From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 01:24:48 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:24:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Is anyone an expert on Aristotle and Life? In-Reply-To: <20111231152202.GG6508@leitl.org> References: <20111229164251.4sc1g46meco0kk0g@webmail.natasha.cc> <20111229203133.9u5xvrpjqcg08g0o@webmail.natasha.cc> <98C9E7E3-025C-4F49-B806-D1FAA3168C73@taramayastales.com> <20111231152202.GG6508@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 8:22 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 01:29:37AM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> 2011/12/30 Tara Maya : >> > It is striking that this belief in a soul is so pervasive. >> >> I don't find it so striking. Even with all our modern science, we >> cannot really explain consciousness very well at all... just some kind > > The word consciousness is completely meaningless. > In order to explain something you should define it first. > If you can't define it, then http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57PWqFowq-4 That was strange, even for you Eugen... LOL... I think I get the point though. >> of emergent behavior of neurons... so making something up that >> separates consciousness (which is admittedly mysterious) from the body >> (which isn't quite so mysterious) seems like a natural thing for our >> pattern recognition engines to do. > > Depends on the amount of bullshit you've ingested over your > total lifetime. Intuition is not destiny. It can be recalibrated. If there is anything I have learned, it is that believe is not immutable. You can believe whatever you choose to believe if you are dedicated enough to make the change. Happy New Year to all my Exl friends!!! -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 01:30:51 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:30:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi question In-Reply-To: References: <1324741535.8004.YahooMailClassic@web114404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 2:53 PM, BillK wrote: > On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 9:32 PM, BillK ?wrote: >> And you have to be on the >> sun-side of the moon in order to see the earth. >> >> > > That's not correct, is it? The moon always has the same face towards > earth, but it goes through phases of the moon, as seen from earth. > Apollo went to the sunny part so they could see what they were doing. > > So you could go to a shaded part of the moon's face and look for earth > city lights from there. Your best chance of seeing city lights would be during an eclipse (earth between the moon and sun) and in that case, you would be on the sun-side of the moon. If course you would have to also be on the earth-side of the moon... -Kelly From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 11:46:57 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 12:46:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 31 December 2011 10:47, Anders Sandberg wrote: > This is not necessarily a good thing from an evolutionary psychology > perspective. Military psychology has been struggling to train away normal > (likely evolved) inhibitions against hurting other people for a long time. > But doing warfare remotely and automated likely gets rid of a lot of > inhibitions directly - no direct personal connection to the target, various > framing effects, biases in moral cognition (consider the switch vs. the > footbridge cases of the trolley problem), plenty of room for diffusion of > responsibility and Milgram-experiment-like phenomena. > Yes. As Konrad Lorenz or Eibl-Eibesfeldt already remarked, animals, including humans, and especially heavily-armed predators have an entire set of inhibition and ritualisation mechanisms, so while intraspecific aggression instinct is well-rooted, they do not end up killing each other unless they feel they have a very good reason to do that. Besides deliberate psychological conditioning to the contrary, the problem with modern warfare is exactly its virtualisation, epitomised by the comparison between pushing a button that unleashes a nuclear war, something easily doable by even the most peaceful of us, and killing a conspecific with your teeth and nails. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 11:55:17 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 12:55:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Forking In-Reply-To: <4EFED275.3020509@aleph.se> References: <4EFED275.3020509@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 31 December 2011 10:14, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Could be. I am working a bit on a paper with a colleague (who isn't > transhumanist) about ethical arguments against making superintelligent AI. > One of the more intriguing possibilities might be that they embody so much > value (by being super-conscious, having super-emotions or being > super-moral) that it might be either 1) impermissible for humans to make > them since once in existence more or less the only relevant moral actions > we could take are the ones serving or protecting them (even if they don't > need or care) or 2) too dangerous in the moral sense to try to develop them > because we might accidentally produce super-disvalue (imagine an entity > that suffers so much that all the positive things humanity ever done is > insignificant in comparison). I don't think these cases are good arguments > to refrain from AI, but they certainly suggest that there might be problems > with succeeding too well even if the AI itself is friendly. One more paradox for utilititarian ethical positions. :-) I do think that utilitarian ethical systems can be consistent, that is that they need not be intrinsically contradictory, but certainly most of them are dramatically at odd with actual ethical traditions not to mention everyday intuitions of most of us. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 16:34:28 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 09:34:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi question In-Reply-To: References: <1324741535.8004.YahooMailClassic@web114404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Friends, With all respect, wouldn't you easily be able to see the night-time lighting on the earth simply by shading the sun -- covering it from view? Looking toward the night side of the earth implies that you are looking, in general, toward the sun. Hold up a hand, cover the sun, and the "glare" is gone, no? And from space, with no dust or atmosphere, there would be no secondary sources of glare, no? >From the moon, there could be surface glare, but if the earth were high enough above the lunar horizon, that glare wouldn't effect one's view, and then as before you block out the sun. Just sayin'. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 1 17:04:49 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 09:04:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> Message-ID: <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking On 31 December 2011 10:47, Anders Sandberg wrote: >>.This is not necessarily a good thing from an evolutionary psychology perspective. Military psychology has been struggling to train away normal (likely evolved) inhibitions against hurting other people for a long time. >.Yes. . animals, including humans, and especially heavily-armed predators have an entire set of inhibition and ritualisation mechanisms, so while intraspecific aggression instinct is well-rooted.-- Stefano Vaj Agreed, but the focus of the more sophisticated modern war machinery, isn't aimed at the personnel, but rather the other machines of war. The modern warrior has nothing against the adversary's guys. They can have as many guys as they want, for without the sophisticated mechanisms of warfare, they are as harmless as an army of kittens. Note that in the famous shock and awe campaign, with all those fireworks, there were very few actual casualties. Once we learned to find and destroy surface to air missiles, soldiers have learned to stay clear of them, for they might suddenly explode at any moment with no known enemy aircraft in the area. There have been a number of places of worship in the middle east which have mysteriously exploded in the night, after being triggered by some mysterious weapon, again with few or no casualties, human or beast. It is unclear what was causing these explosions. It is almost as if the places of worship are somehow being used as a storage facility for materials that are chemically unstable, or that the hymnals were exploding for some reason. Our natural inhibition against fratricide does not apply to the act of destroying the machines of war. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 17:39:16 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 10:39:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool short video In-Reply-To: <001801ccc4e0$82e5fa10$88b1ee30$@att.net> References: <001801ccc4e0$82e5fa10$88b1ee30$@att.net> Message-ID: As we trans from who we are to who we will become, we necessarily bring with us those questions that yet remain unanswered. The spiritual reality of beauty is for some all the answer they need, for others it is a clue, and for others still, a light guiding the way. I marvel at the one-of-a-kind nature of our adventure. Multiverse speculations notwithstanding, we in our moment, humanity all along the path of its adventure, and the universe itself from big bang to the misty "distance" of the future shrouded beyond the veil of Maya, happens one time only, is just so, no replays, no revisions, no video tape. As with all who went before, this is our moment, our one unique moment, and I would ask how is it that we are so extraordinarily, uniquely lucky to this be our moment, a moment poised on the brink of human transformation, poised to seek answers beyond the reach of the awakened minds of those who came before? Poised to leap beyond what we are? "Lucky, lucky, lucky." So, my friends, as we enter a new year, the sun returning warmth to the land, I thank you for being part of my adventure, and I wish you well. "To the lucky now, who have lovers and friends Who move to their sweet undiscovered ends, Or who the great conspiracy deceives. I wish these whirling Autumn leaves, Promontories splashed by the salty sea, Groaned on in darkness like the tram, To horizons of love or good luck, or more love." And Spike, my friend, the experience of beauty is a gift of sentience, humans are intermittently sentient, and transhumanists are intermittently human. Ergo, you submission is fully-freighted with transhumanist relevance. Best wishes to all for the new year, Jeff Davis "When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." - Buckminster Fuller 2011/12/27 spike : > Apologies in advance, no apparent transhumanist angle here that I can see, > but it was a delightful two minutes anyway: > > > > Subject: What A Wonderful World - David Attenborough > > What A Wonderful World - David Attenborough > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 1 18:34:28 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 10:34:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] cool short video In-Reply-To: References: <001801ccc4e0$82e5fa10$88b1ee30$@att.net> Message-ID: <008601ccc8b3$ff224940$fd66dbc0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Davis Subject: Re: [ExI] cool short video >...As we trans from who we are to who we will become, we necessarily bring with us those questions that yet remain unanswered. The spiritual reality of beauty is for some all the answer they need, for others it is a clue, and for others still, a light guiding the way. I marvel at the one-of-a-kind nature of our adventure. Multiverse speculations notwithstanding, we in our moment, humanity all along the path of its adventure, and the universe itself from big bang to the misty "distance" of the future shrouded beyond the veil of Maya, happens one time only, is just so, no replays, no revisions, no video tape. As with all who went before, this is our moment, our one unique moment, and I would ask how is it that we are so extraordinarily, uniquely lucky to this be our moment, a moment poised on the brink of human transformation, poised to seek answers beyond the reach of the awakened minds of those who came before? Poised to leap beyond what we are? "Lucky, lucky, lucky." Jeff, this passage and plenty of others you have written has made you the transhumanist poet laureate. >...And Spike, my friend, the experience of beauty is a gift of sentience, humans are intermittently sentient, and transhumanists are intermittently human. Ergo, you submission is fully-freighted with transhumanist relevance. Best wishes to all for the new year, Jeff Davis Best wishes to you too Jeff, and to all our transhumanist family. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 19:11:55 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 12:11:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Catholic Impact (was Re: Origin of ethics and morals) In-Reply-To: References: <20111214093908.GY31847@leitl.org> <1248989643.34877.1323883574147.JavaMail.root@md03.insight.synacor.com> <4EEDB77E.1050401@libero.it> <4EF19D66.4070907@aleph.se> <4EF1FD4D.1090600@libero.it> <4EF24ACA.3030400@aleph.se> <4EF34034.5060309@libero.it> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 6:32 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 27 December 2011 07:17, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> Japan has a history of racial purity that goes back far beyond Hitler. >> They are the most genetically homogenous population on earth. > > Chinese Han are in fact even more. But what I was referring to with > "xenophilia" is the fact that Japanese are in principle in love with Sorry, I read xenophobia the first time... I'm with you now. > everything coming from outside. With time, they imported buddhism, > confucian ethic, chinese characters, catholicism, Belle Epoque forced > industrialisation, nationalism, parliamentary democracy, imperialism, > they kept sending people abroad, they even embraced enthousiastically, > albeit in a superficial and modified fashion, the American way of life > in a matter of months after WWII. Hey baseball is big there! >> It is still frowned upon to marry outside the culture. I have known a number >> of Japanese women who married Americans at the university. > > Mmhhh. Japanese men and women are not so averse to inter-cultural > affairs and mixed marriages are not so unusual. Certainly, neither the > spouse nor the offspring will ever be considered as a Japanese. It's become a little more acceptable over time, but the downsides there are bigger still than in current day America or Europe. >> The world may yet benefit from the Japanese population dynamic as >> robots to care for the elderly are a huge priority for them, and that >> research has led to Asimo, and will lead to other great leaps forward >> in robotics and AI, IMHO. > > Yes. Even though I think that the biological aging of a given society > makes for a cultural and existential aging thereof, leading eventually > to extinction, possibly through the most direct route which consists > in replacing it piece by piece by imported human resources, once more > the relative shortage of labour encourages technological innovation. I don't think Japan is headed towards extinction any time soon, but they are headed towards a concrete wall of pain. Yes, I agree that labor shortages lead to innovation. There are also cases where innovation has led to labor shortages. The cotton gin, for example, led to an INCREASE in the number of slaves to harvest the now more profitable crop. Before the cotton gin, I suppose they grew more tobacco or had less land under cultivation or something?? > This is both applicable to industrial and to domestic labour. Domestic > appliance were developed and became popular first in the US because > for social, economic and cultural reasons lower middle classe there > did not enjoy much of a permanent, live-in domestic help. My own > mother did not see much of a point in the seventies for buying a > dish-washing machine when the work of a maid was so much more > flexible, accurate and delicate on the china, while wasting much less > soap and hot water. The maid must have already been there... -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 20:43:41 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 13:43:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The State of the Art in Prosthetic Devices Message-ID: This seems pretty on topic. Some of the advances in prosthesis are pretty out there... I found this blog that was pretty interesting with lots of videos (which really are helpful in understanding the state of the art in this area)... http://grinding.be/category/prosthetics/ At the end of the PBS piece there is a short video of Amy Mullins with some high tech swimming fins designed by Dean Kaman that I've never seen before... they look like something Burt Rutan would have designed... awesome stuff. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 21:03:10 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 14:03:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool short video In-Reply-To: References: <001801ccc4e0$82e5fa10$88b1ee30$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Jeff Davis wrote: > "To the lucky now, who have lovers and friends > Who move to their sweet undiscovered ends, > Or who the great conspiracy deceives. > I wish these whirling Autumn leaves, > Promontories splashed by the salty sea, > Groaned on in darkness like the tram, > To horizons of love or good luck, or more love." The whole poem is quite lovely and inspiring... Here read by the author Lawrence Durrell... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p70F9K64fQ4 -Kelly From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 23:09:57 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 16:09:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool short video In-Reply-To: References: <001801ccc4e0$82e5fa10$88b1ee30$@att.net> Message-ID: Kelly, thank you so very much. What a treat. I recall with admiration our first encounter, when you disarmed my all-too-quick fuse with gentle deflection. Now this. What other surprises have you in store? I guess I'll have to pay attention. Tell me, did you track it to its poetic source, or recognize it from memory? All the best to you and yours in the new year. Best, Jeff Davis "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Anais Nin On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Jeff Davis wrote: >> "To the lucky now, who have lovers and friends >> Who move to their sweet undiscovered ends, >> Or who the great conspiracy deceives. >> I wish these whirling Autumn leaves, >> Promontories splashed by the salty sea, >> Groaned on in darkness like the tram, >> To horizons of love or good luck, or more love." > > The whole poem is quite lovely and inspiring... > Here read by the author Lawrence Durrell... > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p70F9K64fQ4 > > -Kelly > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 01:13:27 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 01:13:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Fermi question In-Reply-To: References: <1324741535.8004.YahooMailClassic@web114404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > With all respect, wouldn't you easily be able to see the night-time > lighting on the earth simply by shading the sun -- covering it from > view? ?Looking toward the night side of the earth implies that you are > looking, in general, toward the sun. ?Hold up a hand, cover the sun, > and the "glare" is gone, no? ?And from space, with no dust or > atmosphere, there would be no secondary sources of glare, no? > > From the moon, there could be surface glare, but if the earth were > high enough above the lunar horizon, that glare wouldn't effect one's > view, and then as before you block out the sun. > > Well, the Apollo astronauts didn't do that. Probably because it takes 20-30 minutes for human eyes to fully adjust to darkness and they didn't have the spare time. Anyway, just blocking out the sun would still leave your pupils contracted by the glare around you. You would need at least need night-vision eyes to see the pin-pricks of light from earth cities at the moon's distance. NASA says you would need a telescope to see earth city lights, in this article about viewing Earth eclipsing the Sun from he Moon. Quote: The disk is Earth with its nightside facing the Moon. You can see moonlit clouds floating over Earth's dark oceans and continents. You can also see a faintly glowing ring of light around the planet--that's Earth's atmosphere with sunlight trickling through it. A telescope would show you Earth's city lights, too. Beautiful. ------------------ BillK From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 2 02:00:38 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 18:00:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] pat condell's excellent rant on atheism Message-ID: <000001ccc8f2$5398b7a0$faca26e0$@att.net> If believers have patron saints, then we should have some counterpart. Patron sinner? Not necessarily a sinner. Open to suggestion. Whatever it is, I nominate Pat Condell: http://mrctv.org/videos/pat-condell-intolerance-diversity spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Mon Jan 2 08:17:00 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:17:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] pat condell's excellent rant on atheism In-Reply-To: <000001ccc8f2$5398b7a0$faca26e0$@att.net> References: <000001ccc8f2$5398b7a0$faca26e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <4F0167FC.7040507@moulton.com> Since the speaker on the video, Pat Condell, did not provide details on exactly what Nativity Scene is being referenced so it is difficult to directly discuss the case to which Condell appears to be referring assuming for the moment that Condell is not just making up part or all of the story. Condell does use the term "public Christmas Nativity Scene" but Condell fails to distinguish between two different uses of the term 'public'. One usage of the term is in the sense of being generally open to all for example public discourse. The other usage of public is in referring to something government owned, funded or controlled. The public roads, the courthouse, the government schools and so forth. I tend to follow at least in a modest way some the issues related to church state separation issues and one thing I have seen over and over is when someone is talking about "public" without making that distinction then be very cautious. It is a cheap rhetoric device to get people thinking that maybe the Nativity Scene was at a shopping mall or even at a church. In every case I have ever read about when someone was pulling this rhetoric stunt the location was not a shopping mall or a church but a government location such as a school, courthouse or park. Any time I hear or read anyone spouting off about Nativity scenes without making this crucial distinction a big warning flag goes up to on the lookout for a big load of BS. Now notice how much of what was said was about the persons "being offended" yet here again since there are no details it is difficult to address and frankly since there are no details I would not even grant that the description of Condell is accurate until I can get some clear information. The one bit of information Condell gives is that he says the news report was about "American atheists" so if he wants to discuss it then Condell should consider that this is a legal issue and that there are laws, regulations and a history of jurisprudence on this and related issues. Of all of the nativity scene issues I have read about every one of has been based on the legal aspects of the situation. Now there is probably somewhere a case that was not based on legal issues but I have never heard of one and we do not know in this case because Condell is long on rhetoric and short on details. To make that kind of video and not even mention the legal issues involved is appalling. Frankly I am surprised that anyone on this list is taking Condell and what he says in that video seriously because it is abundantly clear that Condell either has no clue what he is talking about or is being deceptive and not fully forthright and honest. Can I make a recommendation to those who comment further on this topic that they make sure they have carefully investigated the history and legal issues and guidelines on religious displays as related to church state separation. And if someone wants to change the current legal situation in the USA then please specify both the what and the how. As a hint you may want to consider what Constitutional amendments would be needed. Fred On 01/01/2012 06:00 PM, spike wrote: > > > If believers have patron saints, then we should have some counterpart. > Patron sinner? Not necessarily a sinner. Open to suggestion. Whatever it > is, I nominate Pat Condell: > > > > http://mrctv.org/videos/pat-condell-intolerance-diversity > > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 12:48:27 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 13:48:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi question In-Reply-To: References: <1324741535.8004.YahooMailClassic@web114404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 2 January 2012 02:13, BillK wrote: > Anyway, just blocking out the sun would > still leave your pupils contracted by the glare around you. You would > need at least need night-vision eyes to see the pin-pricks of light > from earth cities at the moon's distance. > To get back on topic, if I am not mistaken what we actually "see" of exoplanets is not really the light possibly emitted by their street lamps, but simply that the light emitted by the star concerned is imperceptibly dimmed from time to time by orbiting bodies. Not much for the reciprocal Fermi visibility of our presence on the terrestrial surface... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Mon Jan 2 13:03:02 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:03:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> Message-ID: <4F01AB06.7070803@aleph.se> On 2012-01-01 18:04, spike wrote: > Agreed, but the focus of the more sophisticated modern war machinery, > isn?t aimed at the personnel, but rather the other machines of war. The > modern warrior has nothing against the adversary?s guys. They can have > as many guys as they want, for without the sophisticated mechanisms of > warfare, they are as harmless as an army of kittens. Yes and no. In high-school one of my friends, Fredrik, was a would-be military officer. Just as I knew I would become a scientist of some kind he was planning out his straight-arrow military career. We had a long running argument about the future of the military: I was pointing out that robotic or drone warfare would eventually become possible and more or less take over the field, leaving the military as a bunch of nerds at keyboards. He countered with "You are always going to need a guy on the ground with a rifle". He had a point. As shock and awe demonstrated, high-tech can wipe out a low-tech military infrastructure. Drone warfare can hit enemy concentrations and individuals with reasonable precision. But these tools cannot occupy a country: maintaining civil order, gaining human intelligence, instilling trust for whatever institutions you are trying to set up, that requires personal interactions... and those guys with rifles. Some of the more obvious failures in recent Middle East conflicts have been due to the discrepancy between overwhelming projectable force and lack of "social" interfacing. It might be possible to enhance the guy with the rifle. Perhaps drone infantry will appear in the next few decades ("I'm the neighborhood soldier of Tohid Square. I patrol 9 to 5 US time, very convenient for me. Sure, occasionally my bodies gets blown up, but it is mostly a budget problem...") Maybe they can be networked in smarter ways, like in Adam Robert's "New Model Army" (an anarchist ultra-flexible wiki-army). Or ubiquitous surveillance systems can be used. But it still seems that this is a major bottleneck since the complexity of the tasks is orders of magnitude higher than in the direct attack phase. The essence of attacking something is to prevent its function. This can be surgical, with minimal effects on the surroundings or unrelated functions, but you need to have plenty of information about the target and its state. This is why maximizing the entropy of a target is so much easier as an attack mode: you do not need much information, and hence the attack is likelier to succeed in low-information or adversarial information environments. We have nearly maxed out our ability to apply entropy: the remaining big frontier is precision. The real aim of attacking stuff is of course control. It has the same problem in terms of information as destruction. Typically warfare aims at prevening the function of defenses/offenses, and then tilting the utility function of the enemy using threats so that enemies now behave as you would like them to. When this works you effectively turn enemies into parts of your system since they now make use of information they know but would be hard for you to come into possession of to do things you order. The problem is of course that you are not necessarily changing their utilities with your threats well enough (too small threat, too different base utility, lack of information), and you now have to handle an unreliable system. I am reminded of the issue of "weird machines" in computer science, http://boingboing.net/2011/12/28/linguistics-turing-completene.html - an occupying force are essentially interfacing with an unsecured system. Figuring out the control problem is the *real* challenge for future armies - the guy with the rifle is there to ensure a certain range of behavior on the microscale. But as the above linked talk suggests, this is likely a computationally infeasible problem. You can likely solve it better than currently, but it can never be solved generally - and you cannot ever be sure your solution doesn't contain some exploitable flaw. Poor Fredrik. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Mon Jan 2 12:07:36 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:07:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Morality and function fitting (Was: Forking) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFED275.3020509@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4F019E08.5000703@aleph.se> On 2012-01-01 12:55, Stefano Vaj wrote: > I do think that utilitarian ethical systems can be consistent, that is > that they need not be intrinsically contradictory, but certainly most of > them are dramatically at odd with actual ethical traditions not to > mention everyday intuitions of most of us. Of course, being at odds with tradition and everyday positions doesn't tell us much about the actual validity of a position. Which brings up the interesting question of just how weird a true objective morality might be if it exists - and how hard it would be for us to approximate it. Our intuitions typically pertain to a small domain of everyday situations, where they have been set by evolution, culture and individual experience. When we go outside this domain our intuitions often fail spectacularly (mathematics, quantum mechanics, other cultures). A moral system typically maps situations or actions to the set {"right", "wrong"} or some value scale: it can be viewed as a function F(X) -> Y. We can imagine looking for a function F that fits the "data" of our normal intuitions. (I am ignoring the issue of computability here: there might very well be uncomputable moral problems of various kinds. Let's for the moment assume that F is an oracle that always provides an answer.) This is a function fitting problem and the usual issues discussed in machine learning or numerics textbooks apply: we could select F from a very large and flexible set, allowing it to perfectly fit all our intuitive data - but at the price of overfitting: it would very rapidly diverge from anything useful just outside our everyday domain. Even inside it would be making all sorts of weird contortions in between the cases we have given it ("So drinking tea is OK, drinking coffee is OK, but mixing them is as immoral as killing people?") since it would be fluctuating wildly in order to correctly categorize all cases. Any noise in our training data like a mislabeled case would be made part of this mess - it would require our intuitions to be exactly correct and inputted exactly right in order to fit morality. We can also select F from a more restricted set, in which case the fit to our intuitions would not be perfect (the moral system would tell us that some things we normally think are OK are wrong, and vice versa) but it could have various "nice" properties. For example, it might not change wildly from case to case, avoiding the coffee-mixing problem above. This would correspond to using a function with few free parameters, like a low degree polynomial. This embodies an intuition many ethicists seem to have: the true moral system is not enormously complex. We might also want to restrict some aspects of F, like adding reasonable constraints like the axioms of formal ethics (prescriptivity ("Practice what you preach"), consistency, ends-means rationality ("To achieve an end, do the necessary means") - in this case we get the universalizability axiom for free by using a deterministic F) - these would be constraints on the shape of F. The problem is that F will behave strangely outside our everyday domain. The strangeness will partly be due to our lack of intuitions about what it should look like out there, but partly because it is indeed getting weird and extreme - it is extrapolating local intuitions towards infinity. Consider fitting a polynomial to the sequence 1,2,1,2,1,2 - unless it is constant it will go off towards positive infinity in at least one direction. So we might also want to prescribe limiting behaviors of F. But now we are prescribing things that are far outside our own domain of experience and our intuitions are not going to give us helpful information, just bias. Attempts at extrapolating a moral system that can give answers for any case will hence either lead to 1. Fit with our moral intuitions but severe overfitting, complexity and lack of generalization to new domains. 2. Imperfect fit with our moral intuitions and strange behavior outside our normal domain. (the typical utilitarian case) 3. Imperfect fit with our moral intuitions and apparently reasonable behavior outside our normal domain, but this behavior will very likely be due to our current biases and hence invalid. Not extrapolating will mean that you cannot make judgements about new situations (what does the bible say about file sharing?) Of course, Zen might have a point: 'Master Kyogen said, "It is like a man up a tree who hangs from a branch by his mouth. His hands cannot grasp a bough, his feet cannot touch the tree. Another man comes under the tree and asks him the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West. If he does not answer, he does not meet the questioner's need. If he answers, he will lose his life. At such a time, how should he answer?"' Sometimes questions have to be un-asked. Sometimes the point of a question is not the answer. My own take on this is exercise is that useful work can be done by looking at what constitutes reasonable restrictions on F, restrictions that are not tied to our moral intuitions but rather linked to physical constraints (F actually has to be computable in the universe, if we agree with Kant's dictum "ought implies can"), formal constraints (like the formal ethics axioms) and perhaps other kinds of desiderata - is it reasonable to argue that moral systems have to be infinitely differentiable, for example? This might not tell us enough to determine what kind of function F to use, but it can still rule out a lot of behavior outside our everyday domain. And it can help us figure out where our everyday intuitions have the most variance against less biased approaches: those are the sore spots where we need to investigate our moral thinking the most. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 12:20:04 2012 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 10:20:04 -0200 Subject: [ExI] RES: future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> Message-ID: <008c01ccc948$df111a10$9d334e30$@gmail.com> This is not necessarily a good thing from an evolutionary psychology perspective. Military psychology has been struggling to train away normal (likely evolved) inhibitions against hurting other people for a long time. But doing warfare remotely and automated likely gets rid of a lot of inhibitions directly - no direct personal connection to the target, various framing effects, biases in moral cognition (consider the switch vs. the footbridge cases of the trolley problem), plenty of room for diffusion of responsibility and Milgram- experiment-like phenomena. Like nonlethal weapons it might lower the threshold for engaging in deadly violence. We've been training our kids and ourselves for battle with videogames for some time now. When wars become videogames, we'll all be warriors. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 15:20:37 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 16:20:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Morality and function fitting (Was: Forking) In-Reply-To: <4F019E08.5000703@aleph.se> References: <4EFED275.3020509@aleph.se> <4F019E08.5000703@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 2 January 2012 13:07, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Of course, being at odds with tradition and everyday positions doesn't > tell us much about the actual validity of a position. Conceded. :-) Even though it may be argued that such a system fails inasmuch as it aims at offering a more elegant and concise and consistent description of a "good" and "evil" that would be by definition embodied in such intuitions (as in "I do know what the Right Thing is, I simply want to be able to define it", which is a common enough position in pop ethics/politics/aesthetics). This in principle has little to do with the universal or relative nature of morality (an ethical theory may fail to define exhaustively a specific value system as it may with the Only True One...), but in general terms I must say that should one be persuaded to his full intellectual satisfaction that it has the Right Theory, I think he should re-adjust his moral intuitions to be consistent with it, not the other way around: aren't we discussing after all prescriptive propositions? and what the point would be of axiological theorisation, unless it helps us to solve axiological dilemmas, by offering a kind of axiological "technology" and "calculus"? But, hey, this may be just another form of relativism, since after all most forms of universalism and objectivism imply that an axiological truth exists that is generally obvious, at some level, to all of us. My own take on this is exercise is that useful work can be done by looking > at what constitutes reasonable restrictions on F, restrictions that are not > tied to our moral intuitions but rather linked to physical constraints (F > actually has to be computable in the universe, if we agree with Kant's > dictum "ought implies can"), formal constraints (like the formal ethics > axioms) and perhaps other kinds of desiderata - is it reasonable to argue > that moral systems have to be infinitely differentiable, for example? This > might not tell us enough to determine what kind of function F to use, but > it can still rule out a lot of behavior outside our everyday domain. And it > can help us figure out where our everyday intuitions have the most variance > against less biased approaches: those are the sore spots where we need to > investigate our moral thinking the most. > Yes, I fully agree with that. There are ethical - political, aesthetical, - narratives that are objectively inconsistent (they suffer from contradictions) or subjectively inconsistent (their supporters do not accept to follow them to their inevitable conclusions). And then there are those who are simply diverging. Now, my own (not just ideological, but) methodological take is that what defines, identifies, a given set of values vis-?-vis of another is of course not the fact of belonging together to the space of logically possible and practically "workable" sets, but what makes it *different*, the real issue being in this field not what individuals and societies are or do, but what they would like to be and to do. Since it is after all the latter thing which determines how they are going to evolve. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 15:28:00 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 16:28:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] RES: future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <008c01ccc948$df111a10$9d334e30$@gmail.com> References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> <008c01ccc948$df111a10$9d334e30$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 2 January 2012 13:20, Henrique Moraes Machado < cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com> wrote: > We've been training our kids and ourselves for battle with videogames for > some time now. When wars become videogames, we'll all be warriors. > Yes. I was thinking the other day to the traditional mafioso warning consisting in sending your target a dead cat in a box. What's the big deal for either party when professional hitmen are involved? I suspect that the not-so-subtle message is that the sender is motivated and conditioned enough to kill an innocuous animal with his bare hands. Pulling a trigger while watching a target in a scope from a mile away, or planting a bomb that will explode later, might ethologically be considered as lesser feats. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 2 17:02:40 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 09:02:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] pat condell's excellent rant on atheism In-Reply-To: <4F0167FC.7040507@moulton.com> References: <000001ccc8f2$5398b7a0$faca26e0$@att.net> <4F0167FC.7040507@moulton.com> Message-ID: <005101ccc970$56c62c90$045285b0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of F. C. Moulton... >...Frankly I am surprised that anyone on this list is taking Condell and what he says in that video seriously... Pat Condell is a comedian, not a politician. >...because it is abundantly clear that Condell either has no clue what he is talking about or is being deceptive and not fully forthright and honest...Fred Rant humor isn't for everyone. He tickles my funnybone. He made one point worth repeating: we atheists must maintain focus on the harmful stuff, such as religion with political power of any kind. The harmless stuff, let it go. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 18:09:24 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 19:09:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] pat condell's excellent rant on atheism In-Reply-To: <005101ccc970$56c62c90$045285b0$@att.net> References: <000001ccc8f2$5398b7a0$faca26e0$@att.net> <4F0167FC.7040507@moulton.com> <005101ccc970$56c62c90$045285b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 2 January 2012 18:02, spike wrote: > Rant humor isn't for everyone. He tickles my funnybone. He made one point > worth repeating: we atheists must maintain focus on the harmful stuff, such > as religion with political power of any kind. The harmless stuff, let it > go. > I think he makes one point: I am myself offended that the ostension of christian symbols should be deemed as potentially "offensive" to some people - normally believers in some competingly intollerant persuasion, or even maniacal atheists. In fact, and this I believe is a line from Giulio Prisco, I am inclined to be offended by those who are "offended" by anything at all which does not actually punch them in the nose and they can easily turn their head away from. Including blasphemy, hymns to pedophilia, hate speech, bioLuddism, bad taste, and yes, Nativity scenes. :-) An entirely different issue is whether public money, eg, should be spent to promote some symbols that are not mine to the detriment of other, or to imply that we live in a confessional country. But this is not intolerance; intolerance if anything is to demand that such symbols and persuasions maintain an exclusivity right or preferential status as it is still constitutionally the case in Italy. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 2 18:02:09 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 10:02:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <4F01AB06.7070803@aleph.se> References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> <4F01AB06.7070803@aleph.se> Message-ID: <005e01ccc978$a5e8d5e0$f1ba81a0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking On 2012-01-01 18:04, spike wrote: >> Agreed, but the focus of the more sophisticated modern war machinery, > isn't aimed at the personnel, but rather the other machines of war... as many guys as they want, for without the sophisticated > mechanisms of warfare, they are as harmless as an army of kittens. >...Yes and no... Fredrik... countered with "You are always going to need a guy on the ground with a rifle"... I would point out to Fredrik that his contention depends on the continued notion of occupation. That whole idea is proving to be less viable as time goes on. I don't know the source, but I have heard that the cost of occupying Iraq exceeds a million dollars per man year. We have all this money and all this treasure invested in that occupation. What did we get for all that? The Iraq occupation may be used in the future as a historical guide to why occupation is a bad idea. >... As shock and awe demonstrated, high-tech can wipe out a low-tech military infrastructure. Drone warfare can hit enemy concentrations and individuals with reasonable precision. But these tools cannot occupy a country... Ja, and my notion is that in the future, one country will not occupy another country, for it causes more problems than it solves. Drone warfare shapes the kinds of warfare that is undertaken. It moves warfare into more defensive postures, so some extent analogous to the cold war, except with mutual assured survival as opposed to mutual assured destruction. Note the recent sale of the THAAD missile to the UAE: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/30/us-seals-348b-missiles-technology -sale-to-uae/ THAAD is only good for firing at incoming missiles. >... maintaining civil order, gaining human intelligence, instilling trust for whatever institutions you are trying to set up... Future military conflict will abandon all hope of functions 1 and 3 above, and will do function 2 by other means. >... that requires personal interactions... But not physical presence. >... and those guys with rifles... In this I disagree with Fredrik. The notion of boots on the ground is now a thing of the past. >... Some of the more obvious failures in recent Middle East conflicts have been due to the discrepancy between overwhelming projectable force and lack of "social" interfacing... In my mind, we have shown that nation-building is a faulty concept, long in need of retirement. I have no reason to think it can succeed in principle. >...Poor Fredrik. -- Anders Sandberg Indeed. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 18:37:02 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 19:37:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <005e01ccc978$a5e8d5e0$f1ba81a0$@att.net> References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> <4F01AB06.7070803@aleph.se> <005e01ccc978$a5e8d5e0$f1ba81a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 2 January 2012 19:02, spike wrote: > I don't know the source, but I have heard that the cost of > occupying Iraq exceeds a million dollars per man year. We have all this > money and all this treasure invested in that occupation. What did we get > for all that? The Iraq occupation may be used in the future as a > historical > guide to why occupation is a bad idea. > This is OTOH a very old Maoist (and Swiss!) strategic theory. As long as you are determined to resist, unless you are exterminated to the last man, occupation is bound sooner of later to become economically unsustainable for the occupant. But speaking of the Iraqi adventure, let us accept for the sake of discussion the ideological tenets of Wolfovitz & Co.: the American Empire should strive for World Dominance to accomplish its Manifest Destiny, and in order to do that they must secure the control of critical resources, namely energy, bla-bla. Now, I understand that the US spent 800 or 1000 billion dollars altogether in order to reach a rather instable solution regarding a few spare oil wells formerly in the hand of Saddam Hussein. In the meantime, it took a consortium of 10 countries to put together a scant 10 billion in order to slowly build ITER in the South of France. One wonders, isn't that incredibly myopic for a would-be planetary empire when being the first to control viable industrial production of fusion energy would have guaranteed it a competitive edge on any conceivable competitors for decades or perhaps centuries? -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kryonica at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 18:38:45 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 18:38:45 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Main stream education begins to catch up Message-ID: <78537AD5-25F7-41D8-9722-7AACBB199822@gmail.com> I don't know how many of you are familiar with The Teaching Company: www.teach12.com For many years they have been making audio and video lectures courses featuring some of the best college tutors in the US lecturing on college taught subjects such as Plato, Economics, Art, History, Astronomy etc. I have purchased a few and they have all been outstanding. Now, I am not here to advertise for a company but to signal that one of their latest releases is a 24 lecture long course with the title Understanding the Science of Tomorrow given by a Professor Jeffrey Grossman currently at the MIT. It features lectures that echo Kurzweil's and the Singularity University's approach to the science of tomorrow (here tomorrow means the 21st century, anytime from in 10 years to in 2100). What strikes me is how similar this mainstream course targeted a mainstream audience is to much that I read on Kurzweil's website or have heard Aubrey say. For example the lecture on Cancer and Ageing says that yes, cancer and ageing will probably be tackled by small nanobots inside our cells. This course could really be called An Introduction to Preparing for the Singularity Being Near! Progress and "Progress Awareness" are marching on!!! Here is the link if you want to have a look: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1391 From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 2 19:09:56 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 11:09:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> <4F01AB06.7070803@aleph.se> <005e01ccc978$a5e8d5e0$f1ba81a0$@att.net> Message-ID: <008401ccc982$1df32ff0$59d98fd0$@att.net> >.On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking On 2 January 2012 19:02, spike wrote: >>. The Iraq occupation may be used in the future as a historical guide to why occupation is a bad idea. >.Now, I understand that the US spent 800 or 1000 billion dollars altogether in order to reach a rather instable solution regarding a few spare oil wells formerly in the hand of Saddam Hussein. .In the meantime, it took a consortium of 10 countries to put together a scant 10 billion in order to slowly build ITER in the South of France. Stefano Vaj And yet, seldom is the premise questioned. We were told a thousand times that the invasion of Iraq was all about oil. In retrospect it is clear enough to me that is was never about oil. Iraq never had enough of it to justify that invasion and subsequent marginally successful attempts at nation building. Apparently the invasion really was about nukes. If it really was all about oil, where is all this oil we were supposedly trying to seize? With the advantage of retrospection, once the allies convinced themselves there were no nukes, the right thing would have been to just pack up and leave, in the fall of 2003. The Iraqis could have kept Saddam if they really wanted him. I don't see that the world gained much of anything by toppling him, but the price was enormous. Perhaps that entire misadventure is shaping our actions with regard to Iran today. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Mon Jan 2 20:45:52 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:45:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> <4F01AB06.7070803@aleph.se> <005e01ccc978$a5e8d5e0$f1ba81a0$@att.net> Message-ID: <4F021780.1030108@aleph.se> On 02/01/2012 19:37, Stefano Vaj wrote: > One wonders, isn't that incredibly myopic for a would-be planetary > empire when being the first to control viable industrial production of > fusion energy would have guaranteed it a competitive edge on any > conceivable competitors for decades or perhaps centuries? I think it is a mistake to assume the actions of states are rational for the state as entity. States are composed by many players and groups, and what is rational for one might not be rational for the other - and when information is imperfectly distributed and incentives improper the behavior can get really ineffective or irrational. Just consider the gridlocks of US internal politics - solving them would be very useful for a planetary empire, but that doesn't help. In regards to warfare, it is worth noting that the US defense establishment has worked on developing e-weapons to wipe out electronics. Very useful against hightech foes dependent on information processing, and especially effective if there is a large unshielded civilian infrastructure. Which is of course a much better fit to the US than most current adversaries - this is the kind of weapon that will come back and bite you. Especially since current trends in globalization means that technology diffuses faster and faster. After all, Greenpeace is operating drones now to pursue whalers. A world where drone warfare is available to not just the leading forces but to minor nations and non-national groups might be rather unstable. You don't need to have a formal declaration of war to send a drone down Fifth Avenue, and it can be controlled from a botneted computer - tracing the originators and controllers might be very hard. Drone warfare might favor asymetrical strikes not just on war-making infrastructure, but whatever other functions someone think are strategic/bad: finance, whaling, nanotechnology labs, competitors... -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 21:57:08 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 22:57:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <4F021780.1030108@aleph.se> References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> <4F01AB06.7070803@aleph.se> <005e01ccc978$a5e8d5e0$f1ba81a0$@att.net> <4F021780.1030108@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 2 January 2012 21:45, Anders Sandberg wrote: > I think it is a mistake to assume the actions of states are rational for > the state as entity. States are composed by many players and groups, and > what is rational for one might not be rational for the other - and when > information is imperfectly distributed and incentives improper the behavior > can get really ineffective or irrational. Just consider the gridlocks of US > internal politics - solving them would be very useful for a planetary > empire, but that doesn't help. > Absolutely. Only, when the resulting vector is rational for the state as an entity, that given state's chances for success will improve. Otherwise, it may well end up having a few probs. :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 2 23:58:29 2012 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 23:58:29 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] The Catholic Impact (was Re: Origin of ethics and morals)T In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1325548709.16681.YahooMailNeo@web27008.