I am embarassed to see that tiny Luxembourg gives more money than Sweden. Overall, this countrys government has received a lot of criticism for doing too little. When this is over, I hope some political heads will roll. Probably not, though, since this is social democratic Sweden where no one's to blame and no one ever takes responsibility for anything. On the other hand, private donations are at a record high, which is good I suppose. Some numbers indicate 3-4000 swedes still missing. For a nation of 9 million, that's a lot. I still don't know if anyone I know was down there. Erik From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Thu Dec 30 00:19:59 2004 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:19:59 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <20041229230753.82447.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041229230753.82447.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Not only governments, but private citizens too. Here in Italy the phone companies realized long ago that the general population is cellphone-addicted, and came out with this scheme: dial a certain number on your cell phone, and 1 Euro ($1.3) will be added to your phone bill and sent as humanitarian aid. Result: 9,200,000 Euros (!) as of today, and counting. Many people proudly asserting that they "called the number 5 times" or that thay are "calling all the time". Alfio On Wed, 29 Dec 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote: >Isn't it nice to see countries and peoples competing over who is doing >the most good in the world, for a change, though? > >--- Alfio Puglisi wrote: > >> >> For those who didn't like the pissing contest about who gives more >> money, >> on Wikipedia there's a good overview of the amount of aid given (or >> promised) by each nation: >> >> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_to_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake >> >> Alfio >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat >> > > >===== >Mike Lorrey >Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH >"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. >It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." > -William Pitt (1759-1806) >Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. >http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From dgc at cox.net Thu Dec 30 02:15:12 2004 From: dgc at cox.net (Dan Clemmensen) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:15:12 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Sir Arthur C. Clarke and the Sri Lankan tsunami In-Reply-To: <20041229150758.59274.qmail@web41309.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041229150758.59274.qmail@web41309.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41D364B0.3070103@cox.net> I now work for iDirect Technologies. Our Corporate slogan is "IP in the sky." we make equipment to do two-way Internet using VSATs, and we are doing very well. We want to help, but the situation is so horrific that none of our business contacts (distributors, customers, etc.) in the area can even figure out what we could accomplish. Unfortunately, the problem isn't money. If you wrote a check for $1Billion, today, there would be no way to spend it to save lives today. What is needed instantly, in the following order of criticality, is: Potable water Water purifiers instantly-deployable food (air-dropped MREs) non-power tools (a million shovels) short-haul rugged transport air-transportable "heavy" digging equipment fuel staple food (rice in 50lb sacks, roughly 2 millions pounds per day) clothing shelter materials No amount of money can buy this stuff: it's either available or not. The US and other governments either have this stuff and the ability to move it quickly, or not. If not, a whole lot of people will die in the next two weeks. Consider the situation of some medium-sized provider of construction equipment: say this guy has ten Bobcats, unused, in Ohio, and is willing to give them to (say) a town in Sri Lanka. If this equipment were in Sri Lanka today, it would permit the people to bury a whole lot of unfortunates and thus save (or help save) a whole lot of folks who will otherwise die. How, exactly, is a pledge of $1B supposed to move these Bobcats from Ohio to Sri Lanka in two days? The short-term problem has more to do with the laws of physics than the availability of money. In a week, we may be able to apply money to the problem. In a month, we can certainly apply money to the problem. In a week we will lose another 100K people. In a month, we will lose yet another 100K people. From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 30 02:47:40 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 20:47:40 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Science versus Norse Mythology Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041229204620.01a99ec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> http://www.thepaincomics.com/ (don't forget to click at the bottom of the image for the artist's statement) From fortean1 at mindspring.com Thu Dec 30 05:53:47 2004 From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 22:53:47 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD (SK) Just How Old Can He Go? Message-ID: <41D397EB.992A1135@mindspring.com> Just How Old Can He Go? December 27, 2004 By STEVE LOHR Ray Kurzweil began his dinner with a pill. "A starch blocker," he explained, "one of my 250 supplements a day." The risk of encountering starchy food seemed slight indeed at the vegetarian restaurant in Manhattan he had selected, where the fare was heavy with kale, seaweed, tofu, steamed broccoli and bean sprouts. But Mr. Kurzweil, a renowned inventor and computer scientist, has strong views on dietary matters. His regimen for longevity is not everyone's cup of tea (preferably green tea, Mr. Kurzweil advises, which contains extra antioxidants to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer). And most people would scoff at his notion that emerging trends in medicine, biotechnology and nanotechnology open a realistic path to immortality - the central claim of a new book by Mr. Kurzweil and Dr. Terry Grossman, a physician and founder of a longevity clinic in Denver. "I am serious about it," said Mr. Kurzweil, a wiry man with few lines on his face for a 56-year-old. "I think death is a tragedy. I think aging is a tragedy. And going beyond our limitations is what our species is all about." The study of human biology, he said, is increasingly intersecting with his main field of expertise - computing. Mr. Kurzweil points to the advances in medicine and genetics as leading toward a view of biology as a kind of computation. The chemical units in DNA, which are designated by the letters A, G, C and T, are assembled and recombined, as if computer code. "Genes are sequential programs," he said. "We are learning how to manipulate the programs inside us, the software of life. And personally, I really believe that what I'm doing is reprogramming my biochemistry." His new book shows a different side of Mr. Kurzweil's continuing fascination with the connection between humans and computers. In "The Age of Spiritual Machines," published in 1999, Mr. Kurzweil made the case for why computers will exceed human intelligence within a few decades. Provocative and controversial, that book struck skeptics as extreme and wildly optimistic about the gains technology can make anytime soon. The same criticism can be made of his new book, "Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever" (Rodale, 2004), published last month. But then, Mr. Kurzweil's success as an inventor has been based partly on ignoring conventional wisdom and a willingness to pursue ideas that may seem extreme. He has few qualms about technology, which he says is "the continuation of evolution by other means." Just as the boundaries of computing will soon seem limitless, Mr. Kurzweil insists that improving knowledge and technology will make death avoidable. The book describes three stages - the authors call them "bridges" - over the next 20 to 25 years. By the late 2020's, Mr. Kurzweil predicts, the fruits of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, a technology that permits changes to the body at the cellular level, will really kick in so that science will enable people to rebuild their bodies, any way they want to. In 15 to 20 years, he contends that advances in the understanding of gene processes will make it possible for biotechnology therapies to turn off and reverse disease and aging. But only "a small minority of older boomers will make it past this impending critical threshold," write the authors, both graying boomers themselves. In the meantime, the best that can be done, the authors say, is to reprogram one's body to live a healthier life to have a fighting chance to be around when the nanotech breakthroughs come to the rescue. Mr. Kurzweil's thinking on health and aging is the result of both a personal and an intellectual journey. Like his grandfather, his father died in his 50's of heart disease, and Mr. Kurzweil , who is married with two children, was diagnosed with diabetes at 35. Life, clearly, had dealt him a bad genetic hand. Mr. Kurzweil reacted poorly to insulin, gaining weight. So he immersed himself in the research literature on diabetes, stopped taking insulin, and proceeded to devise his own program of diet, exercise and the use of some nutritional supplements. He lost 40 pounds, and brought his blood sugar and cholesterol levels down to healthy levels. That thinking went into Mr. Kurzweil's earlier health book, "The 10 Percent Solution for a Healthy Life: How to Eliminate Virtually All Risk of Heart Disease and Cancer," which was published in 1993 and advocated a diet with fat accounting for only 10 percent of total calories consumed daily, far below the standard public health recommendations of 30 percent. Mr. Kurzweil's research soon extended to aging and longevity, and he has continued at it ever since, consulting doctors and scientists along the way. His blood, metabolism and fitness are monitored regularly. The results appear encouraging. His biological age, using tests like high-frequency hearing, memory and lung capacity, is about 40. "In a sense, I treat myself as a laboratory," he said. His experimental bent was evident even before he went to college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1965, as a teenager, he appeared on the television program, "I've Got a Secret," hosted by Steve Allen, for having written a computer program that composed piano music. Mr. Kurzweil's inventions mainly center on the use of artificial intelligence technology to teach computers to recognize patterns, a task far easier for humans than machines. His creations include an early optical-character-recognition program; a text-to-speech voice synthesizer for the blind; the first commercial speech-recognition system that could handle many words; and sophisticated computer-based instruments, a project in collaboration with Stevie Wonder, the singer and musician. His inventions have earned him many awards over the years including the $500,000 Lemelson-M.I.T. Prize, the nation's largest award for invention and innovation, and the government's National Medal of Technology. Over the years, he has licensed or sold his technologies to larger companies, like Xerox, which bought his optical-character-recognition technology in 1980. He is now chairman of Kurzweil Technologies Inc., in Wellesley Hills, Mass., and his instinct for commercial invention has made him a wealthy man, free to pursue the ideas that interest him. In the artificial intelligence field, he is known more as a practical inventor than as a pure scientist. "Ray Kurzweil seems to have this knack for defining a problem so that he can attack it in a way that is useful and it actually works," said Raj Reddy, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who is a leading artificial intelligence scholar. "And his work is guided by high-quality research. He always does his homework." It is clear that plenty of homework went into "Fantastic Voyage." The book, with 452 pages, has more than 900 footnotes. There is a research rationale for each recommendation, backed up by some 2,000 scientific citations. "We started from a perspective of, 'What does the medical literature show?' " said Dr. Grossman, the book's co-author and founder of the Frontier Medical Institute, a longevity clinic. "We can defend everything we say." The authors offer no silver bullet, no single nostrum, or even a handful, that will insure a long and healthy life. "It's a complex case," Mr. Kurzweil said. "That's why it takes a book to make it." The authors advocate eating less than you need, with diets that are very low in carbohydrates and fat, high in vegetables and low in dairy products. Daily aerobic exercise is part of the formula. The authors are also big believers in the health value of antioxidants, like vitamins A, C and E. They can combat oxidation processes that release free radicals, which are wayward molecules that damage cells and increase the risk of disease and the pace of aging. Traditionally, the medical profession has focused on treating disease. But disease prevention is increasingly a theme of medical research and practice as it becomes clear that ailments like heart disease and cancer are strongly influenced by diet and lifestyle. "People are coming from a number of directions to these same truths," said Dr. Joseph Zibrak, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "The science behind much of what Kurzweil and Grossman are talking about is becoming conventional." Mr. Kurzweil, however, recommends far more than the standard preventative counsel to eat a healthier diet and get more exercise. Moderation is not his counsel for the radical reprogramming of the body. For example, Mr. Kurzweil and Dr. Grossman advocate taking large doses of vitamins and minerals and letting your body sort out what it needs - an approach that some experts say is extreme and perhaps risky. "They have totally bought into mega-dosing on vitamins by accepting scanty evidence too early, before it's been properly evaluated," said S. Jay Olshansky, a professor in the school of public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Mr. Olshansky points to a recent study, by an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, that found taking high doses of vitamin E may slightly increase the risks of dying earlier. "Mega-dosing could be mutagenic; it could cause problems," Mr. Olshansky said. "If you follow Ray and Terry's advice, you could die sooner. Kurzweil is asking people to be guinea pigs." Mr. Kurzweil and Dr. Grossman say there is a market for their ideas, beyond just their book. They have set up a small side business selling supplement pills, "Ray & Terry's Total Daily Care," which is a pared-down version of Mr. Kurzweil's vitamin and nutrient program. For people 50 or over, they recommend six pills a day, which cost $1.25 a day, and fewer pills for younger people. Mr. Kurzweil, however, is going further. He is sticking to his 250 pill-a-day regimen, though he adjusts his routine if his research suggests improvements. In this research, Mr. Kurzweil is both the scientist and the laboratory. "I've tried to approach this as an inventor," he said. "That's how I approach problems, constantly measuring, testing and searching for the best ideas." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/27/technology/27kurzweil.html?ex=1105165414&ei=1&en=34426efcc835b878 Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company -- "Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Southeast Asia veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.] From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Thu Dec 30 12:11:23 2004 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:11:23 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] Copycat goes to Hollywood Message-ID: Genetic Savings and Clone is being asked to replicate cats, dogs and other animals used in Hollywood films (by the producers themselves, not by the fans :-)) http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/04366083.asp Alfio From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Dec 30 14:34:19 2004 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:34:19 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Helping Sri Lanka, Request from Arthur C. Clarke - Transhumanist Global Relief Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20041230075348.036b1e08@pop-server.austin.rr.com> Friends, futurists and colleagues, Arthur C. Clarke has asked that we help with those who have suffered the enormous devastation in Sri Lanka. While there are many places we can go to online to contribute money, what is sorely needed right now are cloths, medicine and other items which you might be able to provide. Jose Cordeiro, Director of Extropy Institute, and I have created a transhumanist global relief, which will be sending packages to Sri Lanka. Certainly there are many in the area which could benefit, but I'd like to start with choosing one spot and focusing on getting aid to these people. If you can help, please send me your items (list below) and I will package them together and send to Sri Lanka. Please label your packages to: Extropy Institute Transhumanist Global Relief - Sri Lanka 10709 Pointe View Drive Austin, Texas 78738 If you need to call: 512.263.2749 List of items needed: We need cloths, dry food and first aid items: http://www.sarvodaya.lk/Inside_Page/urgently%20needed.htm Anything else you think would be helpful is appreciated. Excerpt from Arthur C. Clarke's message: "... This is indeed a disaster of unprecedented magnitude for Sri Lanka, which lacks the resources and capacity to cope with the aftermath. We are encouraging concerned friends to contribute to the relief efforts launched by various national and international organisations. If you wish to join these efforts, I can recommend two options. - Contribute to a Sri Lanka disaster relief fund launched by an internationally operating humanitarian charity, such as Care or Oxfam. - Alternatively, considering supporting Sarvodaya, the largest development charity in Sri Lanka, which has a 45-year track record in reaching out and helping the poorest of the poor. Sarvodaya has mounted a well organised, countrywide relief effort using their countrywide network of offices ! and volunteers who work in all parts of the country, well above ethnic and other divisions. Their website, www.sarvodaya.lk, provides bank account details for financial donations. They also welcome contributions in kind -- a list of urgently needed items is found at: http://www.sarvodaya.lk/Inside_Page/urgently%20needed.htm ..." Arthur Clarke 29 December 2004 _______________________ Thank you for your generous contributions. Natasha Natasha Vita-More http://www.natasha.cc [_______________________________________________ President, Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org [_____________________________________________________ Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture http://www.transhumanist.biz -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Thu Dec 30 16:46:21 2004 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:46:21 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] Funniest chemical weapon around Message-ID: I have no idea if this report is true, anyway it really take a genius to think this stuff up: http://www.thememoryblog.org/archives/000382.html From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Thu Dec 30 16:54:46 2004 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:54:46 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] Putting the tsunami into context Message-ID: I just thought of a new unit of measure to tell people when talking about cryonics, life extension, Singularity etc. According to this optimistic formula: 6 billions / (80*365) =~ 200,000 the human population is suffering one or two Asian Tsunamis a day. So for each day a Friendly singularity is delayed, every day is like December 26th. Alfio From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 30 17:19:35 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:19:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Funniest chemical weapon around In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041230171935.84968.qmail@web81606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Alfio Puglisi wrote: > I have no idea if this report is true, anyway it > really take a genius to > think this stuff up: > > http://www.thememoryblog.org/archives/000382.html It would adversely affect their discipline (if they had any - rogue bands of insurgents aren't known for being highly trained, not that we expected to fight many back in 1994), but somehow I think it'd only boost their morale. From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Dec 30 17:28:28 2004 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:28:28 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Funniest chemical weapon around In-Reply-To: <20041230171935.84968.qmail@web81606.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041230171935.84968.qmail@web81606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20041230112705.01a83b30@pop-server.satx.rr.com> At 09:19 AM 12/30/2004 -0800, Adrian wrote: > > http://www.thememoryblog.org/archives/000382.html > >It would adversely affect their discipline (if they >had any - rogue bands of insurgents aren't known for >being highly trained, Shouldn't that be `rouge bands'? Damien Broderick From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 30 17:30:20 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:30:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Funniest chemical weapon around In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041230173020.58692.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Alfio Puglisi wrote: > I have no idea if this report is true, anyway it really take a genius > to think this stuff up: > > http://www.thememoryblog.org/archives/000382.html > Is this an offshoot of the gaydar and anti-gaydar R&D? Or a non-lethal alternative to the Advanced Medium Range Gaydiation Missile? ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Dec 30 17:44:43 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:44:43 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] bogus relics In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041230002316.0b089da0@mail.popido.com> Message-ID: <000001c4ee97$48208660$6401a8c0@mtrainier> "...The indictments issued Wednesday labeled many such "finds" as fakes, including two that had been presented as the biggest biblical discoveries in the Holy Land (search) - the purported burial box of Jesus' brother James..." How can they say it is fake? The clear inscription says "Here Lies James Christ" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142905,00.html From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 30 17:44:27 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:44:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Funniest chemical weapon around In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041230112705.01a83b30@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20041230174427.91645.qmail@web81606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote: > At 09:19 AM 12/30/2004 -0800, Adrian wrote: > > > > http://www.thememoryblog.org/archives/000382.html > > > >It would adversely affect their discipline (if they > >had any - rogue bands of insurgents aren't known > for > >being highly trained, > > Shouldn't that be `rouge bands'? No...rouge is a type of makeup, rogue refers to a type of person. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rogue http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rouge Although I'm sure the military has no problem thinking of them as rouge: both the color of their blips on various maps, and the color of smear left after the encounter. From hemm at openlink.com.br Thu Dec 30 18:07:08 2004 From: hemm at openlink.com.br (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:07:08 -0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] bogus relics References: <000001c4ee97$48208660$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <06b501c4ee9a$60671880$fe00a8c0@HEMM> But wait... Where is the burial box of Brian? ----- Original Message ----- From: "spike" To: "'ExI chat list'" Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 3:44 PM Subject: [extropy-chat] bogus relics > "...The indictments issued Wednesday labeled many such "finds" as fakes, > including two that had been presented as the biggest biblical discoveries in > the Holy Land (search) - the purported burial box of Jesus' brother > James..." > How can they say it is fake? The clear inscription says > "Here Lies James Christ" > http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142905,00.html From sentience at pobox.com Thu Dec 30 18:40:32 2004 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:40:32 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Putting the tsunami into context In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41D44BA0.1050408@pobox.com> Alfio Puglisi wrote: > I just thought of a new unit of measure to tell people when talking about > cryonics, life extension, Singularity etc. According to this optimistic > formula: 6 billions / (80*365) =~ 200,000 the human population is > suffering one or two Asian Tsunamis a day. So for each day a Friendly > singularity is delayed, every day is like December 26th. Alfio, Robert Bradbury and I independently calculated the planetary death rate 150,000 lives per day. Thus, converting life to time, and taking the latest headlines from Google News, the toll now stands at 19 hours, 12 minutes. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From andrew at ceruleansystems.com Thu Dec 30 18:50:25 2004 From: andrew at ceruleansystems.com (J. Andrew Rogers) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:50:25 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Funniest chemical weapon around Message-ID: <1104432625.2158@whirlwind.he.net> > I have no idea if this report is true, anyway it really take a genius to > think this stuff up: Both the US and the Soviet Union developed discipline and unit coherence destroying chemical weapons of several types many, many decades ago. These range from hallucinogens to simple stupifiers and judgment impairers to behavior altering chemicals (like the ones mentioned in the article). Because they generally do not kill the affected people, they have been used by both the Soviets and the US in limited quantities over the years since the 1960s. They are supposed to be quite effective at destroying unit social cohesion by fostering paranoia, disorganization, and counter-productive behaviors, effectively incapacitating the affected units. While some of these chemical weapons are not terribly subtle i.e. the affected people will know something isn't right, others are relatively transparent to the affected people and generate situations that in hindsight probably would appear inexplicable to them. The primary function of these weapons is to destroy the social fabric of military units, rendering them inoperable and in some case irreparable without actually killing the members of the unit. Military units are very much human social organisms. j. andrew rogers From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 30 19:09:25 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:09:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] bogus relics In-Reply-To: <000001c4ee97$48208660$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <20041230190925.71863.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Suppression of the Church of St. James the Just serves the interests of both the Israelis and the Catholic Church. The Nag Hammadi says James was the proper heir of the church, not Simon Peter. James' church only admitted Jews and was destroyed by the first Crusade (and its members genocided) in order to bury that secret (that the original gospel did not admit gentiles). The survivors formed what is now known as "Jews for Jesus", which is mocked and despised by both the various Jewish sects and Catholics. --- spike wrote: > > "...The indictments issued Wednesday labeled many such "finds" as > fakes, > including two that had been presented as the biggest biblical > discoveries in > the Holy Land (search) - the purported burial box of Jesus' brother > James..." > > > How can they say it is fake? The clear inscription says > "Here Lies James Christ" > > > > http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142905,00.html > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From weg9mq at centralmail.zzn.com Thu Dec 30 19:35:45 2004 From: weg9mq at centralmail.zzn.com (Edward Smith) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:35:45 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] A Proposed End-Goal: Justice Maximism Message-ID: <5B464DEDC661F724C8069D45F76C788D@weg9mq.centralmail.zzn.com> Generally, the primary purpose of transhumanism is to increase the efficiency of human functioning by modifying the human genome of zygotes, which I assume means eliminating the countless rare, common, and omnipresent genetic flaws, not excluding age-induced degeneration, and to increase human desirability, ability, versatility, and resilience. Other technologies that serve a similar purpose are also considered. An additional goal of some transhumanists is hedonism, that is, the elimination of strong and/or non-functional suffering and the increasing of the capacity to feel pleasure. I assume that that is intended to be done by greatly decreasing the expression of the receptors of neurokinin and possibly other, less significant receptors of suffering as well, increasing the expression of the pleasure receptors of endorphin and dopamine, altering the expression of enzymes of neurotransmitter synthesis and degradation (especially to decrease MAO-B) so as to alter the levels of said neurotransmitters, and to eliminate the regulatory mechanisms that mediate tolerance, dependence, and addiction. Modifying the brain so as to prevent it from becoming addicted to very powerful pleasure would in fact require modifications that are complex, advanced, and drastic. David Pearce, the largest proponent of hedonism, has also advocated the goal of hedonism of the specific pleasure of love, or at least what he calls love, and the pleasure of MDMA, which he states is related to both love and empathy. True love is mediated by a combination of the firing of the oxytocin receptor, the prolactin receptor, and the different pleasure receptors (of endorphin and dopamine). MDMA, in contrast, activates 5-HT receptors, and particularly 5-HT2 receptors, some of the latter of which cause a crude, blind, love-like sensation which is not true love, much less empathy, which is not even related to love in the first place. True love, unlike empathy or the MDMA sensation, is ethicly neutral, being neither empathic nor anti-empathic. Supposedly, other people have advocated the specific hedonism of egotism, which is equally as anti-empathic as the blind love-like hedonism. In order to understand justice maximism, it is necessary to understand the nature of goodwill, malice, empathy, and justice. True empathy is caused by goodwill. Goodwill is the desire to perceive and act rightly, whereas malice, which suppresses empathy, is the desire to perceive and act wrongly. 'Rightness', or accuracy, which is fine and clear, consists of 2 multiplicative components, which are subtlety and definition, which are the respective opposites of the 2 multiplicative factors of crude blind wrongness, which are forcefulness and sloppiness. To demonstrate the 2 multiplicative factors of fineness: In pixelized pictures, subtlety corresponds to the quantity of varieties of shades and colors, whereas definition corresponds to the quantity of pixels per area, and in sounds, subtlety corresponds to the quietness of notes, whereas definition corresponds to the brevity of notes. The fundamental abstract manners of perception have relatively little effect on the preferences for such superficial things though, but rather they primarily effect fundamental conceptions of reality, such as the worthiness of specific conscious beings. Beings that are weak or otherwise unlucky are characterized by the abstract trait of subtlety, such that people that perceive subtlety can perceive any goodwill, lack of malice, or ability thereof, and thus empathize with them and desire that they be saved from suffering to a degree that is equal to or greater than their degree of goodwill or lack of malice. All beings other than ones self that suffer are conceived of as being unlucky to some extent. Said unlucky beings, by the way, do not exclude the conscious non-human species (all vertebrates and cephalopods, which are characterized by 'slow-wave' activity in the brain, indicative of the utilization of a conscious force rather than a non-conscious digital switching system, which is characterized by rapid digital pulsed waves). Victims are abstractly characterized by being defined from their victimizers, such that people that perceive definition can perceive the malice, destructivity, and/or burden of victimizers, and thus empathize with the victims and desire that the victimizers suffer equal to or greater than their degree of malice. Victimizers can also be conceived of as unlucky for getting in the way, and thus be regarded worse than is deserved by the forcefully blind. Subtle empathy and defined empathy thus combine to judge conscious beings with precise justice. Justice is the state in which a conscious being's degree of pleasurable satisfaction versus painful frustration of their desires is equal to their degree of goodwilled focus versus malicious focus, respectively, at a given moment. Malicious people are easy to spot on the internet, as they are the ones that use the truth-obscuring communicative tactics, which are listed at: http://www.cotse.net/users/t3nj/ttcs.html Also, deep, abstract concepts are characterized by the abstract trait of subtlety, and definitive laws of reality are characterized by the abstract trait of definition, such that the forcefully blind and the sloppily blind are intentionally blind to said respective concepts. MDMA, as well as the entheogens, create a sensation of forceful subtlety-disrupting malice to some extent, and to a greater extent, a sensation of sloppy definition-disrupting malice. It is notable, by the way, that complete malice (the combination of both factors of malice) is the malice upon which the idealism of theocracy, fascism, illegalizing of euthanasia, and illegalizing of abortion is based, which I doubt that many transhumanists support. By the way, for those that do not know, the purpose of opposing euthanasia and abortion is to cause the whole of society to bear an inefficient burden of suffering, labor, and/or monetary expense in the name of life, just as theocrats and fascists desire the whole of society to bear such an inefficient burden in the name of a nonexistent god or the state, respectively. The goal of pleasure is the ideal from the subjective perception of every conscious being, regardless of it's ideals. The method of attaining hedonism is more direct, efficient, and non-idealistic in some individuals than in others, but all conscious beings ultimately pursue hedonism. Even puritans are motivated by hedonism because they seek to avoid the suffering that is caused by shame. Likewise, I would be tormented with idealistic shame if I did not make this post. Justice, in contrast to the subjective ideal of hedonism, is the state of consciousness that is objectively most-right. It is generally not as rewarding as hedonism, but it is what is right, and thus what conscious beings should seek to create. It is thus best to maximize both the quantity and precision of justice. Such a state of maximized justice, and the idealism thereof, may be called 'justice maximism', and a person that idealizes said state may likewise be called a 'justice maximist'. 