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Sorry for going back to 22 December on this, but I've only just got back online after seasonal festivities. Mirco wrote:"Another example is the post Black Death Western Europe (mainly Holland). There the lack of manpower forced the breaking of the guilds power and allowed the introduction of many technical improvement in the textile production. This contributed to make a place famous for swamps one of the richer places of Europe.?" Actually, Holland and England had much weaker craft guilds politically, meaning they were free to adapt working practices as new technologies arose, whereas German and Italian guilds, with their strong restrictions on who could do what work and who was allowed to subcontract slowed progress a lot. I was reading this article while googling "13th century guilds Dortmund"?http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/papers/guilds-soly.pdf I apologise to Hugo Soly that I could only find this first draft online, but it offers a good insight into the sheer variation of what guilds were like in the middle ages. Tom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Tue Jan 3 00:35:49 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:35:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] pat condell's excellent rant on atheism In-Reply-To: <005101ccc970$56c62c90$045285b0$@att.net> References: <000001ccc8f2$5398b7a0$faca26e0$@att.net> <4F0167FC.7040507@moulton.com> <005101ccc970$56c62c90$045285b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <4F024D65.3000304@moulton.com> On 01/02/2012 09:02 AM, spike wrote: > > He made one point > worth repeating: we atheists must maintain focus on the harmful stuff, such > as religion with political power of any kind. The harmless stuff, let it > go. Of course this leads to the question of what is harmful? Since I have have mentioned before the rant from Condell was long on rhetoric and short on details so we do not know the details of the display. So we need to do some analysis on a couple of possibilities. Since it is most likely a Nativity scene at a courthouse or other government owned, funded or controlled venue then we can begin our analysis there. In this context what everyone needs to be aware of is that there are a legal restrictions and regulations on putting up Nativity scenes, teachers leading religious worship services, etc. If there is going to be commitment to rule of law then there can be no special privileges for Christians; or for Muslims; or for Scientologists. Anyone interested in the Nativity scene guidelines or other guidelines for other church state issues can find them online. For the situation of non-government venue then things are different. Churches put up nativity scenes commonly on their own property and no one objects. Are Nativity Scenes on Church property harmless? Well that depends on how one judges what is harmful or harmless and to what degree? Is a table of Scientology literature and banners in front of the Scientology office in Mountain View proclaiming the benefits of Scientology harmful or harmless? Christianity, Islam, Scientology and many other religious propagate memes which I suspect that many on this list would classify as intrinsically harmful as well as hindering other memes that many here would embrace. So the next time someone is complaining about the failure of life extension, transhumanism, cryonics or similar ideas to be more widely accepted it might be worth while considering the competing ideas and what reinforces them. Fred From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 3 08:22:40 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 00:22:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Weird New Physics Update Message-ID: <1325578960.56705.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ? ? As I predicted it would, my?humble laptop?running brute-force dimensional-analysis algorithms in Python?has led me to some highly unintuitive insights. Not the least of which is a new understanding of space-time. Its not what anyone thinks it is. Or rather it is what no one allows themselves to think it is. It is a gas composed of particles of space-time that are gravitational-vortices of space-time. I?want to call these particles vortons but that name is taken by some vague string-theory?crap. So I will call them vorticons. These votices have?both particle and wave properties that can be determined by QM.?This vorticon gas that is space-time itself behaves as a specific type of hydrodynamic fluid called a dilatant or shear-thickening fluid?in rheology. I know what you are thinking . . .?aether theory right? Wrong! Space-time is the ultimate dilatant and lesser dilatants are embodied by very rare fluids that behave in a?non-Newtonian fashion. About the only example I can find is corn starch and water paste. You can see what that is like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GWhOLorDtw The point is that space-time is a gas that behaves a lot?like cornstarch and water. It's resistant to shear forces, i.e. viscosity increases in response to those shear forces. This experienced in the macroscopic world as inertia, the resistance of a massive body to accelaration by a force.?In fact like the corn-starch, the?viscosity and density?of space-time increases the faster you go, until at the speed of light space-time behaves as a solid! This *is* the speed of light barrier. This has numerous impIications for?everything. The entire universe may be a?gaseous?sea of?these vorticons?of various energies and densities flowing in currents around massive bodies. I have some mathematical proofs in a manuscript I have been writing up. I will post them when I am done. I am wondering if these things might be neutrinos. Stuart LaForge ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky From kryonica at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 09:19:27 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 09:19:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? Message-ID: <9F64F10F-0AE8-46F3-99D7-B331BBDD8027@gmail.com> Here is the list of ingredients of the longevity cocktail for mice given by Dr Rollo which makes his mice live a lot longer (I hope the table will be visible in this mail, if not see http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/12/28/aging-longevity-chasing-cures.html or for the full article http://ebm.rsmjournals.com/content/235/1/66.full ) You will get a glimpse of what is happening in Aubrey's lab in the video clip by cbc news. I wonder what these mouse-amounts to translates to for humans? Would not be astonished if this is the latest Life Extension Mix formula :-D Cocktail ingredients Ingredient Mouse dose (mg/day/100 mice) Vitamin B1 30.49 Ginko biloba 18.29 Vitamin B3 (niacin) 30.49 Ginseng 631.1 Vitamin B6 60.98 Green tea extract 487.8 Vitamin B12 0.18 L-Glutathione 30.49 Vitamin C 350.61 Magnesium 45.73 Vitamin D 0.02 Manganese 19.05 Acetyl L-carnitine 146.45 Melatonin 0.73 Alpha-lipoic acid 182.93 N-acetyl cysteine 304.88 Acetylsalicylic acid 132.11 Potassium 18.11 Beta carotene 21.95 Rutin 304.88 Bioflavonoids 792.68 Selenium 0.05 Chromium picolinate 0.30 Vitamin E 326.83 Folic acid 0.61 Cod liver oil (Omega 3) 1,219.51 Garlic 3.81 Coenzyme Q10 60.98 Ginger root extract 600.37 Flax seed oil 1,219.51 Source: Experimental Biology and Medicine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 11:44:36 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:44:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Catholic Impact (was Re: Origin of ethics and morals)T In-Reply-To: <1325548709.16681.YahooMailNeo@web27008.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <1325548709.16681.YahooMailNeo@web27008.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2012/1/3 Tom Nowell > Actually, Holland and England had much weaker craft guilds politically, > meaning they were free to adapt working practices as new technologies > arose, whereas German and Italian guilds, with their strong restrictions on > who could do what work and who was allowed to subcontract slowed progress a > lot. > The history of late middle-age guilds is however fascinating. In fact, the idealised guild described by Richard A. Posner, if I am not mistaken in Overcoming the Law, is pretty persuasive, and they invented much before modern capitalism all the tricks that an antitrust authority would object to, and then some. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Tue Jan 3 15:43:20 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 07:43:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Zen (Was: Morality and function fitting) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1325605400.38158.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Anders wrote: >Zen might have a point: >'Master Kyogen said, "It is like a man up a tree who hangs from a branch >by his mouth. His hands cannot grasp a bough, his feet cannot touch the >tree. Another man comes under the tree and asks him the meaning of >Bodhidharma's coming from the West. If he does not answer, he does not >meet the questioner's need. If he answers, he will lose his life. At >such a time, how should he answer?"' Um, by pointing at the tree in his mouth and rolling his eyes? Zen can be so stupid sometimes. I'm with Bart Simpson ("the sound of one hand clapping? Easy!": ) Ben Zaiboc From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 01:18:44 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:18:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Weird New Physics Update In-Reply-To: <1325578960.56705.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325578960.56705.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 3:22 AM, The Avantguardian < avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote: > > As I predicted it would, my humble laptop running brute-force > dimensional-analysis algorithms in Python has led me to some highly > unintuitive insights. > Not the least of which is a new understanding of space-time. Its not what > anyone thinks it is. Or rather it is what no one allows themselves to think > it is. It is a gas composed of particles of space-time that are > gravitational-vortices of space-time. I want to call these particles > vortons but that name is taken by some vague string-theory crap. So I will > call them vorticons. > > These votices have both particle and wave properties that can be > determined by QM. This vorticon gas that is space-time itself behaves as a > specific type of hydrodynamic fluid called a dilatant or shear-thickening > fluid in rheology. I know what you are thinking . . . aether theory right? > Wrong! > Does your current thinking of vorticons include multiple-vorticon clusters behaving in any particular way? (no pun intended) What you describe sounds to me like some soapy dishwater that gets agitate and foams up - the soap bubbles are analogous to these vorticons? The reason I asked about clustering is that sometimes soap-bubbles form inside other soap bubbles, and the pressure on the air/soap/air boundaries would be non-uniform across a foam depending on the weight of more-dense bubbles and their proximity to neighbors. If a given [candidate] bubble has only two neighbors, but one is a singular type and the other is deeply nested with "children" - does a 3 body calculation describe their relationship or should the descendants be included in the 'force count' against the candidate? (using the term force count for lack of a better term) btw, if pixels are 2d units of a plane and voxels are volumetric pixels in 3d - then it would be an easier understood extension to call your space-time units some form of *xels (Texels, 4xels, ???) [though odd, i like 4xels because that also extends to 5xels describing 4xels +1 dimension of interaction - and it could be pronounced like "force-ells" or "four-zells"] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 01:04:05 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:04:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: <9F64F10F-0AE8-46F3-99D7-B331BBDD8027@gmail.com> References: <9F64F10F-0AE8-46F3-99D7-B331BBDD8027@gmail.com> Message-ID: 2012/1/3 Kryonica > > *Cocktail ingredients* > > Ingredient > > Mouse dose (mg/day/100 mice) > > Vitamin B1 > > 30.49 > > *Ginko biloba* > > 18.29 > > Vitamin B3 (niacin) > > 30.49 > > Ginseng > > 631.1 > et al. (snipped) > > Flax seed oil > > 1,219.51 > > *Source: Experimental Biology and Medicine* > > > > Why is Ginko the only ingredient that is/was italicized? Also, why such a large amount of Flax oil? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 05:02:30 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 21:02:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Weird New Physics Update References: <1325578960.56705.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1325653350.61323.YahooMailNeo@web164508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > From: Mike Dougherty >To: The Avantguardian ; ExI chat list >Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:18 PM >Subject: Re: [ExI] Weird New Physics Update > > >On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 3:22 AM, The Avantguardian wrote: > >? >>As I predicted it would, my?humble laptop?running brute-force dimensional-analysis algorithms in Python?has led me to some highly unintuitive insights. >>Not the least of which is a new understanding of space-time. Its not what anyone thinks it is. Or rather it is what no one allows themselves to think it is. It is a gas composed of particles of space-time that are gravitational-vortices of space-time. I?want to call these particles vortons but that name is taken by some vague string-theory?crap. So I will call them vorticons. >> >>These votices have?both particle and wave properties that can be determined by QM.?This vorticon gas that is space-time itself behaves as a specific type of hydrodynamic fluid called a dilatant or shear-thickening fluid?in rheology. I know what you are thinking . . .?aether theory right? Wrong! -------------------------------------------------------------- ? >Does your current thinking of vorticons include multiple-vorticon clusters behaving in any particular way? (no pun intended) ---------------------------------------------- ? Yes, indeed, it suggests some very odd clustering behaviors. Because vorticons have have no clear borders, they can interact over long ranges. Like all vortices, they would attract or repel one another based upon the alignment of their relative spins. Because of this, gravitational fields cause the spins of all the microscopic vorticons to align themselves in a large cluster of?parallel spinning vorticons. The?angular momentum of these vorticon clusters are additive, so you can get?large vortices from a bunch of smaller ones. ? This also suggest an additional, unaccounted for force, when?unaligned vortices repel one another and parallel spinning vortices attract one another. This force would?be a supplementary force to gravity?analogous to the way magnetism?is supplementary to the electrostatic force. ? This repulsion of?unaligned vortices,?in the absense of an ordering gravitational field results?in the constant?expansion of "flat" space which is high-entropy space time. This mutual repulsion of space-time voticons?may be?the Hubble expansion, cosmological constant, cosmic inflation, dark energy phenomenon, etc. Indeed the universe itself?seems to be a gigantic vortex of space time spinning in all three spatial directions at once?about the proper time axis of the universe. The Hubble expansion is the centrifugal force of the spinning universe and the Hubble constant (not a constant but changing over time)?is simply the angual velocity of the universe, and it is slowing down as the universe spreads out like a spinning ice skater extending her arms. Here is more experiments involving corn starch. Notice how the fingers seem to come out of nowhere and expand? Those might be the frothing bubbles you are looking for.?Pretty cool eh?? ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCHPo3EA7oE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >What you describe sounds to me like some soapy dishwater that gets agitate and foams up - the soap bubbles are analogous to these vorticons?? The reason I asked about clustering is that sometimes soap-bubbles form inside other soap bubbles, and the pressure on the air/soap/air boundaries would be non-uniform across a foam depending on the weight of more-dense bubbles and their proximity to neighbors.? If a given [candidate] bubble has only two neighbors, but one is a singular type and the other is deeply nested with "children" - does a 3 body calculation describe their relationship or should the descendants be included in the 'force count' against the candidate?? (using the term force count for lack of a better term) -------------------------------------------------------------------- ? The streamlines of space-time orbiting a vorticon are described by a radius and an angular velocity but the vorticon itself encompasses multiple such streamlines?spinning at?different energies. As such a single vorticon occupies a spread out volume, so I am not sure if they can nest, although they might be able to superimpose upon one another. >btw, if pixels are 2d units of a plane and voxels are volumetric pixels in 3d - then it would be an easier understood extension to call your space-time units some form of *xels? (Texels, 4xels, ???)? [though odd, i like 4xels because that also extends to 5xels describing 4xels +1 dimension of interaction - and it could be pronounced like "force-ells" or "four-zells"] ? Hmmm. This concept may be useful for some things but I do not think that it could accurately describe vorticons. Pixels are too orderly to describe the vorticon gas. Pixels are all a defined distance from their neighbors while the density of vorticons in a given region of space is determined by factors such as the strength of the gravitational field in that region. So no... I think. ? ? Stuart LaForge ? ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 4 06:49:38 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 22:49:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism Message-ID: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> I like this guy. It reminds me of myself: http://www.creators.com/opinion/john-stossel/ideas-have-sex-and-we-re-better -for-it.html Ideas Have Sex, and We're Better for It Share Description: Comment An idea walks into a bar. She meets another idea. They get together, and nine months later (or maybe it's nine minutes or seconds? It's not clear how it works with ideas), a new idea is born. A baby idea with the best traits of both parents. When this happens a lot, everyone gets smarter and the world gets better. Did you know that ideas have sex? It's a weird concept, but the more I think about it, the more right it seems. I learned it from British journalist Matt Ridley. Ridley, author of "The Rational Optimist," says the reason life gets better is that ideas have sex. "Ideas spread through trade," he told me. "And when they meet, they can mate, and you can produce combinations of different ideas. I think a good example is a camera pill, which takes a picture of your insides on the way through. It came about (during) a conversation between a gastroenterologist and a guided missile designer ... a process very similar to sex in biology, because through sex, genes meet and recombine, and you get new combinations of genes. That's what causes innovation in biology, and innovation in culture." And life improves. "Our living standards have shot up in my lifetime. The average income of the average person, corrected for inflation, is three times what it was when I was born (in 1958). And life span is 30 percent longer." This didn't happen because of central planning. It's the spontaneous market generated from free individuals that sets and keeps it in motion. Ridley goes on to argue that even sex between the ideas of dumb people produces better results than those of a brilliant central planner. "If you look at human history ... lots of people in a room who are talking to each other, however stupid they are, can achieve a lot more than a lot of clever people in the room who never talk to each other. So it's not individual intelligence that counts in how well a society works. It's how well people communicate and exchange ideas with each other." In light of this, it's not hard to understand why Ridley calls himself a rational optimist. Description: http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-31q9Yl_0VT7xs.gif?labels=creators He reminds me the late, great economist Julian Simon, author of "the Ultimate Resource," who for years stood virtually alone in explaining the benefits of population growth, free exchange and the mixing of ideas. "I was fed up with the pessimists," Ridley explained. "When I was a student in the 1970s, the grown-ups told me that the future of the world was bleak, that the oil was running out, that the population explosion was unstoppable, that famine was inevitable. I feel kind of cross that nobody said anything optimistic to me about how these resources might not run out. They might become more abundant because of human ingenuity. They might actually get cheaper rather than more expensive and that it might be possible for us to live higher living standards and actually do less damage to the environment as we do so, that the air might get cleaner, the rivers might get cleaner! "All of these things have happened. We've got healthier, happier, cleaner, kinder, cleverer, more peaceful and, indeed, more equal, if you look at the picture globally over that time." In a debate, Bill Gates pushed back against Ridley's optimism. Gates argued that worrying about the worst case can help drive a solution. Ridley doesn't buy it. "If you look at where the solutions come from, they come from optimistic people living in rich places, like Steve Jobs, or Archimedes in ancient Greece, or Leonardo in Renaissance Italy. ... It's the pessimists who are the complacent ones these days, because they're the ones saying: 'This is as good as it can get. We can't make it any better.'" But we can make it better. All it takes is rule of law and limited government. If government will just stay out of the bar, and stop bossing the patrons around, ideas will meet and mate and produce wonderful things. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 579 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.gif Type: image/gif Size: 35 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 09:28:52 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 09:28:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Weird New Physics Update In-Reply-To: <1325653350.61323.YahooMailNeo@web164508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325578960.56705.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1325653350.61323.YahooMailNeo@web164508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2012/1/4 The Avantguardian wrote: > This repulsion of?unaligned vortices,?in the absense of an ordering > gravitational field results?in the constant?expansion of "flat" space which > is high-entropy space time. This mutual repulsion of space-time voticons?may > be?the Hubble expansion, cosmological constant, cosmic inflation, dark > energy phenomenon, etc. Indeed the universe itself?seems to be a gigantic > vortex of space time spinning in all three spatial directions at once?about > the proper time axis of the universe. The Hubble expansion is the > centrifugal force of the spinning universe and the Hubble constant (not a > constant but changing over time)?is simply the angual velocity of the > universe, and it is slowing down as the universe spreads out like a spinning > ice skater extending her arms. > The universe expansion rate appears to be increasing. The 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics were both awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, and Adam G. Riess for the 1998 discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae. BillK From kryonica at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 09:32:28 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 09:32:28 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: References: <9F64F10F-0AE8-46F3-99D7-B331BBDD8027@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0B8510AD-0345-4B37-8784-30466492566B@gmail.com> Yes I was also struck by the high amount of flax seed oil - would translate to about a gallon for a human. Ginko Biloba is probably italicised by the software (here Word 2011) because it is a foreign word, while I suppose that Ginseng has become an English word. On 4 Jan 2012, at 01:04, Mike Dougherty wrote: > 2012/1/3 Kryonica > > Cocktail ingredients > Ingredient > Mouse dose (mg/day/100 mice) > Vitamin B1 > 30.49 > Ginko biloba > 18.29 > Vitamin B3 (niacin) > 30.49 > Ginseng > 631.1 > et al. (snipped) > > Flax seed oil > 1,219.51 > Source: Experimental Biology and Medicine > > > > > Why is Ginko the only ingredient that is/was italicized? Also, why such a large amount of Flax oil? > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 10:00:04 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 02:00:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Weird New Physics Update In-Reply-To: References: <1325578960.56705.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1325653350.61323.YahooMailNeo@web164508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1325671204.29419.YahooMailNeo@web164518.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> >________________________________ >From: BillK >To: ExI chat list >Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 1:28 AM >Subject: Re: [ExI] Weird New Physics Update > >2012/1/4 The Avantguardian wrote: >> This repulsion of?unaligned vortices,?in the absense of an ordering >> gravitational field results?in the constant?expansion of "flat" space which >> is high-entropy space time. This mutual repulsion of space-time voticons?may >> be?the Hubble expansion, cosmological constant, cosmic inflation, dark >> energy phenomenon, etc. Indeed the universe itself?seems to be a gigantic >> vortex of space time spinning in all three spatial directions at once?about >> the proper time axis of the universe. The Hubble expansion is the >> centrifugal force of the spinning universe and the Hubble constant (not a >> constant but changing over time)?is simply the angual velocity of the >> universe, and it is slowing down as the universe spreads out like a spinning >> ice skater extending her arms. >> > >The universe expansion rate appears to be increasing. >The 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics >were both awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, and Adam G. >Riess for the 1998 discovery of the accelerating expansion of the >Universe through observations of distant supernovae. > Yes. The radial expansion of space is accelerating but in the process, the angular velocity is slowing down. Think in terms of orbits where tighter orgits are faster and bigger orgits are slow. When you accerate outward it is at the cost of tangental velocity. Stuart LaForge ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 11:22:40 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 03:22:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The Coming War on General Computation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1325676160.47146.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Transcript of Cory Doctorow's talk, 'The Coming War on General Computation': http://joshuawise.com/28c3-transcript Video can be found at http://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-purp.html We now risk a world where no-one is allowed to make an MPU without built-in mechanisms for surveillance and control. General-purpose computing would become a thing of the past, and anyone who tried to build one would be a criminal. Free software, of course, would be dead in the water. I'm now wondering if this counts as an existential risk. Ben Zaiboc From giulio at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 14:12:30 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 15:12:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Interview with venusplusx - Alison Gardner and Dan Massey Message-ID: I interviewed venusplusx.org polymaths Alison Gardner and Dan Massey on sexual freedom, the occupy movement, transhumanism, the singularity, physics, religion and spirituality, and their forthcoming book. LGBT rights and quantum entanglement in the same talk. Thanks to Khannea Suntzu for filming. http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2012/01/interview-with-venusplusx-alison.html http://telexlr8.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/venusplusx-alison-gardner-and-dan-massey/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUxfSyc_x6A For this first teleXLR8 show using an interview format I have invited two Renaissance persons interested in everything. All these topics and many others will be explored in forthcoming interviews and talk shows on highly imaginative technologies, science, art, culture and society, hosted by show leaders (to be announced soon), with one or more guests and a selected audience. The videos will be edited and posted online a few days after the shows. From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 4 14:31:49 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 06:31:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: <0B8510AD-0345-4B37-8784-30466492566B@gmail.com> References: <9F64F10F-0AE8-46F3-99D7-B331BBDD8027@gmail.com> <0B8510AD-0345-4B37-8784-30466492566B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <017b01cccaed$98777fd0$c9667f70$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kryonica Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 1:32 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Longevity mix? >.Yes I was also struck by the high amount of flax seed oil - would translate to about a gallon for a human. Indeed? I am getting a bit over 1.2 grams per day. A teaspoon is about 5 grams. I can't imagine that little bit of flax oil would do anything, or that the typical body would even notice it. I could be wrong however, for the definition of mouse dose is ambiguous by a factor of 100. If that /100 mice comment is interpreted wrong by me, they could be talking about 4 ounces of flax oil, which seems high to me. spike 2012/1/3 Kryonica Cocktail ingredients Ingredient Mouse dose (mg/day/100 mice) Vitamin B1 30.49 Ginko biloba 18.29 Vitamin B3 (niacin) 30.49 Ginseng 631.1 et al. (snipped) Flax seed oil 1,219.51 Source: Experimental Biology and Medicine Why is Ginko the only ingredient that is/was italicized? Also, why such a large amount of Flax oil? _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 15:52:48 2012 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 07:52:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: <0B8510AD-0345-4B37-8784-30466492566B@gmail.com> References: <9F64F10F-0AE8-46F3-99D7-B331BBDD8027@gmail.com> <0B8510AD-0345-4B37-8784-30466492566B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1325692368.5689.YahooMailNeo@web160604.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> I believe one is supposed to bathe in the stuff. :) Happy New Year! Dan ________________________________ From: Kryonica To: ExI chat list Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 4:32 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Longevity mix? Yes I was also struck by the high amount of flax seed oil - would translate to about a gallon for a human. Ginko Biloba is probably italicised by the software (here Word 2011) because it is a foreign word, while I suppose that Ginseng has become an English word. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kryonica at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 16:59:10 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 16:59:10 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: <1325692368.5689.YahooMailNeo@web160604.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <9F64F10F-0AE8-46F3-99D7-B331BBDD8027@gmail.com> <0B8510AD-0345-4B37-8784-30466492566B@gmail.com> <1325692368.5689.YahooMailNeo@web160604.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <90790BE3-E3BE-43A6-B355-0BAA5BD90B93@gmail.com> People used to bath in donkey milk and then they lived forever or just about. Fancy bath oils are good for you. Happy New Year to you too! On 4 Jan 2012, at 15:52, Dan wrote: > I believe one is supposed to bathe in the stuff. :) > > Happy New Year! > > Dan > From: Kryonica > To: ExI chat list > Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 4:32 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Longevity mix? > > Yes I was also struck by the high amount of flax seed oil - would translate to about a gallon for a human. > Ginko Biloba is probably italicised by the software (here Word 2011) because it is a foreign word, while I suppose that Ginseng has become an English word. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kryonica at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 17:07:12 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:07:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] H+ poetry Message-ID: <8EF7BB35-5409-40A7-A955-023C95D8DF2A@gmail.com> Don't miss this new amazing web clip by the best transhumanist web poet online: http://www.youtube.com/tedaws?x=us_showcasephase2_8394_27 From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 17:53:45 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 09:53:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1325699625.36395.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> wrote: > Yes I was also struck by the high amount of flax seed oil - would translate to about a gallon for a human. ?? That doesn't sound right. Correct me if I'm wrong, please: 1,219.51 mg/day/100mice =12.1951 mg/day/mouse 1 mouse ~= 20 grams So the daily dose is 12.1951/20 mg per gram of body weight ~=0.61 mg/g or, body weight * 0.00061 So, for a 75kg human, that would be 45.75g Density of oil is ~ 0.8g/ml, so that would be about 57ml. or just over two and a half ounces, in imperial. Not quite a gallon! Ben Zaiboc From kryonica at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 18:23:21 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:23:21 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: <1325699625.36395.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325699625.36395.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8D2B0ACD-AA23-4134-96C6-20D7C07F9464@gmail.com> You are right, I should have done the calculation. 57 ml is about 1/2 a dl - yes, a lot but not more than what some people take and probably close to what I take in cod liver oil. With both the flaxseed oil and the fish oil the mice ingest something like the human equivalent of 1,2 dl oil. So is that what we need? On 4 Jan 2012, at 17:53, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > wrote: > >> Yes I was also struck by the high amount of flax seed oil - would translate to about a gallon for a human. > > ?? > That doesn't sound right. > > Correct me if I'm wrong, please: > > 1,219.51 mg/day/100mice > =12.1951 mg/day/mouse > > 1 mouse ~= 20 grams > > So the daily dose is 12.1951/20 mg per gram of body weight > ~=0.61 mg/g > > or, body weight * 0.00061 > > So, for a 75kg human, that would be 45.75g > > Density of oil is ~ 0.8g/ml, so that would be about 57ml. > > or just over two and a half ounces, in imperial. > > Not quite a gallon! > > > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 18:39:50 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:39:50 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: <8D2B0ACD-AA23-4134-96C6-20D7C07F9464@gmail.com> References: <1325699625.36395.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <8D2B0ACD-AA23-4134-96C6-20D7C07F9464@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 6:23 PM, Kryonica wrote: > 57 ml is about 1/2 a dl - yes, a lot but not more than what some people take and probably close to what I take in cod > liver oil. ?With both the flaxseed oil and the fish oil the mice ingest something like the human equivalent of 1,2 dl oil. >?So is that what we need? > Nobody knows. The research report says that they don't know which ingredients are essential, which don't matter, which might be a bit harmful or which combinations of ingredients work together or which ingredients might be helpful on their own but not in a mixture. So they have the basis for lots of further research grants. (And, of course, what benefits mice will not necessarily benefit humans). BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 20:21:36 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 21:21:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: <8D2B0ACD-AA23-4134-96C6-20D7C07F9464@gmail.com> References: <1325699625.36395.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <8D2B0ACD-AA23-4134-96C6-20D7C07F9464@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 4 January 2012 19:23, Kryonica wrote: > 57 ml is about 1/2 a dl - yes, a lot but not more than what some people > take Most people take, I would say. :-) > and probably close to what I take in cod liver oil. With both the > flaxseed oil and the fish oil the mice ingest something like the human > equivalent of 1,2 dl oil. So is that what we need? > Not to mention that I definitely recommend a generous nutritional intake of olive oil... :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 22:50:27 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 22:50:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bees again Message-ID: Fly Parasite Turns Honeybees Into Zombies Date: 03 January 2012 As if deadly viruses and fungi weren't enough, honeybees in North America now must also deal with a fly parasite that causes them to leave their hive and die after wandering about in a zombie-like stupor, a new study shows. Now researchers have discovered honeybees parasitized by A. borealis in 24 of 31 sites across the San Francisco Bay area, as well as other commercial hives in California and South Dakota. Original Study report: BillK From ilia.stambler at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 13:39:16 2012 From: ilia.stambler at gmail.com (Ilia Stambler) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 15:39:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Demonstration for Radical Life Extension, Tel Aviv, January 13 Message-ID: Dear Friends, In December 2011, there appeared the first issue of the Journal ?Let us >From Now On? ? the only journal in Israel that is dedicated to the promotion of unlimited life-extension. On Friday afternoon, January 13, 02012, at 12.00 AM, the journal, in cooperation with the Israeli Transhumanist community, will hold a demonstration next to the Trumpeldor Cemetery at the center of Tel Aviv, Against Deathism and For Life-extension. On the same day, at 21.30 PM, we will launch the first issue of the journal at the Milk Club, at Rothschild Street 6, Tel Aviv. We believe that radical life extension means radical life affirmation, and conversely, that the affirmation of life means the end of death. We, the living community of Israel, believe in the power of modern art and science to affirm life. We believe that there are no grounds for inter-personal or inter-national conflicts among the living. All the living have the same interest: Radical Life Extension. We invite you to support and take part in this demonstration, which will be the second demonstration of its kind in the world (a similar demonstration for radical life extension took place in Moscow on September, 2011, organized by the Russian Transhumanist Movement.) Speakers: Jeremy Fogel, Gabriel Moked, Ido Keinan, Oded Carmeli, Sheli Chen, Michal Zecharia, Reuel Shuali, Ilia Stambler, Jonathan Levy, Yoav Ezra and Amir Menshahoff. In solidarity with the cause of radical life extension! The Editorial Board of ?Let Us from Now On? HavaLeHaba at gmail.com www.HavaLeHaba.com Facebook Event http://www.facebook.com/events/276066649116422/ More details (in Hebrew and English), including the full demands of the demonstration, the journal manifesto and venue updates, can be found at the site of Humanity + Israel: www.singulariut.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From renee.pleasant at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 19:19:19 2012 From: renee.pleasant at gmail.com (Renee Pleasant) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:19:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Longevity mix? In-Reply-To: References: <1325699625.36395.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <8D2B0ACD-AA23-4134-96C6-20D7C07F9464@gmail.com> Message-ID: Ginko Biloba is the Latin botanical name :-) R On Jan 4, 2012 2:06 PM, "BillK" wrote: > On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 6:23 PM, Kryonica wrote: > > 57 ml is about 1/2 a dl - yes, a lot but not more than what some people > take and probably close to what I take in cod > > liver oil. With both the flaxseed oil and the fish oil the mice ingest > something like the human equivalent of 1,2 dl oil. > > So is that what we need? > > > > > Nobody knows. The research report says that they don't know which > ingredients are essential, which don't matter, which might be a bit > harmful or which combinations of ingredients work together or which > ingredients might be helpful on their own but not in a mixture. > > So they have the basis for lots of further research grants. > > (And, of course, what benefits mice will not necessarily benefit humans). > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 5 01:17:50 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:17:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bees again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <021a01cccb47$d9721270$8c563750$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: [ExI] Bees again Fly Parasite Turns Honeybees Into Zombies Date: 03 January 2012 >...As if deadly viruses and fungi weren't enough, honeybees in North America now must also deal with a fly parasite that causes them to leave their hive and die after wandering about in a zombie-like stupor, a new study shows. Now researchers have discovered honeybees parasitized by A. borealis in 24 of 31 sites across the San Francisco Bay area, as well as other commercial hives in California and South Dakota. Original Study report: BillK Thanks Bill. As I did in 2007, I am seeing a number of dying honeybees, staggering about on the ground. Now I have an idea. I will take the dying bee and keep it in a glass jar, to see if phorids emerge after a few days. In retrospect, that is a perfectly logical experiment, but I hadn't thought of it before. spike From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 5 05:06:23 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 06:06:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> <4F01AB06.7070803@aleph.se> <005e01ccc978$a5e8d5e0$f1ba81a0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20120105050623.GD27477@leitl.org> On Mon, Jan 02, 2012 at 07:37:02PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote: > In the meantime, it took a consortium of 10 countries to put together a > scant 10 billion in order to slowly build ITER in the South of France. Tokamak fusion as a terrestrial source of economic energy is a dead end. Will never happen. What is happening in terrestrial solar volume growth is definitely very impressive however. Thin-film PV will kill dirty coal stone dead in less than half of a century. > One wonders, isn't that incredibly myopic for a would-be planetary empire > when being the first to control viable industrial production of fusion > energy would have guaranteed it a competitive edge on any conceivable > competitors for decades or perhaps centuries? Energy is just one thing. Food is another, and we've had peak of (some) minerals/elements. None of the old industrialized places are driving innovation hard enough to be avoided to be creamed by that. I don't really understand why U.S. is intending to bleed itself dry for campaigns that *on the surface* do not make any sense. There must be some hidden motivations. From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 5 09:34:00 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 01:34:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Wierd New Physics Update #2 Message-ID: <1325756040.37360.YahooMailNeo@web164503.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ? These are the?particle properties of vorticons: ? Please note due to text limitations, in the following all h are actually "h bar" the normalized Planck's constant h/2*pi. ? minimum radius of vorticon eyewall = r = (2*h^2*G^2/c^6)^(1/4) = 1.92187460607 X 10^-35 meters maximum rest mass = m = h^2*G/(c^4*r^3) = 1.294241536853 X 10^-8 kilograms maximum rest energy = E= h^2*G/(c^4*r^3) = 1.1632062837833 X 10^9 Joules angular momentum = J = +/- h^3*G^2/(c^6*r^4) =?5.27285814^-35 ?kilogram*meters^2 / second ? and especially interesting: ? *quantum spin* = +/- h^2*G^2/(c^6*r^4) = +/-?(1/2) dimensionless ? Apparently?vorticons are neutral fermions that weigh as much an eye lash but are not quite quantum singularities. Weird. Certainly not part of the standard model. ? Stuart LaForge ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 10:53:33 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:53:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <20120105050623.GD27477@leitl.org> References: <03df01ccc73c$32ecb2c0$98c61840$@att.net> <4EFEDA3B.3000605@aleph.se> <007501ccc8a7$78ec56b0$6ac50410$@att.net> <4F01AB06.7070803@aleph.se> <005e01ccc978$a5e8d5e0$f1ba81a0$@att.net> <20120105050623.GD27477@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 06:06, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Tokamak fusion as a terrestrial source of economic energy is a dead end. > Will never happen. > This would really break my heart. Would you elaborate? What about inertial confinement, and other alternatives? What is happening in terrestrial solar volume growth is definitely very > impressive however. Thin-film PV will kill dirty coal stone dead in > less than half of a century. > Mmhhh. Low-temperature, discontinuous, obvious limitations as to square meters available, low theoretical maximum efficiency. Why would this not be a dead end? Energy is just one thing. Food is another, and we've had peak of > (some) minerals/elements. None of the old industrialized places are > driving innovation hard enough to be avoided to be creamed by that. > That given enough energy and information you can do anything, and that energy and information are the only resources that ultimately matter, may be an oversimplification, but an oversimplification that I suspect with time and progress to become more and more accurate... > I don't really understand why U.S. is intending to bleed itself dry > for campaigns that *on the surface* do not make any sense. There > must be some hidden motivations. > Or they may be the actually be the irrational final product of "rational" decisions of multiple players, as Anders suggests. Or the decisions involved may simply be wrong, myopic and superficial, in spite of a pretence of imperial clairvoyance, it would not be a first time in history. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 14:07:28 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:07:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Poem In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yes, remarkable, I like it myself - though I have always trouble in finding the time to watch videos in comparison with reading texts... :-) On 26 December 2011 15:01, Kryonica wrote: > This is at once a poem, a rap song and a wonderful piece of transhumanist philosophy. ?1min 45 s of pure genius! > > http://vimeo.com/34182381 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- Stefano Vaj From kryonica at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 14:12:36 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 14:12:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Poem In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Jason Silva serves busy people well by making his clips very short and very, very dense. On 5 Jan 2012, at 14:07, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Yes, remarkable, I like it myself - though I have always trouble in > finding the time to watch videos in comparison with reading texts... > :-) > > > On 26 December 2011 15:01, Kryonica wrote: >> This is at once a poem, a rap song and a wonderful piece of transhumanist philosophy. 1min 45 s of pure genius! >> >> http://vimeo.com/34182381 >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > -- > Stefano Vaj > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 5 14:19:18 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:19:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Poem In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120105141918.GM21917@leitl.org> On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 02:12:36PM +0000, Kryonica wrote: > Jason Silva serves busy people well by making his clips very short and very, very dense. I've skimmed thousands of emails today, from hundreds of contexts. No can do with multimedia. I'm too old for these slowtime things. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 14:36:30 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:36:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Poem In-Reply-To: <20120105141918.GM21917@leitl.org> References: <20120105141918.GM21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 15:19, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 02:12:36PM +0000, Kryonica wrote: >> Jason Silva serves busy people well by making his clips very short and very, very dense. > > I've skimmed thousands of emails today, from hundreds of contexts. > No can do with multimedia. > > I'm too old for these slowtime things. Exactly my sentiment. Even though I must admit that Jason Silva is both concise and deserving. I was wondering today whether, in order to attenuate my resistance, something exists that wouls allows, like the PS3 with movies, to play Youtube etc. at 1.5x or 2.0x while simultaneously and symmetrically lowering the audio frequencies, so that words remain understandable. -- Stefano Vaj From seculartranshumanist at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 15:02:24 2012 From: seculartranshumanist at gmail.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:02:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Poem In-Reply-To: <20120105141918.GM21917@leitl.org> References: <20120105141918.GM21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 9:19 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > I've skimmed thousands of emails today, from hundreds of contexts. > No can do with multimedia. > > I'm too old for these slowtime things. "Yes, of course, who has time? Who has time? But then if we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time?" - The Merovingian, The Matrix Reloaded Joseph From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 5 16:41:41 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 08:41:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Poem In-Reply-To: References: <20120105141918.GM21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: <002d01cccbc8$e78b3720$b6a1a560$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] Poem On 5 January 2012 15:19, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 02:12:36PM +0000, Kryonica wrote: >>>... Jason Silva serves busy people well by making his clips very short and very, very dense. > >>... I've skimmed thousands of emails today, from hundreds of contexts. >> No can do with multimedia... I'm too old for these slowtime things. >...Exactly my sentiment. Even though I must admit that Jason Silva is both concise and deserving. Stefano Vaj The value of a particular forum is that they choose the shortest and densest video, acting as a sort of editor, to guide the old and busy (such as me) to only the most worthwhile video clips. I can read way faster than anyone can talk, but there is a small amount of extremely worthwhile video buried in a lifetime of garbage, such as the fractals presented by Silva. spike From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 17:23:59 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 17:23:59 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Poem In-Reply-To: <002d01cccbc8$e78b3720$b6a1a560$@att.net> References: <20120105141918.GM21917@leitl.org> <002d01cccbc8$e78b3720$b6a1a560$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 4:41 PM, spike wrote: > The value of a particular forum is that they choose the shortest and densest > video, acting as a sort of editor, to guide the old and busy (such as me) to > only the most worthwhile video clips. ?I can read way faster than anyone can > talk, but there is a small amount of extremely worthwhile video buried in a > lifetime of garbage, such as the fractals presented by ?Silva. > > I've discovered that the secret is to give up trying to read the whole internet. ;) Let other people do that for you and find those happy few who repost good stuff and read them. BillK From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 18:40:03 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:40:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/3 spike I like this guy. It reminds me of myself:**** > > ** ** > > > http://www.creators.com/opinion/john-stossel/ideas-have-sex-and-we-re-better-for-it.html > I have never thought much of Stossel. Here's my reply as posted to the comments section for his article: Stossel's a dim bulb preaching to all his fellow dim bulbs out there. I commend him on his personal success, but based as it is on drinking and passing around the Fox Kool-aid to his fellow DBs, it's not much of an accomplishment. A pleasant article, mostly right, but we could do without the obligatory slams against "central planning" slash "guvmint" -- a hold-over from the era of blind screaming anti-communism. Central planning -- in the form of Communism -- brought backward Czarist Russia to super-power status in less than 70 years (including a brief pause to defeat Nazi Germany). Central planning -- in the form of Communism --brought a billion destitute Chinese peasants to modernity and imminent economic dominance in 60 years. On the battlefield, central planning by a country only one-twentieth its size frustrated (defeated, actually) the world's preeminent military superpower. In a mere 25 years, central planning -- MITI -- brought Japan from defeat and utter destruction after WW2 to the top tier of technical sophistication and economic power. And, in case you hadn't noticed, central planning at the corporate level is the operational foundation of enterprise capitalism. Hard to miss, all those successes of central planning. If Stossel could drop his ideological prejudice, and the stupidity that naturally results. he might actually be able to write little essays about the obvious -- innovation by free people with resources at their disposal can accomplish great things, .....well duh! -- and be taken seriously by folks with actual intellectual standing, ie folks outside the DB crowd that shares Stossel's prejudices. ************************************************************** Stossel reminds me not the least little bit, Spike, of your technical depth and breadth or your humor-enhanced >H vision. Stossel's got optimism? Great. I'm a big fan of optimism. Everyone should have a sunny outlook, whether warranted or not. Reminds me of the old joke about Jesus on the cross. His followers are solemnly passing by and someone notices that Jesus's lips are moving, so one of them gets up and puts his ear real close, and hears Jesus softly murmuring: "I love a parade." *************************************************************** This Jason Silva guy,... this reminds guy me of you. A couple of espressos and your right up there with him. http://vimeo.com/34182381 Best, Jeff Davis "Everything you see I owe to spaghetti." Sophia Loren -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 19:17:24 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 12:17:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> Message-ID: And check this puppy out. This is the very essence of your being, Spike. THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY! http://vimeo.com/29938326 Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 5 19:18:21 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:18:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <008501cccbde$ca7cda60$5f768f20$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Jeff Davis Subject: Re: [ExI] stossel on optimism 2012/1/3 spike >>.I like this guy. It reminds me of myself: http://www.creators.com/opinion/john-stossel/ideas-have-sex-and-we-re-better -for-it.html >.I have never thought much of Stossel. And, in case you hadn't noticed, central planning at the corporate level is the operational foundation of enterprise capitalism.Hard to miss, all those successes of central planning.Best, Jeff Davis {8^D Thanks Jeff. I have nothing against central planning, just as long as it is done by big evil corporations, rather than by governments. Actually I have no problem with central planning by corporations of any size or any position on the good/evil scale. With big evil corporations, you have a choice of working for them or not, and the choice of buying their goods or not. With governments, your choice is to play along or face their guns. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 5 20:09:51 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 21:09:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Poem In-Reply-To: References: <20120105141918.GM21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20120105200951.GP21917@leitl.org> On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 10:02:24AM -0500, Joseph Bloch wrote: > > I'm too old for these slowtime things. > > "Yes, of course, who has time? Who has time? But then if we do not > ever take time, how can we ever have time?" - The Merovingian, The > Matrix Reloaded Do you know why the Matrix was full of shit? No, I don't mean "using the energy from the human bodies" in absence of sunlight, combined with a "form of fusion". You can scoff at scientific illiteracy Hollywood think they can get away with, but that's only something to make you cringe and go "oh well". It's where they keep the monkeys on pods on fully immersive BCIs but where said monkeys still can outreflex beings that run on solid state, with a conservative timebase ratio of at leat a million if not a billion. And here is where suspension of disbelief completely explodes cartoon gears and springs all over the place. Finis. From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 20:06:57 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 12:06:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: <008501cccbde$ca7cda60$5f768f20$@att.net> References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> <008501cccbde$ca7cda60$5f768f20$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/5 spike : > With big evil corporations, you have a > choice of working for them or not, Assuming you can afford to not be working. Or you don't live in a town that's supported by one single employer (see any number of towns that essentially died once their factory or mine shut down) - granted, one could in theory move, but if this was a trivial choice for most people then said small & dependent towns wouldn't exist. > and the choice of buying their goods or > not. Save for monopolies, or near-monopolies, in areas where you have to buy something from that sector. For instance, farmers have to buy seeds. (Or quit being farmers, but this is not remotely practical for many of them: their capital is sunk into their farm, and training for any other industry takes long enough that they need a source of income in the mean time.) http://www.newwest.net/city/article/big_ag_forces_farmers_to_buy_ge_seeds_report_says3/C8/L8/ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122498255 > With governments, your choice is to play along or face their guns. Unless and except where corps effectively become governments. The line is not so clear as it might seem. From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 5 21:27:17 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:27:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00a801cccbf0$cd582fc0$68088f40$@att.net> Excellent Jeff! We should see if we can get Jason Silva to hang out here. Anyone buddies with him? spike -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Davis Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2012 11:17 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] stossel on optimism And check this puppy out. This is the very essence of your being, Spike. THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY! http://vimeo.com/29938326 Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From kryonica at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 21:49:23 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 21:49:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: <00a801cccbf0$cd582fc0$68088f40$@att.net> References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> <00a801cccbf0$cd582fc0$68088f40$@att.net> Message-ID: Jason has plenty of friends on Facebook. 5007 to be precise. He was at the Singularity 2011 summit in New York, but I wasn't there so I have never met him. David Pearce is one of his friends and he mentions David's Hedonistic imperative in his latest clip so maybe David is the right person to send out an invitation? Is David on this list or is he only on Extrobritannia? On 5 Jan 2012, at 21:27, spike wrote: > Excellent Jeff! > > We should see if we can get Jason Silva to hang out here. Anyone buddies > with him? > > spike > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Davis > Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2012 11:17 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] stossel on optimism > > And check this puppy out. This is the very essence of your being, Spike. > > THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY! > > http://vimeo.com/29938326 > > Best, Jeff Davis > > "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." > Ray Charles > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jan 5 21:58:51 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:58:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> <00a801cccbf0$cd582fc0$68088f40$@att.net> Message-ID: <20120105165851.n926nzey04ock800@webmail.natasha.cc> Jason is a nice guy. This clip is naive and amusing at the same time.?I'm afraid that this performance piece would get a hell of a lot of flack from the performance art community. Natasha Quoting Kryonica : > Jason has plenty of friends on Facebook.? 5007 to be precise.? He? > was at the Singularity 2011 summit in New York, but I wasn't there? > so I have never met him.? David Pearce is one of his friends and he? > mentions David's Hedonistic imperative in his latest clip so maybe? > David is the right person to send out an invitation?? Is David on? > this list or is he only on Extrobritannia? > On 5 Jan 2012, at 21:27, spike wrote: > >> Excellent Jeff! >> >> We should see if we can get Jason Silva to hang out here.? Anyone buddies >> with him? >> >> spike >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org >> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Davis >> Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2012 11:17 AM >> To: ExI chat list >> Subject: Re: [ExI] stossel on optimism >> >> And check this puppy out.? This is the very essence of your being, Spike. >> >> THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY! >> >> http://vimeo.com/29938326[1] >> >> Best, Jeff Davis >> >> ? ? ? ? ?"Everything's hard till you know how to do it." >> ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?Ray Charles >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat[2] >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat[3] > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat[4] > Links: ------ [1] http://vimeo.com/29938326 [2] http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat [3] http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat [4] http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 13:21:25 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 14:21:25 +0100 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> <008501cccbde$ca7cda60$5f768f20$@att.net> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 21:06, Adrian Tymes wrote: > Unless and except where corps effectively become governments. > The line is not so clear as it might seem. > Yes. The "failure of planned economies" has become a platitude since at least the eighties. But while markets may have other arguments in their favour, I believe to have already remarked once that perhaps the failure had to do with the attempt to manage something as large and complicate as the USSR with pens, pencils, file cabinets, pocket calculators and punch-card machines. The real example of planned economies today are not the very few socialist economies still around in not-so-developed countries, but large conglomerates, whose internal workings are by no means based on market mechanisms (the few attempts for intracorporate emulation of them, see Aker's IBS, having been unqualified disasters). Now, even without their hypothetical "seasteading", it is perfectly imaginable even in the most libertarian scenario that one of them could well assume a role even more pervasive than, say, XIX century governments. Let us imagine that it ends up employing most or all of the members of a community, who might in turn be shareholders, and/or consumers of the product, thereof... From that to the assumption of government-like features, there is just one small step. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kryonica at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 19:07:58 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 19:07:58 +0000 Subject: [ExI] I am eagerly awaiting this OPTIMISTIC book Message-ID: www.abundanceTheBook.com Sorry if it looks like advertising. It isn't meant to. Just life extensionist transhumanist enthusiasm! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtomek at ceti.pl Fri Jan 6 23:21:44 2012 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 00:21:44 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] Zen (Was: Morality and function fitting) In-Reply-To: <1325605400.38158.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325605400.38158.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Anders wrote: > > >Zen might have a point: > >'Master Kyogen said, "It is like a man up a tree who hangs from a branch > >by his mouth. His hands cannot grasp a bough, his feet cannot touch the > >tree. Another man comes under the tree and asks him the meaning of > >Bodhidharma's coming from the West. If he does not answer, he does not > >meet the questioner's need. If he answers, he will lose his life. At > >such a time, how should he answer?"' > > > Um, by pointing at the tree in his mouth and rolling his eyes? > > Zen can be so stupid sometimes. I'm with Bart Simpson ("the sound of > one hand clapping? Easy!": ) > > > Ben Zaiboc It took me few days to realize you talk like a zen master. This was important lesson. Kindly bowing to you, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 7 02:39:25 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 18:39:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Zen (Was: Morality and function fitting) In-Reply-To: References: <1325605400.38158.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000601cccce5$9256f050$b704d0f0$@att.net> Subject: Re: [ExI] Zen (Was: Morality and function fitting) On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Anders wrote: > > >Zen might have a point: > >'Master Kyogen said, "It is like a man up a tree who hangs from a > >branch by his mouth. His hands cannot grasp a bough, his feet cannot > >touch the tree. Another man comes under the tree and asks him the > >meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West. If he does not answer, > >he does not meet the questioner's need. If he answers, he will lose > >his life. At such a time, how should he answer?"' > > Zen can be so stupid sometimes. I'm with Bart Simpson ("the sound of > one hand clapping? Easy!": ) > > Ben Zaiboc Bart would get this one too. A person can speak to some extent without unclenching the jaw. Try it. Like one hand clapping, it isn't as effective as the normal means, but it would suffice to say to the questioner, "Move directly under me please." spike From rtomek at ceti.pl Sat Jan 7 04:47:09 2012 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 05:47:09 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] The Coming War on General Computation In-Reply-To: <1325676160.47146.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325676160.47146.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Transcript of Cory Doctorow's talk, 'The Coming War on General Computation': > http://joshuawise.com/28c3-transcript > > Video can be found at > http://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-purp.html > > We now risk a world where no-one is allowed to make an MPU without > built-in mechanisms for surveillance and control. General-purpose > computing would become a thing of the past, and anyone who tried to > build one would be a criminal. Free software, of course, would be dead > in the water. > > I'm now wondering if this counts as an existential risk. If I understood this (I've read a transcript) the problem is about the fact that making a device that can only execute authorized code is close to impossible - and if such device was made it would be close to useless, IMHO. So it is (close to) impossible to make a computer that could not help in, say, pirating the content. Even if it would be possible, technology makes it possible at the same time to do many creative things with any kind of hardware out there, thus any "clever" and "sophisticated" "copy write" securing scheme is being broken (and it can be seen almost going live, wise guys are this quick). Basically it all goes down to the fact that everybody can have a general purpose computing device for a price of dirt. I speak about some cheap 8-bit thing that requires some knowledge of electronic to be of any use (how and what to solder etc), but even with such simple thing one can do possibly a lot of hacks. There are also tons of old but still working hardware that can be hacked for few decades. With this on a desk, one can think of a lot of more complicated things. The man is right, however, that media owners are small barkers compared to some gorillas who are only starting to wake up. But, to help them would mean removing the technology from under our feet. This doable, but if done would nullify a lot - basically, moving us all to 19 century at best and putting works of Alan Turing and Alonso Church on index (and everything else that stemmed from them). Oh, I forgot about Charles Babbage. So, we have to hop somewhere into 1830s... No, even worse. We would have to censor Joseph Marie Jacquard's mechanical loom and punched cards. This moves us back some 50 years, to around 1780s. No, again, we have to consider a man named Gerbert d'Aurillac, later known as Pope Silvester II, also known as mathematician and constructor of hydraulic-powered organ. After he learned logic, geometry, astronomy/astrology and other such stuff from Arabs while in Spain, he was said to posess an automaton that could give yes/no answer when asked a question. This was probably only a legend, but that there was such idea in circulation 1000 years ago is mind boggling for me. Oh crap. To remove computation we would have to be rewound back to 9th century. No, again. From what I have heard, ancient Greeks had simple automatons. They used them on a daily basis - like, automaton that gave water after being given some amount of money. Or automaton used for animating things in theatre. Those guys were really good, probably on the verge of inventing steam turbine. O yeah, and they made mechanical calculators with bronze gears - the one and only such calculator found in Antikythera is said to be from 1st century BC, but since it is soo good and well made, this must have been later design and not prototype. All this was 2000-2500 years ago. So, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there was more of such inventions in the past. Now buried under soil or burnt in fire by some warrior-king who was in need of more bronze. Now, I think the real problem is not general purpose computing but mathematics. Because most of this computing comes straight from mathematicians - like Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, Alonso Church, Alan Turing... For summary and even more names - like Heron of Alexandria, who is said to have built a programmable cart, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware So, overally, one has to come to this idea that scientists and engineers are the worst enemies of technologically oriented corporations. And those very same corporations have to rely on them or perish. Interesting situation. Perhaps it is possible to have a very small population, say 5-10 millions, of technologically savvy folks, sitting in some isolated area and having all tech in their control, while the rest of the planet remains as technological reservation with folks eating raw meat and whatever they find. Perhaps it is even possible to transit from current state of thing to this nasty scenario (I can imagine this but really, nothing interesting). BTW, speaking of Greeks, I don't remember where I have read about it but once upon a time Hephaestus built a tripod automatons and few other things for his fellow gods, who were quite dependent on him - to such extent that after he was exiled from Olympus they went after him begging for his return. The very same gods went freak after Prometheus stole fire (maybe from Hephaestus' workshop) and gave it to mortal people. Anyway, back to your question - there is some risk, but from my point of view anybody trying to solve this "problem" would do a big disservice first to people but later to himself, too. It's more like a house of cards. One can remove cards, sure. The house will, however, collapse. And it will be rebuilt, possibly up to a point when people's creativity will scare the shit out of humanity managers. And so on. Is it wise to try building house of cards without cards - no, if you asked me. If things turned out to be like this, I wouldn't be very much surprised however (that's just very typical human irrationality). On the other hand, maybe things will go in some more positive direction. Even Cory Doctorow made the remark that current technological progress puts us all on a fast lane, going somewhere - but obiously not much can be said about where the journey ends, or if it ends at all. The only certain knowledge about motion is motion itself, it seems. Unless we crash, as it happens to some fast movers. For now, we have universal computer that can be told to compute all kind of numbers, including numbers that unlock "copy writes". Next programme, we will have universal constructor, able to fabricate medicines to heal us and guns to shoot those already healthy enough to be killed. The introduction of universal constructor, or something less universal but still quite capable, might be postponed to some extent but will be very hard to stop - house of cards, mind you. The most important existential risk for me is the problem of human irrationality. And I am not even sure it can be somehow helped. Even with all technology humans can make, now and in the future. However, now taking my more optimistic point of view, history might be seen as fight between irrationality and creativity. So far, creativity wins or at least buys itself more time, throwing toys and meat to irrationality. As long as irrationality is fed and entertained, we can survive. Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 7 04:45:03 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 20:45:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants Message-ID: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> Muwaaaahaaahahaahahahahahaaaaa. Hey cool, we could REALLY raise hell with this capability, ja? http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/01/06/2141232/ants-turned-into-supersol diers?utm_source=headlines &utm_medium=email {8-] Perhaps we shouldn't however. {8-[ Maybe. |8-| Actually I want to try it. {8^D spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Jan 7 17:57:41 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 09:57:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Zen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1325959061.29781.YahooMailClassic@web114416.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Tomasz Rola declared: > > It took me few days to realize you talk like a zen master. > > This was important lesson. > > Kindly bowing to you, > Tomasz Rola Then "spike" wisecracked: > > Bart would get this one too.? A person can speak to > some extent without > unclenching the jaw.? Try it.? Like one hand > clapping, it isn't as effective > as the normal means, but it would suffice to say to the > questioner, "Move > directly under me please." Oh gods, guys! Tomasz made me LOL, then Spike made me actually guffaw. Luckily, I was not drinking coffee at the time! Ben Zaiboc (still chuckling) From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 19:03:16 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 12:03:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] seemingly big advance in electrical energy storage Message-ID: Serious multiples of energy storage capacity -- apparently. Cheap non-toxic materials, they seem to say. Easy (cheap) and environmentally benign manufacturing methods kind of implied. Unsaid, but pondered, "Does the greater capacity translate to ***LIGHTER*** energy source/storage module (formerly "battery pack")? [I throw in the last because significant weight reduction results in a cascade of efficiencies in the EV context: smaller "battery pack" allows smaller frame, suspension, and motor, which allows still smaller "battery pack" which allows still smaller frame, suspension, and motor. Iterate.] This is where it first popped up on my radar: Energy-storage membrane outstrips existing rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors in energy density and cost http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/energy-storage-membrane-outstrips.html Which traces back to this paper: Supercapacitive energy storage based on ion-conducting channels in hydrophilized organic network http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/polb.22295/full where careful reading reveals that the paper was first published online, June 23, 2011. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 20:09:27 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 12:09:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] seemingly big advance in electrical energy storage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 11:03 AM, Jeff Davis wrote: > [I throw in the last because significant weight reduction results in a > cascade of efficiencies in the EV context: smaller "battery pack" > allows smaller frame, suspension, and motor, which allows still > smaller "battery pack" which allows still smaller frame, suspension, > and motor. ?Iterate.] Or, y'know, don't iterate. Just pick a configuration it enables that previously wasn't possible. Not to diminish this - it's great if it's real and can be commercialized. But generally, "X for Y lets you get away with smaller Z, which means you need less Y, which means you can do even smaller Z" is deceptive - first and foremost to the person thinking it. It is technically correct, but the returns diminish rapidly. Furthermore, in practice, more things tend to be added to take advantage of the newly freed up capacity. But if you want to truly appreciate what it frees up, don't pretend you can keep iterating. Rather, look at the numbers to see what is now possible, that wasn't. From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 7 21:19:47 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 13:19:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] seemingly big advance in electrical energy storage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01cccd82$1624ba10$426e2e30$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Davis Subject: [ExI] seemingly big advance in electrical energy storage >...Serious multiples of energy storage capacity -- apparently. Cheap non-toxic materials, they seem to say. Easy (cheap) and environmentally benign manufacturing methods kind of implied. Unsaid, but pondered, "Does the greater capacity translate to ***LIGHTER*** energy source/storage module (formerly "battery pack")? http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/energy-storage-membrane-outstrips.html ...Best, Jeff Davis Jeff I hope it is true, but I think not. When it says "holds 20 times the charge" I assume they mean per unit mass? They don't say. If not mass, then 20 times the charge per what? If per unit mass, the claim is way beyond believable. spike From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 22:08:24 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 15:08:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] seemingly big advance in electrical energy storage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 1:09 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 11:03 AM, Jeff Davis wrote: >> [I throw in the last because significant weight reduction results in a >> cascade of efficiencies in the EV context: smaller "battery pack" >> allows smaller frame, suspension, and motor, which allows still >> smaller "battery pack" which allows still smaller frame, suspension, >> and motor. ?Iterate.] > > Or, y'know, don't iterate. ?Just pick a configuration it enables that > previously wasn't possible. That works for me, Adrian. I kinda figured the iterations would converge rather quickly to a limit. Jeff From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 23:59:36 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 18:59:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Coming War on General Computation In-Reply-To: References: <1325676160.47146.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 11:47 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote: > However, now taking my more optimistic point of view, history might be > seen as fight between irrationality and creativity. So far, creativity > wins or at least buys itself more time, throwing toys and meat to > irrationality. As long as irrationality is fed and entertained, we can > survive. > "As long as irrationality is fed and entertained, we can survive." I wanted to pull that quote - it deserves the extra attention. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Jan 7 20:20:19 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 14:20:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Google Scholar Message-ID: <37.C0.03083.A09A80F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Does anyone know how Google Scholar selects its material? Thanks, Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Chair, Humanity+ Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 06:34:21 2012 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 00:34:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Google Scholar In-Reply-To: <37.C0.03083.A09A80F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> References: <37.C0.03083.A09A80F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: 2012/1/7 Natasha Vita-More > Does anyone know how Google Scholar selects its material? It crawls the web looking for pdfs. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 08:10:15 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 01:10:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> <008501cccbde$ca7cda60$5f768f20$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/6 Stefano Vaj : > On 5 January 2012 21:06, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> >> Unless and except where corps effectively become governments. >> The line is not so clear as it might seem. > > > Yes. The "failure of planned economies" has become a platitude since at > least the eighties. But while markets may have other arguments in their > favour, I believe to have already remarked once that perhaps the failure had > to do with the attempt to manage something as large and complicate as the > USSR with pens, pencils, file cabinets, pocket calculators and punch-card > machines. > > The real example of planned economies today are not the very few socialist > economies still around in not-so-developed countries, but large > conglomerates, whose internal workings are by no means based on market > mechanisms (the few attempts for intracorporate emulation of them, see > Aker's IBS, having been unqualified disasters). > > Now, even without their hypothetical "seasteading", it is perfectly > imaginable even in the most libertarian scenario that one of them could well > assume a role even more pervasive than, say, XIX century governments. Let us > imagine that it ends up employing most or all of the members of a community, > who might in turn be shareholders, and/or consumers of the product, > thereof... From that to the assumption of government-like features, there is > just one small step. Even capitalist systems can fail when too much faith is placed in one aspect of the system. Thinking that 'real estate never goes down', or that AIG is big enough to ensure everyone at the same time for the same basic eventuality. That just ends up with all the world governments becoming the final insurance company... which makes AIG type companies too profitable because they aren't really the backstop everyone thinks they are. There's something unfair about that (and you know I, Mr. libertarian, don't say that sort of thing lightly). If there ever was a place for a regulation, it seems that the government should make sure that one insurance company isn't ensuring everyone in a way that they'll have to pay out to everybody at the same time. Though it's hard to see how you would do that. Say, for example, that the Yellowstone super volcano went off. Every insurance company in the world would fail immediately, and no amount of legislation could prevent it. But perhaps some headway could be made in purely financial instruments that don't depend quite so heavily on natural disasters, but rather highly complex bubbles, like the real estate derivatives. I wish I could think of a way to outlaw investments that smart people can't understand, but that's getting in the way of liberty. The only solution, therefore, would seem to be educating investors to the stupidity of buying something they can't explain to their mother. I had a friend who invested using a rather complex scheme of selling both short and long at the same time and allowing other people to bet against each other using stocks he actually owned. I never could completely wrap my head around it, so I would never make that kind of investment. I hope he isn't sorry some day that the hole in his scheme isn't exposed, and it almost has to be there. Of course, he is pitting two greedy investors against each other, so maybe he'll always win... who knows? It sounded like he had made himself into the house. -Kelly From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 09:26:04 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 09:26:04 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Google Scholar In-Reply-To: <37.C0.03083.A09A80F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> References: <37.C0.03083.A09A80F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: On 2012/1/7 Natasha Vita-More enquired: > Does anyone know how Google Scholar selects its material? > > The short answer is 'Nobody knows' because Google does not provide a list of sources that it uses in its search or criteria used in identifying material as scholarly or say how often they are re-indexed. However, most universities provide guidance to their students on how to search through their own library and databases using Scholar. e.g. Follow the steps below to access the online full-text of articles to which the University Libraries subscribes. * From Google Scholar select Scholar Preferences * Go to the Library Links section, enter University of South Carolina, and then click Find Library. * Select University of South Carolina - USC Columbia eText >From other sites: Google Scholar is a search engine which provides access to resources across a range of subjects. Resources include abstracts, conference proceedings, technical reports, peer-reviewed papers, articles, theses, preprints and books. Search results from Google Scholar are not always scholarly or peer-reviewed. For instance, articles in The New York Times are found in Google Scholar, yet this is not a refereed journal but rather a newspaper publication. Always evaluate your sources. Though Google Scholar can be an excellent research tool for freely available materials or materials subscribed to by our Library, it is not a comprehensive search. Google Scholar only searches the materials it has indexed. Consider using other Library resources, such as the databases, to find additional information. If you need additional direction in determining what databases to search, contact a librarian. -------------- This page seems useful: BillK From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 10:35:04 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 03:35:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] evolutionary psychology In-Reply-To: <004001ccc574$a631c6e0$f29554a0$@att.net> References: <01a901ccc4d4$54c79aa0$fe56cfe0$@att.net> <1325053696.38287.YahooMailNeo@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <004001ccc574$a631c6e0$f29554a0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/12/28 spike : > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Gordon > Subject: [ExI] evolutionary psychology > > My own experience with patents is that if you have a good idea, get going on > it.? For reasons I have never understood, it seems like whatever you invent, > someone somewhere is working on the same thing at the same time.? Seize the > day. Sorry for the late reply here, but I can't pass on this one. In software, at least, my experience is just the opposite. Nobody has ever seemed interested in copying other people's software ideas very much, and venture capitalists encourage you to share your ideas early on to get better feedback. If what you were saying here were true Spike, then they would suggest that you keep things secret. Now, this may have to do with how large a space software takes up... the amount of software that hasn't been written yet is clearly a larger sort of infinity than the number of cars that haven't yet been built. And that may be the difference here. Software patents, an area I have a little bit of expertise in, seem to me to be an utter waste of time. You can't write a 100 line program without violating ten patents, and you'll never know which 10 they are. Software is so inherently inventive, that patents just don't enter into the useful day to day life of programmers. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 10:22:30 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 03:22:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/6 spike : > Muwaaaahaaahahaahahahahahaaaaa? > > > > Hey cool, we could REALLY raise hell with this capability, ja? > > > > http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/01/06/2141232/ants-turned-into-supersoldiers?utm_source=headlines&utm_medium=email > > > > {8-] > > > > Perhaps we shouldn?t however. > > > > {8-[ > > > > Maybe. > > > > |8-| > > > > Actually I want to try it. > > > > {8^D It doesn't seem very dangerous... unless you changed the gene expression in some way as to not require the hormone treatment during gestation... THAT would be dangerous. Can you imagine those killer fire ants down south with this stuff done to them!?! That would be bad ass!! Wouldn't want a nest of those around. These atavistic genes are found in every species... and getting them to express themselves is interesting. There was a Wired article a couple of months ago about trying to turn chickens back into little dinosaurs through an attempt to reactivate atavistic genes (among other techniques)... That was a cool article too. Every kid wants a pet dinosaur... perhaps our dinosaur planet will return... LOL Any trans-chickenists aboard for that ride? -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 11:31:59 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 04:31:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 2:57 PM, ?"spike" wrote: > > While the US lost relatively small numbers of people in the jihad war > to date, there were an awful lot of people killed. Not when compared to previous conflicts, and I think that is the point. Even with 100,000 Iraqi's dead in ten years, that's less than the 200,000 who disappeared into Abu Garab when Saddam ran the place... not to mention the 500,000 killed in the war with Iran that he started. So while 100,000 dead is bad, it is a decrease in rate from Saddam's time. So, while things are surely bad, they are getting better. Now with our retreat, we will see whether things will get better or worse. I'm betting on worse. If less than 100,000 people are killed over the next ten years in Iraq in sectarian violence, terrorism and by the new government, I will be surprised. >> We are seeing what amounts to warfare between Iran and >> the US/Britain/Israel axis. ?Drones are flying over and being apparently >> commandeered and captured, viruses are wrecking their nuclear separation >> facilities, plenty of computerized struggle is reportedly ongoing, but most >> of the population is unaware and unconcerned. ?So different is this from >> every previous war in every previous century of human existence. ?Are the >> old rules still applicable? > > I see no reason human nature would have changed. Me neither. > How much damage was caused to the US economy by spending a trillion > dollars on the recent wars? ?How many people will die because of the > economic collapse that engendered? Woah there big fella!! The economic collapse was not brought about because of the war. Usually wars make the economy go like gangbusters. The war probably made the economic problems less severe than they otherwise would have been. The real problem was the unholy alliance of Washington, Wall Street, Freddy, Fanny and the rest of us. The housing problem can not be pinned on the war by any means. The increase of the national debt is only minimally impacted by the war, and nobody has definitively shown that to be a cause of the economic downturn (yet) that we have been experiencing. Business fears of overregulation and Obama-care are a bigger cause of the recession than the war. > The big problem is that war expenses make the future bleaker for just > about everybody on both sides, leading in a many cases to additional > spread of xenophobic memes that lend support to more war. But wars also help put money into certain types of research. Do you think we would have flying humming bird robots without the war? I don't. The progress on autonomous vehicles and especially airplanes is astonishing. War isn't ever a total failure in technical terms, it just changes priority and order of discovery and invention. > And the other factor is that the memes leading up to wars divert > leaders from rational thinking. ?Certainly you can make a strong case > that starting the war with Iraq was a widely supported irrational act. The war in Iraq was started irrationally. People got into a circle of belief much like that experienced in religion. You hear the testimony of your co-workers about Iraq, and you start to believe it yourself after a while. It was the culture of the CIA and Cheney and Rumsfeld fed it and fed off of it in a vicious circle. We didn't need that war, for sure. But I do think it was a good thing for Iraqis, but probably not for Americans. > One of the many things that I worry about is an irrational government > commissioning an AGI with the intent for it to help them win the > current war. It is going to come sooner or later... and when it does it will be employed for good and evil, just like EVERY OTHER technology in the history of the world. I say let them foot part of the bill. > Such people are not going to be considering "friendly" as a desirable trait. Yeah, that can keep us up at night. > Keith -Kelly From anders at aleph.se Sun Jan 8 09:57:15 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 10:57:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Google Scholar In-Reply-To: <37.C0.03083.A09A80F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> References: <37.C0.03083.A09A80F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: <4F09687B.1090501@aleph.se> On 2012-01-07 21:20, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Does anyone know how Google Scholar selects its material? It most likely uses heuristic web crawling. It looks for material that either *looks* like academic text or is in an academic repository (which might also be deduced by some text mining algorithm). So it is not entirely reliable, but then again, academic journals are not entirely reliable either. My own experience is that when casting your net widely about a topic scholar is useful. When you want to find high quality articles about something you already know roughly "where" it is dedicated search systems and indices like Pubmed and Sciencedirect are better. But when you want to see if there is *anything* about something, even in remote disciplines, then scholar is useful. Overall, academic search is an interesting skill. In my job I often have to look up unfamiliar topics, often without even knowing what they are called. This leads to an interesting iterative search where I try to find topics closer to what I want, use their terminology to find something even closer, and so on. Once I get near my quarry I start looking at papers they cite (ever Introduction section in every paper is essentially a mini-review about the topic!) and papers that cite them. Following those links and repeating I try to find the core papers everybody cites or review everything, and it is those that I finally sit down and read properly. What I really would like is a structure-based search engine that could find me theorems linking concept A and B, and using methods from domain C. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 11:56:42 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 12:56:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> <008501cccbde$ca7cda60$5f768f20$@att.net> Message-ID: On 8 January 2012 09:10, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I wish I could think of a way to outlaw investments that smart people > can't understand, but that's getting in the way of liberty. > Yes. Not being really a libertarian myself, this would intolerably reek of nanny-State policies. Why should I be allowed to bet my life's savings in a night in Las Vegas and not engage in an investment "because I do not really understand it", especially when I can get ruined by perfectly simple, and wrong, business choices? I also feel very hostile to measure such the prohibition against short-selling. Why should this anybody's business but that of the parties entering into such an arrangement? What we need is both more radical and less bureaucratic/paternalistic. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alito at organicrobot.com Sun Jan 8 12:19:57 2012 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:19:57 +1100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0989ED.4080808@organicrobot.com> On 01/08/12 22:31, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 2:57 PM, "spike" wrote: >> >> While the US lost relatively small numbers of people in the jihad war >> to date, there were an awful lot of people killed. > > Not when compared to previous conflicts, and I think that is the > point. Even with 100,000 Iraqi's dead in ten years, that's less than > the 200,000 who disappeared into Abu Garab when Saddam ran the > place... not to mention the 500,000 killed in the war with Iran that > he started. So while 100,000 dead is bad, it is a decrease in rate > from Saddam's time. So, while things are surely bad, they are getting > better. Now with our retreat, we will see whether things will get > better or worse. I'm betting on worse. If less than 100,000 people are > killed over the next ten years in Iraq in sectarian violence, > terrorism and by the new government, I will be surprised. > You haven't seen the estimates published in the Lancet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties) or you chose to discard them as propaganda instead? From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 14:04:17 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 15:04:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <4F0989ED.4080808@organicrobot.com> References: <4F0989ED.4080808@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: On 8 January 2012 13:19, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > > Not when compared to previous conflicts, and I think that is the > > point. Even with 100,000 Iraqi's dead in ten years, that's less than > > the 200,000 who disappeared into Abu Garab when Saddam ran the > > place... > Do you have any source? Really 200.000 executions *in a single jail*, and over which period? And the national total would have been how many? In 2009, Amnesty International estimated 1718 executions took place during 2008 in the *entire Chinese territory*, believed to be one of the countries with the highest capital punishment rate, out of a population of 1400 millions (which equates to less than 0.0001%, or 1 in 1,000,000 of the population), compared to the scant 30 million Iraqis. And if we are speaking of literal disappearances from the premises concerned, this sounds even more ridiculous. Have you considered how many cubic meters 200.000 adult human bodies make, and how many trucks would be required to remove them? And what kind of population could the place contain at any given moment, in the first place? -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 8 17:37:07 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 09:37:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> Message-ID: <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants 2012/1/6 spike : >> Muwaaaahaaahahaahahahahahaaaaa. >> http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/01/06/2141232/ants-turned-into-supersol diers?utm_source=headlines&utm_medium=email >>spike >...It doesn't seem very dangerous... unless you changed the gene expression in some way as to not require the hormone treatment during gestation... THAT would be dangerous. -Kelly Here's the problem. On a farm in Oregon, we have a particular product which has proven the most profitable so far for non-irrigated crops: forage oilseed. This plant is in the mustard family, and a close cousin of the stuff they use to make canola oil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola The bees love this stuff! We were able to nurse back to health several flats of hives by just setting them in the fields, and they produced honey up the wazoo. This crop worked well for us in Oregon, but every beast loves it too: we had a hell of a time with spotted garden slugs; well actually every slug and snail known in that part of the world devoured it, along with furry beasts eating the plants. The pesticides needed to fight the slugs and snails are copper based and getting more expensive every day. Carbaryl methaldehyde based slug control is not only expensive but dangerous and personnel intensive, which is a big factor now since Oregon raised the minimum wage. The regulations for chemical herbicide and pesticide use grows every year. We know that ants will devour slugs if enough of them jump the slimy sons a bitches, but it takes several ants to defeat one slug. The slugs secrete some kind of protective layer of goo such that the ant's mandibles are not long enough to bite through. So my notion is if we could make or breed ants with longer and meaner mandibles, they could take on the slugs and snails, really feast on their wretched asses, assuming slugs have asses. It would also make those fields a most unpleasant place for the nutria and other mammal pests to out hang. The super-ants would only live a couple months, so they would control the pests, then die. They don't reproduce, they don't require expensive and dangerous pesticides, no poisoning the topsoil with a buildup of heavy metals in soil that will be used for food crops, no hassles with the salmon people, no hassles with the rest of the boards that oversee chemical pesticide use. We could ring the fields with a protective border of winter rye, which is not particularly profitable but is relatively beast-free, so the ants wouldn't bother going out there, but would rather stay in the forage oilseed and hunt slugs. spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 8 18:36:35 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 10:36:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] stossel on optimism In-Reply-To: References: <014501cccaad$07815090$1683f1b0$@att.net> <008501cccbde$ca7cda60$5f768f20$@att.net> Message-ID: <008001ccce34$73d74210$5b85c630$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson ... >...I had a friend who invested using a rather complex scheme of selling both short and long at the same time and allowing other people to bet against each other using stocks he actually owned. I never could completely wrap my head around it, so I would never make that kind of investment. I hope he isn't sorry some day that the hole in his scheme isn't exposed, and it almost has to be there. Of course, he is pitting two greedy investors against each other, so maybe he'll always win... who knows? It sounded like he had made himself into the house. -Kelly _______________________________________________ Kelly this sort of thing can be exploited profitably as we have seen in Ideas Futures. It is possible to short sell both sides of a two player game, and you are assured of making a profit. The loser (the guy who bet against the winner) must buy shares to cover his shorts. For instance, a political example would be the 2000 US election between Bush and Gore. For whatever reason, we saw people buying above any logical price the shares of their favorite candidate. For instance, two days before the election, Bush-wins shares were going for 51 cents and the Gore-wins shares for about 52. So an investor could buy no-Bushes for 49 cents and no-Gores for 48 cents. At least one of those guys would hafta lose, ja? So for 97 cents invested, one or the other (the no-Bush or the no-Gore) must pay back a dollar. In the unlikely event that a third guy won, such as a bomb goes off at a Bush-Gore debate, slaying both candidates, or that both Bush and Gore were caught colluding with the mafia or the commies the day before the election so that both lost, then the 97 cent investment would pay two bucks. What I learned from playing Ideas Futures with play money is that every possible derivative that we created there, and every possible short sale of any indefinite length or any contract can be derived from existing stock trades. If anyone is willing to spend their life doing that, there is real money to be made, perfectly legally and legitimately, and certainly plenty more to be made illegitimately and unethically, as we have seen with tragic results. spike From kaseylinanderson at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 18:59:34 2012 From: kaseylinanderson at gmail.com (Kasey Anderson) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 11:59:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> Message-ID: Well, you know, as long as it's an ant-eat-slug world, sounds like a great idea. ;) But you know, you get the same problem as with the pesticides. At least *one* of the slugs will survive due to some mutation, and by surviving it will pass its genes on to the next generation of slugs. Super ants? Great. Super slugs? Ewww. :D On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 10:37 AM, spike wrote: > > >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson > Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants > > 2012/1/6 spike : > >> Muwaaaahaaahahaahahahahahaaaaa. > > >> > > http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/01/06/2141232/ants-turned-into-supersol > diers?utm_source=headlines&utm_medium=email > > >>spike > > >...It doesn't seem very dangerous... unless you changed the gene > expression > in some way as to not require the hormone treatment during gestation... > THAT > would be dangerous. -Kelly > > > Here's the problem. On a farm in Oregon, we have a particular product > which > has proven the most profitable so far for non-irrigated crops: forage > oilseed. This plant is in the mustard family, and a close cousin of the > stuff they use to make canola oil: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola > > The bees love this stuff! We were able to nurse back to health several > flats of hives by just setting them in the fields, and they produced honey > up the wazoo. > > This crop worked well for us in Oregon, but every beast loves it too: we > had > a hell of a time with spotted garden slugs; well actually every slug and > snail known in that part of the world devoured it, along with furry beasts > eating the plants. The pesticides needed to fight the slugs and snails are > copper based and getting more expensive every day. Carbaryl methaldehyde > based slug control is not only expensive but dangerous and personnel > intensive, which is a big factor now since Oregon raised the minimum wage. > The regulations for chemical herbicide and pesticide use grows every year. > > We know that ants will devour slugs if enough of them jump the slimy sons a > bitches, but it takes several ants to defeat one slug. The slugs secrete > some kind of protective layer of goo such that the ant's mandibles are not > long enough to bite through. > > So my notion is if we could make or breed ants with longer and meaner > mandibles, they could take on the slugs and snails, really feast on their > wretched asses, assuming slugs have asses. It would also make those fields > a most unpleasant place for the nutria and other mammal pests to out hang. > The super-ants would only live a couple months, so they would control the > pests, then die. They don't reproduce, they don't require expensive and > dangerous pesticides, no poisoning the topsoil with a buildup of heavy > metals in soil that will be used for food crops, no hassles with the salmon > people, no hassles with the rest of the boards that oversee chemical > pesticide use. > > We could ring the fields with a protective border of winter rye, which is > not particularly profitable but is relatively beast-free, so the ants > wouldn't bother going out there, but would rather stay in the forage > oilseed > and hunt slugs. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 8 21:53:25 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 13:53:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kasey Anderson Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 11:00 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants >.Well, you know, as long as it's an ant-eat-slug world, sounds like a great idea. ;) But you know, you get the same problem as with the pesticides. At least one of the slugs will survive due to some mutation, and by surviving it will pass its genes on to the next generation of slugs. Super ants? Great. Super slugs? Ewww. :D Ewwww,? Kasey, why do you ewww? It's perfect! The real problem isn't the bugs evolving around the countermeasures. The real problems are the buildup of bad stuff in the topsoil and the cost of applying it. This solves the heck outta both those problems. Beasts cannot necessarily evolve their way around every countermeasure. This might be a good example of one they couldn't really evolve around, reasoning: there is a functional cost to having a goo layer on the skin: slugs must absorb oxygen through that. Since that factor would necessarily limit their metabolism, they tend to be slow and methodical about everything. Thus the term sluggish. Or if you are a fan of ancient writings, consider Proverbs 6 verse 6: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise." Kasey, is that cool or what? We can go to the ant and modify her ways to devour the slug, for which we get the term for a lazy person, the sluggard. Of course, the bible was copied by hand repeatedly and mistakes might have been made. For instance, the proverb might have been written from the point of view of the slug, and it was originally: "Goo to the ant, thou slug guard." But I digress. Ohhh, this is wicked cool. So the slug has a protective goo layer, which limits his ability to absorb oxygen and necessarily limits his metabolism, but the ant does not, so she runs around and works like an ant, while the slug just leaves a revolting slime trail and moves about in a sluggish manner, while writing proverbs. I theorize that the slug cannot evolve a slime layer thick enough to outreach the super ant's powerful mandibles, for that layer thickness is limited by the necessity to pass oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. Regarding my alternatives, I do know that copper can build up in topsoil if you don't have the right kinds of crops to draw it back out of there (we don't) and it is expensive. So if I can fight slugs with ants, that would please me greatly. If I can avoid the cost of hiring more guys to spread anti-slug pesticides, that would please me even more, and the salmon people would be pleased as well. If I can displace or chase off the other beasts along with the slugs, that is better still. Note to Kasey: you seem sane and smart, so I switched off your moderation flag. Post freely, me lass, and welcome! Do feel free to tell us about Kasey. Is it OK for me to mention your highly esteemed ExI-chat relative? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sun Jan 8 23:00:04 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> Message-ID: <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> I wonder whether applying methoprene, the analog to juvenile hormone used to induce soldiers, works in the field. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022191083901518 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/ijlink?linkType=ABST&journalCode=sci&resid=213/4505/361 The reason, mentioned on the wiki page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methoprene is that it is commonly used as an insecticide - it messes up molting from the pupal stage. So dousing your fields with it might get rid of a lot of insects, leaving the slugs to reign. In the experiments the dousing was short-lived, while in the environment methoprene tends to remain for a week. So you need to somehow get the substance to the larvae at the right instar. I suspect finding the right slug-loving nematode worms is likely a better, if yucky, solution. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 9 02:32:20 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 18:32:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> Message-ID: <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 3:00 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants >...I wonder whether applying methoprene, the analog to juvenile hormone used to induce soldiers, works in the field. Hmmm, no I actually meant collecting a bunch of ant larvae under conditions where we know their exact age, give them the hormone to create the super soldiers in the lab, struggle mightily to make sure some drunken fool doesn't let the super ants loose in your office, then take them into the field mixed with loam and scatter the soldier ants on the fields with a manure spreader or with a blower. >...I suspect finding the right slug-loving nematode worms is likely a better, if yucky, solution. -- Anders Sandberg Ja, I don't care about yucky, I only care about expense and avoiding damaging that good topsoil. This is a general problem with the high-protein crops: slugs and other beasts wish to devour them. We need something that will devour those beasts first. Profit margins are slim and getting more so. If we can find a better, cheaper way to rid the oilseed fields of slugs, we can make a cubic buttload of money. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 05:18:02 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 22:18:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 7:32 PM, spike wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg > Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 3:00 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants > >>...I wonder whether applying methoprene, the analog to juvenile hormone > used to induce soldiers, works in the field. > > Hmmm, no I actually meant collecting a bunch of ant larvae under conditions > where we know their exact age, give them the hormone to create the super > soldiers in the lab, struggle mightily to make sure some drunken fool > doesn't let the super ants loose in your office, then take them into the > field mixed with loam and scatter the soldier ants on the fields with a > manure spreader or with a blower. That's what I assumed you wanted to do. >>...I suspect finding the right slug-loving nematode worms is likely a > better, if yucky, solution. ?-- Anders Sandberg > > Ja, I don't care about yucky, I only care about expense and avoiding > damaging that good topsoil. ?This is a general problem with the high-protein > crops: slugs and other beasts wish to devour them. ?We need something that > will devour those beasts first. > > Profit margins are slim and getting more so. ?If we can find a better, > cheaper way to rid the oilseed fields of slugs, we can make a cubic buttload > of money. When fighting pests with other animals, you need to be sure you aren't creating a worse problem than you are solving. I was watching a television show (I think it was PBS' 'Evolution') where they accidentally released New Zealand flat worms in Scotland, and they are eating all of the earth worms there, leaving the fields unable to drain. It's a swampy mess. If there is anything that will eat slugs, it should have already evolved in Oregon... LOL... so you might be out of luck. Perhaps Sasquatch eats slugs, and you have just driven him out of his natural range... Maybe some loud speakers playing the lucid sounds of Mrs. Sasquatch in heat will do the trick... :-) -Kelly From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 9 01:09:12 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 19:09:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement Message-ID: <29.44.03083.93E3A0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Hi everyone, I have been looking through numerous texts for links, but I don't see where someone actually defines human enhancement - well, "someone" meaning early adapters. There are lots of texts about human enhancement, and some with definitions (as if newly arrived at), but nothing that is worth referencing. Human performance enhancement has been present in the military -DARPA, IBM communities for a while now, and the Olympics refer to performance enhancement as well. Could these be the domains human enhancement developed in? Of was it in science fiction, where most of our terms originated? Or medicine? Alternatively, human augmentation has been around for a while - since cybernetics, and is more aligned with the cyborg and wearables. But "human enhancement" is about enhancing, not necessarily augmenting (although the terms have been used interchangeably). If anyone knows where human enhancement, as a phrase that refers to life extension, elevating the human condition, and uploading, please let me know! Many thanks, Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Chair, Humanity+ Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 9 06:12:15 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 22:12:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <012801ccce95$a34e04f0$e9ea0ed0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson >...When fighting pests with other animals, you need to be sure you aren't creating a worse problem than you are solving. I was watching a television show (I think it was PBS' 'Evolution') where they accidentally released New Zealand flat worms in Scotland, and they are eating all of the earth worms there, leaving the fields unable to drain. It's a swampy mess... Oooh, ja, that's a good point. Ants will attack and devour earthworms, and I do know we cannot do without those squirmy bastards. We might need to experiment with it. Perhaps it would still work since the worms are down there and the slugs are up on the surface. >...If there is anything that will eat slugs, it should have already evolved in Oregon... LOL... -Kelly Nein. The forage oilseed is an imported crop, this breed mostly from Canada. There are a few slugs in that area even in fallow fields; birds will devour them. But if you plant a field of oilseed, the slug population will explode and the birds will feast. Their most voracious predation will not even dent the slug population. But your point is well made: the ant thing could cause more harm than good. If we bred ants and they took out everything, I might be paying a damn lotta money to reworm those fields. I'm not even sure I know how to reworm a field. I suppose it is as simple as a trip to the bait store, walk around drop one every twenty paces? I suppose I could get up to speed on breeding worms. I was told as a child that you can cut an earthworm in half and both ends will make a new earthworm. This isn't true, or at least I never could get two worms to live. I cut about thirty of them and found that occasionally one end of one will survive, but not if you cut it in half. If you cut about a quarter or perhaps a little more, the long end will sometimes survive. Hey it was either that or be used as bait. Alternately, I could do nematodes as Anders suggested. That might be kind of interesting, breeding enhanced nematodes. I don't get the yuck factor that squicked Anders. Nematodes seem like interesting beasts to me. spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 07:51:04 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 07:51:04 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: <29.44.03083.93E3A0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> References: <29.44.03083.93E3A0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: 2012/1/9 Natasha Vita-More wrote: > If anyone knows where human enhancement, as a phrase that refers to life > extension, elevating the human condition, and uploading, please let me know! > I think this might help. Life extension ? a conservative enterprise? Some fin-de-si?cle and early twentieth-century precursors of transhumanism Ilia Stambler Abstract The beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human enhancement and longevity can be traced to fin-de-si?cle/early twentieth-century scientific and technological optimism and therapeutic activism. The works of several authors of the period ? Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot ? reveal conflicting ideological and social pathways toward the goals of human enhancement and life extension. (Also see list of references at the end of the document). BillK From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 9 13:03:49 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 07:03:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <80.E4.03083.7B5EA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Human enhancement is a different concept than life extension, although it can include it but does not have to, whereas life extension must include enhancement. Fedorov was passionate about resurrecting the dead and Finot envisioned humans creating new life forms on the molecular level, he neither wrote about "human enhancement". Funny you should mention Ilia though because yesterday we were working on a project for the upcoming Israel festival on radical life extension. :-) Anyway, thanks but I need to know where the phrase "human enhancement" originated because it has matured into a possible field and no one has written about this and it would be good to credit the folks who came up with it. I suppose it could as Roco and Bainbridge since they developed NBIC (as far as I know, but someone please correct me if I am wrong.) Thanks, Natasha -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 1:51 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement 2012/1/9 Natasha Vita-More wrote: > If anyone knows where human enhancement, as a phrase that refers to life > extension, elevating the human condition, and uploading, please let me know! > I think this might help. Life extension ? a conservative enterprise? Some fin-de-si?cle and early twentieth-century precursors of transhumanism Ilia Stambler Abstract The beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human enhancement and longevity can be traced to fin-de-si?cle/early twentieth-century scientific and technological optimism and therapeutic activism. The works of several authors of the period ? Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot ? reveal conflicting ideological and social pathways toward the goals of human enhancement and life extension. (Also see list of references at the end of the document). BillK _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 9 13:37:44 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 07:37:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: <80.E4.03083.7B5EA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: <79.04.10702.AADEA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> I did find the term used by Brodey and Lingren. I believe they were both at MIT in the '60s. Here is a link between human enhancement and AI: "In 1969, Warren M. Brodey and Nilo Lingren co-authored 'Human enhancement through evolutionary technology' (87-97) as a proposition that fosters controlling man?s skills and his environment though artificial intelligence. 'There is a need now, more than ever before, for men to stretch their capacities in what we shall call evolutionary skills. Moreover, it is at last becoming possible technologically to enhance these skills in man by incorporating somewhat similar evolutionary skills in the machines which we design and build'(Brodey & Lingren 1969:1)." (Vita-More 2011) Brodey, Warren M. and Lindgren, Nilo. (1967) ?Human enhancement through evolutionary technology? in _IEET Spectrum_, Vol. 4, No. 9, September 1967, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., pp 87-97. This links human enhancement to a more cyberentics approach, but I'm not sure if this is where transhumanists started using the phrase. Natasha -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 7:04 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement Human enhancement is a different concept than life extension, although it can include it but does not have to, whereas life extension must include enhancement. Fedorov was passionate about resurrecting the dead and Finot envisioned humans creating new life forms on the molecular level, he neither wrote about "human enhancement". Funny you should mention Ilia though because yesterday we were working on a project for the upcoming Israel festival on radical life extension. :-) Anyway, thanks but I need to know where the phrase "human enhancement" originated because it has matured into a possible field and no one has written about this and it would be good to credit the folks who came up with it. I suppose it could as Roco and Bainbridge since they developed NBIC (as far as I know, but someone please correct me if I am wrong.) Thanks, Natasha -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 1:51 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement 2012/1/9 Natasha Vita-More wrote: > If anyone knows where human enhancement, as a phrase that refers to life > extension, elevating the human condition, and uploading, please let me know! > I think this might help. Life extension ? a conservative enterprise? Some fin-de-si?cle and early twentieth-century precursors of transhumanism Ilia Stambler Abstract The beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human enhancement and longevity can be traced to fin-de-si?cle/early twentieth-century scientific and technological optimism and therapeutic activism. The works of several authors of the period ? Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot ? reveal conflicting ideological and social pathways toward the goals of human enhancement and life extension. (Also see list of references at the end of the document). BillK _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From anders at aleph.se Mon Jan 9 14:49:12 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:49:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Rap guide to evolution Message-ID: <4F0AFE68.5010209@aleph.se> Normally science themed music is cringeworthy - earnest postdocs who know the subject but lack the talent and production values. These videos and songs by Baba Brinkman are much better. Peer reviewed gangster rap dedicated to evolutionary psychologists containing graphs and rhymes on 'discounting' is quite something. http://io9.com/5874106/dna-gets-backup-dancers-in-evolution+themed-rap-videos http://www.bababrinkman.com/video/ -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty oOxford University From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 9 16:20:42 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 08:20:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Rap guide to evolution In-Reply-To: <4F0AFE68.5010209@aleph.se> References: <4F0AFE68.5010209@aleph.se> Message-ID: <015e01ccceea$a3184e50$e948eaf0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: [ExI] Rap guide to evolution >...Normally science themed music is cringeworthy - earnest postdocs who know the subject but lack the talent and production values. These videos and songs by Baba Brinkman are much better. Peer reviewed gangster rap dedicated to evolutionary psychologists containing graphs and rhymes on 'discounting' is quite something. http://io9.com/5874106/dna-gets-backup-dancers-in-evolution+themed-rap-video s http://www.bababrinkman.com/video/ -- Anders Sandberg, EXCELLENT Anders, thanks! This is a perfect example of what I was talking about last week, the value of a community of like-minded people to point to things like this. I would never have found evolution themed rap in a million years. The second one down there about natural selection is even better. spike From johntc at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 17:38:59 2012 From: johntc at gmail.com (John Tracy Cunningham) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 18:38:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: <79.04.10702.AADEA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> References: <80.E4.03083.7B5EA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> <79.04.10702.AADEA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: Morrison at Exeter in his 2008 paper, "Beyond the perils and promise...", says that the term enhancement grew out of the bioethical debate c. 1980 over gene therapy. See the section beginning p. 8, "The origins and shaping of enhancement as a category," but other parts of the paper also address this question. Regards John On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > I did find the term used by Brodey and Lingren. I believe they were both at > MIT in the '60s. Here is a link between human enhancement and AI: > > "In 1969, Warren M. Brodey and Nilo Lingren co-authored 'Human enhancement > through evolutionary technology' (87-97) as a proposition that fosters > controlling man?s skills and his environment though artificial > intelligence. > > 'There is a need now, more than ever before, for men to stretch their > capacities in what we shall call evolutionary skills. Moreover, it is at > last becoming possible technologically to enhance these skills in man by > incorporating somewhat similar evolutionary skills in the machines which we > design and build'(Brodey & Lingren 1969:1)." (Vita-More 2011) > > Brodey, Warren M. and Lindgren, Nilo. (1967) ?Human enhancement through > evolutionary technology? in _IEET Spectrum_, Vol. 4, No. 9, September 1967, > The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., pp 87-97. > > This links human enhancement to a more cyberentics approach, but I'm not > sure if this is where transhumanists started using the phrase. > > Natasha > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Natasha > Vita-More > Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 7:04 AM > To: 'ExI chat list' > Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement > > Human enhancement is a different concept than life extension, although it > can include it but does not have to, whereas life extension must include > enhancement. Fedorov was passionate about resurrecting the dead and Finot > envisioned humans creating new life forms on the molecular level, he > neither > wrote about "human enhancement". Funny you should mention Ilia though > because yesterday we were working on a project for the upcoming Israel > festival on radical life extension. :-) > > Anyway, thanks but I need to know where the phrase "human enhancement" > originated because it has matured into a possible field and no one has > written about this and it would be good to credit the folks who came up > with > it. I suppose it could as Roco and Bainbridge since they developed NBIC > (as > far as I know, but someone please correct me if I am wrong.) > > Thanks, > Natasha > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK > Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 1:51 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement > > 2012/1/9 Natasha Vita-More wrote: > > If anyone knows where human enhancement, as a phrase that refers to life > > extension, elevating the human condition, and uploading, please let me > know! > > > > > I think this might help. > > > > Life extension ? a conservative enterprise? Some fin-de-si?cle and > early twentieth-century precursors of transhumanism > Ilia Stambler > > Abstract > > The beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human > enhancement and longevity can be traced to fin-de-si?cle/early > twentieth-century scientific and technological optimism and > therapeutic activism. The works of several authors of the period ? > Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot ? reveal conflicting > ideological and social pathways toward the goals of human enhancement > and life extension. > > (Also see list of references at the end of the document). > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Mon Jan 9 19:34:31 2012 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:34:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dates for Alcor 2012 conference -- conflicts? Message-ID: Alcor Foundation will be holding its first conference in five years in 2012 (Alcor's 40th year). I want this to be a bit different from previous Alcor conferences, with a diverse range of speakers, some debates, and plenty of time to socialize. Since subscribers to ExI-Chat between them have an excellent knowledge of upcoming events that might conflict, I'd appreciate your feedback. Which of the following dates look good to you and which conflict with other events that might draw the same individuals? October 13/14 October 20/27 October 27/28 November 3/4 November 10/11 November 17/18 November 24/25 Thank you, --Max -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 19:30:54 2012 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 11:30:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Rap guide to evolution In-Reply-To: <015e01ccceea$a3184e50$e948eaf0$@att.net> References: <4F0AFE68.5010209@aleph.se> <015e01ccceea$a3184e50$e948eaf0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 8:20 AM, spike wrote: > http://io9.com/5874106/dna-gets-backup-dancers-in-evolution+themed-rap-video > EXCELLENT Anders, thanks! ?This is a perfect example of what I was talking > about last week, the value of a community of like-minded people to point to > things like this. ?I would never have found evolution themed rap in a > million years. ?The second one down there about natural selection is even > better. This is great! My son shared a less educational, but funnier science rap video with me a few weeks ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn7-fVtT16k The Epic Rap Battles of History are the same guys who do the Keynes vs. Hayek, Darth Vader vs. Hitler and Columbus vs. Captain Kirk rap battle videos. Here's the channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/nicepeter?feature=watch PJ From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 9 19:32:14 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:32:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: References: <80.E4.03083.7B5EA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> <79.04.10702.AADEA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: <20120109143214.dcqbdy03cwggcg48@webmail.natasha.cc> Great catch!? I'll dig in!? Best, Natasha Quoting John Tracy Cunningham : > Morrison at Exeter in his 2008 > paper, > "Beyond the perils and promise...", says that the term enhancement grew out > of the bioethical debate c. 1980 over gene therapy.? See the section > beginning p. 8, "The origins and shaping of enhancement as a category," but > other parts of the paper also address this question. > > Regards > > John > > On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > >> I did find the term used by Brodey and Lingren. I believe they were both at >> MIT in the '60s.? Here is a link between human enhancement and AI: >> >> "In 1969, Warren M. Brodey and Nilo Lingren co-authored 'Human enhancement >> through evolutionary technology' (87-97) as a proposition that fosters >> controlling man?s skills and his environment though artificial >> intelligence. >> >> 'There is a need now, more than ever before, for men to stretch their >> capacities in what we shall call evolutionary skills. Moreover, it is at >> last becoming possible technologically to enhance these skills in man by >> incorporating somewhat similar evolutionary skills in the machines which we >> design and build'(Brodey & Lingren 1969:1)." (Vita-More 2011) >> >> Brodey, Warren M. and Lindgren, Nilo. (1967) ?Human enhancement through >> evolutionary technology? in _IEET Spectrum_, Vol. 4, No. 9, September 1967, >> The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., pp 87-97. >> >> This links human enhancement to a more cyberentics approach, but I'm not >> sure if this is where transhumanists started using the phrase. >> >> Natasha >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org >> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Natasha >> Vita-More >> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 7:04 AM >> To: 'ExI chat list' >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement >> >> Human enhancement is a different concept than life extension, although it >> can include it but does not have to, whereas life extension must include >> enhancement. Fedorov was passionate about resurrecting the dead and Finot >> envisioned humans creating new life forms on the molecular level, he >> neither >> wrote about "human enhancement".? Funny you should mention Ilia though >> because yesterday we were working on a project for the upcoming Israel >> festival on radical life extension. :-) >> >> Anyway, thanks but I need to know where the phrase "human enhancement" >> originated because it has matured into a possible field and no one has >> written about this and it would be good to credit the folks who came up >> with >> it.? I suppose it could as Roco and Bainbridge since they developed NBIC >> (as >> far as I know, but someone please correct me if I am wrong.) >> >> Thanks, >> Natasha >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org >> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK >> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 1:51 AM >> To: ExI chat list >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement >> >> 2012/1/9 Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> > If anyone knows where human enhancement, as a phrase that refers to life >> > extension, elevating the human condition, and uploading, please let me >> know! >> > >> >> >> I think this might help. >> >> >> >> Life extension ? a conservative enterprise? Some fin-de-si?cle and >> early twentieth-century precursors of transhumanism >> Ilia Stambler >> >> Abstract >> >> ? The beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human >> enhancement and longevity can be traced to fin-de-si?cle/early >> twentieth-century scientific and technological optimism and >> therapeutic activism. The works of several authors of the period ? >> Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot ? reveal conflicting >> ideological and social pathways toward the goals of human enhancement >> and life extension. >> >> (Also see list of references at the end of the document). >> >> >> BillK >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat[3] >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat[4] >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat[5] >> > Links: ------ [1] http://exeter.academia.edu/MichaelMorrison/Papers [2] http://jetpress.org/v21/stambler.htm [3] http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat [4] http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat [5] http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 9 20:01:13 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:01:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dates for Alcor 2012 conference -- conflicts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01e901cccf09$70c648c0$5252da40$@att.net> Max, it isn't the when that is as critical as the where. In Scottsdale? spike From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 11:35 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Dates for Alcor 2012 conference -- conflicts? Alcor Foundation will be holding its first conference in five years in 2012 (Alcor's 40th year). I want this to be a bit different from previous Alcor conferences, with a diverse range of speakers, some debates, and plenty of time to socialize. Since subscribers to ExI-Chat between them have an excellent knowledge of upcoming events that might conflict, I'd appreciate your feedback. Which of the following dates look good to you and which conflict with other events that might draw the same individuals? October 13/14 October 20/27 October 27/28 November 3/4 November 10/11 November 17/18 November 24/25 Thank you, --Max -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, The Transhumanist Reader CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 9 20:37:43 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:37:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Rap guide to evolution In-Reply-To: References: <4F0AFE68.5010209@aleph.se> <015e01ccceea$a3184e50$e948eaf0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20120109153743.ni19dx0zig4sws0g@webmail.natasha.cc> Quoting PJ Manney pjmanney at gmail.com[1]: >My son shared a less educational, but funnier science > rap video with me a few weeks ago: > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn7-fVtT16k[2] Great!?It like an?Weird Al rendition. I love it (psst ... glad it didn't have any undulating females). Natasha Links: ------ [1] mailto:pjmanney at gmail.com [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn7-fVtT16k -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Mon Jan 9 20:39:14 2012 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 13:39:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: References: <80.E4.03083.7B5EA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> <79.04.10702.AADEA0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: I'm not sure about the exact phrase "human enhancement", but "performance enhancement" has been used for decades in discussions of enhancement in sports and in intellectual pursuits. Prof. Michael Shapiro at USC has written about this at least since the 1980s. --Max 2012/1/9 John Tracy Cunningham > Morrison at Exeter in his 2008 paper, > "Beyond the perils and promise...", says that the term enhancement grew out > of the bioethical debate c. 1980 over gene therapy. See the section > beginning p. 8, "The origins and shaping of enhancement as a category," but > other parts of the paper also address this question. > > Regards > > John > > > On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > >> I did find the term used by Brodey and Lingren. I believe they were both >> at >> MIT in the '60s. Here is a link between human enhancement and AI: >> >> "In 1969, Warren M. Brodey and Nilo Lingren co-authored 'Human enhancement >> through evolutionary technology' (87-97) as a proposition that fosters >> controlling man?s skills and his environment though artificial >> intelligence. >> >> 'There is a need now, more than ever before, for men to stretch their >> capacities in what we shall call evolutionary skills. Moreover, it is at >> last becoming possible technologically to enhance these skills in man by >> incorporating somewhat similar evolutionary skills in the machines which >> we >> design and build'(Brodey & Lingren 1969:1)." (Vita-More 2011) >> >> Brodey, Warren M. and Lindgren, Nilo. (1967) ?Human enhancement through >> evolutionary technology? in _IEET Spectrum_, Vol. 4, No. 9, September >> 1967, >> The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., pp 87-97. >> >> This links human enhancement to a more cyberentics approach, but I'm not >> sure if this is where transhumanists started using the phrase. >> >> Natasha >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org >> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Natasha >> Vita-More >> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 7:04 AM >> To: 'ExI chat list' >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement >> >> Human enhancement is a different concept than life extension, although it >> can include it but does not have to, whereas life extension must include >> enhancement. Fedorov was passionate about resurrecting the dead and Finot >> envisioned humans creating new life forms on the molecular level, he >> neither >> wrote about "human enhancement". Funny you should mention Ilia though >> because yesterday we were working on a project for the upcoming Israel >> festival on radical life extension. :-) >> >> Anyway, thanks but I need to know where the phrase "human enhancement" >> originated because it has matured into a possible field and no one has >> written about this and it would be good to credit the folks who came up >> with >> it. I suppose it could as Roco and Bainbridge since they developed NBIC >> (as >> far as I know, but someone please correct me if I am wrong.) >> >> Thanks, >> Natasha >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org >> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK >> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 1:51 AM >> To: ExI chat list >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement >> >> 2012/1/9 Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> > If anyone knows where human enhancement, as a phrase that refers to life >> > extension, elevating the human condition, and uploading, please let me >> know! >> > >> >> >> I think this might help. >> >> >> >> Life extension ? a conservative enterprise? Some fin-de-si?cle and >> early twentieth-century precursors of transhumanism >> Ilia Stambler >> >> Abstract >> >> The beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human >> enhancement and longevity can be traced to fin-de-si?cle/early >> twentieth-century scientific and technological optimism and >> therapeutic activism. The works of several authors of the period ? >> Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot ? reveal conflicting >> ideological and social pathways toward the goals of human enhancement >> and life extension. >> >> (Also see list of references at the end of the document). >> >> >> BillK >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Mon Jan 9 20:29:26 2012 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 13:29:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dates for Alcor 2012 conference -- conflicts? In-Reply-To: <01e901cccf09$70c648c0$5252da40$@att.net> References: <01e901cccf09$70c648c0$5252da40$@att.net> Message-ID: Yes, spike, Scottsdale. --Max 2012/1/9 spike > Max, it isn?t the when that is as critical as the where. In Scottsdale?** > ** > > ** ** > > spike**** > > ** ** > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Max More > *Sent:* Monday, January 09, 2012 11:35 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* [ExI] Dates for Alcor 2012 conference -- conflicts?**** > > ** ** > > Alcor Foundation will be holding its first conference in five years in > 2012 (Alcor's 40th year). I want this to be a bit different from previous > Alcor conferences, with a diverse range of speakers, some debates, and > plenty of time to socialize. > > Since subscribers to ExI-Chat between them have an excellent knowledge of > upcoming events that might conflict, I'd appreciate your feedback. Which of > the following dates look good to you and which conflict with other events > that might draw the same individuals?**** > > October 13/14**** > > October 20/27**** > > October 27/28**** > > November 3/4**** > > November 10/11**** > > November 17/18**** > > November 24/25**** > > > Thank you, > > --Max > > -- **** > > Max More, PhD**** > > Strategic Philosopher**** > > Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader***** > > CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation**** > > 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110**** > > Scottsdale, AZ 85260**** > > 480/905-1906 ext 113**** > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kryonica at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 20:11:37 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 20:11:37 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Dates for Alcor 2012 conference -- conflicts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1C2B99CD-7EDC-44CC-ADD7-6C8DC92A4CDA@gmail.com> We would need to establish a calendar of upcoming conferences relevant to Transhumanists, immortalists, cryonicists and the like. I would like NOT to miss next year's Singularity Summit (hoping it will take place in New York which I love to visit), but I have no idea if there will even be an SS 2012. Anything involving H+UK will draw Brits to London. This year it was on Oct 8th. David Wood will know and I will forward your question to Extrobritannia and to Doctrine Zero. I know also that FHI of Oxford is planning to host the AGI conference 2012 in Oxford On 9 Jan 2012, at 19:34, Max More wrote: > Alcor Foundation will be holding its first conference in five years in 2012 (Alcor's 40th year). I want this to be a bit different from previous Alcor conferences, with a diverse range of speakers, some debates, and plenty of time to socialize. > > Since subscribers to ExI-Chat between them have an excellent knowledge of upcoming events that might conflict, I'd appreciate your feedback. Which of the following dates look good to you and which conflict with other events that might draw the same individuals? > > October 13/14 > > October 20/27 > > October 27/28 > > November 3/4 > > November 10/11 > > November 17/18 > > November 24/25 > > > Thank you, > > --Max > > -- > Max More, PhD > Strategic Philosopher > Co-editor, The Transhumanist Reader > CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation > 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 > Scottsdale, AZ 85260 > 480/905-1906 ext 113 > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 9 21:34:06 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:34:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dates for Alcor 2012 conference -- conflicts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120109163406.gwz062qz48w0c84s@webmail.natasha.cc> I would send an email to the event planners of the most attended transhumanist conferences including, Humanity+, Foresight, Singularity Summit, UKTranshumanists, etc. and ask them direclty. Here are?the dates for well-known conferences:?Ars Electronica (8/30-9/3), Comic-Con (7/12-15) World Future Society (7/27-29), A4M?(3/22-24), Anti-Aging Conference?(5/17-19). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kaseylinanderson at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 21:33:06 2012 From: kaseylinanderson at gmail.com (Kasey Anderson) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 14:33:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> Message-ID: Dang it, I've been deemed sane? That puts a real dent in my reputation. :D I'm not saying setting giant ants on slugs wouldn't be fun to try. You provide an interesting perspective on the idea that slugs wouldn't be able to adapt to the ants with a goo layer. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that nature won't find another way around the problem. This sort of predator/prey evolution is something nature is quite good at. :) One possible adaptation, for instance, is that the slugs would simply become bigger over time, making it more difficult for the ants to prey on them. This however might slow the slugs down as well. Without experimentation, however, it'd be really impossible to tell. Providing nothing really horrifying happened during testing, however, I'd be perfectly happy to risk the chance that the slugs would find a way to evolve out of the situation. As you mentioned, evolution isn't really a problem; we've been using antibiotics for years and they have most assuredly proved useful despite the fact that bacteria are finding ways to resist our solutions. Any solution that can buy us a few decades gives us the chance to come up with a better solution. It's fine if things evolve around our defenses, as long as we can stay a step ahead and have more defenses ready for them afterward. You would have to test this quite extensively, preferably in a contained environment, before releasing the bugs into many fields, although since you mentioned that the ants die after a few days, I can't imagine they would be able to cause a whole lot of damage. I do wonder with the whole earthworm issue whether there are species of ants that eat slugs and not earthworms, though. It seems like the researchers' genetic manipulation is widespread to a large variety of ants. Maybe we should write them a letter and ask them what they'd recommend. ;) >>Do feel free to tell us about Kasey. Is it OK for me to mention your highly esteemed ExI-chat relative? Here spike, I'll address both things at the same time and save you the trouble. ;) I'm Kasey Anderson, daughter of Kelly Anderson, who has been hanging around the list for quite a while. :) I'm currently majoring in Biomedical Engineering and planning on getting a PhD in the field eventually as well. I just started a new semester today and am pretty excited as I'll be starting to work with a professor on a research project involving a drug delivery system which has just recently been discovered. (I'll be testing a couple of different drugs that will hopefully help to alleviate some of the problems involved with inflammation that occurs with dialysis). I'm taking a lot of really fun classes and in addition, I'll be continuing to tutor other college students (something I've been doing since high school, as I took around 60 college credits between 10th-12th grade), which is really a blast. I have a couple of ideas for what to do with my degree. One of my current goals is to write a science fiction novel. I'm also thinking about the possibility of eventually starting a tissue engineering business. We'll see if either of those things work out. ;) At any rate, getting a degree in BME isn't exactly going to leave me impoverished. :D In the shorter term, I'm trying to do well enough to get into Stanford's PhD program. I finished off my first semester with a 3.9 GPA, so hopefully I can keep my grades up. As for the standardized testing part of getting into grad school, I received a score in the top 5th percentile in the nation on the SAT, so I'm confident I can transfer the testing skills I've learned to the GED. With the credits I've earned, I'm technically a junior now, but I've basically just finished off my general education and have only taken a few general science courses. I'm 18 and just starting off my education, so try not to mock me too incessantly if I get some aspect of science wrong. (Especially physics. I haven't taken any of that at a college level yet). ;) -Kasey 2012/1/8 spike > ** ** > > ** ** > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Kasey Anderson > *Sent:* Sunday, January 08, 2012 11:00 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] super soldier ants**** > > ** ** > > >?Well, you know, as long as it's an ant-eat-slug world, sounds like a > great idea. ;) But you know, you get the same problem as with the > pesticides. At least *one* of the slugs will survive due to some > mutation, and by surviving it will pass its genes on to the next generation > of slugs. Super ants? Great. Super slugs? Ewww. :D**** > > ** ** > > Ewwww,? Kasey, why do you ewww? It?s perfect! The real problem isn?t > the bugs evolving around the countermeasures. The real problems are the > buildup of bad stuff in the topsoil and the cost of applying it. This > solves the heck outta both those problems.**** > > Beasts cannot necessarily evolve their way around every countermeasure. > This might be a good example of one they couldn?t really evolve around, > reasoning: there is a functional cost to having a goo layer on the skin: > slugs must absorb oxygen through that. Since that factor would necessarily > limit their metabolism, they tend to be slow and methodical about > everything. Thus the term sluggish. Or if you are a fan of ancient > writings, consider Proverbs 6 verse 6: ?Go to the ant, thou sluggard; > consider her ways and be wise.?**** > > Kasey, is that cool or what? We can go to the ant and modify her ways to > devour the slug, for which we get the term for a lazy person, the > sluggard. Of course, the bible was copied by hand repeatedly and mistakes > might have been made. For instance, the proverb might have been written > from the point of view of the slug, and it was originally: ?Goo to the ant, > thou slug guard?? **** > > But I digress. Ohhh, this is wicked cool.**** > > So the slug has a protective goo layer, which limits his ability to absorb > oxygen and necessarily limits his metabolism, but the ant does not, so she > runs around and works like an ant, while the slug just leaves a revolting > slime trail and moves about in a sluggish manner, while writing proverbs. > I theorize that the slug cannot evolve a slime layer thick enough to > outreach the super ant?s powerful mandibles, for that layer thickness is > limited by the necessity to pass oxygen in and carbon dioxide out.**** > > Regarding my alternatives, I do know that copper can build up in topsoil > if you don?t have the right kinds of crops to draw it back out of there (we > don?t) and it is expensive. So if I can fight slugs with ants, that would > please me greatly. If I can avoid the cost of hiring more guys to spread > anti-slug pesticides, that would please me even more, and the salmon people > would be pleased as well. If I can displace or chase off the other beasts > along with the slugs, that is better still.**** > > Note to Kasey: you seem sane and smart, so I switched off your moderation > flag. Post freely, me lass, and welcome! Do feel free to tell us about > Kasey. Is it OK for me to mention your highly esteemed ExI-chat relative? > **** > > spike**** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 22:21:50 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:21:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <012801ccce95$a34e04f0$e9ea0ed0$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> <012801ccce95$a34e04f0$e9ea0ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 11:12 PM, spike wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson > > >>...When fighting pests with other animals, you need to be sure you aren't > creating a worse problem than you are solving. I was watching a television > show (I think it was PBS' 'Evolution') where they accidentally released New > Zealand flat worms in Scotland, and they are eating all of the earth worms > there, leaving the fields unable to drain. It's a swampy mess... > > Oooh, ja, that's a good point. ?Ants will attack and devour earthworms, and > I do know we cannot do without those squirmy bastards. ?We might need to > experiment with it. ?Perhaps it would still work since the worms are down > there and the slugs are up on the surface. Before unleashing nematodes on the Northwest US, might I suggest something slightly less high tech? Geese. The only question is whether the geese would eat your crop. If not, they might just do the trick! And, you get geese to eat/sell as part of the bargain. Hopefully nothing would attack the geese in large numbers, of course geese are pretty mean and can defend themselves pretty well. Just don't feed them too much so they aren't too full to help out. You might even be able to train geese to specifically go after the slugs if you work at it. Might need an animal trainer for that though. If you can train rats to sniff out land mines, you should be able to train geese to eat or kill slugs. I don't know an awful lot about geese, but I have raised chickens. Don't know if chickens would eat slugs, but whatever you do with poultry, you would get to sell them as free range... don't know if a goose raised solely on slugs would taste very good... LOL!!! I guess Kasey let the feline out of the haversack. I'd better watch my Ps and Qs from here on out... LOL. -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 9 22:47:36 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 14:47:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> Message-ID: <026301cccf20$afce0780$0f6a1680$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kasey Anderson Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 1:33 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants >.Dang it, I've been deemed sane? That puts a real dent in my reputation. :D Hey, it happens to all of us eventually. >.I'm not saying setting giant ants on slugs wouldn't be fun to try. I tried it already. More on that below. >. You provide an interesting perspective on the idea that slugs wouldn't be able to adapt to the ants with a goo layer. On closer inspection of an actual slug, I was wrong in my initial assumption. The spotted garden slug is not defended by any kind of ant-B-gon goo layer. Read on please. >. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that nature won't find another way around the problem. I think so. Read on. >. One possible adaptation, for instance, is that the slugs would simply become bigger over time, making it more difficult for the ants to prey on them. Nein, me lass. As the slug increases in scale, the volume of tissue increases as the cube, but the critical surface area increases as the square. So a Jaba the Hutt sized slug would be impossible: he couldn't breath. >. This however might slow the slugs down as well. Ja. When you think about it, you don't see any skin breathers ever get really big. Dragon flies can get huge, but their actual mass is relatively small. When you get much bigger than a banana slug, some other respiration mechanism is called for, such as lungs. >. Without experimentation, however, it'd be really impossible to tell. Being able to create enormous slugs would be cool. Perhaps we could figure out how to make them carnivorous, and prey on the other slugs? That would make for a delightfully revolting. >.Providing nothing really horrifying happened during testing. Heck those are the most fun experiments. >. we've been using antibiotics for years and they have most assuredly proved useful despite the fact that bacteria are finding ways to resist our solutions. Ja, but actually we are talking about two different things. Slugs have a life cycle in months, whereas bacteria lifecycle is in tens of hours. >.I do wonder with the whole earthworm issue whether there are species of ants that eat slugs and not earthworms, though. It seems like the researchers' genetic manipulation is widespread to a large variety of ants. Maybe we should write them a letter and ask them what they'd recommend. ;) Here's what I did. I know that ants will devour earthworms, at least under some special conditions. I am not sure I understand those conditions. But I did find a slug this morning and put it next to the ants. They didn't seem to even notice it was there. They made no attempt to devour the sluggish beast. During that experiment I observed that I was mistaken about the slug being protected by a goo layer. It isn't. There is some other mechanism at play here. More later, spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 9 23:02:07 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:02:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] longevity article Message-ID: <000701cccf22$b61db660$22592320$@att.net> Cool insightful article on longevity written in a language I understand: mathematics. http://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/your-body-wasnt-built-to-la st-a-lesson-from-human-mortality-rates/ spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 23:56:53 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 18:56:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Rap guide to evolution In-Reply-To: <015e01ccceea$a3184e50$e948eaf0$@att.net> References: <4F0AFE68.5010209@aleph.se> <015e01ccceea$a3184e50$e948eaf0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 11:20 AM, spike wrote: > ...I would never have found evolution themed rap in a million years. > Did you mean to do that? :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 23:28:06 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 23:28:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <026301cccf20$afce0780$0f6a1680$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <026301cccf20$afce0780$0f6a1680$@att.net> Message-ID: On 2012/1/9 spike wrote: > Here?s what I did.? I know that ants will devour earthworms, at least under > some special conditions.? I am not sure I understand those conditions.? But > I did find a slug this morning and put it next to the ants.? They didn?t > seem to even notice it was there.? They made no attempt to devour the > sluggish beast.? During that experiment I observed that I was mistaken about > the slug being protected by a goo layer.? It isn?t.? There is some other > mechanism at play here. > > Well, I'm not an ant expert, but generally speaking ants will eat most anything. But I think only a few species will attack other insects or small animals. Most ants prefer plants, sugar or dead creatures. I think you probably need something like army ants or fire ants. But there are obvious problems in working with those species. ;) BillK From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 10 00:11:57 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 16:11:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Rap guide to evolution In-Reply-To: References: <4F0AFE68.5010209@aleph.se> <015e01ccceea$a3184e50$e948eaf0$@att.net> Message-ID: <003501cccf2c$77f13970$67d3ac50$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Subject: Re: [ExI] Rap guide to evolution On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 11:20 AM, spike wrote: >>...I would never have found evolution themed rap in a million years. >Did you mean to do that? :) No, it was a freak beneficial accident, one that happens only rarely. {8^D spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 10 00:14:49 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 16:14:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <026301cccf20$afce0780$0f6a1680$@att.net> Message-ID: <003a01cccf2c$de66a000$9b33e000$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 3:28 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants On 2012/1/9 spike wrote: > Here?s what I did.? I know that ants will devour earthworms, at least > under some special conditions.? I am not sure I understand those > conditions.? But I did find a slug this morning and put it next to the > ants.? They didn?t seem to even notice it was there.? They made no > attempt to devour the sluggish beast.? During that experiment I > observed that I was mistaken about the slug being protected by a goo > layer.? It isn?t.? There is some other mechanism at play here. > > >...Well, I'm not an ant expert, but generally speaking ants will eat most anything. But I think only a few species will attack other insects or small animals. Most ants prefer plants, sugar or dead creatures. I think you probably need something like army ants or fire ants. But there are obvious problems in working with those species. ;) BillK Ja, I am not sure what is going on. These might be the wrong kind of ants. I do know this group keep aphids in my orange trees. They come into the house occasionally. They will not eat sugar but will go for any kind of grease or fat of any kind. They will devour a sick or dead bee within hours. I must assume the slug has some kind of defense mechanism but it is not a slime layer. I was apparently conflating it with some other beast. spike From tech101 at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 00:57:26 2012 From: tech101 at gmail.com (Adam A. Ford) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:57:26 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Dates for Alcor 2012 conference -- conflicts? In-Reply-To: <20120109163406.gwz062qz48w0c84s@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <20120109163406.gwz062qz48w0c84s@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: In Australia there is : a) The Humanity+ @Melbourne conference on May 4-6th 2012 b) The Singularity Summit AU, which will be held as part of National Science Week on the 17-19th of August 2012 (also in Melbourne). All welcome! Kind regards, Adam A. Ford Singularity Summit Australia Coordinator H+ Australia, H+ @ Melbourne Summit Coordinator Mob: +61 421 979 977 | Email: tech101 at gmail.com SinginstAU | Singularity Summit (AU) | Facebook| Twitter | Youtube| Singinst media (US) | H+ @ Melb Summit (AU) ?The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them? ? Albert Einstein Please consider the environment before printing this email 2012/1/10 > I would send an email to the event planners of the most attended > transhumanist conferences including, Humanity+, Foresight, Singularity > Summit, UKTranshumanists, etc. and ask them direclty. > > Here are the dates for well-known conferences: Ars Electronica (8/30-9/3), > Comic-Con (7/12-15) World Future Society (7/27-29), A4M (3/22-24), > Anti-Aging Conference (5/17-19). > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From deimtee at optusnet.com.au Tue Jan 10 09:48:36 2012 From: deimtee at optusnet.com.au (david) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:48:36 +1100 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> <012801ccce95$a34e04f0$e9ea0ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20120110204836.58122077@jarrah> On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:21:50 -0700 Kelly Anderson wrote: > > Before unleashing nematodes on the Northwest US, might I suggest > something slightly less high tech? Geese. The only question is whether > the geese would eat your crop. If not, they might just do the trick! >sniP: > > -Kelly > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > A friend of mine has two pet ducks. It is extremely difficult to find a surviving snail or slug in his backyard. And putting one anywhere near the ducks ensures its intant demise. :) Very few other large insects too. As a side benefit duck poo is apparently excellent fertilizer. :) -David. From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 10 10:06:38 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:06:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: <4F0989ED.4080808@organicrobot.com> References: <4F0989ED.4080808@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: <20120110100638.GH21917@leitl.org> On Sun, Jan 08, 2012 at 11:19:57PM +1100, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > You haven't seen the estimates published in the Lancet > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties) or > you chose to discard them as propaganda instead? The empire is busily collapsing, so that kind of shit will be soon over, anyway. At least from that particular empire. Not sure the successor will do things any differently. From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 10:13:56 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:13:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: References: <4F0989ED.4080808@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: 2012/1/8 Stefano Vaj : > On 8 January 2012 13:19, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: >> >> > Not when compared to previous conflicts, and I think that is the >> > point. Even with 100,000 Iraqi's dead in ten years, that's less than >> > the 200,000 who disappeared into Abu Garab when Saddam ran the >> > place... > > > Do you have any source? Really 200.000 executions *in a single jail*, and > over which period? And the national total would have been how many? > > In 2009, Amnesty International estimated 1718 executions took place during > 2008 in the *entire Chinese territory*, believed to be one of the countries > with the highest capital punishment rate,? out of a population of 1400 > millions (which equates to less than 0.0001%, or 1 in 1,000,000 of the > population), compared to the scant 30 million Iraqis. > > And if we are speaking of literal disappearances from the premises > concerned, this sounds even more ridiculous. Have you considered how many > cubic meters 200.000 adult human bodies make, and how many trucks would be > required to remove them? And what kind of population could the place contain > at any given moment, in the first place? I apologize, I misunderstood an apparently overzealous and none too accurate blogger. The 200,000 plus deaths were not at Abu Garab proper, that constituted just short of 1000 documented deaths in Saddam's time, (maybe more undocumented) however I stand behind the total non Iran war deaths at the hands of Saddam being greater than 200,000, and I present as evidence the following peer reviewed article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam%27s_Iraq I mean of course that it was reviewed by all of our peers... :-) Feel free to review it more yourself. A couple of highlights include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack Which was part of the overal Al-Anfal Campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign A lot of numbers are thrown around in that article, some as high as over 2,000,000 Kurds being killed. According to the Iraqi prosecutors, as many as 182,000 people were killed.[8] That's probably a pretty good number. Who knows of course? Nobody. In addition, again according to Wikipedia, "In April 1991, after Saddam lost control of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War, he cracked down ruthlessly against several uprisings in the Kurdish north and the Shia south. His forces committed wholesale massacres and other gross human rights violations against both groups similar to the violations mentioned before. Estimates of deaths during that time range from 20,000 to 100,000 for Kurds, and 60,000 to 130,000 for Shi'ites.[5]" Aside from this are the millions of soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq war, which are not counted in the above numbers and numerous other smaller massacres. When I referred to previous conflicts, I was referring to things like WWI, WWII, Viet Nam, where many more people died than in the Iraq conflict. We are getting better at avoiding collateral damage due to better technology and intelligence. While I'm not defending the US invasion of Iraq by any means, I think it is a bit of a stretch at this point in history to say it was a bad thing for the Iraqi populace overall. Saddam is the worst thing ever to happen to Iraq in modern times. As to the numbers reported in the Lancet, even if they are 100% true, I don't think it changes my point that Iraq is better off than they were before the war. The United States, on the other hand, is probably worse off for having rid the world of Saddam. We have a black eye in the eyes of the world. It created a great magnet for would-be terrorists. I think getting out of there quietly was a good thing, and I hope we never go back. Iraq is a mess. Iran is a terrible threat to world peace. I can think of no country more likely to eventually set off a nuclear device. It's nice to have a little buffer around them, and Iraq and Afghanistan do just that without making the Iranian populace more anti-western. Only time will tell if the war did Iraq any good over the long term... we shall see. At the same time, Egypt scares the crap out of me. One more Iran arising, geez. I prophesy in the name of Loki the Unpredictable that Obama will go down as the worst Middle East foreign policy disaster since Jimmy Carter over the long term. And while I am a libertarian, I think Ron Paul would be even worse at Middle Eastern politics. In matters of the Middle East, there are no good answers, only less than totally horrid stale mates. -Kelly From kryonica at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 11:20:37 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:20:37 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Coffee Message-ID: Here is an interesting article on Coffee: http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2012/jan2012_Discovering-Coffees-Unique-Health-Benefits_01.htm It has many references to scientific papers and certainly convinced me to drink some more. It seems to be one of our best anti-ageing agents while we still have to rely on "Nature" to keep us well. The benefits against dementia and Alzheimer's are particularly interesting to me. I don't know however if I will really order my coffee from the US, despite its allegedly higher content of chlorogenic acid. Article int?ressant sur le caf?. Tr?s recherch? avec beaucoup de r?f?rences ? des articles scientifiques. C'est vrai que la Life Extension Foundation est en g?n?ral tr?s au courant de ce qui se fait au labo. Seul probl?me pour moi: je n'ai jamais compris combien mesure une tasse (un "cup") de caf?: c'est l'espresso ou le double espresso ou le cr?me ou le grand cr?me??? 12 espressos c'est facile ? ing?rer mais 12 cr?mes moins. Articolo interessante sul caff? per chi di voi legge l'inglese. Bevete 12 tazzine ogni giorno e sfuggite al Alzheimer's, al cancro e a tutte le malattie che altrimenti vi uccideranno :-D -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 10 14:15:51 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:15:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <19.CE.19860.9184C0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Putting varied pieces together, I have a pretty clear understanding now. It is a synthesis of preceding and subsequent social events and technological paradigmatic shifts that spawned cybernetics? HCI and BCI and biotechnology?s gene therapy. Issues of therapy vs. enhancement arose. The New York Times article and Science mag article in 1972 spawned a concern and bioethics became a theoretical business. Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Chair, Humanity+ Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader _____ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 2:39 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement I'm not sure about the exact phrase "human enhancement", but "performance enhancement" has been used for decades in discussions of enhancement in sports and in intellectual pursuits. Prof. Michael Shapiro at USC has written about this at least since the 1980s. --Max 2012/1/9 John Tracy Cunningham Morrison at Exeter in his 2008 paper , "Beyond the perils and promise...", says that the term enhancement grew out of the bioethical debate c. 1980 over gene therapy. See the section beginning p. 8, "The origins and shaping of enhancement as a category," but other parts of the paper also address this question. Regards John On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: I did find the term used by Brodey and Lingren. I believe they were both at MIT in the '60s. Here is a link between human enhancement and AI: "In 1969, Warren M. Brodey and Nilo Lingren co-authored 'Human enhancement through evolutionary technology' (87-97) as a proposition that fosters controlling man?s skills and his environment though artificial intelligence. 'There is a need now, more than ever before, for men to stretch their capacities in what we shall call evolutionary skills. Moreover, it is at last becoming possible technologically to enhance these skills in man by incorporating somewhat similar evolutionary skills in the machines which we design and build'(Brodey & Lingren 1969:1)." (Vita-More 2011) Brodey, Warren M. and Lindgren, Nilo. (1967) ?Human enhancement through evolutionary technology? in _IEET Spectrum_, Vol. 4, No. 9, September 1967, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., pp 87-97. This links human enhancement to a more cyberentics approach, but I'm not sure if this is where transhumanists started using the phrase. Natasha -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 7:04 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement Human enhancement is a different concept than life extension, although it can include it but does not have to, whereas life extension must include enhancement. Fedorov was passionate about resurrecting the dead and Finot envisioned humans creating new life forms on the molecular level, he neither wrote about "human enhancement". Funny you should mention Ilia though because yesterday we were working on a project for the upcoming Israel festival on radical life extension. :-) Anyway, thanks but I need to know where the phrase "human enhancement" originated because it has matured into a possible field and no one has written about this and it would be good to credit the folks who came up with it. I suppose it could as Roco and Bainbridge since they developed NBIC (as far as I know, but someone please correct me if I am wrong.) Thanks, Natasha -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 1:51 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement 2012/1/9 Natasha Vita-More wrote: > If anyone knows where human enhancement, as a phrase that refers to life > extension, elevating the human condition, and uploading, please let me know! > I think this might help. Life extension ? a conservative enterprise? Some fin-de-si?cle and early twentieth-century precursors of transhumanism Ilia Stambler Abstract The beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human enhancement and longevity can be traced to fin-de-si?cle/early twentieth-century scientific and technological optimism and therapeutic activism. The works of several authors of the period ? Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot ? reveal conflicting ideological and social pathways toward the goals of human enhancement and life extension. (Also see list of references at the end of the document). BillK _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, The Transhumanist Reader CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 10 14:41:55 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:41:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Radical Life Extension Event - Tel Aviv Message-ID: On Friday afternoon, January 13, 02012, at 12.00 AM, the journal "Let Us from Now On", in cooperation with the Israeli Transhumanist community, will hold a demonstration next to the Trumpeldor Cemetery at the center of Tel Aviv, Against Deathism and For Life-extension. www.HavaLeHaba.com http://www.facebook.com/events/276066649116422/ On the same day, at 21.30 PM, they will launch the first issue of the journal at the Milk Club, at Rothschild Street 6, Tel Aviv. They invite you to support and take part in this demonstration, which will be the second demonstration of its kind in the world (a similar demonstration for radical life extension took place in Moscow on September, 2011, organized by the Russian Transhumanist Movement.) Speakers: Jeremy Fogel, Gabriel Moked, Ido Keinan, Oded Carmeli, Sheli Chen, Michal Zecharia, Reuel Shuali, Ilia Stambler, Jonathan Levy, Yoav Ezra and Amir Menshahoff. "In solidarity with the cause of radical life extension!" More details (in Hebrew and English), including the full demands of the demonstration, the journal manifesto and venue updates, can be found at the site of Humanity + Israel: www.singulariut.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 10 15:43:05 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:43:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <026301cccf20$afce0780$0f6a1680$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <026301cccf20$afce0780$0f6a1680$@att.net> Message-ID: <4F0C5C89.30006@aleph.se> Overall, ants are the big predators of bugs in the undergrowth in most environments. A lot of adaptations in other insects and invertebrates deal with protecting against ant predation. If you cannot fly away, use chemicals, heavy armor, caumoflage, bribe them or anything else - many beetles have impressive strategies, like certain coccinellids that not only have heavy turtle-like armor covering them but suction pads on their feet making them impossible to turn over even for a group of ants working together (one beetle - just 5 mm long - can handle 4 grams of force, I seem to recall). But ants are probably rational in their food choice: eat the easiest and tastiest food. Your ants might be perfectly happy with tending aphids, focusing on defending them against ladybirds instead. There might be other species around that are more interested in the slugs. However, ants are likely not major slug predators. My favorite slug predator group is the ground beetles, but they breed too slowly to keep up. Amphibians are great and ought to be supported, but it all depends on whether you can create a good environment for them. Nematodes like Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita are pretty ideal for slug killing (and have interesting symbiotic relationships with slig-killing bacteria). -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 10 16:14:20 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:14:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <20120110204836.58122077@jarrah> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> <012801ccce95$a34e04f0$e9ea0ed0$@att.net> <20120110204836.58122077@jarrah> Message-ID: <015e01cccfb2$e96524f0$bc2f6ed0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of david Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:21:50 -0700 Kelly Anderson wrote: >> Before unleashing nematodes on the Northwest US, might I suggest >> something slightly less high tech? Geese. The only question is whether >> the geese would eat your crop. If not, they might just do the trick! -Kelly > _______________________________________________ >A friend of mine has two pet ducks. It is extremely difficult to find a surviving snail or slug in his backyard. And putting one anywhere near the ducks ensures its intant demise. :) >Very few other large insects too. As a side benefit duck poo is apparently excellent fertilizer. :) -David. We have Canada geese, but they cannot get to anywhere but the perimeter of the field. These come through on their migrations twice a year. The oilseed crop is too dense for birds to get in there. If anyone can figure out how to get an oilseed crop to prosper, it could be a minor contributor to the world's energy problem. Oilseed is used to make a light oil which can be used for fuel and could have plenty of industrial uses in addition to being a food crop. spike From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 10 16:43:09 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:43:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <015e01cccfb2$e96524f0$bc2f6ed0$@att.net> References: <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> <012801ccce95$a34e04f0$e9ea0ed0$@att.net> <20120110204836.58122077@jarrah> <015e01cccfb2$e96524f0$bc2f6ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20120110164309.GK21917@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 08:14:20AM -0800, spike wrote: > If anyone can figure out how to get an oilseed crop to prosper, it could be > a minor contributor to the world's energy problem. Oilseed is used to make Biodiesel EROEI is 3:1. This is below the energy cliff http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46579 Thin-film (CdTe) photovoltaics is already better than 40:1. > a light oil which can be used for fuel and could have plenty of industrial > uses in addition to being a food crop. From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 10 18:05:50 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:05:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] food crops for energy, was: RE: super soldier ants Message-ID: <01b701cccfc2$7ce5ecf0$76b1c6d0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 08:14:20AM -0800, spike wrote: >> If anyone can figure out how to get an oilseed crop to prosper, it > could be a minor contributor to the world's energy problem. Oilseed > is used to make a light oil which can be used for fuel and could have plenty of > industrial uses in addition to being a food crop. >...Biodiesel EROEI is 3:1. This is below the energy cliff http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46579 >...Thin-film (CdTe) photovoltaics is already better than 40:1. Good article on EROI, thanks Gene. I think EROI is a critically important concept, which I also like because it tends to look good for my favorite long term energy solutions: space based and ground based solar. Both of these concepts are the engineer's playground. That being said, I would caution against overuse of the EROI notion. For instance, we can imagine some low EROI applications that are profitable in the short run anyway. We already know that all food crops used as fuel are low EROI, way worse than blanketing the same field with thin film PVs. But we will not be blanketing those particular fields with PVs any time in the immediately foreseeable. I don't have that kind of money, and power is cheap in that area anyway: they have falling water nearby. Consider the special case of oilseed. That is a crop that doesn't deplete or contaminate the soil, doesn't require much labor to maintain if you don't plant it repeatedly in the same field, doesn't require much on the way of fertilizer, requires no irrigation and no weeding other than one application of specialized herbicide. We planted about 80 acres of the stuff. Our guy did it all in one day, so about two tanks of Diesel for that, and then he went over it twice after that with machines, then harvest. So if you look at just the fuel used to sow, herbicide once, fertilize once and harvest, the EROI was excellent on that particular crop, however... and there is always a however... You can't do low-maintenance oilseed two years in a row in the same field without aggressive slug control, which is expensive and labor intensive, so the second year is almost not worth doing, especially if one has a profitable alternative. The slugs are taken by surprise the first year by a bounty far too abundant for all their offspring to devour, but the second year, the rapidly growing and hungry slug families are ready and eager to explode and devour everything in sight. So my argument is that under certain special circumstances, some food crops can be minor contributors to energy use, while fully acknowledging that they do not compete in the long run against thin film PVs, and that they are over the net energy cliff. What is bothering me now is that we are seeing Solyndra and the other local PV manufacturers go broke, while the cost of PVs even in the midst of this production over-capacity environment is still way too high to use my Oregon fields for solar electricity production. spike From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 10 19:53:34 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:53:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] damien and barbara's book is on kindle Message-ID: <01e301cccfd1$893e2e90$9bba8bb0$@att.net> Damien Broderick and Barbara Lamar's novel POST MORTAL SYNDROME is now available on Kindle: for only $3.19. I see a very positive review there as well, with 5 stars. I think this "Kindle" is some kind of electronic device you young people are using to read books these days. But it is also available as a handsome trade paperback. The ebook is significantly cheaper, of course. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 10 20:45:21 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:45:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] damien and barbara's book is on kindle In-Reply-To: <01e301cccfd1$893e2e90$9bba8bb0$@att.net> References: <01e301cccfd1$893e2e90$9bba8bb0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20120110204521.GQ21917@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 11:53:34AM -0800, spike wrote: > I think this "Kindle" is some kind of electronic device you young people are My mum would be tickled pink to know she's considered young at over 70. Interestingly enough, my wife will not touch ebooks. > using to read books these days. But it is also available as a handsome > trade paperback. The ebook is significantly cheaper, of course. And it gets delivered instantly. Plus, you can break Amazon's DRM with Calibre (requires plugins) quite easily. From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 10 21:13:09 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:13:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] damien and barbara's book is on kindle In-Reply-To: <20120110204521.GQ21917@leitl.org> References: <01e301cccfd1$893e2e90$9bba8bb0$@att.net> <20120110204521.GQ21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: <020e01cccfdc$a7e26a90$f7a73fb0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Subject: Re: [ExI] damien and barbara's book is on kindle On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 11:53:34AM -0800, spike wrote: >> I think this "Kindle" is some kind of electronic device you young people are... >...My mum would be tickled pink to know she's considered young at over 70... 70? HA! Callow youth! Full of youthful vigor is she! Gene, is she single? {8^D These "Kindle" devices are lacking the ability to make notes in the margins! Why, in my day, we carried our reading material, and when we saw an interesting passage, we could just make the note right there on the margin of the tablet with our mallet and chisel. spike From rtomek at ceti.pl Tue Jan 10 23:18:05 2012 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:18:05 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] The Coming War on General Computation In-Reply-To: References: <1325676160.47146.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 7 Jan 2012, Mike Dougherty wrote: > "As long as irrationality is fed and entertained, we can survive." > > I wanted to pull that quote - it deserves the extra attention. > Heh. It's a pity I cannot serve any quotable sentence containg both "irrationality" and "educated". Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 02:16:22 2012 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:16:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Boom and Doom: Revisiting Prophecies of Collapse" Message-ID: A thought-provoking article regarding the 1970's era of predictions about environmental and economic collapse, and the computer theories and simulations behind them, that are being revised. Boom and Doom: Revisiting Prophecies of Collapse... http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328462.100-boom-and-doom-revisiting-prophecies-of-collapse.html John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 09:22:13 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:22:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <015e01cccfb2$e96524f0$bc2f6ed0$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> <012801ccce95$a34e04f0$e9ea0ed0$@att.net> <20120110204836.58122077@jarrah> <015e01cccfb2$e96524f0$bc2f6ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 9:14 AM, spike wrote: > We have Canada geese, but they cannot get to anywhere but the perimeter of > the field. ?These come through on their migrations twice a year. ?The > oilseed crop is too dense for birds to get in there. > > If anyone can figure out how to get an oilseed crop to prosper, it could be > a minor contributor to the world's energy problem. ?Oilseed is used to make > a light oil which can be used for fuel and could have plenty of industrial > uses in addition to being a food crop. Ah, I'll have to take your word on that one. What about this, you say that the crop works well for one year, then not so much. So why not rotate it to a different crop that would allow the geese or ducks to harvest the slugs on the off year? Then go back to oilseed??? Would that get you to where you want to be? Is there an off year crop that wouldn't suck too bad? -Kelly From rtomek at ceti.pl Wed Jan 11 15:33:14 2012 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:33:14 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: <015e01cccfb2$e96524f0$bc2f6ed0$@att.net> References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> <012801ccce95$a34e04f0$e9ea0ed0$@att.net> <20120110204836.58122077@jarrah> <015e01cccfb2$e96524f0$bc2f6ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, spike wrote: > If anyone can figure out how to get an oilseed crop to prosper, it could be > a minor contributor to the world's energy problem. Oilseed is used to make > a light oil which can be used for fuel and could have plenty of industrial > uses in addition to being a food crop. Okay, okay, I want to be minor contributor to that :-). Actually, since I am way behind as usual, this might have been posted already by someone else. If not, here goes: "Predators Frogs, toads, snakes, hedgehogs, Salamanders, eastern box turtles, rats, Caecilians and also some birds and beetles are slug predators. Slugs, when attacked, can contract their body, making themselves harder and more compact, and combined with the slippery mucus is more difficult for many animals to grasp. The unpleasant taste of the mucus is also a deterrent. Some slugs can self-amputate (autotomy) a portion of their tail to help the slug escape from a predator.[7] [...] Human relevance The great majority of slug species are harmless to humans and to their interests, but a small number of species are serious pests of agriculture and horticulture. They can destroy foliage faster than plants can grow, thus killing even fairly large plants. They also feed on fruits and vegetables prior to harvest, making holes in the crop, which can make individual items unsuitable to sell for aesthetic reasons, and which can make the crop more vulnerable to rot and disease. As control measures, baits are the norm in both agriculture and the garden. In recent years iron phosphate baits have emerged and are preferred over the toxic metaldehyde, especially because domestic or wild animals may be exposed to the bait. The environmentally safer iron phosphate has been shown to be at least as effective as poisonous baits.[8] Methiocarb baits are no longer widely used. Other slug control methods are generally ineffective, but can be somewhat useful in small gardens. These include beer traps,[9] diatomaceous earth, crushed eggshells, coffee grounds, and copper. It is of scientific interest that salt kills slugs by causing water to leave its body owing to osmosis [10] but this is not used for agricultural control as soil salinity is detrimental to crops." (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug ) So, one of the most environmental friendly may be coffee grounds, perhaps from a nearby friendly caffeteria? Also, I wonder if it would be possible to lay barbwire across the fields, so even if slugs eat one quadrant they will be stopped in it. But this is probably not very good idea on the money side. Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 11 16:26:50 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:26:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants and the tata nano Message-ID: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 9:14 AM, spike wrote: >> ... ?Oilseed is used to make a light oil which can be used for fuel and could have >> plenty of industrial uses in addition to being a food crop. >...Ah, I'll have to take your word on that one... I do need to clarify. Ordinarily burning any kind of food for fuel is a terrible loss. It takes so much energy to create food in the way we are currently doing it, you wouldn't waste good food crops to make anything else. There is an important point to make here however. When I envision future ape haulers, I see not things like this: http://www.cadillac.com/escalade-suv.html But rather, things like this: http://www.examiner.com/auto-industry-in-san-jose/tata-nano-the-world-s-chea pest-car-starts-delivery-to-first-customers Weights engineers will get this every time. If you scale down the requirements for top speed, then the weight of an ape-hauler is dramatically reduced. One of these Indian companies yesterday announced a plan for an ape-hauler considerably smaller than the nano, which really caught my attention, because the specifications were right on what I had calculated after doing the structural analysis: the thing runs on a 26 kw single cylinder 200 cc engine, mass 400 kg, top speed about 70 kph (assuming a tail breeze) gets 83 miles per gallon, cost about 2000 USD. It would be so much safer for teenagers and the long-since-retired hordes to be buzzing around in these things. Safer for us anyway. Our current specifications and expectations for ape-haulers are so absurdly outdated. Once we really focus on what an ape-hauler must do, and build something that does only that, we get something like what the Indians envision. >...What about this, you say that the crop works well for one year, then not so much. So why not rotate it to a different crop that would allow the geese or ducks to harvest the slugs on the off year? Then go back to oilseed??? -Kelly Ja, that's what we are doing. We are experimenting with two consecutive years with the oilseed, followed by two years of winter rye (very low profit crop.) The second year of oilseed was less profitable than the first, but still better than winter rye. spike From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 17:48:16 2012 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:48:16 -0200 Subject: [ExI] RES: super soldier ants and the tata nano In-Reply-To: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> References: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> Message-ID: <00ba01ccd089$368032d0$a3809870$@gmail.com> I see not things like this: http://www.cadillac.com/escalade-suv.html But rather, things like this: http://www.examiner.com/auto-industry-in-san-jose/tata-nano-the-world-s-chea pest-car-starts-delivery-to-first-customers When I look at the Nano, I still see some things that could be cheaper. For instance, if the headlights were round, there would be no need to make left and right different. The same goes for rearview mirrors. Suicide doors for the backseats could make the structure lighter. A CVT instead of a regular transmission would probably be lighter, save space and be cheaper also. And so on. I like some of the automotive x-prize entrants: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/auto-x-prize/raceabout -association-electric-raceabout From kryonica at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 18:34:41 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:34:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Back to the 19th century? Message-ID: <8806C13D-1F3C-4522-9721-5C2EE27BC899@gmail.com> Totally drug resistant TB now exists in India. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/invincible-tb-india/?intcid=story_ribbon From kryonica at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 20:29:54 2012 From: kryonica at gmail.com (Kryonica) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:29:54 +0000 Subject: [ExI] WOW! Message-ID: <947D9D39-F41E-4B78-95B5-6C1F05994A24@gmail.com> They're advancing! http://sens.org/node/2577 From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 11 21:36:20 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:36:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] future ape haulers: the tata nano Message-ID: <00f401ccd0a9$0f28e310$2d7aa930$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Henrique Moraes Machado ... >>...http://www.examiner.com/auto-industry-in-san-jose/tata-nano-the-world-s -chea pest-car-starts-delivery-to-first-customers >...When I look at the Nano, I still see some things that could be cheaper. For instance, if the headlights were round, there would be no need to make left and right different. The same goes for rearview mirrors. Suicide doors for the backseats could make the structure lighter. A CVT instead of a regular transmission would probably be lighter, save space and be cheaper also. And so on... Henrique Ja, and of course make them one-seaters, or perhaps two. Plenty of motorcycles are one-seaters, and most of them are two, people still use them. Structural weight can be saved if it's gross vehicle weight rating is for 150 kg of apes full stop. The wheels can be made lighter once you recognize the side loads are reduced from that to which we are so fondly accustomed. With a reduced passenger design load, you can lose still more engine mass, and some additional structural mass, the back two seats. The headlamps can be white LED, which would allow them to either have separate rechargeable batteries or a single one that runs both headlights, so you save weight and manufacturing cost in copper wire and wiring harnesses. The brake lights and turn signals can all be done wirelessly, so you can get by with no almost no wiring harnesses at all. You can make engine control by wire and shift by wire. We can have integrated unit engine and transmission, as seen on smaller motorcycles. That would allow easy carrying of a spare engine and transmission behind the front seat, and make it to where one feller could swap it out beside the road. Those weight savings and obviating of wiring harnesses allow the polystyrene body shells to be cast as a unit, very little assembly required. Next time you see a motorcycle fairing, imagine a thinner version of that: consider that those things are cantilevered and made for triple digit speeds as measured in miles per hour. I bet we could get it under 400kg and over 100 mpg. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 22:26:31 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:26:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking In-Reply-To: References: <4F0989ED.4080808@organicrobot.com> Message-ID: On 10 January 2012 11:13, Kelly Anderson wrote: > While I'm not defending the US invasion of Iraq by any means, I think > it is a bit of a stretch at this point in history to say it was a bad > thing for the Iraqi populace overall. Saddam is the worst thing ever > to happen to Iraq in modern times. > Mmhhh. Certainly, many people are of the opinion that Iraq used to be a pretty peaceful country before i) the Iran war fomented by the US ii) the Kuwait invasion and the first Gulf War, including the Kurd civil war once more fomented by the US iii) the second Gulf War. How many military operations or terrorist attacks or civilian casualties do you count before that? Iran is a terrible threat to world peace. Let me see. How many countries did Iran attack in the last century? How many military expeditions abroad did it launch? How many terrorist attacks on foreign ground? Zero? Well, the same cannot be said for western countries and their allies, I dare say. See, just for today, http://www.agi.it/english-version/world/elenco-notizie/201201110922-cro-ren1012-uranium_enrichment_plant_scientist_killed_in_iran But, hey, just like some western countries, *and* Israel, it would like to get nuclear before the oil ends up. And, yes, probably in order to sanctuarise its territory as well. Are they really wrong about that? In fact, most Iranian patriots, including shah nostalgics, are on the same line of US patriots about that. Only, I am not aware of people there theorising that nuclear attacks could be a good idea to defeat "terrorist threats", to penetrate heavily hardened bunkers, etc. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 03:21:52 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:21:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] WOW! In-Reply-To: <947D9D39-F41E-4B78-95B5-6C1F05994A24@gmail.com> References: <947D9D39-F41E-4B78-95B5-6C1F05994A24@gmail.com> Message-ID: Here's hoping they make it even further. On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Kryonica wrote: > They're advancing! > > http://sens.org/node/2577 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 12:02:58 2012 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:02:58 -0200 Subject: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano In-Reply-To: <00f401ccd0a9$0f28e310$2d7aa930$@att.net> References: <00f401ccd0a9$0f28e310$2d7aa930$@att.net> Message-ID: <005801ccd122$2398ee20$6acaca60$@gmail.com> Ja, and of course make them one-seaters, or perhaps two. Plenty of motorcycles are one-seaters, and most of them are two, people still use them. Like... myself for instance. But It being intended as a family car, probably the current Nano buyers wouldn't want a two seater (or a one seater). But anyway if it was a two seater, why not make it three wheeler instead of four? You even can make it a three seater with three wheels. The headlamps can be white LED, which would allow them to either have separate rechargeable batteries or a single one that runs both headlights, so you save weight and manufacturing cost in copper wire and wiring harnesses. That's beautiful. I like this solution a lot. Are LED prices already competitive to allow this? The brake lights and turn signals can all be done wirelessly, so you can get by with no almost no wiring harnesses at all. But what about interference on other cars? Can I prevent my car from turning the lights of the other cars around me with a wireless system that's still cheaper than the wired system? You can make engine control by wire and shift by wire. We can have integrated unit engine and transmission, as seen on smaller motorcycles. That would allow easy carrying of a spare engine and transmission behind the front seat, and make it to where one feller could swap it out beside the road. Interesting idea. This spare engine would be functional or would it be dead weight most of the time? I have one: Let's say it's a three wheeler in the form of two front and one back. Now suppose that you integrate engine, transmission and the back one wheel into a single unit. Then you can swap it at will. I allways wondered what if cars were more like PCs, where you can upgrade the mainboard or add more memory or a bigger disk. It always bothered me that every car model is completely different from every other car model and there's almost no interchangeable parts at all. We need an open car! Those weight savings and obviating of wiring harnesses allow the polystyrene body shells to be cast as a unit, very little assembly required. Next time you see a motorcycle fairing, imagine a thinner version of that: consider that those things are cantilevered and made for triple digit speeds as measured in miles per hour. Yes. Why are we still making heavy chunks of steel! They should be all plastic by now. From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 12 16:38:56 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:38:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano In-Reply-To: <005801ccd122$2398ee20$6acaca60$@gmail.com> References: <00f401ccd0a9$0f28e310$2d7aa930$@att.net> <005801ccd122$2398ee20$6acaca60$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <002b01ccd148$adfb7490$09f25db0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Henrique Moraes Machado Subject: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano >>... Ja, and of course make them one-seaters, or perhaps two. Plenty of motorcycles are one-seaters, and most of them are two, people still use them. >... why not make it three wheeler instead of four? You even can make it a three seater with three wheels. Ja the Tata company makes three wheeled ape haulers, but once you do the weight calcs, a surprising result is there isn't as much weight savings as one might expect. It has some advantages and disadvantages. One fewer wheel could mean cost savings with a disadvantage being in leg room. Definite possibility however. >>...The headlamps can be white LED... >...That's beautiful. I like this solution a lot. Are LED prices already competitive to allow this? The prices still aren't great, but way better than they were five years ago. >>... The brake lights and turn signals can all be done wirelessly, so you can get by with no almost no wiring harnesses at all. >...But what about interference on other cars? Can I prevent my car from turning the lights of the other cars around me with a wireless system that's still cheaper than the wired system? No way Jose! That's the game, you go up next to the other guy and see if you can get your car to screw with his. That would be so cool, go to the junkyard, find a controller for a different car, try to rig it to stomp the other guy's brakes right when he is trying to pass you, that sorta stuff. That goes along with my notion that just because we understand the reptilian cortex doesn't mean we stop having one. It's how we guys will entertain ourselves now that cars are no good for drag racing. That would allow easy carrying of a spare engine and transmission behind the front seat, and make it to where one feller could swap it out beside the road. >...Interesting idea. This spare engine would be functional or would it be dead weight most of the time? Scratch that idea. It would be better to just have two engines working full time, so that if one konks you can still get home. But those single cylinder engines would be as reliable as an anvil, simple devices they are. Since we are talking low weight solutions, it is better to just leave the other one at hom.e >... We need an open car! Ja, the closest thing we ever had to that was manufactured in the 1930s by my distant cousins in Germany, the VW beetle. Any shadetree mechanic could repair or modify those things. Note: very distant cousins. My branch of the family came from Germany in the late 1700s. Those weight savings and obviating of wiring harnesses allow the polystyrene body shells to be cast as a unit, very little assembly required... >...Yes. Why are we still making heavy chunks of steel! They should be all plastic by now. Henrique Ja, we haven't fully taken advantage of airbags. We can have super lightweight poly shells with airbags to partially compensate for not having a huge Detroit V8 out there in front, destroying all I might hit. But airbag tech is here, and we can make a little light plastic car which would maintain some semblance of survivability in a collision, at least assuming the collision is with another light plastic car, as opposed to Mister Lincoln. Having the long-since-retired crowd and the young drag racing crowd screwing with each other's wireless control systems in those practically weightless little plastic cars will certainly make me safer in my Detroit. My perfectly healthy (even if self- aware) reptilian cortex will miss that big threatening Detroit V8. I own three of those, and love every one of those 24 pistons. It will be a huge comedown to trade my cherished Mister Lincoln for some toy plastic egg with one wimpy little cylinder, even if it does go five times farther on any arbitrary unit of fuel. But the day will come anyway. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 12 17:08:30 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:08:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano In-Reply-To: <002b01ccd148$adfb7490$09f25db0$@att.net> References: <00f401ccd0a9$0f28e310$2d7aa930$@att.net> <005801ccd122$2398ee20$6acaca60$@gmail.com> <002b01ccd148$adfb7490$09f25db0$@att.net> Message-ID: <000601ccd14c$cf8102c0$6e830840$@att.net> >>...But what about interference on other cars? Can I prevent ... Henrique >...No way Jose! That's the game, you go up next to the other guy and see if you can get your car to screw with his. That would be so cool, go to the junkyard, find a controller for a different car... spike When you read comments like the above, keep in mind that you and I are genetic descendants of guys like these, specifically the winners: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXY9TuuwyL8 This is one thing I think the mass transit people really are missing: they don't get that our individual cars are our suits of armor, our iron steeds, perhaps soon to be plastic steeds. The above video clip allows one to find the true geeks among the crowds of pretenders. If anyone at a SF Con or any ExI-schmooze utters the comment "You fight with the strength of many men, Sir Knight..." all the true geeks know the rest of script by heart, and can even do the accents reasonably well. Genetically, we are those guys. spike From rtomek at ceti.pl Fri Jan 13 03:38:24 2012 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:38:24 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants In-Reply-To: References: <001a01ccccf7$1fa4e370$5eeeaa50$@att.net> <006601ccce2c$24d82650$6e8872f0$@att.net> <00a201ccce4f$f328b010$d97a1030$@att.net> <4F0A1FF4.4000604@aleph.se> <00d901ccce76$ea7460a0$bf5d21e0$@att.net> <012801ccce95$a34e04f0$e9ea0ed0$@att.net> <20120110204836.58122077@jarrah> <015e01cccfb2$e96524f0$bc2f6ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Tomasz Rola wrote: > On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, spike wrote: > > > If anyone can figure out how to get an oilseed crop to prosper, it could be > > a minor contributor to the world's energy problem. Oilseed is used to make > > a light oil which can be used for fuel and could have plenty of industrial > > uses in addition to being a food crop. > > Okay, okay, I want to be minor contributor to that :-). And there seem to be plenty of creatures who will be all happy to eat your enemies, spike. Eaters of your enemies are your friends. http://www.haywardm.supanet.com/predators.html Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 05:24:40 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:24:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] LENR Message-ID: http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html No comment beyond that someone is really sticking their neck out. Keith From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 13 06:06:55 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:06:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LENR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003601ccd1b9$8dc51480$a94f3d80$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 9:25 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] LENR http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html No comment beyond that someone is really sticking their neck out. Keith Hmmm, all I am getting on that site is a black screen. spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 13 06:08:05 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:08:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LENR References: Message-ID: <003701ccd1b9$b876f360$2964da20$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] Subject: RE: [ExI] LENR -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson ubject: [ExI] LENR http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html No comment beyond that someone is really sticking their neck out. Keith Hmmm, all I am getting on that site is a black screen. Spike Never mind! It just takes a minute to buffer. spike From giulio at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 09:06:10 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:06:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] LENR In-Reply-To: <003701ccd1b9$b876f360$2964da20$@att.net> References: <003701ccd1b9$b876f360$2964da20$@att.net> Message-ID: The link does not seem to work (or they are getting an overload of hits), can somebody summarize? On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 7:08 AM, spike wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] > Subject: RE: [ExI] LENR > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson > ubject: [ExI] LENR > > http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html > > No comment beyond that someone is really sticking their neck out. > > Keith > > > > Hmmm, all I am getting on that site is a black screen. ?Spike > > Never mind! ?It just takes a minute to buffer. ?spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From giulio at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 10:00:21 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:00:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] LENR In-Reply-To: References: <003701ccd1b9$b876f360$2964da20$@att.net> Message-ID: Also on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxeKeuh_2Bw On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 10:06 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > The link does not seem to work (or they are getting an overload of > hits), can somebody summarize? > > On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 7:08 AM, spike wrote: >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] >> Subject: RE: [ExI] LENR >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org >> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson >> ubject: [ExI] LENR >> >> http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html >> >> No comment beyond that someone is really sticking their neck out. >> >> Keith >> >> >> >> Hmmm, all I am getting on that site is a black screen. ?Spike >> >> Never mind! ?It just takes a minute to buffer. ?spike >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 11:08:31 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:08:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] LENR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 10:24 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html > > No comment beyond that someone is really sticking their neck out. Doesn't sound like the normal cautious NASA we're used to. I don't understand the physics of it at all, but is this some kind of cold fission??? It wasn't very clear exactly what was going on, other than it used Nickel, loaded up the nucleus with extra neutrons, and then the atom spontaneously divides, assumedly releasing extra energy in the process. The trick would seem to be adding the extra neutrons in such a way as to not take more power than you would get at the end of the day. Interesting, if it's real... -Kelly From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 12:33:46 2012 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:33:46 -0200 Subject: [ExI] RES: LENR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007001ccd1ef$9bd888f0$d3899ad0$@gmail.com> [ExI] LENR http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html No comment beyond that someone is really sticking their neck out. All I can say about this is that there's too much "tell" and to little "show" so far. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jan 13 16:17:04 2012 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:17:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] LENR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1326471424.49592.YahooMailNeo@web160605.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Is this relying on a weak force interaction? From the vid, it looks like they're adding in neutrons and these are decaying, releasing an electron (and a not shown neutrino) along with the attendant energy. Sounds like a good idea, though the neutron source itself would be a safety problem, especially if this is scaled up, no? Regards, Dan ________________________________ From: Keith Henson To: ExI chat list Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 12:24 AM Subject: [ExI] LENR http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html No comment beyond that someone is really sticking their neck out. Keith -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 17:00:20 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:00:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LENR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 3:08 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Doesn't sound like the normal cautious NASA we're used to. I don't > understand the physics of it at all, but is this some kind of cold > fission? You are correct. > The trick would seem to be adding the extra neutrons in > such a way as to not take more power than you would get at the end of > the day. Interesting, if it's real... Again, you are correct. Which is why I'm not holding my breath for this to get commercialized soon. From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 16:45:02 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:45:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano In-Reply-To: <002b01ccd148$adfb7490$09f25db0$@att.net> References: <00f401ccd0a9$0f28e310$2d7aa930$@att.net> <005801ccd122$2398ee20$6acaca60$@gmail.com> <002b01ccd148$adfb7490$09f25db0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 4:38 PM, spike wrote: > Ja, we haven't fully taken advantage of airbags. ?We can have super > lightweight poly shells with airbags to partially compensate for not having > a huge Detroit V8 out there in front, destroying all I might hit. ?But > airbag tech is here, and we can make a little light plastic car which would > maintain some semblance of survivability in a collision, at least assuming > the collision is with another light plastic car, as opposed to Mister > Lincoln. ?Having the long-since-retired crowd and the young drag racing > crowd screwing with each other's wireless control systems in those > practically weightless little plastic cars will certainly make me safer in > my Detroit. > > You might enjoy this video of crash testing one of the little two seat Smart cars. The Smart car has very good crash safety ratings. The diesel engine version gets 71 US mpg. But you now have quite a wide choice of diesel cars that do about 70 US mpg. BillK From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 13 17:34:13 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:34:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano In-Reply-To: References: <00f401ccd0a9$0f28e310$2d7aa930$@att.net> <005801ccd122$2398ee20$6acaca60$@gmail.com> <002b01ccd148$adfb7490$09f25db0$@att.net> Message-ID: <004801ccd219$9161e8b0$b425ba10$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 4:38 PM, spike wrote: >> Ja, we haven't fully taken advantage of airbags. ?We can have super >> lightweight poly shells with airbags to partially compensate for not >> having a huge Detroit V8 out there in front... > > >...You might enjoy this video of crash testing one of the little two seat Smart cars. The Smart car has very good crash safety ratings. Thanks BillK, this gets part of the way there, but the smart car is surprisingly heavy, and still doesn't use all that much plastic. I notice that they go on about 70 mph collision tests, but I envision a car that need not pass that test because they won't go that fast. >...The diesel engine version gets 71 US mpg. But you now have quite a wide choice of diesel cars that do about 70 US mpg. BillK 70 mpg might be good enough for the decade of transition, but we can do better. I can imagine 400 cc twin cylinder 400 kg Diesels that exceed 100 mpg, if we get the top speed requirement down far enough. Diesel has the advantage of a good fraction of the waste carbon comes out as particulates rather than carbon dioxide. {8-] {8-| I have the notion that we are having a hard time letting go of the accustomed specifications for cars, meaning they are required to go traditional American highway speeds. But power requirements go up as the cube of the top speed. If we can get over that requirement, we open the door to waaay cheaper and vastly more efficient ape haulers. This brings me to a question for you energy hipsters. We know that shipping manufactured goods over the sea (more specifically from China to everywhere in the world) is cheaper in fuel but more expensive in cost of capital if we slow down the ships. In the last few years, fuel has gotten more expensive and capital way cheaper. So have we slowed the cargo ships? spike From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 19:22:48 2012 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:22:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God Message-ID: Recently I was pondering the widespreadness of belief in a higher power. When one considers the facts, this is actually a fairly arbitrary thing to believe. Perhaps then, I thought, specific past events could be directly and parsimoniously, powerfully related to belief in a god. Well, what do we know? The most popular world religions believe in a utopian past where humans and god were in direct contact. Our world society shares this idea of a perfect world before the 'fall of man'. Is there a possible true physical basis for this? I propose a sort of world-historical view of the matter. Imagine early prehumans in mass monkeyculture. As communication began, ideas were able to remain memetically in the culture. At the same time, separate ape clans were probably fostering strong kinship ties, as well as fighting other clans. So imagine one clan is the strongest. It absorbs the others. The leader of the group is the best leader--he has organized a system where each ape has its own task, an edenic apeland. Maybe this continues for generations, with different strongest leaders. But at some point the amount of ideas in this society reaches crescendo. Maybe it was magic mushrooms. (Fruit of knowledge?) Or the leader did something that made him seem weak. In any case, some event occurred that led to the dissolution of this society. And, in a hilarious, pathetic and very human twist of fate, all that the prehumans could pass down was "once a great man ruled us; our father; he was made like you and I and he provided us with food and order. But something happened and we left. Without his rule we split into many tribes with many different languages, into a world of the chaos, away from the land of God..." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 21:22:00 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:22:00 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bees again In-Reply-To: <021a01cccb47$d9721270$8c563750$@att.net> References: <021a01cccb47$d9721270$8c563750$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 1:17 AM, spike wrote: > Thanks Bill. ?As I did in 2007, I am seeing a number of dying honeybees, > staggering about on the ground. ?Now I have an idea. ?I will take the dying > bee and keep it in a glass jar, to see if phorids emerge after a few days. > In retrospect, that is a perfectly logical experiment, but I hadn't thought > of it before. > > And now Analyses of bees found dead in and around hives from several apiaries over two years in Indiana showed the presence of neonicotinoid insecticides, which are commonly used to coat corn and soybean seeds before planting. The research showed those insecticides were present at high concentrations in waste talc that is exhausted from farm machinery during planting, according to findings published in the journal PLoS One. ------------------- Note: France and Germany have already banned these insecticides to protect their honeybees. Spike, it would be ironic if it turned out to be your own agricultural insecticides that were killing honeybees. BillK From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 13 21:33:28 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:33:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bees again In-Reply-To: References: <021a01cccb47$d9721270$8c563750$@att.net> Message-ID: <008601ccd23a$fdf96d60$f9ec4820$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 1:22 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Bees again On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 1:17 AM, spike wrote: > Thanks Bill. ?As I did in 2007, I am seeing a number of dying > honeybees, staggering about on the ground. ?Now I have an idea... > > And now ... ------------------- >...Note: France and Germany have already banned these insecticides to protect their honeybees. >...Spike, it would be ironic if it turned out to be your own agricultural insecticides that were killing honeybees. >...BillK Not my own. We are doing labor-minimalizing farming, which means the kinds of crops that don't need insecticides. I am seeing the dying bees down here in my neighborhood in the SF Bay Area. The bees do great up there in Oregon. In fact we rented space in those fields to nurse some feeble hives back to health. The bees go crazy for oilseed pollen. You never saw so many happy bees up there. People who are afraid of bees freaked out, wouldn't go on the property. Spike From amara at kurzweilai.net Fri Jan 13 22:48:15 2012 From: amara at kurzweilai.net (Amara D. Angelica) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:48:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LENR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <025f01ccd245$7009ab40$501d01c0$@net> Update: http://www.kurzweilai.net/nasa-video-on-lenr-low-energy-nuclear-reactions-a- clean-form-of-nuclear-energy -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 9:00 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] LENR On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 3:08 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Doesn't sound like the normal cautious NASA we're used to. I don't > understand the physics of it at all, but is this some kind of cold > fission? You are correct. > The trick would seem to be adding the extra neutrons in such a way as > to not take more power than you would get at the end of the day. > Interesting, if it's real... Again, you are correct. Which is why I'm not holding my breath for this to get commercialized soon. _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From anders at aleph.se Fri Jan 13 18:01:31 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:01:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: <29.44.03083.93E3A0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> References: <29.44.03083.93E3A0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: <4F10717B.6090806@aleph.se> When I first saw the thread title, I began to think about taxonomies in the classificatory rather than the ontological sense, i.e. ways of dividing enhancement into (nested) categories, or dimensions that are relevant. For example, a fairly common division in bioethics is between therapy (return to normal function), enhancing up to maximal species-typical performance (i.e. as smart as Einstein or as strong as an Olympic athlete), and going beyond it. In my presentations I usually have a diagram splitting enhancement into internal/external hardware/software, but I have grown vary of it - it is hard to draw clear lines between them, and it might not matter very much. Another distinction I think does have some merit is enhancement and extensions: enhancements makes some trait we have "better" (by some standard) while extensions give us a new trait that previously did not exist. One can also try to split the target of the enhancement, for example into cognitive, physical and emotional, and then split them further (memory, creativity, attention, intelligence, etc.) However, many enhancement interventions cut across categories - a stimulant might not just sharpen attention, but also perk up mood. Or a health enhancer might have positive effects on cognition *through* health and mood. It would be nice to have a taxonomy of taxonomies of enhancement. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Jan 14 13:42:18 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:42:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] LENR In-Reply-To: <1326471424.49592.YahooMailNeo@web160605.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1326471424.49592.YahooMailNeo@web160605.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F11863A.9090700@libero.it> Il 13/01/2012 17:17, Dan ha scritto: > Is this relying on a weak force interaction? From the vid, it looks like > they're adding in neutrons and these are decaying, releasing an electron > (and a not shown neutrino) along with the attendant energy. Sounds like > a good idea, though the neutron source itself would be a safety problem, > especially if this is scaled up, no? Apart there isn't a real neutron source, only a "virtual neutron" source. In some way the hydrogen nucleus enter the nucleus of nickel by-passing the Coulomb Barrier. Apparently this produce a Nickel or Copper atom in an "eccitated state" that then decades to a stable state and release low energy gammas that are easily shielded and thermalised. No neutron needed or produced by the reaction. About this Focardi was clear. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Jan 14 14:49:22 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:49:22 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: <19.CE.19860.9184C0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> References: <19.CE.19860.9184C0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: <4F1195F2.8020202@libero.it> Il 10/01/2012 15:15, Natasha Vita-More ha scritto: > Putting varied pieces together, I have a pretty clear understanding > now. It is a synthesis of preceding and subsequent social events and > technological paradigmatic shifts that spawned cybernetics? HCI and > BCI and biotechnology?s gene therapy. Issues of therapy vs. > enhancement arose. The New York Times article and Science mag > article in 1972 spawned a concern and bioethics became a theoretical > business. Don't know if it is fit to the request, but the "human enhancement" idea is old. I have not direct access to the original strips of 1940's Captain America but the talk is about a super-soldier serum able to enhance the subject abilities at the peak of human ability. Probably the idea come from the then newly developed substances: > http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/steroids.asp > > "The history of anabolic steroids can be traced back to as early as > 1930's, before the term steroid was even used. In the 1930's, a team > of scientists was able to create a synthetic form of testosterone (a > male hormone) to help treat men who were unable to produce enough of > the hormone for normal growth, development, and sexual functioning. > Later, during World War II it was found that this artificial form of > testosterone could be used to help malnourished soldiers gain weight > and improve performance." > > http://www.resistance88.com/topics/sport/nazisteroids1.htm#.TxGU3_kmbTo > > Medicinally, steroids obviously have a very legitimate purpose for > being. Athletically, their profound effect on the performance and > appearance of users can neither be ignored nor denied. However, > steroids didn't start being utilized for non-medical reasons for > about a decade after being created. In the 40s, Nazi doctors provided > steroids to their soldiers in an effort to make them more aggressive. > The Soviet Union followed suit in the 50s by giving them to their > athletes to enhance performance and strength.. Mirco From anders at aleph.se Sat Jan 14 14:57:53 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:57:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bees again In-Reply-To: <008601ccd23a$fdf96d60$f9ec4820$@att.net> References: <021a01cccb47$d9721270$8c563750$@att.net> <008601ccd23a$fdf96d60$f9ec4820$@att.net> Message-ID: <4F1197F1.5050904@aleph.se> On 2012-01-13 22:33, spike wrote: > > I am seeing the dying bees down here > in my neighborhood in the SF Bay Area. The bees do great up there in > Oregon. I was actually surprised by the lack of insects when I was around there last time. Being mildly beetle-obsessed means that I always look for insects in vegetation I pass, and I didn't see many. Maybe it was a dryness phenomenon: I encountered a few insects in the hills just north of the Googleplex, while the Stanford area was barren. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 14 16:33:42 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 08:33:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bees again In-Reply-To: <4F1197F1.5050904@aleph.se> References: <021a01cccb47$d9721270$8c563750$@att.net> <008601ccd23a$fdf96d60$f9ec4820$@att.net> <4F1197F1.5050904@aleph.se> Message-ID: <007f01ccd2da$476ea9c0$d64bfd40$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] Bees again On 2012-01-13 22:33, spike wrote: > >... I am seeing the dying bees down here in my neighborhood in the SF Bay Area. The bees do great up there in Oregon. >...I was actually surprised by the lack of insects when I was around there last time. Being mildly beetle-obsessed means that I always look for insects in vegetation I pass, and I didn't see many. Maybe it was a dryness phenomenon: I encountered a few insects in the hills just north of the Googleplex, while the Stanford area was barren. Anders Sandberg Anders, next time you are in town, I know some great bug places. You need to go out away from where the city people use far too much insecticide. It isn't that far from here, but you need to get away from yards and patches of agriculture. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 18:34:50 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:34:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Understanding Human Brain Evolution Through Transcriptome Sequencing Message-ID: http://www.pharma-iq.com/pre-clinical-discovery-and-development/podcasts/understanding-human-brain-evolution-through-transc/ -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 19:48:30 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:48:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2012/1/13 Will Steinberg > Well, what do we know? The most popular world religions believe in a > utopian past where humans and god were in direct contact. I am inclined to believe that this is a monotheism-polluted view. In hinduism or European paganism "gods" are the epithomes, and the memory, of "founding heroes". Even as late as the Roman empire late emperors were considered to have achieved a post-mortem "divine" status owing to their period in office. :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 14 20:07:39 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:07:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bees again References: Message-ID: <00c701ccd2f8$2adcd660$80968320$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] Subject: RE: [ExI] Bees again >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: [ExI] Bees again Fly Parasite Turns Honeybees Into Zombies >>...As if deadly viruses and fungi weren't enough, honeybees in North America now must also deal with a fly parasite that causes them to leave their hive and die after wandering about in a zombie-like stupor, a new study shows. Now researchers have discovered honeybees parasitized by A. borealis in 24 of 31 sites across the San Francisco Bay area, as well as other commercial hives in California and South Dakota. Original Study report: BillK >...Thanks Bill. As I did in 2007, I am seeing a number of dying honeybees, staggering about on the ground. Now I have an idea. I will take the dying bee and keep it in a glass jar, to see if phorids emerge after a few days. In retrospect, that is a perfectly logical experiment, but I hadn't thought of it before. spike OK cool, I found a dead bumblebee, have her remains in a jar to see if A. borealis larvae appear in the jar in a few days. Here's an interesting signal: of the local bees, I would estimate about 5% or less of all bees observed are bumblebees, or rather all the non-swarming bees combined: bumblebees, carpenter bees, stingless pollinators, all the solitaries combined, everything that isn't a honeybee, about 5%. But now I think of all those I have seen dead or in the process of expiring, the percentage is way higher than 5%, more like about 20 percent. But I hadn't really noted it until today, so henceforth I shall count how many and try to identify the type. This one had evidently been there only a short time, as she expired on a fairly busy sidewalk. Presumably the half-life of a dead bee in such circumstances would be short, before being devoured by ants or squooshed by some prole's shoe. spike From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 20:34:44 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:34:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bees again In-Reply-To: <00c701ccd2f8$2adcd660$80968320$@att.net> References: <00c701ccd2f8$2adcd660$80968320$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 8:07 PM, spike wrote: > OK cool, I found a dead bumblebee, have her remains in a jar to see if A. > borealis larvae appear in the jar in a few days. > > Here's an interesting signal: of the local bees, I would estimate about 5% > or less of all bees observed are bumblebees, or rather all the non-swarming > bees combined: bumblebees, carpenter bees, stingless pollinators, all the > solitaries combined, everything that isn't a honeybee, about 5%. ?But now I > think of all those I have seen dead or in the process of expiring, the > percentage is way higher than 5%, more like about 20 percent. ?But I hadn't > really noted it until today, so henceforth I shall count how many and try to > identify the type. > > I don't think you'll have any luck. The parasites are attacking honeybees. The die-off in bees seems to be mostly honeybees. I think I remember reading that other bees are relatively unaffected. But they are also not as good at making honey as honeybees. BillK From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 20:48:03 2012 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:48:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yes...I was a bit too far-reaching in calling this the origin of *all* human beliefs. I still believe it is extremely plausible, though, that a group of humans existed whose memory of past culture transmuted into many of today's monotheistic beliefs. An even broader point, though, would be that the number of ancient societies whose memetic memories formed modern culture is probably low--because successful beliefs eradicate unsuccessful ones--and so I would predict that part of prehistory was a 'civilization' bottleneck leading to rather similar belief systems for many, many of their descendants. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 21:47:39 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:47:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2012/1/14 Will Steinberg > Yes...I was a bit too far-reaching in calling this the origin of *all* > human beliefs. I still believe it is extremely plausible, though, that a > group of humans existed whose memory of past culture transmuted into many > of today's monotheistic beliefs. An even broader point, though, would be > that the number of ancient societies whose memetic memories formed modern > culture is probably low--because successful beliefs eradicate unsuccessful > ones--and so I would predict that part of prehistory was a 'civilization' > bottleneck leading to rather similar belief systems for many, many of their > descendants. > In my interview now online in English at http://www.biopolitix.com I maintain that this bottleneck was the neolithic revolution, which created a split between those who embraced it, those who suffered it, those refused its consequences from a "moral" point of view while profiting from its proceeds, and those who were not really affected, going on with hunting-and-gathering lifestyles and mentalities. This created in turn radically different civilisational and "religious" traditions. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 14 23:11:03 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:11:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bees again In-Reply-To: References: <00c701ccd2f8$2adcd660$80968320$@att.net> Message-ID: <00ff01ccd311$ca152570$5e3f7050$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK ... > > Here's an interesting signal: of the local bees, I would estimate > about 5% or less of all bees observed are bumblebees... > >...I don't think you'll have any luck. The parasites are attacking honeybees. The die-off in bees seems to be mostly honeybees. I think I remember reading that other bees are relatively unaffected. But they are also not as good at making honey as honeybees. BillK Ja, but it isn't honey that worries me BillK. If we have started with some kind of pesticide or somehow caused some superbug to weaken bee hives, we could run very much short of food, so we damn well better find out what is wrong and fix it. It isn't a game: if we don't have sufficient pollinators, we will don't have sufficient food. We have been using antibiotics for bees since way before my own misspent youth, and that has been tragically many years ago. I can imagine that we could have bred some kind of supervirus by now, which could be causing colony collapse. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Jan 15 00:41:59 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:41:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2012/1/14 Will Steinberg > Yes...I was a bit too far-reaching in calling this the origin of *all* > human beliefs. I still believe it is extremely plausible, though, that a > group of humans existed whose memory of past culture transmuted into many > of today's monotheistic beliefs. An even broader point, though, would be > that the number of ancient societies whose memetic memories formed modern > culture is probably low--because successful beliefs eradicate unsuccessful > ones--and so I would predict that part of prehistory was a 'civilization' > bottleneck leading to rather similar belief systems for many, many of their > descendants. > > I hate to be so cynical, but I think you're still too far-reaching. It much easier to see "our father" as a simple generalization of a literal father figure and to view all humanity as siblings in an otherwise primitive family. There's not much more in that memeplex that requires any kind of complexity to extrapolate. The whole things is almost too simplistic. Therein lies its appeal and longevity. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Jan 14 17:41:42 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:41:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: <4F1195F2.8020202@libero.it> References: <19.CE.19860.9184C0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> <4F1195F2.8020202@libero.it> Message-ID: <002001ccd2e3$c7b7ea70$5727bf50$@cc> HI Mirco, Thanks. Actually, I thought I had said this clearly in my original email, but I guess not. I was looking for the historical use of the phrase "humane enhancement", not humans altering biology, which is ancient (we can go as far back as the Alchemists). Best, Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Chairman, Humanity+ Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 8:49 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement Il 10/01/2012 15:15, Natasha Vita-More ha scritto: > Putting varied pieces together, I have a pretty clear understanding > now. It is a synthesis of preceding and subsequent social events and > technological paradigmatic shifts that spawned cybernetics' HCI and > BCI and biotechnology's gene therapy. Issues of therapy vs. > enhancement arose. The New York Times article and Science mag > article in 1972 spawned a concern and bioethics became a theoretical > business. Don't know if it is fit to the request, but the "human enhancement" idea is old. I have not direct access to the original strips of 1940's Captain America but the talk is about a super-soldier serum able to enhance the subject abilities at the peak of human ability. Probably the idea come from the then newly developed substances: > http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/steroids.asp > > "The history of anabolic steroids can be traced back to as early as > 1930's, before the term steroid was even used. In the 1930's, a team > of scientists was able to create a synthetic form of testosterone (a > male hormone) to help treat men who were unable to produce enough of > the hormone for normal growth, development, and sexual functioning. > Later, during World War II it was found that this artificial form of > testosterone could be used to help malnourished soldiers gain weight > and improve performance." > > http://www.resistance88.com/topics/sport/nazisteroids1.htm#.TxGU3_kmbTo > > Medicinally, steroids obviously have a very legitimate purpose for > being. Athletically, their profound effect on the performance and > appearance of users can neither be ignored nor denied. However, > steroids didn't start being utilized for non-medical reasons for > about a decade after being created. In the 40s, Nazi doctors provided > steroids to their soldiers in an effort to make them more aggressive. > The Soviet Union followed suit in the 50s by giving them to their > athletes to enhance performance and strength.. Mirco _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sun Jan 15 11:34:48 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:34:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Proposed Full Adder Cell using Molecular Electronics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1326627288.1161.YahooMailClassic@web114412.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Proposed Full Adder Cell using Molecular Electronics http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2043v1 (pdf) The fact that this is work by Iranian scientists might help to get increased funding for this kind of research in the west. Shouldn't be hard to rile up some american senators about the 'Eye-rain-ians' gaining the upper hand in molecular electronics. (It's just a design proposal, not a working product, but in politics, who cares about that?) Anyone here care to comment on the likely feasibility of this design? Ben Zaiboc From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 15 13:59:34 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 05:59:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ >From: Mike Dougherty >To: ExI chat list >Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 4:41 PM >Subject: Re: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God > > >2012/1/14 Will Steinberg > >Yes...I was a bit too far-reaching in calling this the origin of *all* human beliefs. ?I still believe it is extremely plausible, though, that a group of humans existed whose memory of past culture transmuted into many of today's monotheistic beliefs. ?An even broader point, though, would be that the number of ancient societies whose memetic memories formed modern culture is probably low--because successful beliefs eradicate unsuccessful ones--and so I would predict that part of prehistory was a 'civilization' bottleneck leading to rather similar belief systems for many, many of their descendants.?? >> >> >I hate to be so cynical, but I think you're still too far-reaching.? It much easier to see "our father" as a simple generalization of a literal father figure and to view all humanity as siblings in an otherwise primitive family.? There's not much more in that memeplex that requires any kind of complexity to extrapolate.? The whole things is almost too simplistic.? Therein lies its appeal and longevity.? ? If you think that is cynical, consider this: If a Bayesian were to assume that there?were a God and?that?worldly success were a sign of God's favor then God's chosen people would not be people at all but ants. After all *1/5* of all land-based biomass is in ants. It has been calculated that minus the polar regions and possibly the top floors?of fastitidiously cleaned skyscrapers, no human being is ever more than 6 feet from the nearest ant. That being said if God made his favored children in his own?image then God is likely an ant. And since it would be unthinkable that God is a pathetic ant drone he must be female, therefore?probably a queen.?So sorry no father figure.?;-P ? ? Stuart LaForge ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jan 15 15:21:45 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:21:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F12EF09.10702@libero.it> Il 15/01/2012 14:59, The Avantguardian ha scritto: > If you think that is cynical, consider this: If a Bayesian were to > assume that there were a God and that worldly success were a sign of > God's favor then God's chosen people would not be people at all but > ants. After all *1/5* of all land-based biomass is in ants. It has > been calculated that minus the polar regions and possibly the top > floors of fastitidiously cleaned skyscrapers, no human being is ever > more than 6 feet from the nearest ant. That being said if God made > his favored children in his own image then God is likely an ant. And > since it would be unthinkable that God is a pathetic ant drone he > must be female, therefore probably a queen. So sorry no father > figure. ;-P Catholics already know their God is not a simple male: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternit%C3%A0_di_Dio_%28cattolicesimo%29 In this, if you look a the the hands of the Father, you can note that they are different (one larger and masculine over the shoulder, one longer and more feminine over the back) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_the_Prodigal_Son_%28Rembrandt%29 Mt23,37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 15 16:29:43 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:29:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Proposed Full Adder Cell using Molecular Electronics In-Reply-To: <1326627288.1161.YahooMailClassic@web114412.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1326627288.1161.YahooMailClassic@web114412.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 15 January 2012 12:34, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Proposed Full Adder Cell using Molecular Electronics > http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2043v1 > (pdf) > > The fact that this is work by Iranian scientists might help to get > increased funding for this kind of research in the west. Shouldn't be hard > to rile up some american senators about the 'Eye-rain-ians' gaining the > upper hand in molecular electronics. (It's just a design proposal, not a > working product, but in politics, who cares about that?) > This may be said in jest, but I am actually persuaded the fact that most conservatives are of a nationalist or a regionalist persuasion makes international competition a wonderful factor in keeping neoLuddite temptations under control... In addition to increased chances for global prohibitionist enforcement, this is one more reason why I believe that transhumanist should be wary of "global governance" trends. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 15 16:42:15 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:42:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of The Avantguardian ... >...If you think that is cynical, consider this: If a Bayesian were to assume that there were a God and that worldly success were a sign of God's favor then God's chosen people would not be people at all but ants. After all *1/5* of all land-based biomass is in ants. It has been calculated that minus the polar regions and possibly the top floors of fastitidiously cleaned skyscrapers, no human being is ever more than 6 feet from the nearest ant. That being said if God made his favored children in his own image then God is likely an ant. And since it would be unthinkable that God is a pathetic ant drone he must be female, therefore probably a queen. So sorry no father figure. ;-P Stuart LaForge Cool passage Stuart! Well done, me lad. If 1/5 of land based biomass, perhaps the formicidae family is the biggest fraction of all land based biomass, assuming we restrict the competition to the animal kingdom. If so, I am pleased that this distinction goes to such a cool interesting family of beasts. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 15 17:12:55 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:12:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 15 January 2012 17:42, spike wrote: > Cool passage Stuart! Well done, me lad. > > If 1/5 of land based biomass, perhaps the formicidae family is the biggest > fraction of all land based biomass, assuming we restrict the competition to > the animal kingdom. > I take, and share, the "philosophical" angle, but am perplexed about the plausibility of the specific figure. This would also mean that ants' biomass alone would beat all other insects together (termites, locustes, flies, mosquitoes, fleas, butterflies, bees, etc.) hands down by orders of magnitude... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 15 23:35:03 2012 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:35:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] Human running In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1326670503.76400.YahooMailNeo@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Someone posted in the past couple of weeks wondering why humans didn't run on their toes rather than the gait we see today. Well, New Scientist last week had a tiny article in the news section, ?http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527455.000-were-built-to-run-barefoot-on-our-tiptoes.html Apparently more than two-thirds of people who grew up barefoot running run on their tips rather than heel first. So, humans are capable of both but depending on whether you run barefoot or use shoes makes a big difference in which style you're likely to choose. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 16 01:50:29 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:50:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Human running In-Reply-To: <1326670503.76400.YahooMailNeo@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <1326670503.76400.YahooMailNeo@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001501ccd3f1$3a6a5d10$af3f1730$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tom Nowell Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2012 3:35 PM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: [ExI] Human running >.Someone posted in the past couple of weeks wondering why humans didn't run on their toes rather than the gait we see today. Well, New Scientist last week had a tiny article in the news section, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527455.000-were-built-to-run-barefoo t-on-our-tiptoes.html >.Apparently more than two-thirds of people who grew up barefoot running run on their tips rather than heel first. So, humans are capable of both but depending on whether you run barefoot or use shoes makes a big difference in which style you're likely to choose. Tom, this misses something important. In order for toe running to be practical even for short distances requires a particular build that is common in Kenyan runners (the subject of the New Scientist article) but very rare in Americans. Kenyan runners tend to be wiry sorts, but westerners in general are much more heavy set. The reason I know about this is that I am a 3 sigma boney ass, as compared to normal westerners. I can do barefoot toe running if I have a forgiving surface like the rubberized tracks we see today, but very few runners can do that style, even young guys. Toe running is harder on the feet, but easier on the knees. My feet, ankles and hips are in far better shape than my knees. Those poor knees have reeeeeaaallly taken a pounding from years of heel running. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ddraig at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 05:06:53 2012 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:06:53 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Human running In-Reply-To: <1326670503.76400.YahooMailNeo@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <1326670503.76400.YahooMailNeo@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2012/1/16 Tom Nowell : > Someone posted in the past couple of weeks wondering why humans didn't run > on their toes rather than the gait we see today. Well, New Scientist last > week had a tiny article in the news section, > ?http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527455.000-were-built-to-run-barefoot-on-our-tiptoes.html > > Apparently more than two-thirds of people who grew up barefoot running run > on their tips rather than heel first. So, humans are capable of both but > depending on whether you run barefoot or use shoes makes a big difference in > which style you're likely to choose. Okay this is weird. Aside from the fact that I can't read the article - anyone want to post the full text in here? Anyways: "HUMANS living millions of years ago were endurance runners, but how did they do it without air-cushioned soles? The secret might have been to land on the balls of their feet." Errrr, how ELSE do you run? How do Americans run? Dwayne -- ? ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna ? ? ? ?? ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... ? ? ? ? http://tinyurl.com/he-is-right-you-know-jpg our aim is wakefulness,? our enemy is dreamless sleep From seculartranshumanist at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 05:46:20 2012 From: seculartranshumanist at gmail.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:46:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Human running In-Reply-To: References: <1326670503.76400.YahooMailNeo@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 12:06 AM, ddraig wrote: > > Okay this is weird. ?Aside from the fact that I can't read the article > - anyone want to post the full text in here? ?Anyways: > > "HUMANS living millions of years ago were endurance runners, but how > did they do it without air-cushioned soles? The secret might have been > to land on the balls of their feet." > > > Errrr, how ELSE do you run? How do Americans run? We land between the heel and arch, rolling forward towards the ball of the foot, then springing off the toes. At least I do, and in high school I ran both sprints and cross-country. Joe From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 08:41:00 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:41:00 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Human running In-Reply-To: References: <1326670503.76400.YahooMailNeo@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 5:06 AM, ddraig wrote: > Okay this is weird. ?Aside from the fact that I can't read the article > - anyone want to post the full text in here? ?Anyways: > > "HUMANS living millions of years ago were endurance runners, but how > did they do it without air-cushioned soles? The secret might have been > to land on the balls of their feet." > > Errrr, how ELSE do you run? How do Americans run? > New Scientist and Nature are now behind paywalls to stop people reading *their version* of science news without paying money. Nature has a longer abstract available: Quote: Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years1, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels and little cushioning relative to modern running shoes. We wondered how runners coped with the impact caused by the foot colliding with the ground before the invention of the modern shoe. Here we show that habitually barefoot endurance runners often land on the fore-foot (fore-foot strike) before bringing down the heel, but they sometimes land with a flat foot (mid-foot strike) or, less often, on the heel (rear-foot strike). In contrast, habitually shod runners mostly rear-foot strike, facilitated by the elevated and cushioned heel of the modern running shoe. Kinematic and kinetic analyses show that even on hard surfaces, barefoot runners who fore-foot strike generate smaller collision forces than shod rear-foot strikers. This difference results primarily from a more plantarflexed foot at landing and more ankle compliance during impact, decreasing the effective mass of the body that collides with the ground. Fore-foot- and mid-foot-strike gaits were probably more common when humans ran barefoot or in minimal shoes, and may protect the feet and lower limbs from some of the impact-related injuries now experienced by a high percentage of runners. ----------------- But Google can usually find similar articles elsewhere. e.g. BillK From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 07:55:33 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:55:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/15 Stefano Vaj > On 15 January 2012 17:42, spike wrote: >> Cool passage Stuart! ?Well done, me lad. >> >> If 1/5 of land based biomass, perhaps the formicidae family is the biggest fraction of all land based biomass, assuming we restrict the competition to the animal kingdom. > > I take, and share, the "philosophical" angle, but am perplexed about the plausibility of the specific figure. > > This would also mean that ants' biomass alone would beat all other insects together (termites, locustes, flies, mosquitoes, fleas, butterflies, bees, etc.) hands down by orders of magnitude... I am absolutely certain that you are leaving out the biomass of single celled creatures... "Not only does the Earth contain more bacterial organisms than all others combined (scarcely surprising, given their minimal size and mass); not only do bacteria live in more places and work in a greater variety of metabolic ways; not only did bacteria alone constitute the first half of life's history, with no slackening in diversity thereafter; but also, and most surprisingly, total bacterial biomass (even at such minimal weight per cell) may exceed all the rest of life combined, even forest trees, once we include the subterranean populations as well. Need any more be said in making a case for the modal bacter as life's constant center of maximal influence and importance?" -Stephen Jay Gould (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_bacteria.html -- I highly recommend the entire article) -Kelly From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 10:46:17 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:46:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 16 January 2012 08:55, Kelly Anderson wrote: > "Not only does the Earth contain more bacterial organisms than all > others combined (scarcely surprising, given their minimal size and > mass); not only do bacteria live in more places and work in a greater > variety of metabolic ways; not only did bacteria alone constitute the > first half of life's history, with no slackening in diversity > thereafter;..." > This raises another interesting point, namely the fact that the maximum diversity lies at the point of origin, since each segment is of course made by the further branching of a single streak. This is also true at a human level, where the maximum linguistic and genetic differences are still within the African perimeter, the rest of humankind being just the offspring of a very small group of individuals (so that everything that was not represented there got lost). -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From listsb at infinitefaculty.org Mon Jan 16 10:34:42 2012 From: listsb at infinitefaculty.org (Brian Manning Delaney) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:34:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Human running In-Reply-To: <001501ccd3f1$3a6a5d10$af3f1730$@att.net> References: <1326670503.76400.YahooMailNeo@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <001501ccd3f1$3a6a5d10$af3f1730$@att.net> Message-ID: <4F13FD42.4070203@infinitefaculty.org> El 2012-01-16 02:50, spike escribi?: [....] > http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527455.000-were-built-to-run-barefoot-on-our-tiptoes.html [....] > In order for toe running to be > practical even for short distances requires a particular build that is > common in Kenyan runners (the subject of the New Scientist article) but > very rare in Americans. Kenyan runners tend to be wiry sorts, but > westerners in general are much more heavy set. The reason I know about > this is that I am a 3 sigma boney ass, as compared to normal westerners. > I can do barefoot toe running if I have a forgiving surface like the > rubberized tracks we see today, but very few runners can do that style, > even young guys. You can sort of carry a thin rubberized track around on the bottom of your feet with "foot gloves" that are made for (nearly) barefoot running (there are some that are basically a layer of canvas, but most are a touch thicker). I'm going to get some next time I'm back in the U.S. The one person I know (also very skinny) who's tried barefoot running says his knees felt much better within a few weeks, but that you have to be really, really careful with every step you take, at first. Then foot placement comes more naturally (not surprising). Brian > Toe running is harder on the feet, but easier on the knees. My feet, > ankles and hips are in far better shape than my knees. Those poor knees > have reeeeeaaallly taken a pounding from years of heel running. > > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 12:38:09 2012 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:38:09 -0200 Subject: [ExI] RES: Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <009601ccd44b$b7947fa0$26bd7ee0$@gmail.com> Recently I was pondering the widespreadness of belief in a higher power.? When one considers the facts, this is actually a fairly arbitrary thing to believe.? Perhaps then, I thought, specific past events could be directly and parsimoniously, powerfully related to belief in a god. (...) And, in a hilarious, pathetic and very human twist of fate, all that the prehumans could pass down was "once a great man ruled us; our father; he was made like you and I and he provided us with food and order. But something happened and we left. Without his rule we split into many tribes with many different languages, into a world of the chaos, away from the land of God..." But monotheism is a later development. Polytheism precedes it by some thousands of years. And even anthropomorphic gods are a later development. The first gods were more abstract constructs like forces of nature and such. From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 12:58:52 2012 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:58:52 -0200 Subject: [ExI] Future ape haulers Message-ID: <009701ccd44e$9d349bb0$d79dd310$@gmail.com> As we were discussing cars the other day. Here's an interesting one: http://www.gizmag.com/honda-n-box-microvan-family-car/21071/ Too bad it's for Japan only... From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 16 15:35:49 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:35:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Species-Typical Distinctions Message-ID: <006f01ccd464$86a5c250$93f146f0$@cc> Species-typical is used in many fields to refer to what is considered normal and normalcy. Gregor Wolbrig has used this phrase to parse out his arguments against transhumanism. A couple of years ago we were both invited to the American Philosophical Associations conference held in Vancouver. It was an uncomfortable but enlightening experience. Gregor has some issues with his body (I don't know what he wants to be referred to but the medical field would say he is handicapped and has disabilities) and this may be the reason why he lashes out against transhumanist in assuming that we seek "perfection" and have a "disdain" for the human body. I am not sure where his angst arises from, but it could be the assumption that transhumanism seeks universal utilitarianism, which I do not agree with at all. Not at all. Nevertheless, there are far more issues that the ones Gregor invites which need to be looked at. Species-typical is a hard nut to crack. I thought it was difficult to find the first uses of "human enhancement", but thanks to many of you (I now feel more comfortable that I can trace its phrasing originating to specific areas: a paper on AI at MIT in the mid 1960s and in a gene therapy article in early 1970s.) It seems that species-typical was most often used in psychology and etnology and now gaining more usage in ethics. Does anyone have information about how this term is being used in regards to transhumanism and human enhancement (outside Gregor's elaborate use of it)? It would be good to know more about this phrase. Thank you! Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Chairman, Humanity+ Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 20:28:52 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:28:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] RES: Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: <009601ccd44b$b7947fa0$26bd7ee0$@gmail.com> References: <009601ccd44b$b7947fa0$26bd7ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 16 January 2012 13:38, Henrique Moraes Machado < cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com> wrote: > But monotheism is a later development. Polytheism precedes it by some > thousands of years. And even anthropomorphic gods are a later development. > The first gods were more abstract constructs like forces of nature and > such. > I suspect that all "humankind" generalisations for the period including, and subsequent to, the neolithic revolution depend on a lack of perspective, that is, on an inclination to re-interpret the data according to one's own biases and not to the relevant cultural context, so that even the "god" concept is too easily applied to vastly different representations. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 20:48:42 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:48:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/16 Stefano Vaj : > On 16 January 2012 08:55, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > This raises another interesting point, namely the fact that the maximum > diversity lies at the point of origin, since each segment is of course made > by the further branching of a single streak. Absolutely, in fact two of the three Domains (above Kingdom in In biological taxonomy) are known ONLY as single celled creatures. (Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya.) http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life Will this Arsenic based life be a new Domain or a new Kingdom? Probably too early to tell. Maybe it depends on how the Arsenic is substituted for Phosphorus. Or perhaps on whether we find more things like this. The question is whether this pushes back LUCA or is a later anomoly or a separate root. All very interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_%28biology%29 > This is also true at a human level, where the maximum linguistic and genetic > differences are still within the African perimeter, the rest of humankind > being just the offspring of a very small group of individuals (so that > everything that was not represented there got lost). No argument there. Although I believe technically that there may have been more than one exodus from Africa. In fact, if you look at the mitochondrial DNA evidence, Homo Erectus left Africa and became extinct outside of Africa, though not necessarily inside of Africa. In other words, Java man is clearly NOT a human ancestor, but an extinct cousin. Whether we evolved from Homo Erectus individuals who stayed in Africa is not known to me, though it may be known to someone by now. -Kelly From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 21:03:02 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:03:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 16 January 2012 21:48, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Although I believe technically that there may have > been more than one exodus from Africa. > Yes, absolutely. Only, all Sapiens come from the last one. See Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade. The "multiregional" evolutionary hypothesis seemed for a while to account better for the degree of differences in humankind, in principle hardly compatible with the limited time elapsed since, but I am persuaded that this is made compatible with the "out-of-Africa" hypothesis by the realisation that human races are the artificial products of selective self-breeding by human cultures. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 21:47:35 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:47:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/16 Stefano Vaj > On 16 January 2012 21:48, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> Although I believe technically that there may have >> been more than one exodus from Africa. >> > > Yes, absolutely. Only, all Sapiens come from the last one. See > Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by > Nicholas Wade. > Yes, clearly. That does not imply, however, that it was just one small band that left, just once... rather that there was a period, before which, every person who left Africa did not leave descendents alive today. To push what I'm saying to a ludicrous degree (for clarity), in the 1950s some people left Africa and settled in other parts of the world, leaving descendents. Likewise, people left Africa in the 1800s, 1500s, in the first millennium BC, and perhaps in 30,000 bpa as well as 60,000 bpa (or whenever that first migration with survivors took place)... multiple groups, multiple waves. The settling of America by Europeans illustrates the point I'm trying to make. The Roanoke colony is like the early Homo Erectus. They came over, but they all died. Jamestown would be the first migration out of Europe to leave survivors with descendents alive today, but by no means was it the last. I descend myself from Mayflower pilgrims and Mormon immigrants from England who came over in the 1850s, among others. While it is clear that there is a genetic Adam and Eve (though they never met), they predate the exodus from Africa. So it seems unlikely that there was one simple migration of one small group out of Africa. There was an early wave that went along the coast, and then went to Australia, and another later wave went to Europe out of Africa, for example. It is probably VERY complex. "If the original Africans had moved into the Middle East and north, then why was Europe settled thousands of years after Australia, they asked in a commentary. In Europe, Neanderthals were replaced by modern humans only between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago, while southern Australia had been settled as early as 46,000 years ago." from an article on MSNBC. The "multiregional" evolutionary hypothesis seemed for a while to account > better for the degree of differences in humankind, in principle hardly > compatible with the limited time elapsed since, > but I am persuaded that this is made compatible with the "out-of-Africa" > hypothesis by the realisation that human races are the artificial products > of selective self-breeding by human cultures. > > Yes, I'm with the out of Africa crowd for sure!!! -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 22:22:59 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:22:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Larry King update? Message-ID: As I recall Max was due to meet with Larry King on the Jan 11 for some sort of (televised?) event. Max, Natasha, what's the word? Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 17 00:43:38 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:43:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> Message-ID: <1326761018.38083.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ----- > From: Kelly Anderson > To: ExI chat list > Cc: > Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2012 11:55 PM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God > > 2012/1/15 Stefano Vaj >> On 15 January 2012 17:42, spike wrote: >>> Cool passage Stuart! ?Well done, me lad. >>> >>> If 1/5 of land based biomass, perhaps the formicidae family is the > biggest fraction of all land based biomass, assuming we restrict the competition > to the animal kingdom. >> >> I take, and share, the "philosophical" angle, but am perplexed > about the plausibility of the specific figure. >> >> This would also mean that ants' biomass alone would beat all other > insects together (termites, locustes, flies, mosquitoes, fleas, butterflies, > bees, etc.) hands down by orders of magnitude... > > I am absolutely certain that you are leaving out the biomass of single > celled creatures... Yes Kelly. Both you and Spike are correct, I am strictly speaking of metazoa, the animal kingdom. But it is still?an unfair comparison as humans are single species while there are thousands of species of ants so?I was trying to be funny mostly. Stuart LaForge ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 17 01:22:29 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:22:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: <1326761018.38083.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> <1326761018.38083.