'Maximism' means the same thing as 'maximization' except that it is less energy-consuming and time-consuming to say, and it ends with the suffix 'ism', indicative of an ideal. A justice maximist society requires both the pleasurable component and the painful component of justice, else it is incomplete and only consists of partial justice. Being as malicious people are blind to deep, abstract concepts and/or definitive laws of reality, they may be blind to the comprehension of true justice in the first place, such that they are inclined to blindly deprecate and obscure it as a mere subjective human concept, or else to believe in a false, doublethinking definition of justice that in fact refers to some kind of injustice. Transhumanist genetic modification can be used to create humans and animals the brains of which are engineered to create justice maximism. Such modifications may be called 'justice maximist modifications'. That can be done by associating the activity of the receptors of goodwill with the activity of the receptors of pleasure, and associating the activity of the receptors of malice with the activity of the receptors of pain (pain meaning suffering, but the word pain is used because there is no such word as 'sufferous' or 'sufferful'). The receptors of goodwilled rightness-seeking focus are the excitatory M receptors and the related H1 receptor, whereas the receptors of malicious wrongness-seeking focus are the 5-HT2 receptors. The levels of the different neurotransmitters and receptors are determined primarily by the genes, which means that how goodwilled versus malicious a person is is determined primarily by their genes. That means that we do not have the power known as free will, and that malicious people can not be greatly changed via long-term environmental or diplomatic methods because there is little potential good in them. More specificly, the justice maximist modifications are as follows: 1. Cause the goodwill receptors and the malice receptors to modulate the effects caused by limbic glutamate receptors (which cause desire), such that all of the the goodwill receptors disinhibit pleasure receptors that receive pleasure neurotransmitters from neurons that express motivational glutamate receptors, and all of the malice receptors disinhibit pain receptors that receive pain neurotransmitters from neurons that express motivational glutamate receptors. 2. Cause the goodwill receptors to disinhibit any spontaneous or long-term activity of the pleasure receptors and to inhibit any spontaneous or long-term activity of the pain receptors. Cause the malice receptors to do the opposite. The pleasurable portion of justice maximism can be achieved on a small scale at the present time by the use of the expensive combination of the 3 pharmaceuticals selegiline (aka deprenyl, which selectively inhibits MAO-B and in turn increases dopamine and endorphin), galantamine (which inhibits acetylcholinesterase and in turn increases acetylcholine), and piracetam (which is a relatively-selective glutamate receptor activator), in combination with exposure to the perceptual elements that cause pleasure that is derived from fine, clear perception. The pharmaceuticals galantamine and piracetam are most often marketed as 'smart-drugs', and they do in fact increase intelligence, especially when combined. That is because a side-effect of fine, accurate focus is increased intelligence. Most of the specific perceptual elements that cause pleasure that is directly derived from fine, clear perception are listed at the following URL: http://www.cotse.net/users/t3nj/ctlg.html For the purpose of organizing people that understand and favor a society of justice maximism, I have created a mailing list for such people. The mailing list is: JusticeMaximists at coollist.com The mailing list does not require client-side scripts, such as javascript, stylesheets, or flash, to use. Plain text emails are preferred over html emails. The mailing list is currently in moderated mode. I might not check the moderated messages regularly, so if you send a message to the group, send a carbon copy to me at weg9mq at centralmail.zzn.com . To join the mailing list, go to the following URL: http://www.coollist.com/subscribe.html - Get your Free E-mail at http://centralmail.cjb.net ___________________________________________________________ Get your own Web-based E-mail Service at http://www.zzn.com From sjatkins at gmail.com Thu Dec 30 19:39:28 2004 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:39:28 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Funniest chemical weapon around In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <948b11e04123011392d477662@mail.gmail.com> Yeah! MAKE LOVE NOT WAR, BABY! YEAH! On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:46:21 +0100 (MET), Alfio Puglisi wrote: > I have no idea if this report is true, anyway it really take a genius to > think this stuff up: > > http://www.thememoryblog.org/archives/000382.html > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 30 20:54:10 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:54:10 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami References: <20041228151446.27909.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <02d601c4eeb1$b6835960$3f1f4842@kevin> For the record, I wrote this comment long before the French pledged a dime. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Lorrey" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 9:14 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami > > --- Max M wrote: > > > Kevin Freels wrote: > > > > >Once again, the "Evil" US is coming to the aid of foreign > > governments. We > > >are just so horrible! Where are the FRENCH? > > > > > > > > > What is this about? Do you know for a fact that the french (and the > > EU) isn't helping? > > > > What are you trying to say? > > The official response of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs > spokesfrog: > > "TIDAL WAVE IN ASIA > > I will read the statement I made on December 26, 2004: > > "Following the earthquakes that struck several countries in southeast > and south Asia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, taking into account > the relief needs expressed by local authorities, is airlifting > emergency aid, beginning with Sri Lanka. > > "France is taking part in the assessment mission that the EU, whose > efforts it supports, is sending to the area this evening, in liaison > with the coordination put in place on the ground by the UN Office for > the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). > > "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (humanitarian action delegation) is > sending a plane to Colombo tomorrow, Monday December 27, that will > carry about 100 people: 60 rescue workers from the Interior Ministry, > four rescue workers from the emergency SAMU services, about 20 people > from the NGO "Secouristes Sans Fronti?res," crisis-support staff from > the Ministry and eight members of the French Red Cross and "Telecom > without Frontiers." The same flight will also carry humanitarian > supplies (tarpaulins and tents) and equipment for drinking water. > > "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is studying the possibility of using > this plane to bring back to France any French citizens in need in the > region. > > "The needs assessment is being conducted with the other countries in > the region hit by the tidal waves, namely, India, Indonesia, the > Maldives, Malaysia and Thailand." > > The situation on December 27, 2004 is as follows: > > 1 - The minister, Michel Barnier, is going to the region, first to Sri > Lank then Thailand. He will leave in the late afternoon today on an > plane that will be carrying emergency relief (tents, tarpaulins, > blankets, water purification equipment, etc.), medical personnel and > Foreign Ministry staff who will reinforce our personnel in these two > countries. > > 2 - Arrangements in France: > > The Foreign Ministry's crisis cell was operational as of 9 a.m. on > Sunday, December 26 and can be accessed by dialing the following > number: 01 45 50 34 60. A free-phone number is also available to the > public: 0 800 174 174. The number of lines has been doubled in order to > handle the many calls. We are in the process of augmenting our staff. > > Arrival in France: > > The three flights from the affected region will arrive at > Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, terminal 3, where they will be met by > relief services (warm clothes, counselors, medical staff) organized by > the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture. > > Special administrative formalities have been put in place to take > account of the loss of official papers. > > 3 - Provisional total: > > Three French victims have been identified at this point. " > > > > ===== > Mike Lorrey > Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH > "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. > It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." > -William Pitt (1759-1806) > Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 30 20:56:16 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:56:16 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas References: <20041227205028.4428.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <02e801c4eeb2$021f6da0$3f1f4842@kevin> Has anyone here seen the force FX light sabers? I know they aren't very fancy technologically, but they are WAY cool! http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/69de/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Lorrey" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 2:50 PM Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > The issue is that while DoD has built megawatt lasers, they are > typically not in any way transportable. The THEL and the ABL are the > first deployable laser systems, but they are still huge, with the first > needing two trailers and the other a 747. While the THEL is 100kw, and > is close to deployability, it still requires quite a bit to set up and > can only defend one location and a fixed area around it. The 747 ABL is > mobile, but is itself a vulnerable target and is intended for strategic > anti-missile use. > > Making a truly mobile version at 25-50kw capable of unit-level defense > against tactical weapons is what is really needed to defend against > mortars, katyusha type rockets, artillery, etc.. Installed on a > fighting vehicle capable of firing in motion, while moving with its > unit, is what is really needed. Then we just need IED/mine sniffer > bots. > > --- spike wrote: > > > The way this was written in the popular press is a little > > confusing. See below: > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Mike Lorrey > > Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > > > > > http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html? > > ESRC=dod.nl > > > > COOL TECH THIS WEEK: > > Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered Exoskeleton Suits > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > A step closer to working ray guns, RoboPike and RoboTuna, and > > Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with the cutting-edge military > > tech news from the past week. > > > > By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, DefenseTech.org > > > > Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns > > > > ... The modified 747 > > Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless slumber, is beginning to > > make > > progress... > > > > > > Im not sure what that comment means. > > > > > > > > ...More importantly, electric-powered lasers are finally starting to > > build > > up the power they need to work as weapons. In a few months, > > researchers > > at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and elsewhere plan to test a > > 25 > > kilowatt solid-state laser... > > > > > > Starting to build up the power to work as weapons? Were they joking? > > The power of the laser is not the recent breakthru, but rather its > > the > > mirror control needed to concentrate that power at some intermediate > > distance. Check out the airborne laser mirror control. > > > > > > ...If those trials work out as expected, the > > Defense Department will then start handing out grants for a laser > > with > > a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's widely-considered the > > threshold > > for ray gun action to begin... > > > > > > Hmmm, again this comment. Its all about concentrating the power, > > not about seeing how much power you can make. All you need to > > disable > > a rocket is to burn a hole in it. No need to actually blast it to > > shards, which would endanger the local enemy troops unnecessarily. > > Without the rockets and advanced weaponry, they are harmless as > > kittens anyway, so there is no need to slay or injure them. > > > > > > > > ... One step forward, one step back. The Airborne Laser's > > first flight test in two years was cut short this week, after some > > "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space News says a cabin > > pressure > > problem was to blame... > > > > > > > > This comment was made many places, but most of the time they > > were not careful to explain that it was not a problem with > > the laser itself. The flight crew cabin pressure is maintained > > higher than the area where the laser is carried in case of a leak > > of the highly toxic materials carried in the laser. With > > higher pressure in the cabin, the fumes would not get to > > the flight crew. Last I heard, it was a faulty pressure > > gage, not an actual failure of the pressure differential > > equipment. > > > > > > > > > > Robo-Crappie, Anyone? > > > > ...A Japanese toy company has a whole line > > of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An ammonite?... > > > > > > If you purchase one of these toy ammonites, you may > > not take it to church, for the Book of Deuteronomy > > chapter 23 verse 3 saith: > > > > "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the > > congregation of the lord, even to their tenth > > generation shall they not enter into the congregation > > of the lord forever... > > > > Well which is it, tenth generation, or forever? I > > think the latter, for Nehemiah chapter 13 verse 1 saith: > > > > "...the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into > > the congregation of god forever..." > > > > > > > > > > Real-Life Exoskeletons Emerge > > > > ... article in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine, > > on real-life exoskeletons... > > > > > > Cool, I want one. I can fool with that in the parking > > lot outside the church they wont let me enter because of > > my ammonite. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > > ===== > Mike Lorrey > Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH > "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. > It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." > -William Pitt (1759-1806) > Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. > http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 30 21:26:30 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:26:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas In-Reply-To: <02e801c4eeb2$021f6da0$3f1f4842@kevin> Message-ID: <20041230212630.41870.qmail@web81606.mail.yahoo.com> One of the cool things about the light sabers was that you didn't have to store the blade, just the hilt: the blade went away when not in use. Not true for these toys. --- Kevin Freels wrote: > Has anyone here seen the force FX light sabers? I > know they aren't very > fancy technologically, but they are WAY cool! > > http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/69de/ > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Mike Lorrey" > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 2:50 PM > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > > > > The issue is that while DoD has built megawatt > lasers, they are > > typically not in any way transportable. The THEL > and the ABL are the > > first deployable laser systems, but they are still > huge, with the first > > needing two trailers and the other a 747. While > the THEL is 100kw, and > > is close to deployability, it still requires quite > a bit to set up and > > can only defend one location and a fixed area > around it. The 747 ABL is > > mobile, but is itself a vulnerable target and is > intended for strategic > > anti-missile use. > > > > Making a truly mobile version at 25-50kw capable > of unit-level defense > > against tactical weapons is what is really needed > to defend against > > mortars, katyusha type rockets, artillery, etc.. > Installed on a > > fighting vehicle capable of firing in motion, > while moving with its > > unit, is what is really needed. Then we just need > IED/mine sniffer > > bots. > > > > --- spike wrote: > > > > > The way this was written in the popular press is > a little > > > confusing. See below: > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Mike Lorrey > > > Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for > Newtonmas > > > > > > > > > http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html? > > > ESRC=dod.nl > > > > > > COOL TECH THIS WEEK: > > > Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered Exoskeleton > Suits > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > A step closer to working ray guns, RoboPike > and RoboTuna, and > > > Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with the > cutting-edge military > > > tech news from the past week. > > > > > > By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, > DefenseTech.org > > > > > > Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns > > > > > > ... The modified 747 > > > Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless > slumber, is beginning to > > > make > > > progress... > > > > > > > > > Im not sure what that comment means. > > > > > > > > > > > > ...More importantly, electric-powered lasers are > finally starting to > > > build > > > up the power they need to work as weapons. In a > few months, > > > researchers > > > at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and > elsewhere plan to test a > > > 25 > > > kilowatt solid-state laser... > > > > > > > > > Starting to build up the power to work as > weapons? Were they joking? > > > The power of the laser is not the recent > breakthru, but rather its > > > the > > > mirror control needed to concentrate that power > at some intermediate > > > distance. Check out the airborne laser mirror > control. > > > > > > > > > ...If those trials work out as expected, the > > > Defense Department will then start handing out > grants for a laser > > > with > > > a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's > widely-considered the > > > threshold > > > for ray gun action to begin... > > > > > > > > > Hmmm, again this comment. Its all about > concentrating the power, > > > not about seeing how much power you can make. > All you need to > > > disable > > > a rocket is to burn a hole in it. No need to > actually blast it to > > > shards, which would endanger the local enemy > troops unnecessarily. > > > Without the rockets and advanced weaponry, they > are harmless as > > > kittens anyway, so there is no need to slay or > injure them. > > > > > > > > > > > > ... One step forward, one step back. The > Airborne Laser's > > > first flight test in two years was cut short > this week, after some > > > "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space News > says a cabin > > > pressure > > > problem was to blame... > > > > > > > > > > > > This comment was made many places, but most of > the time they > > > were not careful to explain that it was not a > problem with > > > the laser itself. The flight crew cabin > pressure is maintained > > > higher than the area where the laser is carried > in case of a leak > > > of the highly toxic materials carried in the > laser. With > > > higher pressure in the cabin, the fumes would > not get to > > > the flight crew. Last I heard, it was a faulty > pressure > > > gage, not an actual failure of the pressure > differential > > > equipment. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Robo-Crappie, Anyone? > > > > > > ...A Japanese toy company has a whole line > > > of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An > ammonite?... > > > > > > > > > If you purchase one of these toy ammonites, you > may > > > not take it to church, for the Book of > Deuteronomy > > > chapter 23 verse 3 saith: > > > > > > "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the > > > congregation of the lord, even to their tenth > > > generation shall they not enter into the > congregation > > > of the lord forever... > > > > > > Well which is it, tenth generation, or forever? > I > > > think the latter, for Nehemiah chapter 13 verse > 1 saith: > > > > > > "...the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come > into > > > the congregation of god forever..." > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Real-Life Exoskeletons Emerge > > > > > > ... article in tomorrow's New York Times > Magazine, > === message truncated === From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 30 22:04:12 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:04:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas In-Reply-To: <20041230212630.41870.qmail@web81606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041230220412.93064.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> As a kid I had one that was essentially a flashlight with a telescoping blade that would recess down to 5-6 inches long. Pretty rugged. --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > One of the cool things about the light sabers was that > you didn't have to store the blade, just the hilt: the > blade went away when not in use. Not true for these > toys. > > --- Kevin Freels wrote: > > > Has anyone here seen the force FX light sabers? I > > know they aren't very > > fancy technologically, but they are WAY cool! > > > > http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/69de/ > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Mike Lorrey" > > To: "ExI chat list" > > Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 2:50 PM > > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > > > > > > > The issue is that while DoD has built megawatt > > lasers, they are > > > typically not in any way transportable. The THEL > > and the ABL are the > > > first deployable laser systems, but they are still > > huge, with the first > > > needing two trailers and the other a 747. While > > the THEL is 100kw, and > > > is close to deployability, it still requires quite > > a bit to set up and > > > can only defend one location and a fixed area > > around it. The 747 ABL is > > > mobile, but is itself a vulnerable target and is > > intended for strategic > > > anti-missile use. > > > > > > Making a truly mobile version at 25-50kw capable > > of unit-level defense > > > against tactical weapons is what is really needed > > to defend against > > > mortars, katyusha type rockets, artillery, etc.. > > Installed on a > > > fighting vehicle capable of firing in motion, > > while moving with its > > > unit, is what is really needed. Then we just need > > IED/mine sniffer > > > bots. > > > > > > --- spike wrote: > > > > > > > The way this was written in the popular press is > > a little > > > > confusing. See below: > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: Mike Lorrey > > > > Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for > > Newtonmas > > > > > > > > > > > > > > http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html? > > > > ESRC=dod.nl > > > > > > > > COOL TECH THIS WEEK: > > > > Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered Exoskeleton > > Suits > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > A step closer to working ray guns, RoboPike > > and RoboTuna, and > > > > Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with the > > cutting-edge military > > > > tech news from the past week. > > > > > > > > By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, > > DefenseTech.org > > > > > > > > Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns > > > > > > > > ... The modified 747 > > > > Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless > > slumber, is beginning to > > > > make > > > > progress... > > > > > > > > > > > > Im not sure what that comment means. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ...More importantly, electric-powered lasers are > > finally starting to > > > > build > > > > up the power they need to work as weapons. In a > > few months, > > > > researchers > > > > at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and > > elsewhere plan to test a > > > > 25 > > > > kilowatt solid-state laser... > > > > > > > > > > > > Starting to build up the power to work as > > weapons? Were they joking? > > > > The power of the laser is not the recent > > breakthru, but rather its > > > > the > > > > mirror control needed to concentrate that power > > at some intermediate > > > > distance. Check out the airborne laser mirror > > control. > > > > > > > > > > > > ...If those trials work out as expected, the > > > > Defense Department will then start handing out > > grants for a laser > > > > with > > > > a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's > > widely-considered the > > > > threshold > > > > for ray gun action to begin... > > > > > > > > > > > > Hmmm, again this comment. Its all about > > concentrating the power, > > > > not about seeing how much power you can make. > > All you need to > > > > disable > > > > a rocket is to burn a hole in it. No need to > > actually blast it to > > > > shards, which would endanger the local enemy > > troops unnecessarily. > > > > Without the rockets and advanced weaponry, they > > are harmless as > > > > kittens anyway, so there is no need to slay or > > injure them. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ... One step forward, one step back. The > > Airborne Laser's > > > > first flight test in two years was cut short > > this week, after some > > > > "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space News > > says a cabin > > > > pressure > > > > problem was to blame... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This comment was made many places, but most of > > the time they > > > > were not careful to explain that it was not a > > problem with > > > > the laser itself. The flight crew cabin > > pressure is maintained > > > > higher than the area where the laser is carried > > in case of a leak > > > > of the highly toxic materials carried in the > > laser. With > > > > higher pressure in the cabin, the fumes would > > not get to > > > > the flight crew. Last I heard, it was a faulty > > pressure > > > > gage, not an actual failure of the pressure > > differential > > > > equipment. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Robo-Crappie, Anyone? > > > > > > > > ...A Japanese toy company has a whole line > > > > of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An > > ammonite?... > > > > > > > > > > > > If you purchase one of these toy ammonites, you > > may > > > > not take it to church, for the Book of > > Deuteronomy > > > > chapter 23 verse 3 saith: > > > > > > > > "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the > > > > congregation of the lord, even to their tenth > > > > generation shall they not enter into the > > congregation > > > > of the lord forever... > > > > > > > > Well which is it, tenth generation, or forever? > > I > > > > think the latter, for Nehemiah chapter 13 verse > > 1 saith: > > > > > > > > "...the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come > > into > > > > the congregation of god forever..." > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Real-Life Exoskeletons Emerge > > > > > > > > ... article in tomorrow's New York Times > > Magazine, > > > === message truncated === > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Dec 30 22:27:25 2004 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:27:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas In-Reply-To: <20041230220412.93064.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041230222725.8238.qmail@web81604.mail.yahoo.com> One would think that would be an obvious way to do it, but strangely this is the first time I've heard of one actually doing it...and certain friends of mine have shown me many "light sabers" over the years. --- Mike Lorrey wrote: > As a kid I had one that was essentially a flashlight > with a telescoping > blade that would recess down to 5-6 inches long. > Pretty rugged. > > --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > One of the cool things about the light sabers was > that > > you didn't have to store the blade, just the hilt: > the > > blade went away when not in use. Not true for > these > > toys. > > > > --- Kevin Freels > wrote: > > > > > Has anyone here seen the force FX light sabers? > I > > > know they aren't very > > > fancy technologically, but they are WAY cool! > > > > > > http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/69de/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Mike Lorrey" > > > To: "ExI chat list" > > > > Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 2:50 PM > > > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for > Newtonmas > > > > > > > > > > The issue is that while DoD has built megawatt > > > lasers, they are > > > > typically not in any way transportable. The > THEL > > > and the ABL are the > > > > first deployable laser systems, but they are > still > > > huge, with the first > > > > needing two trailers and the other a 747. > While > > > the THEL is 100kw, and > > > > is close to deployability, it still requires > quite > > > a bit to set up and > > > > can only defend one location and a fixed area > > > around it. The 747 ABL is > > > > mobile, but is itself a vulnerable target and > is > > > intended for strategic > > > > anti-missile use. > > > > > > > > Making a truly mobile version at 25-50kw > capable > > > of unit-level defense > > > > against tactical weapons is what is really > needed > > > to defend against > > > > mortars, katyusha type rockets, artillery, > etc.. > > > Installed on a > > > > fighting vehicle capable of firing in motion, > > > while moving with its > > > > unit, is what is really needed. Then we just > need > > > IED/mine sniffer > > > > bots. > > > > > > > > --- spike wrote: > > > > > > > > > The way this was written in the popular > press is > > > a little > > > > > confusing. See below: > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > > From: Mike Lorrey > > > > > Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for > > > Newtonmas > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html? > > > > > ESRC=dod.nl > > > > > > > > > > COOL TECH THIS WEEK: > > > > > Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered > Exoskeleton > > > Suits > > > > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > > > A step closer to working ray guns, > RoboPike > > > and RoboTuna, and > > > > > Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with > the > > > cutting-edge military > > > > > tech news from the past week. > > > > > > > > > > By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, > > > DefenseTech.org > > > > > > > > > > Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns > > > > > > > > > > ... The modified 747 > > > > > Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless > > > slumber, is beginning to > > > > > make > > > > > progress... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Im not sure what that comment means. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ...More importantly, electric-powered lasers > are > > > finally starting to > > > > > build > > > > > up the power they need to work as weapons. > In a > > > few months, > > > > > researchers > > > > > at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and > > > elsewhere plan to test a > > > > > 25 > > > > > kilowatt solid-state laser... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Starting to build up the power to work as > > > weapons? Were they joking? > > > > > The power of the laser is not the recent > > > breakthru, but rather its > > > > > the > > > > > mirror control needed to concentrate that > power > > > at some intermediate > > > > > distance. Check out the airborne laser > mirror > > > control. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ...If those trials work out as expected, the > > > > > Defense Department will then start handing > out > > > grants for a laser > > > > > with > > > > > a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's > > > widely-considered the > > > > > threshold > > > > > for ray gun action to begin... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Hmmm, again this comment. Its all about > > > concentrating the power, > > > > > not about seeing how much power you can > make. > > > All you need to > > > > > disable > > > > > a rocket is to burn a hole in it. No need > to > > > actually blast it to > > > > > shards, which would endanger the local enemy > > > troops unnecessarily. > > > > > Without the rockets and advanced weaponry, > they > > > are harmless as > > > > > kittens anyway, so there is no need to slay > or > > > injure them. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ... One step forward, one step back. The > > > Airborne Laser's > > > > > first flight test in two years was cut short > > > this week, after some > > > > > "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space > News > > > says a cabin > > > > > pressure > > > > > problem was to blame... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This comment was made many places, but most > of > > > the time they > > > > > were not careful to explain that it was not > a > > > problem with > > > > > the laser itself. The flight crew cabin > > > pressure is maintained > === message truncated === From nedlt at yahoo.com Thu Dec 30 22:34:21 2004 From: nedlt at yahoo.com (Ned Late) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:34:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <02d601c4eeb1$b6835960$3f1f4842@kevin> Message-ID: <20041230223421.1553.qmail@web61208.mail.yahoo.com> It is in the American national interest to help Indonesia's victims of the Tsunami, since the largest number of Islamics outside the Middle East live in Indonesia. Remember, we're in World War 4 (the Cold War was the 3rd), we need all the Islamics to be on our side that we can get. >For the record, I wrote this comment long before the French pledged a dime. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Thu Dec 30 22:49:11 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:49:11 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas In-Reply-To: <20041230222725.8238.qmail@web81604.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041230222725.8238.qmail@web81604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41D485E7.8040801@humanenhancement.com> Actually I had several light sabers that had the telescoping blades over the years. They weren't nearly as common as the straight-blade sabers, of course. By far the most fun was the double-bladed "Darth Maul" lightsaber. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com Adrian Tymes wrote: >One would think that would be an obvious way to do it, >but strangely this is the first time I've heard of one >actually doing it...and certain friends of mine have >shown me many "light sabers" over the years. > >--- Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > >>As a kid I had one that was essentially a flashlight >>with a telescoping >>blade that would recess down to 5-6 inches long. >>Pretty rugged. >> From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Dec 30 22:53:07 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:53:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <20041230223421.1553.qmail@web61208.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041230225307.71562.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com> What, and give them the opportunity to say we are only doing it to curry favor with islamics? --- Ned Late wrote: > It is in the American national interest to help Indonesia's victims > of the Tsunami, since the largest number of Islamics outside the > Middle East live in Indonesia. Remember, we're in World War 4 (the > Cold War was the 3rd), we need all the Islamics to be on our side > that we can get. > > >For the record, I wrote this comment long before the French pledged > a dime. > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more.> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send a seasonal email greeting and help others. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Dec 30 23:33:29 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:33:29 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Funniest chemical weapon around In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041230112705.01a83b30@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <000001c4eec8$00edf080$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Damien Broderick Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Funniest chemical weapon around At 09:19 AM 12/30/2004 -0800, Adrian wrote: > > http://www.thememoryblog.org/archives/000382.html > >It would adversely affect their discipline (if they >had any - rogue bands of insurgents aren't known for >being highly trained, Shouldn't that be `rouge bands'? Damien Broderick It has been done, by CIA to the Cambodians in the 1970s. The effected soldiers applied the facial makeup to their cheeks, which is thought to have given rise to the term "pinko commie." These soldiers soon began to refer to each other familiarly as "rouges." When one such Cambodian soldier wished to summon another, he was often heard to utter "Hey! Khmer, Rouge!" spike From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com Fri Dec 31 01:32:39 2004 From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:32:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Helping Sri Lanka, Request from Arthur C. Clarke - Transhumanist Global Relief Message-ID: <20041231013239.92003.qmail@web41305.mail.yahoo.com> Dear friends, Those of you who still have not contributed, please do so now. And if you have already contributed, please consider this Transhumanist Global Relief initiative described below by Natasha:-) Transhumanistically yours, La vie est belle! Yos? ------------------------------------------------------- Friends, futurists and colleagues, Arthur C. Clarke has asked that we help with those who have suffered the enormous devastation in Sri Lanka. While there are many places we can go to online to contribute money, what is sorely needed right now are cloths, medicine and other items which you might be able to provide. Jose Cordeiro, Director of Extropy Institute, and I have created a transhumanist global relief, which will be sending packages to Sri Lanka. Certainly there are many in the area which could benefit, but I'd like to start with choosing one spot and focusing on getting aid to these people. If you can help, please send me your items (list below) and I will package them together and send to Sri Lanka. Please label your packages to: Extropy Institute Transhumanist Global Relief - Sri Lanka 10709 Pointe View Drive Austin, Texas 78738 If you need to call: 512.263.2749 List of items needed: We need cloths, dry food and first aid items: http://www.sarvodaya.lk/Inside_Page/urgently%20needed.htm Anything else you think would be helpful is appreciated. Excerpt from Arthur C. Clarke's message: "... This is indeed a disaster of unprecedented magnitude for Sri Lanka, which lacks the resources and capacity to cope with the aftermath. We are encouraging concerned friends to contribute to the relief efforts launched by various national and international organisations. If you wish to join these efforts, I can recommend two options. - Contribute to a Sri Lanka disaster relief fund launched by an internationally operating humanitarian charity, such as Care or Oxfam. - Alternatively, considering supporting Sarvodaya, the largest development charity in Sri Lanka, which has a 45-year track record in reaching out and helping the poorest of the poor. Sarvodaya has mounted a well organised, countrywide relief effort using their countrywide network of offices ! and volunteers who work in all parts of the country, well above ethnic and other divisions. Their website, www.sarvodaya.lk, provides bank account details for financial donations. They also welcome contributions in kind -- a list of urgently needed items is found at: http://www.sarvodaya.lk/Inside_Page/urgently%20needed.htm ..." Arthur Clarke 29 December 2004 _______________________ Thank you for your generous contributions. Natasha Natasha Vita-More http://www.natasha.cc La vie est belle! Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra, Solar System, Milky Way, Multiverse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhanson at gmu.edu Fri Dec 31 03:00:32 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:00:32 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041230214553.02e34bd0@mail.gmu.edu> [Back from vacation, I can continue our conversation. RH] On 12/23/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >>Did you actually go look at the IEM web site and the many papers they >>have there? If so, you might have found: >>http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/archive/forecasting.pdf > >This paper claims that existing evidence only shows the Iowa markets >predicting elections 24 hours before the election. They claim that no >evidence has been seen or analysis performed on longer-term >predictions. I don't think you actually read the paper. Try Table 3, "all years" column, first section. It shows that our of 596 comparisons, their market beat polls 451 times. This data is *not* just 24 hours ahead. >Given such an admission, I had (have?) high hopes that this new paper >would give such evidence. However, it has been in "working draft" >stage for two and a half years, and was never actually completed, >peer-reviewed and finally published. If tis paper is providing the >proof, why has it never been finished? You also seem to have no idea how academic publishing works. I'm sure they have been submitting the paper places and it has so far been rejected. That's how things go in academia. Most of us have perfectly good papers that have been rejected for several years. >The data presented in this paper shows very small sample sizes and very >large variability with no consistency between elections. ... 596 is small? The columns of that table describe different elections, with relatively consistent results IMO. >>Did you look at any of the papers mentioning such claims and look up >>their citations? >>For example, re an extropian angle you might have found: >>http://hanson.gmu.edu/moretrue.pdf > >Nice paper *about* predictions, but little evidence of historical >success or specific methods. I said to look at the papers *cited* by that paper. It is not my job to go look up every relevant item, and spoon feed you a URL or a quote, and then explain them all via long emails. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From nedlt at yahoo.com Fri Dec 31 03:01:25 2004 From: nedlt at yahoo.com (Ned Late) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:01:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] sri lanka tsunami In-Reply-To: <20041230225307.71562.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041231030125.3935.qmail@web61205.mail.yahoo.com> Who cares what they think. Did FDR or Churchill care what anybody thought? No. Neither does Bush. Mike Lorrey wrote: What, and give them the opportunity to say we are only doing it to curry favor with islamics? --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhanson at gmu.edu Fri Dec 31 03:05:53 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:05:53 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <1EF47D70-5510-11D9-90E4-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <0b0a01c4e8a3$befe0bd0$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061932.02cc2420@mail.gmu.edu> <1EF47D70-5510-11D9-90E4-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041230220231.02e43af8@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/23/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >>It is already legal in the sense that if you spent a million dollars >>going through the usual hoops to lobby the CFTC you could do it. > >What about a non-market service that does something similar? ... Anybody >can sell research reports supporting a particular prediction. ... All >reports purchased through this website have a double-your-money-back >guarantee. ... Note that I am not a lawyer! But in my non-expert >opinion, this is not betting or investing. ... In our society, it is the opinion of lawyers that counts when the question is what acts are legal. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Fri Dec 31 03:16:00 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:16:00 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Collateral public good In-Reply-To: <20041223225120.31523.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <0d2e01c4e93d$c6c56a80$b8232dcb@homepc> <20041223225120.31523.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041230221256.02e47818@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/23/2004, Mike Lorrey responded to Hal Finney: > >> Anyone who can see the market prices gains value from this information > >> about the future. In that sense, running a futures market is a public > good. > >That any market provides positive externalities to all doesn't make it >a public good. ... >A public good is something which cannot pay for itself without the >state using its authority to make everyone 'pay their fair share'. Economists are not consistent in their use of the phrase "public good". Hal is correct using a broad definition, and Mike is correct using his (unusual) narrow definition. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Fri Dec 31 03:28:37 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:28:37 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Real money betting markets In-Reply-To: <20041223231648.CEDA457E2B@finney.org> References: <20041223231648.CEDA457E2B@finney.org> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041230221734.02e4d000@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/23/2004, Hal Finney wrote: >Now, from ten years of playing the play-money IF game, Foresight >Exchange, www.ideosphere.com , I will say that it is much harder than you >might think to create good, bettable and judgeable claims. ... I agree that there are real costs to creating good claims. The cost of creating the first claim on a topic can be higher than the cost of creating later related claims on a topic, and so there are potential scale economies. I've been toying with how one might create set of claims to cover a wide range of possibilities regarding dark matter/energy (DME). News about DME seems to be the most likely big news in physics/cosmology over the next ten years or so, and I have heard several physicists express private skepticism about the supposed "consensus" on these topics they read about in the newspapers. Assuming DME will be composed of various particles, one could bet on various physical properties of these particles, such as their number density, mass, spin, and charges. One might denote these as yet unknown particles via their relative mass. That is M1 = the one that contributes the largest mass fraction, M2 = the one that contributes the second largest mass fraction, and so on. Haven't thought about this very much yet though. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Fri Dec 31 03:39:26 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:39:26 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: anomalies and science In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041227183449.01acd078@pop-server.satx.rr.com> References: <20041227201729.A3A1A57E2B@finney.org> <0f8c01c4ec74$092e5790$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.1.1.1.0.20041227183449.01acd078@pop-server.satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041230223005.02e3d908@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/27/2004, Damien Broderick responded to Hal Finney and Brett: >>>Rejecting scientific consensus on the basis of personal investigation >>>of the facts and evidence is likely to fail, paradoxical as it may seem. >>>That's just how the world works. >> >>Yet all progress in science depends on some scientists being willing >>to take the opposite view. > >Not the *opposite* view, necessarily, but often one at an odd angle ... >My problem with Hal's formulation is that it seems to imply that a >`scientific consensus' is the same as a `consensus of recognized or >certificated scientists', which is often the case but fails when an >audacious or moldy hypothesis is rejected in a kneejerk fashion by many >who haven't bothered to do their due diligence. ... Yes a social consensus that combines individual opinions should be on average be more accurate than the individual opinions. But there are often several competing social consenses to choose from, such as academia, news media, official government agencies, and so on. There are even several different ways to cash out a "scientific consensus." This means we must ask which consensus is on average more accurate. For all the strong claims often made, there is surprisingly little systematic data on this question. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Dec 31 05:49:21 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:49:21 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night) In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041230220231.02e43af8@mail.gmu.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222181203.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <0b0a01c4e8a3$befe0bd0$b8232dcb@homepc> <6.2.0.14.2.20041223061932.02cc2420@mail.gmu.edu> <1EF47D70-5510-11D9-90E4-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041230220231.02e43af8@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: On Dec 30, 2004, at 10:05 PM, Robin Hanson wrote: > On 12/23/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >>> It is already legal in the sense that if you spent a million dollars >>> going through the usual hoops to lobby the CFTC you could do it. >> >> What about a non-market service that does something similar? ... >> Anybody can sell research reports supporting a particular prediction. >> ... All reports purchased through this website have a >> double-your-money-back guarantee. ... Note that I am not a lawyer! >> But in my non-expert opinion, this is not betting or investing. ... > > In our society, it is the opinion of lawyers that counts when the > question is what acts are legal. Agreed! That is why I put my disclaimer that I am not a lawyer! -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Dec 31 05:50:45 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:50:45 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041230214553.02e34bd0@mail.gmu.