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001501ccd4b6$7b17b770$71472650$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of The Avantguardian ... > Subject: Re: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God > > 2012/1/15 Stefano Vaj >> On 15 January 2012 17:42, spike wrote: >>> Cool passage Stuart! Well done, me lad. >>> >>> If 1/5 of land based biomass, perhaps the formicidae family is the > biggest fraction of all land based biomass, assuming we restrict the > competition to the animal kingdom... >...Yes Kelly. Both you and Spike are correct, I am strictly speaking of metazoa... Cool, no problem. Those are my favorite zoa, of all I have met. >... I was trying to be funny mostly. Stuart LaForge Sometimes I fear I take my ants far too seriously. {8^D We could really make things happen if we could figure out some way to get them to act as pollinators. I don't see why not: they carry grains of stuff from one place to another. If we could somehow hack an ant, we could perhaps get them to crawl around on the trees in the spring, scoop up a glob of pollen from one flower, go rub it on another. When that is done, go find a slug to bite, that sort of thing. spike From max at maxmore.com Tue Jan 17 06:21:09 2012 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:21:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Larry King update? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The scheduled filming was abruptly cancelled or delayed. At the time, the producer wasn't sure which. It now seems that it is merely a delay, due to Larry King being out of the country. I'm told he is still enthusiastic about doing the show. No new date is yet available. --Max On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 3:22 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > As I recall Max was due to meet with Larry King on the Jan 11 for some > sort of (televised?) event. > > Max, Natasha, what's the word? > > Best, Jeff Davis > > "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." > Ray Charles > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 17 14:08:02 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:08:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Species-Typical Distinctions In-Reply-To: <006f01ccd464$86a5c250$93f146f0$@cc> References: <006f01ccd464$86a5c250$93f146f0$@cc> Message-ID: <4F1580C2.6070002@aleph.se> On 16/01/2012 15:35, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > It seems that species-typical was most often used in psychology and > etnology and now gaining more usage in ethics. Does anyone have > information about how this term is being used in regards to > transhumanism and human enhancement (outside Gregor's elaborate use of > it)? It would be good to know more about this phrase. I think a lot of it goes back to Boorse's "On the Distinction between Disease and Illness" in 1975 and related papers in medical ethics dealing with the definition of health and illness. Bioethics and the enhancement debate has inhereited a lot from this discourse. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2265020 -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 15:17:07 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:17:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Species-Typical Distinctions In-Reply-To: <4F1580C2.6070002@aleph.se> References: <006f01ccd464$86a5c250$93f146f0$@cc> <4F1580C2.6070002@aleph.se> Message-ID: 2012/1/17 Anders Sandberg > I think a lot of it goes back to Boorse's "On the Distinction between > Disease and Illness" in 1975 > My confusion may be more linguistic than philosophic, but in Italian and French they both translate as "malattia", "maladie"... :-/ -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johntc at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 14:51:07 2012 From: johntc at gmail.com (John Tracy Cunningham) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:51:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: <002001ccd2e3$c7b7ea70$5727bf50$@cc> References: <19.CE.19860.9184C0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> <4F1195F2.8020202@libero.it> <002001ccd2e3$c7b7ea70$5727bf50$@cc> Message-ID: I am almost certainly jumping the gun here. I have done only a little research and given the matter some thought. It seems to me, at least initially, that: Therapy is, as previously stated, the return to normal range of a capability in a particular human (I speak here of humans for ease of reference, but I think this can be applied elsewhere). Enhancement is the improvement of a capability in a particular human beyond the individual's normal range, up to and including the best or highest performance observed in the human species. Extension is the improvement of a capability in a particular human beyond the best or highest performance observed in the human species. Augmentation is the addition of a capability to a particular human, which that human did not previously possess. There is the possibility of extension after augmentation. Am I somewhere in the ballpark? Thanks and regards John On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 6:41 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > HI Mirco, > > Thanks. Actually, I thought I had said this clearly in my original email, > but I guess not. I was looking for the historical use of the phrase > "humane > enhancement", not humans altering biology, which is ancient (we can go as > far back as the Alchemists). > > Best, > Natasha > > Natasha Vita-More > PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK > Chairman, Humanity+ > Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mirco > Romanato > Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 8:49 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement > > Il 10/01/2012 15:15, Natasha Vita-More ha scritto: > > Putting varied pieces together, I have a pretty clear understanding > > now. It is a synthesis of preceding and subsequent social events and > > technological paradigmatic shifts that spawned cybernetics' HCI and > > BCI and biotechnology's gene therapy. Issues of therapy vs. > > enhancement arose. The New York Times article and Science mag > > article in 1972 spawned a concern and bioethics became a theoretical > > business. > > Don't know if it is fit to the request, but the "human enhancement" idea > is old. > I have not direct access to the original strips of 1940's Captain > America but the talk is about a super-soldier serum able to enhance the > subject abilities at the peak of human ability. > > Probably the idea come from the then newly developed substances: > > > > http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/steroids.asp > > > > "The history of anabolic steroids can be traced back to as early as > > 1930's, before the term steroid was even used. In the 1930's, a team > > of scientists was able to create a synthetic form of testosterone (a > > male hormone) to help treat men who were unable to produce enough of > > the hormone for normal growth, development, and sexual functioning. > > Later, during World War II it was found that this artificial form of > > testosterone could be used to help malnourished soldiers gain weight > > and improve performance." > > > > http://www.resistance88.com/topics/sport/nazisteroids1.htm#.TxGU3_kmbTo > > > > Medicinally, steroids obviously have a very legitimate purpose for > > being. Athletically, their profound effect on the performance and > > appearance of users can neither be ignored nor denied. However, > > steroids didn't start being utilized for non-medical reasons for > > about a decade after being created. In the 40s, Nazi doctors provided > > steroids to their soldiers in an effort to make them more aggressive. > > The Soviet Union followed suit in the 50s by giving them to their > > athletes to enhance performance and strength.. > > Mirco > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 17 16:46:49 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:46:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement In-Reply-To: References: <19.CE.19860.9184C0F4@hrndva-omtalb.mail.rr.com> <4F1195F2.8020202@libero.it> <002001ccd2e3$c7b7ea70$5727bf50$@cc> Message-ID: <20120117114649.l73l93ifvkks8gwg@webmail.natasha.cc> Hi John, Yes, this is all true. There is enormous material on this topic. I am only looking for the phrase "human enhancement", not what it is. I am in this field and have been for many years. BUT no one has clearly ascertained where the exact phrase originated in any reference that I can find anywhere. Over the past week, I was able to locate two instances: one in AI at MIT and other other in gene therapy. Unless you have a reference to something else, I am all set. Many thanks, Natasha Quoting John Tracy Cunningham : > I am almost certainly jumping the gun here. I have done only a little > research and given the matter some thought. It seems to me, at least > initially, that: > > Therapy is, as previously stated, the return to normal range of a > capability in a particular human (I speak here of humans for ease of > reference, but I think this can be applied elsewhere). > > Enhancement is the improvement of a capability in a particular human beyond > the individual's normal range, up to and including the best or highest > performance observed in the human species. > > Extension is the improvement of a capability in a particular human beyond > the best or highest performance observed in the human species. > > Augmentation is the addition of a capability to a particular human, which > that human did not previously possess. There is the possibility of > extension after augmentation. > > Am I somewhere in the ballpark? > > Thanks and regards > > John > > On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 6:41 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > >> HI Mirco, >> >> Thanks. Actually, I thought I had said this clearly in my original email, >> but I guess not. I was looking for the historical use of the phrase >> "humane >> enhancement", not humans altering biology, which is ancient (we can go as >> far back as the Alchemists). >> >> Best, >> Natasha >> >> Natasha Vita-More >> PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK >> Chairman, Humanity+ >> Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org >> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mirco >> Romanato >> Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 8:49 AM >> To: ExI chat list >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Taxonomy of Human Enhancement >> >> Il 10/01/2012 15:15, Natasha Vita-More ha scritto: >> > Putting varied pieces together, I have a pretty clear understanding >> > now. It is a synthesis of preceding and subsequent social events and >> > technological paradigmatic shifts that spawned cybernetics' HCI and >> > BCI and biotechnology's gene therapy. Issues of therapy vs. >> > enhancement arose. The New York Times article and Science mag >> > article in 1972 spawned a concern and bioethics became a theoretical >> > business. >> >> Don't know if it is fit to the request, but the "human enhancement" idea >> is old. >> I have not direct access to the original strips of 1940's Captain >> America but the talk is about a super-soldier serum able to enhance the >> subject abilities at the peak of human ability. >> >> Probably the idea come from the then newly developed substances: >> >> >> > http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/steroids.asp >> > >> > "The history of anabolic steroids can be traced back to as early as >> > 1930's, before the term steroid was even used. In the 1930's, a team >> > of scientists was able to create a synthetic form of testosterone (a >> > male hormone) to help treat men who were unable to produce enough of >> > the hormone for normal growth, development, and sexual functioning. >> > Later, during World War II it was found that this artificial form of >> > testosterone could be used to help malnourished soldiers gain weight >> > and improve performance." >> > >> > http://www.resistance88.com/topics/sport/nazisteroids1.htm#.TxGU3_kmbTo >> > >> > Medicinally, steroids obviously have a very legitimate purpose for >> > being. Athletically, their profound effect on the performance and >> > appearance of users can neither be ignored nor denied. However, >> > steroids didn't start being utilized for non-medical reasons for >> > about a decade after being created. In the 40s, Nazi doctors provided >> > steroids to their soldiers in an effort to make them more aggressive. >> > The Soviet Union followed suit in the 50s by giving them to their >> > athletes to enhance performance and strength.. >> >> Mirco >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 20:18:23 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:18:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Future ape haulers In-Reply-To: <009701ccd44e$9d349bb0$d79dd310$@gmail.com> References: <009701ccd44e$9d349bb0$d79dd310$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 5:58 AM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > As we were discussing cars the other day. Here's an interesting one: > > http://www.gizmag.com/honda-n-box-microvan-family-car/21071/ > > Too bad it's for Japan only... I, for one, am relieved... that is ONE UGLY CAR!!! Why do they have to make them look like a box bandages should come in? All it needs is a little red cross on the roof and it could be an ambulance for Smurfs. -Kelly From js_exi at gnolls.org Tue Jan 17 21:28:29 2012 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:28:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The natural human gait (Re: Barefoot running) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F15E7FD.3030909@gnolls.org> On 1/16/12 4:00 AM, spike wrote: > Tom, this misses something important. In order for toe running to be > practical even for short distances requires a particular build that is > common in Kenyan runners (the subject of the New Scientist article) but very > rare in Americans. Spike, you're way off base here. There is no "build" necessary to run with the natural human gait: as Lieberman's group points out, heel-striking is unnatural and causes greater impact no matter how much weight you carry. What certain West African runners (e.g. the Kalenjin) have is long legs and relatively skinny calves, meaning they are moving less weight when they run. This gives them an efficiency advantage at distance running. (Sprinting is more dependent on peak power, so sprinters tend to have muscular builds.) Lieberman's laboratory and research can be found here: http://barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/ Also, the natural human gait does not involve running purely on the toes. You land on the outside of the ball of your foot and roll towards your heel, which impacts the ground as your lead foot passes behind your body. Thus, the arch of your foot compresses and absorbs the shock of impact -- which is why we have arches in the first place! Then you push off with your big toe, which is pointed forward on toe-off. Note that "pronation" is therefore part of the natural human gait, and not a defect to be avoided! Pronation is only bad when you're forced into an unnatural heel-striking gait by your shoes. "Arch support" is also an artifact of heel-striking: since the arch has no function in this unnatural gait, its muscular support atrophies, often requiring "arch support" to hold it up so that it doesn't collapse inward and screw up your ankle alignment ("pronation"). In support of toe-striking, anyone who has tried to run cross-country (not "trail running" -- running across open ground that is neither a lawn nor a trail, as we did for the millions of years which shaped us into modern humans) will find that a heel-striking gait will quickly cause you to turn your ankle. In order to run safely on irregular ground, you must land toe-first, which allows your heel to descend in a controlled manner -- or fail to descend, if your proprioception detects a hole there. In contrast, the usual combination of heel-striking and overstriding leads to an uncontrolled toe slap as the much weaker shin muscles are unable to stop the descent of the toes. Note that it is necessary to start slowly and with short distances (< 1/2 mile) with barefoot/minimal running. The muscles of your foot will be atrophied from years of wearing a cast ("running shoes"), and it will take time to strengthen them. Also it will take a while for you to develop a natural gait that doesn't overstride but lets your hips rotate. I know more than one person who has cured decade-plus foot issues (pain, inability to run or walk distances) by switching to minimal shoes. Feel free to ask me questions on the subject, including "what shoes should I look at?" JS http://www.gnolls.org From agrimes at speakeasy.net Tue Jan 17 23:17:10 2012 From: agrimes at speakeasy.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:17:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The natural human gait (Re: Barefoot running) In-Reply-To: <4F15E7FD.3030909@gnolls.org> References: <4F15E7FD.3030909@gnolls.org> Message-ID: <4F160176.8000406@speakeasy.net> J. Stanton wrote: > Also, the natural human gait does not involve running purely on the > toes. You land on the outside of the ball of your foot and roll towards > your heel, which impacts the ground as your lead foot passes behind your > body. Thus, the arch of your foot compresses and absorbs the shock of > impact -- which is why we have arches in the first place! Then you push > off with your big toe, which is pointed forward on toe-off. I tend to walk around on the balls of my feet mainly because I'm prone to heel cracks. =\ Speaking as a transhumanist, I've been kinda interested in trying out a 4-toe configuration with two large and two small toes. I would imagine this would be advantageous for a number of reasons. Obviously, if I'm uploaded trying this would be impossible because feet wouldn't exist. =( -- E T F N H E D E D Powers are not rights. From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 01:29:10 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:29:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The natural human gait (Re: Barefoot running) In-Reply-To: <4F160176.8000406@speakeasy.net> References: <4F15E7FD.3030909@gnolls.org> <4F160176.8000406@speakeasy.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 6:17 PM, Alan Grimes wrote: > I tend to walk around on the balls of my feet mainly because I'm prone to > heel cracks. =\ > > Speaking as a transhumanist, I've been kinda interested in trying out a > 4-toe configuration with two large and two small toes. I would imagine this > would be advantageous for a number of reasons. Obviously, if I'm uploaded > trying this would be impossible because feet wouldn't exist. =( > Uploading would be a feat. 'though virtual feet may be effete for travelling any actual feet. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 18 02:32:43 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:32:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The natural human gait (Re: Barefoot running) In-Reply-To: References: <4F15E7FD.3030909@gnolls.org> <4F160176.8000406@speakeasy.net> Message-ID: <00ef01ccd589$756e9900$604bcb00$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 5:29 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] The natural human gait (Re: Barefoot running) On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 6:17 PM, Alan Grimes wrote: Speaking as a transhumanist, I've been kinda interested in trying out a 4-toe configuration with two large and two small toes. I would imagine this would be advantageous for a number of reasons. Obviously, if I'm uploaded trying this would be impossible because feet wouldn't exist. =( Uploading would be a feat. 'though virtual feet may be effete for travelling any actual feet. Ja, and furthermore uploading would defeet our progress toeward a perfect physical existence. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 07:46:08 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:46:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants and the tata nano In-Reply-To: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> References: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 9:26 AM, spike wrote: >>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson > Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants > On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 9:14 AM, spike wrote: > I do need to clarify. ?Ordinarily burning any kind of food for fuel is a > terrible loss. ?It takes so much energy to create food in the way we are > currently doing it, you wouldn't waste good food crops to make anything > else. ?There is an important point to make here however. ?When I envision > future ape haulers, I see not things like this: > > http://www.cadillac.com/escalade-suv.html > > But rather, things like this: > > http://www.examiner.com/auto-industry-in-san-jose/tata-nano-the-world-s-chea > pest-car-starts-delivery-to-first-customers You won't catch me in one of those things until something major changes in terms of highway safety. For example, I would buy one if A) 99% of all cars and 100% of all long haul Semi tractor trailers were driven by dependable autonomous systems. B) My car was also autonomous. C) Nobody had large vehicles on the roads I was traveling on, including long haul tractor trailers. > Weights engineers will get this every time. ?If you scale down the > requirements for top speed, then the weight of an ape-hauler is dramatically > reduced. And the possibility of damaging said ape goes up. It is pure physics, and the only thing you could do about it is develop some kind of restraint system like the Secure Foam employed in Demolition Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnyhkBU1yaw I don't know if this specific thing is possible, but it sure SEEMS possible. Has anyone seen any work on Secure Foam in the real world? The specs are pretty simple. Foam up and harden to Styrofoam consistency in a few hundred milliseconds, then disintegrate within 30 seconds after that (to allow said ape to breathe again)... > One of these Indian companies yesterday announced a plan for an > ape-hauler considerably smaller than the nano, which really caught my > attention, because the specifications were right on what I had calculated > after doing the structural analysis: the thing runs on a 26 kw single > cylinder 200 cc engine, mass 400 kg, top speed about 70 kph (assuming a tail > breeze) gets 83 miles per gallon, cost about 2000 USD. ?It would be so much > safer for teenagers and the long-since-retired hordes to be buzzing around > in these things. ?Safer for us anyway. I was really excited a few years back by the idea that the nano would be powered by compressed air, but apparently that turned out to be more difficult technologically than they initially speculated. Something to do with condensation and freezing if I remember correctly. > Our current specifications and expectations for ape-haulers are so absurdly > outdated. ?Once we really focus on what an ape-hauler must do, and build > something that does only that, we get something like what the Indians > envision. You forget that cars are also a part of the American psyche... and that it's just as important to have a back seat where you can lose your virginity as get 125 MPG... >>...What about this, you say that the crop works well for one year, then not > so much. So why not rotate it to a different crop that would allow the geese > or ducks to harvest the slugs on the off year? Then go back to oilseed??? > -Kelly > > Ja, that's what we are doing. ?We are experimenting with two consecutive > years with the oilseed, followed by two years of winter rye (very low profit > crop.) ?The second year of oilseed was less profitable than the first, but > still better than winter rye. I knew you were smarter than me. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 08:34:29 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:34:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God In-Reply-To: <001501ccd4b6$7b17b770$71472650$@att.net> References: <1326635974.7449.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccd3a4$a3bf43e0$eb3dcba0$@att.net> <1326761018.38083.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <001501ccd4b6$7b17b770$71472650$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 6:22 PM, spike wrote: >>... On Behalf Of The Avantguardian > ... >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Eden, deep memes, exodus from the Ape God >> >> 2012/1/15 Stefano Vaj >>> On 15 January 2012 17:42, spike wrote: >>>> Cool passage Stuart! ?Well done, me lad. >>>> >>...Yes Kelly. Both you and Spike are correct, I am strictly speaking of metazoa... > > Cool, no problem. ?Those are my favorite zoa, of all I have met. I'm rather fond of metazoa myself. >>... I was trying to be funny mostly. ? Stuart LaForge > > Sometimes I fear I take my ants far too seriously. ?{8^D > > We could really make things happen if we could figure out some way to get them to act as pollinators. ?I don't see why not: they carry grains of stuff from one place to another. ?If we could somehow hack an ant, we could perhaps get them to crawl around on the trees in the spring, scoop up a glob of pollen from one flower, go rub it on another. ?When that is done, go find a slug to bite, that sort of thing. > Yes, all we need is an entirely new kind of plant life with a design enabling pollination by ants. And new ants. Good luck getting that past the EPA... LOL!!! -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 08:44:23 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:44:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano In-Reply-To: <005801ccd122$2398ee20$6acaca60$@gmail.com> References: <00f401ccd0a9$0f28e310$2d7aa930$@att.net> <005801ccd122$2398ee20$6acaca60$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 5:02 AM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > > ?Ja, and of course make them one-seaters, or perhaps two. ?Plenty of > motorcycles are one-seaters, and most of them are two, people still use > them. > > > Like... myself for instance. > But It being intended as a family car, probably the current Nano buyers > wouldn't want a two seater (or a one seater). > But anyway if it was a two seater, why not make it three wheeler instead of > four? You even can make it a three seater with three wheels. Motorcycles are fairly fuel efficient, and have lower CO2 output, but they have terribly polluting output. Apparently, there hasn't been a lot of work on the part of motorcycle builders to reduce emissions the way they have on cars. There was an interesting Mythbusters where they went over this stuff in some detail. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 09:32:53 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:32:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano In-Reply-To: References: <00f401ccd0a9$0f28e310$2d7aa930$@att.net> <005801ccd122$2398ee20$6acaca60$@gmail.com> <002b01ccd148$adfb7490$09f25db0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 9:45 AM, BillK wrote: > On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 4:38 PM, spike wrote: > > You might enjoy this video of crash testing one of the little two seat > Smart cars. > The Smart car has very good crash safety ratings. > > I bet this smart car might be a bit more survivable... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDU5BU_qSJU&feature=fvwp&NR=1 -Kelly From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 18 12:47:08 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:47:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants and the tata nano In-Reply-To: References: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> Message-ID: <20120118124708.GF21917@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 12:46:08AM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I don't know if this specific thing is possible, but it sure SEEMS > possible. Has anyone seen any work on Secure Foam in the real world? > The specs are pretty simple. Foam up and harden to Styrofoam > consistency in a few hundred milliseconds, then disintegrate within 30 > seconds after that (to allow said ape to breathe again)... Doesn't help with twisting brainstem injury, though of couse immobilizing the head will eliminate whiplash motion. Better solution: let the photons do the traveling. Packet collisions cause few casualties. From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 18 13:43:37 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:43:37 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Species-Typical Distinctions In-Reply-To: References: <006f01ccd464$86a5c250$93f146f0$@cc> <4F1580C2.6070002@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4F16CC89.6020107@aleph.se> On 17/01/2012 15:17, Stefano Vaj wrote: > 2012/1/17 Anders Sandberg > > > I think a lot of it goes back to Boorse's "On the Distinction > between Disease and Illness" in 1975 > > > My confusion may be more linguistic than philosophic, but in Italian > and French they both translate as "malattia", "maladie"... :-/ Yes, and normal people (and the NIH) of course say they are the same thing. But the fine distinction can be used to denote for example the subjective perception: an ill person experiences an unhealthy, distressing state while a diseased person has a pathology. http://www.springerlink.com/content/j81081714nkm6117/ For a great overview of just how tricky the concept "disease" is, see Freitas' Nanomedicine: http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/1.2.2.htm (and his list is definitively not complete - there are several shelves in our office with just medical ethics books dealing with this) -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 19 14:22:29 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:22:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Coming War on General Computation In-Reply-To: <1325676160.47146.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325676160.47146.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120119142229.GY21917@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 04, 2012 at 03:22:40AM -0800, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > We now risk a world where no-one is allowed to make an MPU without built-in > mechanisms for surveillance and control. General-purpose computing would > become a thing of the past, and anyone who tried to build one would be a > criminal. Free software, of course, would be dead in the water. We do have open hardware, and the means of production are slowly but surely coming to individuals and small groups. Rapid prototyping goes beyond just extruding blobby polymers. E.g. consider http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/silver-ink-solution-for-cheaper-faster-flexible-circuits-54967 then think Memjet and http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=38973 Even considering MIPS and SPARC, there are much simpler systems possible http://excamera.com/sphinx/fpga-j1.html Future serial additive nanolithography will have a lot more in common with inkjet and dip pen printing than semiconductor photolitho on giant wafers we do today. From amon at doctrinezero.com Fri Jan 20 12:02:53 2012 From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:02:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Free, official ZS membership now open! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *Free, official ZS membership now open!* http://transhumanpraxis.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/zero-state-our-million-member-year/ Until the end of February 2012 (and no later) we will be making official ZS membership free; membership being defined by having your name and email address listed in a (strictly private and secure) ZS database. From March 1st 2012, membership will cost ?15 per year. Those who join before the end of February will be accorded full membership status for free until March 1st, 2013. There will be advantages to membership announced periodically, such as offers, special event invitations etc made only to official members. Each member will be assigned a membership number and sent a welcome/information message. We will aim to reach an official membership of 1,000 by the end of February, if not sooner. Anyone can obtain their free membership by sending an email to * membership at zerostate.net* Mails should include the applicant?s name, and the name of the person who referred them (if anyone). That email address is now active. You will receive a confirmation email with membership number within 24 hours. If you include any kind of personal message in the email, then we cannot guarantee a response, depending upon the volume of emails received. To add a bit of fun to proceedings and speed things up, I would like to announce that *the ZS member who refers the most new members before the end of February* (i.e. whose name is mentioned to us in emails from unique applicants) *will receive 10 years free ZS membership* (worth ?150). Two runners-up will each receive 5 years free ZS membership. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 17:45:11 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:45:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants and the tata nano In-Reply-To: <20120118124708.GF21917@leitl.org> References: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> <20120118124708.GF21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 5:47 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 12:46:08AM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> I don't know if this specific thing is possible, but it sure SEEMS >> possible. Has anyone seen any work on Secure Foam in the real world? >> The specs are pretty simple. Foam up and harden to Styrofoam >> consistency in a few hundred milliseconds, then disintegrate within 30 >> seconds after that (to allow said ape to breathe again)... > > Doesn't help with twisting brainstem injury, though of couse immobilizing > the head will eliminate whiplash motion. No, I would not suppose that it would protect against every type of injury. The new racing equipment added after the death of Dale Earnhart actually accomplishes something like what Secure Foam is supposed to do, and I guess it protects you somewhat better than before. You can only get incremental safety improvement. Secure Foam might also reduce the incursion of foreign objects into the passenger compartment. If you look at the mess inside the smart car on that video, that's a lot of sharp edges flying around in there... Sure would be nice not to have that slicing on you. The question for this group is whether you think it is possible from a chemical standpoint. Is there something that would expand fast enough and harden quickly enough to do the job? That would not then be so hard that you couldn't get out of it pretty easily afterwards. Although I suppose you could come up with other solutions if it stayed hard... I would expect that if you were embedded in today's construction foams, you wouldn't be able to move, kind of like when you are stuck in an avalanche of snow... but if a robot or something could dig you out fast... that might not be a terrible problem. > Better solution: let the photons do the traveling. Packet collisions cause > few casualties. ROFLMAO! Of course that's the best solution. Better still is remote presence with a mobile robot, which is already being done on a limited commercial basis. http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/051810-anybots-qb-new-telepresence-robot The only problem at this point is that they are pretty expensive, but I would suppose that will come down. Also, I would guess these guys don't do stairs yet... lol. -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 20 21:39:18 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:39:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants and the tata nano In-Reply-To: References: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> <20120118124708.GF21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: <007b01ccd7bb$f7ddb4a0$e7991de0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants and the tata nano On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 5:47 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 12:46:08AM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >>> ... Foam up and harden to Styrofoam >> consistency in a few hundred milliseconds, then disintegrate within >> 30 seconds after that (to allow said ape to breathe again)... > >> Doesn't help with twisting brainstem injury... >...The question for this group is whether you think it is possible from a chemical standpoint. Is there something that would expand fast enough and harden quickly enough to do the job? That would not then be so hard that you couldn't get out of it pretty easily afterwards...-Kelly _______________________________________________ Hi Kelly, the foam notion sounds dubious to me, however we already have a technology that works: good old fashioned well-tested air bags. They have been shown effective thousands of times. So my notion is to make ape-haulers dramatically lighter and compensate for the loss of safety by having more air bags, say about 7 of them: four up front, one on either side and one aft. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 21:57:36 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:57:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Coming War on General Computation In-Reply-To: <20120119142229.GY21917@leitl.org> References: <1325676160.47146.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120119142229.GY21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 7:22 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Jan 04, 2012 at 03:22:40AM -0800, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > >> We now risk a world where no-one is allowed to make an MPU without built-in >> mechanisms for surveillance and control. ?General-purpose computing would >> become a thing of the past, and anyone who tried to build one would be a >> criminal. ?Free software, of course, would be dead in the water. > > We do have open hardware, and the means of production are > slowly but surely coming to individuals and small groups. > > Rapid prototyping goes beyond just extruding blobby polymers. > E.g. consider http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/silver-ink-solution-for-cheaper-faster-flexible-circuits-54967 That is RAD!!! Literally. :-) > then think Memjet and http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=38973 > Wow, that's breath taking. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUTZRrQfy-E > Even considering MIPS and SPARC, there are much simpler > systems possible http://excamera.com/sphinx/fpga-j1.html It might be fun to build neural networks out of a bunch of these... there may be better simpler solutions for that, but it seems this would be highly reconfigurable. Of course, I could be totally off track here, as the FPGA technology isn't something I've played with, only heard a little about. > Future serial additive nanolithography will have a lot more > in common with inkjet and dip pen printing than semiconductor > photolitho on giant wafers we do today. Possibly. Is there a limit to how small you can print? Photo lithography makes very small components, and it seems like it would be difficult to print things that small. Mind you this wouldn't disqualify it for every application by any means. You don't need all that much computation for lots of interesting applications. I really enjoyed the Wired article recently on printing with ice. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/st_3diceprinting/ Imagine printing something out of ice, then covering the ice with a mold material, then you could cast it in bronze or similar. Would be a lot easier than the current wax techniques used in jewelry shops, for example. There is a local company that is sells a 2d cutter for paper scrapbooking and have now branched out into cake decorations, this company has a web site at www.cricut.com so this shows at the very least that there is demand out there if you market it carefully. A three dimensional printer using cake frosting would probably be quite popular around here. LOL. Fun post Eugen!! I think 3D and other novel printers have a great future. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 22:18:08 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:18:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants and the tata nano In-Reply-To: <007b01ccd7bb$f7ddb4a0$e7991de0$@att.net> References: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> <20120118124708.GF21917@leitl.org> <007b01ccd7bb$f7ddb4a0$e7991de0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 2:39 PM, spike wrote: > >>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson > Subject: Re: [ExI] super soldier ants and the tata nano > > On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 5:47 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 12:46:08AM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >>>> ... Foam up and harden to Styrofoam >>> consistency in a few hundred milliseconds, then disintegrate within >>> 30 seconds after that (to allow said ape to breathe again)... >> >>> Doesn't help with twisting brainstem injury... > >>...The question for this group is whether you think it is possible from a > chemical standpoint. Is there something that would expand fast enough and > harden quickly enough to do the job? That would not then be so hard that you > couldn't get out of it pretty easily afterwards...-Kelly > _______________________________________________ > > Hi Kelly, the foam notion sounds dubious to me, however we already have a > technology that works: good old fashioned well-tested air bags. ?They have > been shown effective thousands of times. ?So my notion is to make > ape-haulers dramatically lighter and compensate for the loss of safety by > having more air bags, say about 7 of them: four up front, one on either side > and one aft. ?spike Air bags do save lives, and I'm glad for that. However, they are also dangerous and do also take a small number of lives. If you had an ape hauler for two apes, then you would not be able to carry micro-apes in that car... In addition, they are very directional. If you have a head on collision, they are great, but for collisions on odd angles, they are somewhat less effective. The advantage of the foam (if it is chemically possible at all) is that it prevents motion in all directions simultaneously. Each air bag adds quite a bit to the cost of a car, so putting seven into a nano tata might add 20% to the current cost of the car. I can't see that being something that would be widely supported. So the question remains open... is the foam approach remotely possible chemically? I know some chemical reactions (explosions) are VERY fast... so from that point of view it seems plausible... even if nobody has figured out exactly how to do it yet. -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 20 22:44:02 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:44:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] etextbooks Message-ID: <008201ccd7c5$024a1380$06de3a80$@att.net> The notion of eText books for elementary and secondary education gets us around some very fundamental problems in education today. We have economy of scale if textbooks are published in enormous numbers, consequently the huge retro market of Texas tends to drive science textbook publishers to completely eliminate all mention of concepts as fundamental as evolution. It is easy to just leave out a controversial concept than to have more than one standard text, so Texas compels all of America to ignore the concept of evolution. Now if we have widespread use of eTexts, we can have parental control and arbitrarily many versions of a textbook. I can choose for my son a science text that assures him that evolution is a fact. The retros can choose a text that doesn't have that in there: http://singularityhub.com/2012/01/20/is-the-ipad-the-future-of-education-stu dents-in-palm-beach-florida-find-out/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ce7422b598-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN At my son's kindergarten today, I began looking through the texts for grades up through 4. I found not one word anywhere about evolution, not a syllable. So sad. This is our chance to break free from the iron grip of Texas. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 20 23:16:46 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:16:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] super soldier ants and the tata nano In-Reply-To: References: <005f01ccd07d$d2dc63d0$78952b70$@att.net> <20120118124708.GF21917@leitl.org> <007b01ccd7bb$f7ddb4a0$e7991de0$@att.net> Message-ID: <009101ccd7c9$9496f060$bdc4d120$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson ... >...Air bags do save lives, and I'm glad for that. However, they are also dangerous and do also take a small number of lives. If you had an ape hauler for two apes, then you would not be able to carry micro-apes in that car... -Kelly Ja good point. The notion would be that these kinds of cars are special purpose. I would even recommend they be single-seaters. We know they don't do everything, but they do one thing really well: haul a single ape arbitrarily far for very low cost. If single seat, there is a good dead space either side of the single seat for effective side airbags. For what I have in mind, the weight goes way down if you make it a single seat vehicle right up front. If you think about it, that kind of vehicle has plenty of applications. Regarding your question of fast foam, I don't see how such a thing could work. The fact that it isn't currently available on the market is further evidence that it isn't practical. Currently, these kinds of ideas are held down for the wrong reasons, such as license fees. In the US generally, each conveyance needs its own license tag and fees. If you have a specialty low cost vehicle that gets 80 mpg, it doesn't make sense if the vehicle itself is expensive or if it has much of a license fee. So I would propose a super light weight, very simple, single seat specialty vehicle with the government supporting it by having a very minimal license fee. If we argue that license fees help pay for roads, that works: light vehicles mean light wear on pavement. If we argue that license fees help pay for cops to chase down stolen ape haulers, then we recognize that a vehicle that tops out at 50 mph is not an attractive theft item. We can further reduce size perhaps by doing away with the traditional notion of side doors. We can have the thing open like a clamshell. The driver steps in and out from the front. I can imagine something like this being built for 5k USD, and weigh in at about 400kg. Perhaps half of that cost would be in airbags. It would not keep you warm in winter or cool in summer. Your kids cannot go along. You can get groceries in it, if you buy only two bags. spike From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Jan 20 23:32:07 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:32:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment Message-ID: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> What the heck is Hayles (How We Became Posthuman) talking about when she says that posthumans are disembodied?? I had thought that she meant that?posthumans?will forgo?a body to be Moravecean robots.? That transhumanists don't give a rat's behind about having any body, not even a series of codes that might be interpreted as a platform or system.? But when I look at the concept of embodiment it is most definitely not Cartesian.? Does it mean that our bodies form us?? That our minds are the product of the body?? Certainly this can't be -- unless one is more artistic and defends perceptions and sensorial interpretations of the world far above other cognitive processes performed by the brain. Embodiment is a big term in the area of human enhancement.? Can someone unpack it for me and give me a clear understanding of just what it is?? Where did it originate?? Psychology or philosophy? Thanks, I am indebted to your cleverness, as I certainly don't have any on this. Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 02:15:15 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:15:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: 2012/1/20 > > What the heck is Hayles (How We Became Posthuman) talking about when she says that posthumans are disembodied?? I had thought that she meant that?posthumans?will forgo?a body to be Moravecean robots.? That transhumanists don't give a rat's behind about having any body, not even a series of codes that might be interpreted as a platform or system.? But when I look at the concept of embodiment it is most definitely not Cartesian.? Does it mean that our bodies form us?? That our minds are the product of the body?? Certainly this can't be -- unless one is more artistic and defends perceptions and sensorial interpretations of the world far above other cognitive processes performed by the brain. > > Embodiment is a big term in the area of human enhancement.? Can someone unpack it for me and give me a clear understanding of just what it is?? Where did it originate?? Psychology or philosophy? > > Thanks, I am indebted to your cleverness, as I certainly don't have any on this. An easy answer that comes to mind is that Hayles is simply wrong. I haven't read anything she's written, so I may also be wrong. I wonder who appointed her the official spokesperson for all of posthumanity? It is much easier to imagine trans/post -humanists as them in the classic us vs. them pattern. A giant amorphous "other" is much easier to hate/fear/etc than an actual person with more similarities than differences. i don't know. 'just sharing my thoughts. From anders at aleph.se Sat Jan 21 11:15:52 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:15:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <4F1A9E68.3010909@aleph.se> On 20/01/2012 23:32, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > What the heck is Hayles (How We Became Posthuman) talking about when > she says that posthumans are disembodied? > I can't say I find her understandable (she is nice in person, though). But it is safe to guess she doesn't mean embodiment in the usual physical sense, but more likely in the sense of phenomenology or even continental feminism - the body as a constraint/part of the lifeworld. Our cognition is embodied, and that means it is deeply dependent upon features of the physical body. This is a very "in" view in parts of robotics too. So my stab at what she might mean is that our concept of the posthuman as we often describe it in our community tends to be very disembodied: we tend to assume the body is an irrelevant artifact that can be discarded and replaced with something better, keeping the essential part of ourselves. But she thinks this is a mistake - not that it might be impossible to do, but that regarding bodies as fashion accessorites rather than the ground of being will mean we will be amputating important parts of our selves. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Jan 21 12:52:34 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:52:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Mike Dougherty wrote: > An easy answer that comes to mind is that Hayles is simply > wrong.? I > haven't read anything she's written, so I may also be > wrong.? I wonder > who appointed her the official spokesperson for all of > posthumanity? There are two reasons, imo, that nobody can be a spokesman for posthumanity, now or ever: 1) no posthumans exist yet. 2) If/when they do, they will be so diverse that no single person could possibly hope to represent all their views. Anders Sandberg wrote: > ... we tend to assume the body is an irrelevant artifact that > can be > discarded and replaced with something better, keeping the > essential part > of ourselves. But she thinks this is a mistake - not that it > might be > impossible to do, but that regarding bodies as fashion > accessorites > rather than the ground of being will mean we will be > amputating > important parts of our selves. I believe that this is just a manifestation of the 'change is bad' meme. Maybe I'm missing something, but I fail to see how, for example, adding a set of hyper-sensitive tentacles, with sensory abilities that my evolved body lacks (in either a physical or a virtual body), could possibly be 'amputating important parts' of myself. I think the idea of 'disembodiment' needs to be clarified before going any further. Does it mean, as Anders suggests, dispensing with or changing our original biological bodies, or does it mean literally eliminating all embodiment, whether it be physical or some virtual representation? (which is something that I think is not actually possible) Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Jan 21 13:09:09 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:09:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The Coming War on General Computation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327151349.81916.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl observed: > > We do have open hardware, and the means of production are > slowly but surely coming to individuals and small groups. > > Rapid prototyping goes beyond just extruding blobby > polymers. > E.g. consider http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/silver-ink-solution-for-cheaper-faster-flexible-circuits-54967 > then think Memjet and http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=38973 > > Even considering MIPS and SPARC, there are much simpler > systems possible http://excamera.com/sphinx/fpga-j1.html > Thanks, Eugen, I was deliberately not mentioning FPGA, that's the one technology I can think of that could avoid this problem. However, do we want to live in a world where 99.99% of the people meekly bow down before the gov/corp mandated restrictions on general computing, and a tiny minority know how to get round them, using stuff like FPGA processors, and clunky, slow, custom-built (and probably illegal) CPUs? Being the Stainless Steel Rat* might sound cool, but it would be a shit situation to be in. Ben Zaiboc * Harry Harrison, in case anyone doesn't get the reference. From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Jan 21 15:43:11 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:43:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <007e01ccd853$61c9c4c0$255d4e40$@cc> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty 2012/1/20 > > What the heck is Hayles (How We Became Posthuman) talking about when she says that posthumans are disembodied?? I had thought that she meant that?posthumans?will forgo?a body to be Moravecean robots.? That transhumanists don't give a rat's behind about having any body, not even a series of codes that might be interpreted as a platform or system.? But when I look at the concept of embodiment it is most definitely not Cartesian.? Does it mean that our bodies form us?? That our minds are the product of the body?? Certainly this can't be -- unless one is more artistic and defends perceptions and sensorial interpretations of the world far above other cognitive processes performed by the brain. > > Embodiment is a big term in the area of human enhancement.? Can someone unpack it for me and give me a clear understanding of just what it is?? Where did it originate?? Psychology or philosophy? > > Thanks, I am indebted to your cleverness, as I certainly don't have any on this. "An easy answer that comes to mind is that Hayles is simply wrong. I haven't read anything she's written, so I may also be wrong. I wonder who appointed her the official spokesperson for all of posthumanity? "It is much easier to imagine trans/post -humanists as them in the classic us vs. them pattern. A giant amorphous "other" is much easier to hate/fear/etc than an actual person with more similarities than differences. "i don't know. 