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <6.2.0.14.2.20041230214553.02e34bd0@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: On Dec 30, 2004, at 10:00 PM, Robin Hanson wrote: > I don't think you actually read the paper. Try Table 3, "all years" > column, first section. It shows that our of 596 comparisons, their > market beat polls 451 times. This data is *not* just 24 hours ahead. I read the paper. It stated that "existing" evidence failed to demonstrate predictions more than 24 hours before the election. By "existing" evidence, it refers to prior evidence. It claimed that prior analyses had never been attempted and that prior evidence had never been achieved. This paper claimed that it would be the first attempt at such analysis and present the first evidence for the first time. My point was that they claimed there were no other sources of such evidence except for this paper. > You also seem to have no idea how academic publishing works. I'm sure > they have been submitting the paper places and it has so far been > rejected. That's how things go in academia. Most of us have perfectly > good papers that have been rejected for several years. I am sorry to hear that. As a published technical author, I know it is hard. But that doesn't change the fact that this is still an unpublished, unfinished, draft manuscript, that has not been peer-reviewed or reproduced by others. Even if this is no one's fault, it still has not yet reached the level of "proof" that you seem to ascribe to it. > 596 is small? No, but the table with four elections that I cited is. I also explained how they used an average over a poll, but took a single last-date number for the market. The fact that their later number beats earlier poll numbers didn't impress me that much. Likewise, knowing the number of times they beat the market in this way, but not by how much doesn't impress me that much either. We could see a count of their claim for how often they were right, but not the actual data for our own review of how right, how often, and how they defined right. Their dates also seemed to be arbitrarily chosen, possibly to show good examples, instead of using regularly spaced days or all days for analysis. So while you can give some examples that aren't small or flawed, that doesn't refute other examples that are small and are dubious. > It is not my job to go look up every relevant item, and spoon feed you > a URL or a quote, > and then explain them all via long emails. It is when you want to win an argument based on proof that you can't seem to find at the moment. I concede that maybe there is proof, maybe you have seen it, but maybe you can't remember exactly where it is right now, and you are too busy to look for it. But frankly, so am I. If you can't quote it off the top of your head as an expert in the field, and the Iowa market claims no such proof outside their single paper exists, and I haven't been able to find it in my previous searches either, then I have little interest in going on another fishing expedition right now. I fully concede that Iowa markets might predict elections. I believe markets are a public opinion poll, as are elections. I makes perfect sense that they should be correlated. I am just surprised that nobody is using this tool to predict future elections for great financial gain if they really are working as expected. i was l looking for a quick explanation why this isn't happening, and haven't found one yet. No big deal, I guess. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From harara at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 31 07:16:52 2004 From: harara at sbcglobal.net (Hara Ra) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:16:52 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] A Proposed End-Goal: Justice Maximism In-Reply-To: <5B464DEDC661F724C8069D45F76C788D@weg9mq.centralmail.zzn.co m> References: <5B464DEDC661F724C8069D45F76C788D@weg9mq.centralmail.zzn.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.1.20041230231355.029303f8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Thanks for your transhumanist manifesto, but I have two concerns: 1. Is this a troll? 2. This is too close to the old 'eugenics' of the 20s and 30s for my comfort. "Edward Smith" wrote: >Generally, the primary purpose of transhumanism is to increase >the efficiency of human functioning by modifying the human >genome of zygotes, ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hemm at openlink.com.br Fri Dec 31 10:59:37 2004 From: hemm at openlink.com.br (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 08:59:37 -0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas References: <20041230220412.93064.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <07e501c4ef27$d196a3d0$fe00a8c0@HEMM> For those who know the Babylon5 series, that Minbari retractable spear would also be an interesting thing to carry around. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Lorrey" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 8:04 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > As a kid I had one that was essentially a flashlight with a telescoping > blade that would recess down to 5-6 inches long. Pretty rugged. From eugen at leitl.org Fri Dec 31 13:13:08 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:13:08 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: [silk] Donating fopr tsunami (fwd from thaths@gmail.com) Message-ID: <20041231131307.GU9221@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from Thaths ----- From: Thaths Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:23:24 +0530 To: silklist at lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] Donating fopr tsunami User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (X11/20041206) Reply-To: silklist at lists.hserus.net Biju Chacko wrote: >Madhu Menon wrote: >>OK, I want to donate a good chunk of change to the relief effort, but >>don't want to give it to the "Prime Minister's Relief Fund" just to >>see it siphoned off into some arsehole's pocket. >Ideally, I'd like to make my donations in kind rather than cash. From what I saw in Cuddalore there are three types of needs of people: 1. Short term. Food, clothing, blankets, medicines, temporary shelter. This is being attended to swimmingly in Cuddalore. 2. Medium term. Temporary shelter for people to move back to their villages, community kitchens, pots and pans, identification papers and documents, groceries for the interim. The government and NGOs have begun to mobilize on this one. I expect this need will exist for at least another month. 3. Long term. Counsellings, schools rebuilding, Career development for those that do not want to fish any more, construction of houses, buying of boats, etc. This is where I see problems. Donor fatigue would have set in and the government would have moved on to fight some other battle. The reporters would have gone someplace else to report on some man biting a dog and the NGOs would have gone with their logo-ed t-shirts to hang around the camera crew. I really think professionals (civil engineers, sanitation experts, psychology and psychiatric counsellors) are very needed during this period. Thaths -- Lisa: Dad, I think that's pretty spurious. Homer: Well, thank you, honey. Slacker Without Borders http://openscroll.org/ Key fingerprint = 8A 84 2E 67 10 9A 64 03 24 38 B6 AB 1B 6E 8C E4 ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jbloch at humanenhancement.com Fri Dec 31 13:22:38 2004 From: jbloch at humanenhancement.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 08:22:38 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas In-Reply-To: <07e501c4ef27$d196a3d0$fe00a8c0@HEMM> References: <20041230220412.93064.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> <07e501c4ef27$d196a3d0$fe00a8c0@HEMM> Message-ID: <41D5529E.8080304@humanenhancement.com> lol! I have one (plastic) sitting in my closet upstairs. Joseph Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": http://www.humanenhancement.com Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: >For those who know the Babylon5 series, that Minbari retractable spear would also be an interesting thing to carry around. > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Mike Lorrey" >To: "ExI chat list" >Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 8:04 PM >Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > > > > >>As a kid I had one that was essentially a flashlight with a telescoping >>blade that would recess down to 5-6 inches long. Pretty rugged. >> >> > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > From rhanson at gmu.edu Fri Dec 31 14:20:32 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 09:20:32 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <6.2.0.14.2.20041230214553.02e34bd0@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041231085452.02cf3470@mail.gmu.edu> On 22 Dec, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >Has anyone gotten any evidence that futures markets really can predict the >future? I keep hearing the Iowa markets referenced as predicting >political elections, but I can't see it in their historical data. >Everything I found seems to show bad results or regular flip-flopping to >the point that they don't predict anything. I would sure love to see real >historical data showing predictions. I pointed Harvey to a specific table in a specific paper with URL and on 31 Dec, he wrote: >But that doesn't change the fact that this is still an unpublished, >unfinished, draft manuscript, that has not been peer-reviewed or >reproduced by others. Even if this is no one's fault, it still has not >yet reached the level of "proof" that you seem to ascribe to it. I also pointed him to a paper of mine with cites to seven evidence papers. He responded: >>It is not my job to go look up every relevant item, and spoon feed you a >>URL or a quote, >>and then explain them all via long emails. > >It is when you want to win an argument based on proof that you can't seem >to find at the moment. ... If you can't quote it off the top of your head >as an expert in the field, ... I am just surprised that nobody is using >this tool to predict future elections for great financial gain if they >really are working as expected. i was l looking for a quick explanation >why this isn't happening, and haven't found one yet. ... Harvey initially asked for "any evidence", I point him to many papers, published in many different ways. He complains that one of them is not peer-review published yet, and so doesn't count as "proof", and that the other papers don't count as "proof" unless I spoon-feed and explain them to him. For the record, the relevant paragraph from my http://hanson.gmu.edu/moretrue.pdf is: >Decades of research on financial markets have shown that it is hard to >find biases in >market estimates. The few direct comparisons made so far have found >markets to be at least >as accurate as other institutions. Orange Juice futures improve on >National Weather Service >forecasts (Roll, 1984), horse race markets beat horse race experts >(Figlewski, 1979), Oscar >markets beat columnist forecasts (Pennock, Giles, & Nielsen, 2001), gas >demand markets >beat gas demand experts (Spencer, 2004), stock markets beat the official >NASA panel at >fingering the guilty company in the Challenger accident (Maloney & >Mulherin, 2003), election >markets beat national opinion polls (Berg, Nelson, & Rietz, 2001), and >corporate sales >markets beat official corporate forecasts (Chen & Plott, 1998). Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From eugen at leitl.org Fri Dec 31 14:29:55 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 15:29:55 +0100 Subject: [silk] Re: [extropy-chat] Sir Arthur C. Clarke and the Sri Lankan tsunami (fwd from dgc@cox.net) (fwd from suresh@hserus.net) Message-ID: <20041231142955.GA9221@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from Suresh Ramasubramanian ----- From: Suresh Ramasubramanian Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:48:45 +0530 To: silklist at lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] Re: [extropy-chat] Sir Arthur C. Clarke and the Sri Lankan tsunami (fwd from dgc at cox.net) Organization: -ENOENT User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (X11/20041220) Reply-To: silklist at lists.hserus.net Eugen Leitl wrote: >Unfortunately, the problem isn't money. If you wrote a check for >$1Billion, today, there would be no way to spend it to save lives today. >What is needed instantly, in the following order of criticality, is: >Potable water >Water purifiers Food is easily available, as are bobcats / jcbs etc - locally sourced. Money's needed to kickstart the economy, and to buy food / hire bulldozers locally ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 31 14:51:19 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 06:51:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Collateral public good In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041230221256.02e47818@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <20041231145119.25961.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> --- Robin Hanson wrote: > On 12/23/2004, Mike Lorrey responded to Hal Finney: > > >> Anyone who can see the market prices gains value from this > information > > >> about the future. In that sense, running a futures market is a > public > > good. > > > >That any market provides positive externalities to all doesn't make > >it a public good. ... > >A public good is something which cannot pay for itself without the > >state using its authority to make everyone 'pay their fair share'. > > Economists are not consistent in their use of the phrase "public > good". Hal is correct using a broad definition, and Mike is correct > using his (unusual) narrow definition. Thanks, Robin. Now, from my reading of Blackwell's Commentaries on the Law, I understand that there are rights and wrongs of both people and things. If there does exist a public good, shouldn't there also be a public bad? ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Dec 31 16:04:20 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:04:20 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <6.2.0.14.2.20041230214553.02e34bd0@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: My biggest concern with the Iowa market paper is with their methodology. For multi-day polls, they take the average of all days to represent the poll. They then compare this with the last value on the last day for the Iowa market. That means that earlier predictions from the poll are being compared with later predictions from the market. Assuming that the markets get more accurate as we get closer to the election, the Iowa market has an unfair advantage using this method. Worse yet, we can test this methodology by running an identical set of test data through it. If we were to give this methodology identical data for both polls and the market, we would find it claiming the market as the winner in most cases, even though they should be a tie in all cases. We would have to rig our test data to give the polls better results than the market to get this methodology to declare them even. We would have to rig our test data to give the polls even better results than that to get this methodology to declare the polls as winning. In short, their methodology is flawed. It misrepresents the market as beating the polls even when it isn't. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From spike66 at comcast.net Fri Dec 31 16:13:01 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 08:13:01 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] pest-devouring automaton In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.1.20041230231355.029303f8@pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000001c4ef53$9a436a90$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Hey cool, I want one. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/12/27/explorers.ecobot/index.html Seems a short leap to a device which devours ants and roaches as well. spike ================================== = Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob) = = harara at sbcglobal.net = = Alcor North Cryomanagement = = Alcor Advisor to Board = = 831 429 8637 = ================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Dec 31 16:31:09 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:31:09 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041231085452.02cf3470@mail.gmu.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.0.20041222122626.019edec0@pop-server.satx.rr.com> <0a8001c4e871$0901fc10$b8232dcb@homepc> <5969EE4A-5473-11D9-AD89-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20041222190429.02b74820@mail.gmu.edu> <6.2.0.14.2.20041230214553.02e34bd0@mail.gmu.edu> <6.2.0.14.2.20041231085452.02cf3470@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <6084F048-5B49-11D9-B081-000A27960BC6@HarveyNewstrom.com> On Dec 31, 2004, at 9:20 AM, Robin Hanson wrote: > I pointed Harvey to a specific table in a specific paper with URL and > on 31 Dec, he wrote: >> But that doesn't change the fact that this is still an unpublished, >> unfinished, draft manuscript, that has not been peer-reviewed or >> reproduced by others. Even if this is no one's fault, it still has >> not yet reached the level of "proof" that you seem to ascribe to it. Both true, but you are combining unrelated paragraphs. The above answer was not my response to the above question. > Harvey initially asked for "any evidence", I point him to many papers, > published in many different ways. He complains that one of them is > not peer-review published yet, and so doesn't count as "proof", and > that the other papers don't count as "proof" unless I spoon-feed and > explain them to him. I don't want random "evidence". i want evidence of your claim about the Iowa Markets. All but one of your papers were off-topic. I never said unpublished papers don't count. Again, you are connecting unrelated responses. I pointed out that this paper was unpublished and that it claimed no previous papers had been published. This was not my explanation as to why its methodology was flawed. I never said papers don't count unless you spoon-feed them and explain them to me. This was an insulting straw-man caricature that you invented to represent my position. For the record, the relevant paragraph from my http://hanson.gmu.edu/moretrue.pdf is: >> Decades of research on financial markets have shown that it is hard >> to find biases in >> market estimates. The few direct comparisons made so far have found >> markets to be at least >> as accurate as other institutions. Sorry. "At least as accurate" doesn't cut it. Your claim was that the Iowa market beats the polls. Where is that evidence? >> Orange Juice futures improve on National Weather Service >> forecasts (Roll, 1984), horse race markets beat horse race experts >> (Figlewski, 1979), Oscar >> markets beat columnist forecasts (Pennock, Giles, & Nielsen, 2001), >> gas demand markets >> beat gas demand experts (Spencer, 2004), stock markets beat the >> official NASA panel at >> fingering the guilty company in the Challenger accident (Maloney & >> Mulherin, 2003), election >> markets beat national opinion polls (Berg, Nelson, & Rietz, 2001), >> and corporate sales >> markets beat official corporate forecasts (Chen & Plott, 1998). Again, these are random citations about random market successes. None of these discuss the Iowa markets or your claims for it. You seem to be throwing out generic citations about markets in general. Do you have anything specifically showing that the Iowa market beats polls? -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 31 17:06:07 2004 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:06:07 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas References: <20041230212630.41870.qmail@web81606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004301c4ef5b$053c5940$1a974c44@kevin> True, but holding and swinging one of these around is an entirely different experience from the collapsing cone toys. This is more of a display item you would take down and hand to someone on occasion. I was thinking of buying an extra one and taking it apart to see if I could somehow make it work right. I have read that the blade is simply a white sheet covered in phosphoresent ink that glows when a current is applied. There is a plastic tube surrounding this, then another protective tube outside that. It may be possible to adapt this to the collapsing cone design of the toys and make a truly spectacular entrance to a Halloween party next year! lol ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrian Tymes" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 3:26 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > One of the cool things about the light sabers was that > you didn't have to store the blade, just the hilt: the > blade went away when not in use. Not true for these > toys. > > --- Kevin Freels wrote: > > > Has anyone here seen the force FX light sabers? I > > know they aren't very > > fancy technologically, but they are WAY cool! > > > > http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/69de/ > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Mike Lorrey" > > To: "ExI chat list" > > Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 2:50 PM > > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > > > > > > > The issue is that while DoD has built megawatt > > lasers, they are > > > typically not in any way transportable. The THEL > > and the ABL are the > > > first deployable laser systems, but they are still > > huge, with the first > > > needing two trailers and the other a 747. While > > the THEL is 100kw, and > > > is close to deployability, it still requires quite > > a bit to set up and > > > can only defend one location and a fixed area > > around it. The 747 ABL is > > > mobile, but is itself a vulnerable target and is > > intended for strategic > > > anti-missile use. > > > > > > Making a truly mobile version at 25-50kw capable > > of unit-level defense > > > against tactical weapons is what is really needed > > to defend against > > > mortars, katyusha type rockets, artillery, etc.. > > Installed on a > > > fighting vehicle capable of firing in motion, > > while moving with its > > > unit, is what is really needed. Then we just need > > IED/mine sniffer > > > bots. > > > > > > --- spike wrote: > > > > > > > The way this was written in the popular press is > > a little > > > > confusing. See below: > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: Mike Lorrey > > > > Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for > > Newtonmas > > > > > > > > > > > > > > http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html? > > > > ESRC=dod.nl > > > > > > > > COOL TECH THIS WEEK: > > > > Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered Exoskeleton > > Suits > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > A step closer to working ray guns, RoboPike > > and RoboTuna, and > > > > Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with the > > cutting-edge military > > > > tech news from the past week. > > > > > > > > By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, > > DefenseTech.org > > > > > > > > Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns > > > > > > > > ... The modified 747 > > > > Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless > > slumber, is beginning to > > > > make > > > > progress... > > > > > > > > > > > > Im not sure what that comment means. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ...More importantly, electric-powered lasers are > > finally starting to > > > > build > > > > up the power they need to work as weapons. In a > > few months, > > > > researchers > > > > at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and > > elsewhere plan to test a > > > > 25 > > > > kilowatt solid-state laser... > > > > > > > > > > > > Starting to build up the power to work as > > weapons? Were they joking? > > > > The power of the laser is not the recent > > breakthru, but rather its > > > > the > > > > mirror control needed to concentrate that power > > at some intermediate > > > > distance. Check out the airborne laser mirror > > control. > > > > > > > > > > > > ...If those trials work out as expected, the > > > > Defense Department will then start handing out > > grants for a laser > > > > with > > > > a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's > > widely-considered the > > > > threshold > > > > for ray gun action to begin... > > > > > > > > > > > > Hmmm, again this comment. Its all about > > concentrating the power, > > > > not about seeing how much power you can make. > > All you need to > > > > disable > > > > a rocket is to burn a hole in it. No need to > > actually blast it to > > > > shards, which would endanger the local enemy > > troops unnecessarily. > > > > Without the rockets and advanced weaponry, they > > are harmless as > > > > kittens anyway, so there is no need to slay or > > injure them. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ... One step forward, one step back. The > > Airborne Laser's > > > > first flight test in two years was cut short > > this week, after some > > > > "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space News > > says a cabin > > > > pressure > > > > problem was to blame... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This comment was made many places, but most of > > the time they > > > > were not careful to explain that it was not a > > problem with > > > > the laser itself. The flight crew cabin > > pressure is maintained > > > > higher than the area where the laser is carried > > in case of a leak > > > > of the highly toxic materials carried in the > > laser. With > > > > higher pressure in the cabin, the fumes would > > not get to > > > > the flight crew. Last I heard, it was a faulty > > pressure > > > > gage, not an actual failure of the pressure > > differential > > > > equipment. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Robo-Crappie, Anyone? > > > > > > > > ...A Japanese toy company has a whole line > > > > of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An > > ammonite?... > > > > > > > > > > > > If you purchase one of these toy ammonites, you > > may > > > > not take it to church, for the Book of > > Deuteronomy > > > > chapter 23 verse 3 saith: > > > > > > > > "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the > > > > congregation of the lord, even to their tenth > > > > generation shall they not enter into the > > congregation > > > > of the lord forever... > > > > > > > > Well which is it, tenth generation, or forever? > > I > > > > think the latter, for Nehemiah chapter 13 verse > > 1 saith: > > > > > > > > "...the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come > > into > > > > the congregation of god forever..." > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Real-Life Exoskeletons Emerge > > > > > > > > ... article in tomorrow's New York Times > > Magazine, > > > === message truncated === > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From rhanson at gmu.edu Fri Dec 31 17:19:10 2004 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 12:19:10 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Collateral public good In-Reply-To: <20041231145119.25961.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> References: <6.2.0.14.2.20041230221256.02e47818@mail.gmu.edu> <20041231145119.25961.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20041231121625.02ca09d8@mail.gmu.edu> On 12/31/2004, Mike Lorrey wrote: > > Economists are not consistent in their use of the phrase "public > > good". Hal is correct using a broad definition, and Mike is correct > > using his (unusual) narrow definition. > >Thanks, Robin. Now, from my reading of Blackwell's Commentaries on the >Law, I understand that there are rights and wrongs of both people and >things. If there does exist a public good, shouldn't there also be a >public bad? Of course. You just flip a sign in the model. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From scerir at libero.it Fri Dec 31 17:23:17 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 18:23:17 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Putting the tsunami into context References: Message-ID: <001701c4ef5d$6b1b6150$fcba1b97@administxl09yj> As to "putting the tsunami into context" I think there are problems, or perhaps meta-problems, regarding the following ..... s. ----------------- "Within minutes following an alarm signaling the strong earthquake, the NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued an information bulletin to nations in the Pacific at 8:14 p.m. EST Saturday, indicating that a magnitude 8.0 earthquake (later upgraded to magnitude 9.0) had occurred off the west coast of Northern Sumatra, Indonesia. Because the earthquake, reported to be one of the strongest in the world in the past 40 years, occurred in the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific, there was no threat of a tsunami to Hawaii, the West Coast of North America or to other coasts in the Pacific Basin - the U.S. area of responsibility." http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2357.htm ************************************************************ Following messages are taken from http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/olderwmsg ************************************************************ TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001 PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS ISSUED AT 0114Z 26 DEC 2004 THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA. .................. TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN .................. THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING OR WATCH IN EFFECT. AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004 COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA MAGNITUDE - 8.0 EVALUATION THIS EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC. NO DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS BASED ON HISTORICAL EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA. THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE. THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE BULLETINS FOR ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA. ************************************************************** TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 002 PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS ISSUED AT 0204Z 26 DEC 2004 THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA. .................. TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN .................. ATTENTION: NOTE REVISED MAGNITUDE. THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING OR WATCH IN EFFECT. AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004 COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA MAGNITUDE - 8.5 EVALUATION REVISED MAGNITUDE BASED ON ANALYSIS OF MANTLE WAVES. THIS EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC. NO DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS FOR THE PACIFIC BASIN BASED ON HISTORICAL EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA. THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF A TSUNAMI NEAR THE EPICENTER. THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE. THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE BULLETINS FOR ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA. ************************************************************** TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 003 PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS ISSUED AT 1535Z 27 DEC 2004 THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA. .................. TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN .................. THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING OR WATCH IN EFFECT. AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004 COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA MAGNITUDE - 9.0 EVALUATION SOME ENERGY FROM YESTERDAYS TSUNAMI IN THE INDIAN OCEAN HAS LEAKED INTO THE PACIFIC BASIN... PROBABLY FROM SOUTH OF THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. THIS ENERGY HAS PRODUCED MINOR SEA LEVEL FLUCTUATIONS AT MANY PLACES IN THE PACIFIC. FOR EXAMPLE... 50 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT CALLAO CHILE 19 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT IQUIQUE CHILE 13 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT PAGO PAGO AMERICAN SAMOA 11 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT SUVA FIJI 50 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT WAITANGI CHATHAM IS NEW ZEALAND 65 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT JACKSON BAY NEW ZEALAND 18 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT PORT VILA VANUATU 06 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT HILO HAWAII USA 22 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT SAN DIEGO CALIFORNIA USA HOWEVER... AT MANZANILLO MEXICO SEA LEVEL FLUCTUATIONS WERE AS MUCH AS 2.6 METERS CREST-TO-TROUGH PROBABLY DUE TO FOCUSING OF ENERGY BY THE EAST PACIFIC RISE AS WELL AS LOCAL RESONANCES. THIS IS TO ADVISE THAT SMALL SEA LEVEL CHANGES COULD CONTINUE TO BE OBSERVED ACROSS THE PACIFIC OVER THE NEXT DAY OR TWO UNTIL ALL ENERGY FROM THIS EVENT IS EVENTUALLY DISSIPATED. THIS WILL BE THE FINAL BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE. THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE BULLETINS FOR ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA. From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 31 17:50:03 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 09:50:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Collateral public good In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20041231121625.02ca09d8@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <20041231175003.17060.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Robin Hanson wrote: > On 12/31/2004, Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > Economists are not consistent in their use of the phrase "public > > > good". Hal is correct using a broad definition, and Mike is > correct > > > using his (unusual) narrow definition. > > > >Thanks, Robin. Now, from my reading of Blackwell's Commentaries on > the > >Law, I understand that there are rights and wrongs of both people > and > >things. If there does exist a public good, shouldn't there also be a > >public bad? > > Of course. You just flip a sign in the model. Forgive my ignorance, but what would you describe as examples of public bads....? ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From scerir at libero.it Fri Dec 31 18:07:22 2004 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 19:07:22 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Putting the tsunami into context References: <001701c4ef5d$6b1b6150$fcba1b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <000601c4ef63$93919950$fcba1b97@administxl09yj> "NOAA scientists then began an effort to notify countries about the possibility that a tsunami may have been triggered by the massive 9.0 undersea earthquake. The Pacific Basin tsunami warning system did not detect a tsunami in the Indian Ocean since there are no buoys in place there. Even without a way to detect whether a tsunami had formed in the Indian Ocean, NOAA officials tried to get the message out to other nations not a part of its Pacific warning system to alert them of the possibility of a tsunami." http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2358.htm It seems interesting to know how those South Asian countries reacted to these informations coming from NOAA! The UNESCO for a world-wide tsunami warning system http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=24336&URL_DO= DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html From hal at finney.org Fri Dec 31 18:25:51 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 10:25:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night Message-ID: <20041231182551.4568E57E2B@finney.org> Often in debates online we run into a problem where people feel that their positions are being misrepresented and that the other side is erecting strawman arguments. These disputes become unproductive and distract from the primary issue being debated. The purpose of debate, after all, is to help everyone to achieve a better understanding of the issues, by presenting challenges to the arguments from all sides. A challenge to an irrelevant argument wastes everyone's time. Some years ago someone here suggested a mechanism to reduce the incidence of such distractions. That is to go back into the archives and to quote, as much as possible, from the original postings. If you do want to characterize something that was said, fine, but do so only in the context of also posting a direct quote. Then when you characterize it, readers can judge the accuracy of the characterization. There is still the problem of quotes taken out of context, but if you quote at least a paragraph or so then that should address most context issues. As an example, in the debate about the effectiveness of futures markets, one issue which has come up is what exactly the question is. Is it about the effectiveness of futures markets generally vs other institutions? Or is it about the narrow issue of the Iowa Electronic Markets? Harvey originally posted, from http://www.lucifer.com/pipermail/extropy-chat/2004-December/012182.html : > Has anyone gotten any evidence that futures markets really can predict > the future? I keep hearing the Iowa markets referenced as predicting > political elections, but I can't see it in their historical data. > Everything I found seems to show bad results or regular flip-flopping > to the point that they don't predict anything. I would sure love to > see real historical data showing predictions. My experience with > future prediction in general is that it is wrong more often than not. This was the basis from which the debate started. It looks to me like this is a relatively open question which goes beyond the specific issue of the IEM. Hal From mlorrey at yahoo.com Fri Dec 31 18:11:59 2004 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 10:11:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas In-Reply-To: <004301c4ef5b$053c5940$1a974c44@kevin> Message-ID: <20041231181159.42541.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Ah, then it must be an electroluminescent lamp being used. These are not collapsible, as the 'sheet' is either aluminum foil or printed polymer. Folding, crinkling, this 'sheet' would violate the capacitor structure of the print and short it out. I have been wondering if it might be possible to make some sort of EM field in the shape of a blade that could act as a plasma bottle. IMHO this would be a more true light saber anyways... --- Kevin Freels wrote: > True, but holding and swinging one of these around is an entirely > different > experience from the collapsing cone toys. This is more of a display > item you > would take down and hand to someone on occasion. > I was thinking of buying an extra one and taking it apart to see if I > could > somehow make it work right. I have read that the blade is simply a > white > sheet covered in phosphoresent ink that glows when a current is > applied. > There is a plastic tube surrounding this, then another protective > tube > outside that. It may be possible to adapt this to the collapsing cone > design > of the toys and make a truly spectacular entrance to a Halloween > party next > year! lol > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Adrian Tymes" > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 3:26 PM > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > > > > One of the cool things about the light sabers was that > > you didn't have to store the blade, just the hilt: the > > blade went away when not in use. Not true for these > > toys. > > > > --- Kevin Freels wrote: > > > > > Has anyone here seen the force FX light sabers? I > > > know they aren't very > > > fancy technologically, but they are WAY cool! > > > > > > http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/69de/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Mike Lorrey" > > > To: "ExI chat list" > > > Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 2:50 PM > > > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for Newtonmas > > > > > > > > > > The issue is that while DoD has built megawatt > > > lasers, they are > > > > typically not in any way transportable. The THEL > > > and the ABL are the > > > > first deployable laser systems, but they are still > > > huge, with the first > > > > needing two trailers and the other a 747. While > > > the THEL is 100kw, and > > > > is close to deployability, it still requires quite > > > a bit to set up and > > > > can only defend one location and a fixed area > > > around it. The 747 ABL is > > > > mobile, but is itself a vulnerable target and is > > > intended for strategic > > > > anti-missile use. > > > > > > > > Making a truly mobile version at 25-50kw capable > > > of unit-level defense > > > > against tactical weapons is what is really needed > > > to defend against > > > > mortars, katyusha type rockets, artillery, etc.. > > > Installed on a > > > > fighting vehicle capable of firing in motion, > > > while moving with its > > > > unit, is what is really needed. Then we just need > > > IED/mine sniffer > > > > bots. > > > > > > > > --- spike wrote: > > > > > > > > > The way this was written in the popular press is > > > a little > > > > > confusing. See below: > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > > From: Mike Lorrey > > > > > Subject: [extropy-chat] Cool stuff for > > > Newtonmas > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Cool121604,,00.html? > > > > > ESRC=dod.nl > > > > > > > > > > COOL TECH THIS WEEK: > > > > > Ray Gun Plans, Robotic Fish, Powered Exoskeleton > > > Suits > > > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > > > A step closer to working ray guns, RoboPike > > > and RoboTuna, and > > > > > Starship Troopers for real -- keep up with the > > > cutting-edge military > > > > > tech news from the past week. > > > > > > > > > > By Noah Shachtman and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, > > > DefenseTech.org > > > > > > > > > > Industry Bigs Team Up on Ray Guns > > > > > > > > > > ... The modified 747 > > > > > Airborne Laser, after a seemingly-endless > > > slumber, is beginning to > > > > > make > > > > > progress... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Im not sure what that comment means. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ...More importantly, electric-powered lasers are > > > finally starting to > > > > > build > > > > > up the power they need to work as weapons. In a > > > few months, > > > > > researchers > > > > > at the Lawrence Livermore national lab and > > > elsewhere plan to test a > > > > > 25 > > > > > kilowatt solid-state laser... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Starting to build up the power to work as > > > weapons? Were they joking? > > > > > The power of the laser is not the recent > > > breakthru, but rather its > > > > > the > > > > > mirror control needed to concentrate that power > > > at some intermediate > > > > > distance. Check out the airborne laser mirror > > > control. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ...If those trials work out as expected, the > > > > > Defense Department will then start handing out > > > grants for a laser > > > > > with > > > > > a hundred kilowatts of power -- that's > > > widely-considered the > > > > > threshold > > > > > for ray gun action to begin... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Hmmm, again this comment. Its all about > > > concentrating the power, > > > > > not about seeing how much power you can make. > > > All you need to > > > > > disable > > > > > a rocket is to burn a hole in it. No need to > > > actually blast it to > > > > > shards, which would endanger the local enemy > > > troops unnecessarily. > > > > > Without the rockets and advanced weaponry, they > > > are harmless as > > > > > kittens anyway, so there is no need to slay or > > > injure them. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ... One step forward, one step back. The > > > Airborne Laser's > > > > > first flight test in two years was cut short > > > this week, after some > > > > > "anomalous instrumentation readings." Space News > > > says a cabin > > > > > pressure > > > > > problem was to blame... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This comment was made many places, but most of > > > the time they > > > > > were not careful to explain that it was not a > > > problem with > > > > > the laser itself. The flight crew cabin > > > pressure is maintained > > > > > higher than the area where the laser is carried > > > in case of a leak > > > > > of the highly toxic materials carried in the > > > laser. With > > > > > higher pressure in the cabin, the fumes would > > > not get to > > > > > the flight crew. Last I heard, it was a faulty > > > pressure > > > > > gage, not an actual failure of the pressure > > > differential > > > > > equipment. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Robo-Crappie, Anyone? > > > > > > > > > > ...A Japanese toy company has a whole line > > > > > of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An > > > ammonite?... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > If you purchase one of these toy ammonites, you > > > may > > > > > not take it to church, for the Book of > > > Deuteronomy > > > > > chapter 23 verse 3 saith: > > > > > > > > > > "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the > > > > > congregation of the lord, even to their tenth > > > > > generation shall they not enter into the > > > congregation > > > > > of the lord forever... > > > > > > > > > > Well which is it, tenth generation, or forever? > > > I > > > > > think the latter, for Nehemiah chapter 13 verse > > > 1 saith: > > > > > > > > > > "...the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come > > > into > > > > > the congregation of god forever..." > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Real-Life Exoskeletons Emerge > > > > > > > > > > ... article in tomorrow's New York Times > > > Magazine, > > > > > === message truncated === > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > ===== Mike Lorrey Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -William Pitt (1759-1806) Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From hal at finney.org Fri Dec 31 18:36:19 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 10:36:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Putting the tsunami into context Message-ID: <20041231183619.0840657E2B@finney.org> On a personal note, I learned yesterday from my niece, who is staying with us for the holidays, that her uncle (my wife's sister's husband's brother) was caught in the tsunami. He was vacationing in the Indian Ocean last week with his wife, and they were on the beach filming some large waves, when suddenly an enormous swell came in and carried them away. They were separated and he lost his video camera, but luckily the wave deposited them about 30 feet inland and they were OK, although they had to go to the hospital for some minor injuries. He said afterwards that he thought it was the end for him, and then he was even more frightened when he wasn't able to find his wife at first. What saved them is that they were vacationing in the Seychelle Islands, a chain in the western part of the ocean, north of Madagascar. This was enough farther from the quake's epicenter that the tidal wave did not have the destructive force that it did in other areas. If they had chosen some other vacation spot things might have gone much worse for them. The Seychelles actually did receive a warning about the wave, and some friends of theirs heard about it in time to avoid the beaches, but my relatives were on an isolated island without electricity, and did not hear the warning. Hal From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Dec 31 19:18:49 2004 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:18:49 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] silent night In-Reply-To: <20041231182551.4568E57E2B@finney.org> References: <20041231182551.4568E57E2B@finney.org> Message-ID: On Dec 31, 2004, at 1:25 PM, Hal Finney wrote: > Harvey originally posted, from > http://www.lucifer.com/pipermail/extropy-chat/2004-December/ > 012182.html : > >> Has anyone gotten any evidence that futures markets really can predict >> the future? I keep hearing the Iowa markets referenced as predicting >> political elections, but I can't see it in their historical data. >> Everything I found seems to show bad results or regular flip-flopping >> to the point that they don't predict anything. I would sure love to >> see real historical data showing predictions. My experience with >> future prediction in general is that it is wrong more often than not. > > This was the basis from which the debate started. It looks to me like > this is a relatively open question which goes beyond the specific issue > of the IEM. Only if you take the first introductory sentence out of context without reading the rest of the paragraph. The first part of the second sentence states what I have heard about Iowa market. The second part of the second sentence states what I found in the historical data from the Iowa market. The third sentence further describes problems I found with the historical data from the Iowa market. The fourth sentence states what I hoped to find with regard to the Iowa market. It boggles my mind that nobody knew I was asking about the Iowa market. Thank you for clearing that up. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC From sjatkins at mac.com Fri Dec 31 19:24:14 2004 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:24:14 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] pest-devouring automaton In-Reply-To: <000001c4ef53$9a436a90$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <000001c4ef53$9a436a90$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <8E745762-5B61-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Oh man, carnivorous robots. What a concept. Now our "mind children" can potentially compete for food, eh? At least that is how the paranoid may see it. Wouldn't a nice little fleck of some radioactive isotope be maybe a touch more preferable than instilling hunting patterns (presumably) and the ability to digest biological creatures? - s On Dec 31, 2004, at 8:13 AM, spike wrote: > Hey cool, I want one. > > ? > > ? > > http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/12/27/explorers.ecobot/index.html > > ? > > ? > > Seems a short leap to a device which devours ants and roaches as well. > > ? > > spike > > ? > > ? > > ? > > ? > > ? > > ? > > > ================================== > =?? Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob)??? = > =???? harara at sbcglobal.net?????? = > =?? Alcor North Cryomanagement?? = > =?? Alcor Advisor to Board?????? = > =?????? 831 429 8637???????????? = > ================================== > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 2788 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike66 at comcast.net Fri Dec 31 19:45:37 2004 From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:45:37 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] pest-devouring automaton In-Reply-To: <8E745762-5B61-11D9-94EC-000A95B1AFDE@mac.com> Message-ID: <000001c4ef71$530c3b70$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Samantha Atkins Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] pest-devouring automaton Oh man, carnivorous robots. What a concept. Now our "mind children" can potentially compete for food, eh? At least that is how the paranoid may see it. Wouldn't a nice little fleck of some radioactive isotope be maybe a touch more preferable than instilling hunting patterns (presumably) and the ability to digest biological creatures? - s Oh no, very much on the contrary. A machine that powers itself by devouring bio-creatures is a verrrry desireable breakthru, for presumably they can be designed to devour *very specific kinds* of biota, such as flies, mosquitoes, gnats, ants, roaches, aphids, locusts and so on, all manner of pests we would much rather have devoured than not. Our mind children would not compete against us for food, but rather devour our competitors for food, as well as those beasts which spread disease or annoy us. We might even be able to use their carbon waste products for some useful purpose (altho it is not immediately clear to me the value of robot shit.) If we can get this to work, it would perhaps be a step along the path to a more important development: an herbivorous pest-devouring automaton, which would power itself by munching weeds in our yards, gardens and farms. If we could get them to differentiate Kentucky bluegrass from all other plants, for instance, imagine the fortunes that could be made. If it could differentiate corn from shell weed, wheat from tares, oh my, the commercial value is difficult to estimate. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dgc at cox.net Fri Dec 31 22:15:58 2004 From: dgc at cox.net (Dan Clemmensen) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:15:58 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] pest-devouring automaton In-Reply-To: <000001c4ef71$530c3b70$6401a8c0@mtrainier> References: <000001c4ef71$530c3b70$6401a8c0@mtrainier> Message-ID: <41D5CF9E.9000806@cox.net> As I understand it, the robots are scavengers, not hunters. They find and eat dead flies rather than killing live flies. Still, It's a start. > Samantha Atkins > *Subject:* Re: [extropy-chat] pest-devouring automaton > > > > Oh man, carnivorous robots. What a concept. Now our "mind children" > can potentially compete for food, eh? At least that is how the > paranoid may see it. > > Wouldn't a nice little fleck of some radioactive isotope be maybe a > touch more preferable than instilling hunting patterns (presumably) > and the ability to digest biological creatures? > > - s >