'just sharing my thoughts." Yes, I see. I think that her postmodernist approach is an interesting twist on "other" because usually "other" is the postmodernist favored, but in this case it is the "monster" and it is "us". Natasha _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From pjmanney at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 15:44:00 2012 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 07:44:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] etextbooks In-Reply-To: <008201ccd7c5$024a1380$06de3a80$@att.net> References: <008201ccd7c5$024a1380$06de3a80$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/20 spike : > At my son?s kindergarten today, I began looking through the texts for grades > up through 4.? I found not one word anywhere about evolution, not a > syllable.? So sad.? This is our chance to break free from the iron grip of > Texas. Hi Spike, California (where I believe you live) is the biggest market for textbooks in the US. In fact, CA and TX are the two dominant markets that drive content. Small states, who can't afford to create their own texts, decide whether they want CA's view of reality or TX's. If there is no evolution in your school's CA elementary school textbooks, then it's not about TX. It's about state-standards and their concept of what they think kids that age can understand. OR... it's your school's choice about what textbook they bought. All schools don't all use the same ones. Districts make those decisions. Take your kids to natural history museums and the library is filled with age-appropriate materials. Teach your kid and his friends about evolution and if you're really motivated, get involved in state education standards to change them. I promise evolution is covered in middle and high school. PJ From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Jan 21 16:14:16 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:14:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F1A9E68.3010909@aleph.se> References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> <4F1A9E68.3010909@aleph.se> Message-ID: <007f01ccd857$b8f09270$2ad1b750$@cc> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg On 20/01/2012 23:32, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > What the heck is Hayles (How We Became Posthuman) talking about when > she says that posthumans are disembodied? > "I can't say I find her understandable (she is nice in person, though). But it is safe to guess she doesn't mean embodiment in the usual physical sense, but more likely in the sense of phenomenology or even continental feminism - the body as a constraint/part of the lifeworld. Our cognition is embodied, and that means it is deeply dependent upon features of the physical body." Yes, good point. Thus she takes an essentialist perspective, much like Fukuyama, and asserts that our genes are us, even with their mutations that attack the very source - the body (interesting irony). The Merleau-Ponty perspective is one I tend to agree with though, but not through the Hayles' lens. For example, I do find perception deep-rooted and the Gestalt theory of visual experiments as representations to the body through the senses and mental perceptions of the form/color/sound/etc field. That most of "us" (transhumanist, let say) rely on cognition to at the Aristotelian center of the body and the animal kingdom may have value in memory, reasoning and other intellectual properties, but it is not the all and be all and the body and the experiences of the body through the nervous system as a communication system, in my view, ought be on par with cognition. I think this is especially important considering most of our AI/AGI/Uploading advocates, are focused on computational powers and not on how the brain's processes are informed by the body. In my view this is our shortcoming and a big mistake. I could be wrong in how I am stating this, but I am clear in my experiences and involvement in the posthuman subject for long enough to see this as consequential. I also think Suzanne K. Langer is onto something with her embodiment theory of Symbolization and its relation to emotions, instincts, perceptions and as they relate to the presentation of a symbol, not the occurrence of a sign/symbol. Another area that she focuses on and that I think is relevant is the human ability to project their personal bodily feelings - I suppose you could say that this would be a mental construct of the physical experience - onto physical objects (real or imagined). When you think of it, this is a really strange psychological/material/perceptional orgy. "This is a very 'in' view in parts of robotics too." Yes, I see that and it confuses me because it's like one of those terms that gets picked up by different fields and they each given their own spin on it. I suppose I need to stay very focused on what "embodiment" is important to my thesis and not get lost going down rabbit holes. "So my stab at what she might mean is that our concept of the posthuman as we often describe it in our community tends to be very disembodied: we tend to assume the body is an irrelevant artifact that can be discarded and replaced with something better, keeping the essential part of ourselves. But she thinks this is a mistake - not that it might be impossible to do, but that regarding bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being will mean we will be amputating important parts of our selves." I agree that this is her interpretation and thank you for spelling it out in one sentence. I think that she is mistaken by using a broad brush to paint our thinking. For example, I do not think the body is irrelevant. It is how I communicate with the world as a vehicle and as an ornament, a pleasure chamber, and a constant reminder of all my problems/mistakes/regrets/hope/fears/loves as evidenced through the very scars that are visible, pains that I feel from disease or injuries, and the wrinkles symbolizing years that I have lived, and the smiles of high points in my life, the tears that run down my face at deep anguish and sadness, and the giggle of life's marvelous and absurd humor. This is what I want to draw from in designing future bodies for the posthuman. Now, when I say "bodies" I do not mean stamps of the human form, I mean bodies as in envelopes that encompass the codes - whether computation or chemical - that house existence. We have to be in something. If it is an upload, then it is in something - some envelope, encasement, structure, system. That would be the body. So, we have to redefine "body" in order to explain to numbskulls the transhumanist vision of the posthuman. The problem is the saying "pro life" if you say it, one thinks you are anti-abortion. But one could be for life in and of itself and have no interest in the politics of abortion. The posthuman, in my view, would require perceptual experiences and an array of emotional input/output devices in relation to the environment/system in which it exists. In this sense, the body (as a newly defined concept) is not amputated and is a deeply integrated aspect of our selves. What are your thoughts on this Anders? How would you redefine "body"? Do you see my point or am I stating it in a way that lacks clarity? Best, Natasha From pjmanney at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 16:00:49 2012 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:00:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] etextbooks In-Reply-To: References: <008201ccd7c5$024a1380$06de3a80$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 7:44 AM, PJ Manney wrote: > 2012/1/20 spike : >> At my son?s kindergarten today, I began looking through the texts for grades >> up through 4.? I found not one word anywhere about evolution, not a >> syllable.? So sad.? This is our chance to break free from the iron grip of >> Texas. And now with the new Apple announcement, you can write your own, Spike! I think the proliferation of etextbooks from this will be fascinating. I'm hoping for a combination of innovative crowdsourced/vetted texts. I hate my kids' textbooks... PJ From moulton at moulton.com Sat Jan 21 16:46:42 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:46:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] etextbooks In-Reply-To: References: <008201ccd7c5$024a1380$06de3a80$@att.net> Message-ID: <4F1AEBF2.9040004@moulton.com> On 01/21/2012 07:44 AM, PJ Manney wrote: > > California (where I believe you live) is the biggest market for > textbooks in the US. General California state educational guideline documents are listed at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/ The document with science guidelines is: http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf And in that document it appears that the discussion of Evolution as a specific topic starts at Grade Seven. Personally I think that discussion of Evolution should be introduced in an earlier grade. Fred From eugen at leitl.org Sun Jan 22 12:57:26 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:57:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 04:52:34AM -0800, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > I think the idea of 'disembodiment' needs to be clarified before going any further. It sounds like the typical hangup of a science-challenged philosopher. All computation is embodied. No atoms, no metabolism, no computation. No computation, no person. > Does it mean, as Anders suggests, dispensing with or changing our original biological > bodies, or does it mean literally eliminating all embodiment, whether it be physical > or some virtual representation? (which is something that I think is not actually possible) I agree that it does not make much sense. If you remove the sensors and actuators, whether physical or virtual (like mining the math face), the result appears pathological. From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Jan 22 14:47:44 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 08:47:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: <000501ccd914$ccc83d30$6658b790$@cc> > I think the idea of 'disembodiment' needs to be clarified before going any further. "It sounds like the typical hangup of a science-challenged philosopher. All computation is embodied. No atoms, no metabolism, no computation. No computation, no person." :-) (Although Hayes is not a philosopher. She is a postmodern literary critic. Philosophers would be far more skeptic and positioned. She doesn't really claim a position other than to criticize and then let others draw their own conclusions (well ... after she has criticized, readers pat postmodernism on the back).) > Does it mean, as Anders suggests, dispensing with or changing our original biological > bodies, or does it mean literally eliminating all embodiment, whether it be physical > or some virtual representation? (which is something that I think is not actually possible) "I agree that it does not make much sense. If you remove the sensors and actuators, whether physical or virtual (like mining the math face), the result appears pathological." Like a Escher hand erasing itself. Natasha From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 19:04:48 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:04:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 5:00 AM, "Natasha Vita-More" wrote: snip > Yes, I see that and it confuses me because it's like one of those terms that > gets picked up by different fields and they each given their own spin on it. > I suppose I need to stay very focused on what "embodiment" is important to > my thesis and not get lost going down rabbit holes. > > "So my stab at what she might mean is that our concept of the posthuman > as we often describe it in our community tends to be very disembodied: > we tend to assume the body is an irrelevant artifact that can be > discarded and replaced with something better, keeping the essential part > of ourselves. But she thinks this is a mistake - not that it might be > impossible to do, but that regarding bodies as fashion accessories > rather than the ground of being will mean we will be amputating > important parts of our selves." > > I agree that this is her interpretation and thank you for spelling it out in > one sentence. I think that she is mistaken by using a broad brush to paint > our thinking. For example, I do not think the body is irrelevant. I can think of a physics argument where we may be forced to abandon physical bodies. We want to be smart. Part of being smart it the ability to think fast. It seems likely our brains could be simulated in hardware at a rate of 200 MHz. That's not a particularly high clock rate by modern standards, but it's perhaps a million times that of meat based thought. Trapping a fast uploaded mind in a physical body (human or robotic) would be incredible cruel. They have to exist in fast simulated worlds if they exist at all. > It is how > I communicate with the world as a vehicle and as an ornament, a pleasure > chamber, and a constant reminder of all my > problems/mistakes/regrets/hope/fears/loves as evidenced through the very > scars that are visible, pains that I feel from disease or injuries, and the > wrinkles symbolizing years that I have lived, and the smiles of high points > in my life, the tears that run down my face at deep anguish and sadness, and > the giggle of life's marvelous and absurd humor. This is what I want to draw > from in designing future bodies for the posthuman. Now, when I say "bodies" > I do not mean stamps of the human form, I mean bodies as in envelopes that > encompass the codes - whether computation or chemical - that house > existence. ?We have to be in something. ?If it is an upload, then it is in > something - some envelope, encasement, structure, system. ?That would be the > body. ?So, we have to redefine "body" in order to explain to numbskulls the > transhumanist vision of the posthuman. It's been done, and well too. See the section in Accelerando by Charles Stross where Amber and a bunch of her friends go off to a nearby star in a coke can sized core of nanocomputers. They live in a highly detailed simulation of reality with their bodies existing only as simulations in a shared computer environment. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html#Router Matrix and a line of novels back at least to Simulacron-3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3 are about simulations. > The problem is the saying "pro life" if you say it, one thinks you are > anti-abortion. ?But one could be for life in and of itself and have no > interest in the politics of abortion. > > The posthuman, in my view, would require perceptual experiences and an array > of emotional input/output devices in relation to the environment/system in > which it exists. In this sense, the body (as a newly defined concept) is not > amputated and is a deeply integrated aspect of our selves. There is no reason a simulation should not include all the emotion of a real world existence. > What are your thoughts on this Anders? How would you redefine "body"? Do you > see my point or am I stating it in a way that lacks clarity? How could you even tell if your body was a good simulation of your physical body and in a simulated world? Keith > Best, > Natasha From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 20:04:18 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:04:18 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 7:04 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > I can think of a physics argument where we may be forced to abandon > physical bodies. > > We want to be smart. ?Part of being smart it the ability to think > fast. ?It seems likely our brains could be simulated in hardware at a > rate of 200 MHz. ?That's not a particularly high clock rate by modern > standards, but it's perhaps a million times that of meat based > thought. > > Trapping a fast uploaded mind in a physical body (human or robotic) > would be incredible cruel. ?They have to exist in fast simulated > worlds if they exist at all. > > It's been done, and well too. ?See the section in Accelerando by > Charles Stross where Amber and a bunch of her friends go off to a > nearby star in a coke can sized core of nanocomputers. ?They live in a > highly detailed simulation of reality with their bodies existing only > as simulations in a shared computer environment. > http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html#Router > > That's the big conceptual leap that is lacking in many discussions about posthumans. They won't be like a slightly smarter version of us. Uploaded intelligence (AI or human) sees the world as frozen to a standstill. They will be unable to communicate with humans. How can they when a sentence takes a thousand years of their time? BillK From eugen at leitl.org Sun Jan 22 21:55:43 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:55:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120122215543.GP21917@leitl.org> On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 08:04:18PM +0000, BillK wrote: > That's the big conceptual leap that is lacking in many discussions > about posthumans. They won't be like a slightly smarter version of us. > Uploaded intelligence (AI or human) sees the world as frozen to a > standstill. They will be unable to communicate with humans. How can > they when a sentence takes a thousand years of their time? Why would you want to communicate with humans? From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 23:02:55 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:02:55 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120122215543.GP21917@leitl.org> References: <20120122215543.GP21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 9:55 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Why would you want to communicate with humans? > Wrong way round. Humans are expecting uploaded intelligences to solve all their problems for them. I suspect they might be in for a bit of a surprise. ;) BillK From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Jan 22 20:18:37 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:18:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003a01ccd943$06d8ced0$148a6c70$@cc> Sorry for top posting, but I'm in transit. Hi Keith. Just a quick response to your first paragraph. And how do you define physical? In my view, atoms are physical even though I do not see them. Chemical charges are physical, even though I cannot see them. They have an encasement. And, yes, I am a materialist/functionalist, but not of the old school. Of course a human body, not matter how augmented, enhanced, morphed, etc., is most definitely not the final aim. But if we are multiple selves existing in multiple enviorns, why oust this option? Choice. Natasha -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 1:05 PM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 5:00 AM, "Natasha Vita-More" wrote: snip > Yes, I see that and it confuses me because it's like one of those terms that > gets picked up by different fields and they each given their own spin on it. > I suppose I need to stay very focused on what "embodiment" is important to > my thesis and not get lost going down rabbit holes. > > "So my stab at what she might mean is that our concept of the posthuman > as we often describe it in our community tends to be very disembodied: > we tend to assume the body is an irrelevant artifact that can be > discarded and replaced with something better, keeping the essential part > of ourselves. But she thinks this is a mistake - not that it might be > impossible to do, but that regarding bodies as fashion accessories > rather than the ground of being will mean we will be amputating > important parts of our selves." > > I agree that this is her interpretation and thank you for spelling it out in > one sentence. I think that she is mistaken by using a broad brush to paint > our thinking. For example, I do not think the body is irrelevant. I can think of a physics argument where we may be forced to abandon physical bodies. We want to be smart. Part of being smart it the ability to think fast. It seems likely our brains could be simulated in hardware at a rate of 200 MHz. That's not a particularly high clock rate by modern standards, but it's perhaps a million times that of meat based thought. Trapping a fast uploaded mind in a physical body (human or robotic) would be incredible cruel. They have to exist in fast simulated worlds if they exist at all. > It is how > I communicate with the world as a vehicle and as an ornament, a pleasure > chamber, and a constant reminder of all my > problems/mistakes/regrets/hope/fears/loves as evidenced through the very > scars that are visible, pains that I feel from disease or injuries, and the > wrinkles symbolizing years that I have lived, and the smiles of high points > in my life, the tears that run down my face at deep anguish and sadness, and > the giggle of life's marvelous and absurd humor. This is what I want to draw > from in designing future bodies for the posthuman. Now, when I say "bodies" > I do not mean stamps of the human form, I mean bodies as in envelopes that > encompass the codes - whether computation or chemical - that house > existence. ?We have to be in something. ?If it is an upload, then it is in > something - some envelope, encasement, structure, system. ?That would be the > body. ?So, we have to redefine "body" in order to explain to numbskulls the > transhumanist vision of the posthuman. It's been done, and well too. See the section in Accelerando by Charles Stross where Amber and a bunch of her friends go off to a nearby star in a coke can sized core of nanocomputers. They live in a highly detailed simulation of reality with their bodies existing only as simulations in a shared computer environment. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando. html#Router Matrix and a line of novels back at least to Simulacron-3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3 are about simulations. > The problem is the saying "pro life" if you say it, one thinks you are > anti-abortion. ?But one could be for life in and of itself and have no > interest in the politics of abortion. > > The posthuman, in my view, would require perceptual experiences and an array > of emotional input/output devices in relation to the environment/system in > which it exists. In this sense, the body (as a newly defined concept) is not > amputated and is a deeply integrated aspect of our selves. There is no reason a simulation should not include all the emotion of a real world existence. > What are your thoughts on this Anders? How would you redefine "body"? Do you > see my point or am I stating it in a way that lacks clarity? How could you even tell if your body was a good simulation of your physical body and in a simulated world? Keith > Best, > Natasha _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 23 03:47:47 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:47:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F1CB93C.8010809@speakeasy.net> References: <003a01ccd943$06d8ced0$148a6c70$@cc> <4F1CB93C.8010809@speakeasy.net> Message-ID: <000e01ccd981$c5da04f0$518e0ed0$@cc> Let's please be civil on this list Alan. I am speaking theoretically. Nevertheless, the human biological body is not what transhumanist seek, no matter what flavor. If this is not your view of transhumanism, then maybe you might revisit the definition: "human in transition" to becoming posthuman. I am 100% for individuality, multiplicity, plurality, diversity within transhumanism; however, the human biological body with its limited lifespan simply is not the transhumanist vision. And, furthermore, it is not what is wrong with transhumanism. Human enhancement is mainstream, as is the cyborg. This is not my opinion, it simply is reality. Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Chairman, Humanity+ Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader -----Original Message----- From: Alan Grimes [mailto:agrimes at speakeasy.net] Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 7:35 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Natasha Vita-More Subject: Re: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Of course a human body, not matter how augmented, enhanced, morphed, etc., > is most definitely not the final aim. SPEAK FOR YOUR SELF. =| When you speak in an infinitive "is not the final aim" instead of the personal "isn't what I want to end up as" you make me angry. Furthermore, I think that this is a huge obstacle for the promotion of transhumanism and collaboration between people who simply have different ideas about what they want to be in the future. > But if we are multiple selves existing in multiple enviorns, why oust this option? Choice. =) -- E T F N H E D E D Powers are not rights. From agrimes at speakeasy.net Mon Jan 23 05:38:41 2012 From: agrimes at speakeasy.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:38:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <000e01ccd981$c5da04f0$518e0ed0$@cc> References: <003a01ccd943$06d8ced0$148a6c70$@cc> <4F1CB93C.8010809@speakeasy.net> <000e01ccd981$c5da04f0$518e0ed0$@cc> Message-ID: <4F1CF261.5030705@speakeasy.net> Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Let's please be civil on this list Alan. I am speaking theoretically. > Nevertheless, the human biological body is not what transhumanist seek, no > matter what flavor. I'm sorry, I'm going to have to get into definitions here. The term "biological" is at least an order of magnitude too vague to be usable in this context. It is necessary to deconstruct the term to have a useful discussion. The term biological tends to imply the following: # Having a water/fatty acid based cellular structure. # Using DNA exclusively as a carrier of genetic information. ( on some given number of chromasomes and rings). # using organic chemistry exclusively. Furthermore, there is the definition of human. Are you talking about a human as a being that is constructed through embryology and human-like tissue patterning or are you talking about *ALL* humanoid lifeforms? There are a hundred different things I would change about my cellular structure, I would happily replace part of my genome with nano-memory. I'd love to have more capabilities on the molecular level. The number of minor tweaks and enhancements are too numerous to list. I'd re-enforce the weak areas of the skull so that I'd be much less likely to die from a well-placed blow to the head. I'd add in a built-in capability to swap limbs. I'd go even further and have the ability to graft on a variety of attachments (admittedly for erotic reasons). I'd refine all my senses, sensations, and lower level emotions to be more optimal in a number of respects. If I actually tried to exhaust the list of ideas I've come up with, I'd be in the many hundreds of pages. Now, what are your ideas about what a "posthuman" is? I have heard exactly one idea. A posthuman is an emulation of a human neural pattern in a computer. I have heard barely five ideas about how the pattern should be acquired. 1. The pattern should be acquired through electron microsopy on slices of frozen tissues. 2. The pattern should be acquired by perfusing nanites into the brain. 3. The pattern should be acquired through electron microsopy on a plastinated and stained brain. 4. The pattern should be acquired through replacing neurons one by one in a functioning brain. << least offensive but has been discounted by people pawning themselves off as "experts". 5. The pattern should be acquired by molecularly disassembling a brain using nanites. And I have heard exactly three ideas about life after this procedure: 1. The upload would live in some virtual paradise (implausible; extremely unstable condition). 2. The upload would transition into some barely imaginable state of being that exists as some ill-defined entity within the computronium substrate. The desirability of which is highly dubious because it would obsolete nearly all existing human motivators and pretty much obliterate the concept of an individual mind. 3. Eugene Letilism which seems to state that uploading should be done as soon as possible as a defensive measure and that all uploads will face what appears to be a 99% hopeless evolutionary fight for survival; survival as "meat puppets" being completely hopeless. A third idea is sometimes raised only to be viciously dismissed, that the upload would return to baseline reality as an android. My apologies if I failed to list something that you had in mind. Unless it nullifies the framework I've laid out, then my point stands. It is granted that a variety of issues are still awaiting scientific resolution, however a number of issues have been either ignored or glossed over: A. How can it be claimed that an inorganic substrate invented last week will be more survivable than a hundred thousand different species of animals that have been evolving for the last hundred million years? B. Where will the super-reliable, super-scalable, super-powerful, highly-usable software necessary to run critical life-sustaining subsystems come from while there don't appear to be any development projects either proposed or underway? C. What is all this business about matroshaka brains? Do we each get one? Are we all crammed into a single one? Who gets to be sysadmin? Would individuals still exist? What rights would an individual have? Would being moderated/banned from all channels of communication be equivalent to a death penalty for uploads? Look, I know I'm a freak, but when I fantasize about being able to bodily merge with other ppl, I try to resolve issues such as what would it be like, how would the neurons be connected, how deep would the mental layer of the merging be? What rights and capabilities would a participant in such a merging retain individually, who/what would make decisions as to how the collective would evolve over time? (I could go on...) I'm confessing about this here because I desperately need to make the point that I'm not seeing much evidence that any of you have managed to drill down to nuts and bolts details of what you are proposing. > If this is not your view of transhumanism, then maybe > you might revisit the definition: "human in transition" to becoming > posthuman. I'm sorry but you have been misled into the state of mind that just because you are a prominent person in the transhumanist community that you own the term and can set its definition. I require the term have a different definition so therefore I claim that my own ideas are also a form of transhumanism. It should be obvious that my interests, desires, and preferred goals as a human being are neither better nor worse that your interests, desires, and preferred goals. The validity of all goals being purely self-referential. > I am 100% for individuality, multiplicity, plurality, diversity within > transhumanism; Great. > however, the human biological body with its limited lifespan > simply is not the transhumanist vision. Life extension is great too. > And, furthermore, it is not what is > wrong with transhumanism. Human enhancement is mainstream, as is the cyborg. > This is not my opinion, it simply is reality. Great. Three cheers each for human enhancement entering the mainstream and cyborgs. -- E T F N H E D E D Powers are not rights. From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 10:45:52 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:45:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F1CABD8.50108@speakeasy.net> References: <4F1CABD8.50108@speakeasy.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 12:37 AM, Alan Grimes wrote: > Have you done any research on the perception of time? Is it a byproduct of > cortical functions or are specific anatomical features required? > > Accelerating an upload is likely to be absurdly expensive because of the > inefficiencies of simulating synapses. An AI would be much cheaper to > accelerate. however, I would value improving the BREADTH and DEPTH of > intelligence much more than I would it's SPEED. > > Processing speed is only one factor in general intelligence. But a very important factor. That why the general term for low IQ people is 'slow'. Processing speed is also the factor most affected by ageing. The graphs for all IQ factors (except experience, knowledge, training, etc.) slope downwards from the peak around age 30. But the processing speed graph has a much steeper decline. In practice, this decline is probably not noticeable until your mid 40s as humans move over the rounded top of the curve. The general knowledge graph (let's call it wisdom) doesn't peak until around age 60 and the decline afterwards is not very significant. Humans value processing speed in day-to-day activity as we want quick answers. If an emergency is approaching, time is of the essence in quickly assessing the options available. Taking a day off to think about a problem is not widely supported these days. Although 'sleeping on it' is often the best technique for problem-solving. i.e. fast processing speed doesn't necessarily produce better answers. You need all the other factors of intelligence as well. As the saying goes, Time is what stops everything happening at once. There is time in the outside world and internal time where you are processing outside stimuli and thinking about them. What happens inside the brain doesn't affect the speed of things happening in the outside world. So if an artificial intelligence is processing thousands of times faster and communicating with other AIs thousands of times faster, they will become detached from outside world stimuli. So what will they be thinking about? Good question. BillK From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jan 23 15:32:58 2012 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:32:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Pluto probe nearing target Message-ID: <1327332778.40351.YahooMailNeo@web160603.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Just_A_Three_Year_Cruise_Left_Before_Pluto_Flyby_999.html Recall that many years ago someone here said this probe was a waste as by the time it reached Pluto better, faster probes would be available or maybe that body would even be disassembled for other uses.... Well, it's got three more years to get there, but the Singularity hasn't happened yet. Anyone want to take any bets that the probe will get there long before any other hyperoptimistic outcomes? :) Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 23 16:15:23 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:15:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Pluto probe nearing target In-Reply-To: <1327332778.40351.YahooMailNeo@web160603.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1327332778.40351.YahooMailNeo@web160603.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <003401ccd9ea$366fe820$a34fb860$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dan Subject: [ExI] Pluto probe nearing target http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Just_A_Three_Year_Cruise_Left_Before_Pluto _Flyby_999.html >.Recall that many years ago someone here said this probe was a waste as by the time it reached Pluto better, faster probes would be available. Dan notice those kinds of predictions were not being made by people in the space biz. We know how long things take to change in that industry. One often feels the need to dodge glaciers as they rush past. >. or maybe that body would even be disassembled for other uses.... We hafta get there before we can disassemble it. >.Well, it's got three more years to get there, but the Singularity hasn't happened yet. A post singularity world would still have the same physical limitations we have in doing interplanetary travel. >.Anyone want to take any bets that the probe will get there long before any other hyperoptimistic outcomes? :) Regards, Dan Regarding hyper-optimistic outcomes, I would recommend Michael Lewis' book The Big Short. If you don't want to take the time to read some dull economics book, there are online commentaries which give the basic idea in a tenth the time. There are ideas in there with which we can create a model that suggests why there is a hyper-optimistic segment in investment. We can extend those notions to help us understand why something analogous to that exists in technology. An understanding of that model helps each of us figure out where we are on that map. The situation Lewis describes explains why it is that I am currently writing the best proposals of my career and none of them are landing research dollars, not one win in the past three years. Have we Lewis readers present? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 16:21:29 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:21:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:00 AM, "Natasha Vita-More" wrote: > > Hi Keith. Just a quick response to your first paragraph. And how do you > define physical? In my view, atoms are physical even though I do not see > them. Chemical charges are physical, even though I cannot see them. They > have an encasement. And, yes, I am a materialist/functionalist, but not of > the old school. > > Of course a human body, not matter how augmented, enhanced, morphed, etc., > is most definitely not the final aim. But if we are multiple selves existing > in multiple enviorns, why oust this option? Choice. I think we are failing to communicate here. Let me try to generate an analogy. Suppose you were only able to post here one day a year while everyone else posted at least once a day. It would be close to impossible to communicate with the rest of the people on the list. The problem with people uploaded into fast hardware where life went on thousands to millions of times faster is that they would have an even worse time communicating with people running at our usual rate. Drexler talked about this in Engines of Creation 25 years ago, about a million years of engineering being done in a year. If you want to stay connected to the mainstream culture, and if that culture accelerates substantially faster than what can be supported by a human brain, you will be forced to give up slow bodies/brains and move into a simulation. This has awful consequences with respect to humans even spreading out in the solar system, much less trying to go interstellar. Keith From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 23 17:23:09 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:23:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] humans moving into space and latency, was RE: Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment Message-ID: <004b01ccd9f3$ae5220c0$0af66240$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson ... >...If you want to stay connected to the mainstream culture, and if that culture accelerates substantially faster than what can be supported by a human brain, you will be forced to give up slow bodies/brains and move into a simulation. This has awful consequences with respect to humans even spreading out in the solar system, much less trying to go interstellar. Keith Ja, this realization is what caused me to suggest a variation of the MBrain a few years ago, which is the SBrain. It uses the nodes from an MBrain, but instead of orbiting a star, they cluster more tightly and orbit as a cluster, perhaps the size of Saturn, in a collective orbit somewhere. Such a structure could coexist with an MBrain, vaguely analogous to a swarm of bees on the move. I can envision a few trillion such nodes collected in a region of space such that any one node is less than a tenth of a light second from any other. If a few trillion nodes exist in this less than a milli-cubic light second region of space, it would be so sparse as to be invisible to an outside observer. An object passing through the SBrain would be quite unlikely to hit anything. But the SBrain would have a far lower latency in communicating with the other nodes. Even if the SBrain compacted another order of magnitude to further reduce latency, such that the diameter is a Luna-like hundredth of a light second, the few trillion nodes in the resutling micro cubic light second would still be a diaphanous wisp of matter, orbiting unnoticed inside the MBrain, yakking away with itself, vaguely analogous to a highly populated but compact city in an otherwise sparsely populated region. spike From sjv2006 at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 17:46:24 2012 From: sjv2006 at gmail.com (Stephen Van Sickle) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:46:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you want to stay connected to the mainstream culture, and if that > culture accelerates substantially faster than what can be supported by > a human brain, you will be forced to give up slow bodies/brains and > move into a simulation. > > This has awful consequences with respect to humans even spreading out > in the solar system, much less trying to go interstellar. > Only if, as you say, "you want to stay connected to the mainstream culture". If not, then I don't see any problem maintaining whatever clock-rate is best suited to your travel plans. Through history, leaving behind everyone you know and losing connection with your culture has been the norm for the very small minority who leave home. But a very small minority is all that is needed to spread across the galaxy. --sjv -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 23 19:16:29 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:16:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120123141629.v8u5w8u28owocssw@webmail.natasha.cc> Quoting Keith Henson : > On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:00 AM,? "Natasha Vita-More" > wrote: >> >> Hi Keith. Just a quick response to your first paragraph. And how do you >> define physical? In my view, atoms are physical even though I do not see >> them. Chemical charges are physical, even though I cannot see them. They >> have an encasement. And, yes, I am a materialist/functionalist, but not of >> the old school. >> >> Of course a human body, not matter how augmented, enhanced, morphed, etc., >> is most definitely not the final aim. But if we are multiple selves existing >> in multiple enviorns, why oust this option? Choice. > > I think we are failing to communicate here.? Let me try to generate? > an analogy. It is not a matter of our not communiating, actually,?or my not groking what you are saying. It is a matter of time frames.?You are?taking far future and I am not. You see, I am writing a?disseration and I have a specific time frame for which my theory has to hold. As you know, dissertations can't be everywhere at once and require a specific focus.?Gotta stay focused on precisely what I am working on. Bty,?I read Drexler years ago,?and he still continues to be an?artistic inspiration for me.? Best, Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 19:49:44 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:49:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2012/1/23 Stephen Van Sickle wrote: > Only if, as you say, "you want to stay connected to the mainstream > culture".? If not, then I don't see any problem maintaining whatever > clock-rate is best suited to your travel plans.? Through history, leaving > behind everyone you know and losing connection with your culture has been > the norm for the very small minority who leave home.? But a very small > minority is all that is needed to spread across the galaxy. > > If your suggestion is correct, then it also implies that life is extremely rare and we are the first of that type of life in the galaxy. The age of the galaxy allows plenty of time for the galaxy to have been colonised many times over, even at sub-light speeds. So that would make me think that advanced races with access to space decide to do something other than spam the galaxy with their species. BillK From anders at aleph.se Mon Jan 23 23:14:53 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:14:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1DE9ED.3010808@aleph.se> On 23/01/2012 19:49, BillK wrote: > If your suggestion is correct, then it also implies that life is > extremely rare and we are the first of that type of life in the > galaxy. The age of the galaxy allows plenty of time for the galaxy to > have been colonised many times over, even at sub-light speeds. It is worse than that. My colleauge Stuart Armstrong and me are presenting a paper next week where we show that massive intergalactic colonization seems to be feasible - it is possible to spam the universe with your civilisation. Which means that the Fermi question just gets tougher. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Mon Jan 23 23:30:11 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:30:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> On 22/01/2012 12:57, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 04:52:34AM -0800, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > >> I think the idea of 'disembodiment' needs to be clarified before going any further. > It sounds like the typical hangup of a science-challenged > philosopher. All computation is embodied. No atoms, no > metabolism, no computation. No computation, no person. But does the hardware affect the software? Most modern computer systems try to minimize this by having strict abstraction barriers, discourage hacks based on processor features, emphasis on portability etc. But much of biological cognition is strongly hardware dependent or even make use of deliberate breaches of abstraction (to the annoyance of us uploaders): when I grip something, my fingers bend in an adaptive way partially because of nervous system control, partially because the elasticity and arrangement of sinews force the outer joints to curve in a fairly optimal way without any need for neural computation. My gestures act as a working memory extension (I *see* what I am saying) and my visceral responses tell parts of my brain what emotions I am having - without that I would be slightly impaired. The problem that has been noted by a lot of people in the soft sciences is that the clean abstraction barriers we like to think about are porous or non-existent in important systems like humans. Ignoring this messiness when considering enhancement and posthumanity leads to ideas as divorced from reality as the New Soviet Man - and quite likely as pernicious. >> Does it mean, as Anders suggests, dispensing with or changing our original biological >> bodies, or does it mean literally eliminating all embodiment, whether it be physical >> or some virtual representation? (which is something that I think is not actually possible) > I agree that it does not make much sense. If you remove the sensors > and actuators, whether physical or virtual (like mining the math face), > the result appears pathological. In a sense our bodies are the interface between our minds and the outside world: it doesn't matter what they are, they exist as long as there is anything outside. In practice the distinction is blurry in any case: there might not be a clearly defined self or anything that is unambigously mind, so the border will be fuzzy. Some parts of the universe are easy to change by our mental operations, some parts are harder. But that latter category includes not just the physical world but our own habits. And we do make external objects part of our minds in various ways. The important realization is that this fuzzy border has plenty of properties that matter a lot to how we function. Change them, and we change ourselves. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 24 00:41:01 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:41:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20120123194101.ooxn78qqyskkok0s@webmail.natasha.cc> I like Keith's comment "How could you even tell if your body was a good simulation of your physical body and in a simulated world?? Interestingly enough I was just opening Andy Clark's book to the chapter "Plastic Brains, Hybrid Minds" and read: "Your own body is a phantom, one that your brain has temporarily constructed purely for convenience. (Ramachandran & Blakeslee 1999).? I was expecting to read Clark's ideas but instead he is representing Ramachandran's neuroscientific findings?in patients who have phantom psychological issues.? Some stories made me lol, like the woman who kept seeing her brother asleep in her bed, or the person who was partially blinded but saw cartoon characters in the blond spots, etc.? Most of us have experienced some type of phantom reality so we can identify with empathy. The re-mapping aspect is what somehow relates to ?his embodiment issue. Bypassing the simulation argument, the necessity of having a body for perception is invaluable to a sense of presence (even though Ramachandran says there is no self).? Now for the connection/link: it doesn't matter where the information is stored as long as perception exists. (Not sure I understand why I am saying this, but I have, on occasion, heard color. (Synthenasia?) Who knows.? (Doesn't matter).)? But that brings me back to my keen interest in this area.? Wait ... I just read Ander's post ?? Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pjmanney at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 01:25:26 2012 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:25:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] etextbooks In-Reply-To: References: <008201ccd7c5$024a1380$06de3a80$@att.net> <4F1AEBF2.9040004@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:15 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > That's why we need to focus on education outside of schools for now. > And I'm a big believer in age INappropriate education: > http://pj-manney.blogspot.com/2006/10/son-of-sunrise-semester.html I'm also a big believer in buying the books for your kid's classroom that you want them to see them read. Buy a few of these and sprinkle them around the classrooms. Trust me, the kids will eat them up: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Aevolution%2Cn%3A!1000%2Cn%3A4%2Cn%3A3207&bbn=4&keywords=evolution&ie=UTF8&qid=1327368091&rnid=4 PJ From mbb386 at main.nc.us Tue Jan 24 01:40:54 2012 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:40:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] etextbooks In-Reply-To: References: <008201ccd7c5$024a1380$06de3a80$@att.net> <4F1AEBF2.9040004@moulton.com> Message-ID: <857789eddbe076e7c55c9032fd204170.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > I'm also a big believer in buying the books for your kid's classroom > that you want them to see them read. Buy a few of these and sprinkle > them around the classrooms. Trust me, the kids will eat them up: > Yes this, and *read aloud to your kid* every day of the world. There's a great power there, even if a kid already reads, there's a bonding that you don't want to miss. Read books that may be over your kid's head for reading on their own. Vocabulary building without tears. ;) Complex language usage spoon fed. Read the books before seeing the movies. Let them make their own mind-pictures. The discipline of sitting quietly, absorbed in the listening, is a valuable skill that is sorely lacking nowadays. Regards, MB From pjmanney at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 01:15:18 2012 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:15:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] etextbooks In-Reply-To: <4F1AEBF2.9040004@moulton.com> References: <008201ccd7c5$024a1380$06de3a80$@att.net> <4F1AEBF2.9040004@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 8:46 AM, F. C. Moulton wrote: > The document with science guidelines is: > http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf > And in that document it appears that the discussion of Evolution as a > specific topic starts at Grade Seven. > > Personally I think that discussion of Evolution should be introduced in > an earlier grade. I absolutely agree. Please help take that up with all the state core standards committees. That's why we need to focus on education outside of schools for now. And I'm a big believer in age INappropriate education: http://pj-manney.blogspot.com/2006/10/son-of-sunrise-semester.html PJ From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 24 08:02:08 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:02:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120124080208.GO7343@leitl.org> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 07:49:44PM +0000, BillK wrote: > If your suggestion is correct, then it also implies that life is I herefore dub thee "incredulous Bill". > extremely rare and we are the first of that type of life in the > galaxy. The age of the galaxy allows plenty of time for the galaxy to We're not in anybody's smart light cone. Galaxy has nothing to do with it. > have been colonised many times over, even at sub-light speeds. Relativistic travel is easy, so any expansion will become relativistic after a few hops latest by way of self-selection of front organisms. > So that would make me think that advanced races with access to space > decide to do something other than spam the galaxy with their species. Woop. Woop. Leap in logic detected. Abort. Abort. From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 09:32:15 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:32:15 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120124080208.GO7343@leitl.org> References: <20120124080208.GO7343@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 8:02 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > We're not in anybody's smart light cone. Galaxy has nothing to > do with it. > Irrelevant. We don't need to be in anyone's light cone. The age of the galaxy means that the whole galaxy should already have been swept many times over by waves of expanding species. > Relativistic travel is easy, so any expansion will become > relativistic after a few hops latest by way of self-selection > of front organisms. > Agreed. So where are they? We are a very young species compared to the age of the galaxy. Either we are are the first in the galaxy, or after relativistic travel becomes possible for some reason civs don't expand. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 24 09:53:08 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:53:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F1DE9ED.3010808@aleph.se> References: <4F1DE9ED.3010808@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20120124095308.GU7343@leitl.org> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 11:14:53PM +0000, Anders Sandberg wrote: > It is worse than that. My colleauge Stuart Armstrong and me are > presenting a paper next week where we show that massive intergalactic > colonization seems to be feasible - it is possible to spam the universe > with your civilisation. Which means that the Fermi question just gets > tougher. What is your problem with the answer "we're not in anybody's smart light cone"? Obviously, probability doesn't apply, so we can be as rare as we want. From deimtee at optusnet.com.au Tue Jan 24 11:01:31 2012 From: deimtee at optusnet.com.au (david) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:01:31 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Stanford AI class wrapup In-Reply-To: References: <015a01ccb85b$c68c4d00$53a4e700$@att.net> <016301ccb865$2fe3fce0$8fabf6a0$@att.net> <4EE7C2A2.1080707@aleph.se> <20111214073350.GR31847@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20120124220131.2d2d2984@jarrah> Hi, I haven't seen any mention of it here, but I thought it interesting that the guy who taught the AI class was so excited/impressed by the class that he gave up his tenured position to start teaching online: http://www.stanford.edu/~thrun/ His online classes: http://www.udacity.com/ -David. From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 11:27:19 2012 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:27:19 -0200 Subject: [ExI] RES: Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F1DE9ED.3010808@aleph.se> References: <4F1DE9ED.3010808@aleph.se> Message-ID: <003001ccda8b$2590aed0$70b20c70$@gmail.com> It is worse than that. My colleauge Stuart Armstrong and me are presenting a paper next week where we show that massive intergalactic colonization seems to be feasible - it is possible to spam the universe with your civilisation. Which means that the Fermi question just gets tougher. Don't forget to upload the presentation to youtube. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 11:44:13 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:44:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 24 January 2012 00:30, Anders Sandberg wrote: > But much of biological cognition is strongly hardware dependent > I am quite skeptical as the existence of forms of cognition, or any other information processing for that matter, that would be "hardware dependent" at all. The real question remains however of what kind of performance hit you are going to suffer by running some of, or all, the relevant routines on "hardware" which can be much, much less optimised to do so. This is why, BTW, in spite of steampunk fantasies to the contrary we do not seriously consider the development of AGIs on punch-card machines. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 24 12:28:32 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:28:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20120124122832.GZ7343@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:44:13PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote: > I am quite skeptical as the existence of forms of cognition, or any other > information processing for that matter, that would be "hardware dependent" > at all. Hardwired critters, spiders like Portia which have to time-share, metabolic constraints, computational constraints (=parallelism) would come to mind. > The real question remains however of what kind of performance hit you are > going to suffer by running some of, or all, the relevant routines on > "hardware" which can be much, much less optimised to do so. In case of serial synchronous computers which attempt to simulate asynchronous systems with trillions components the deficits of mismatched approaches become especially apparent. > This is why, BTW, in spite of steampunk fantasies to the contrary we do not > seriously consider the development of AGIs on punch-card machines. The history if AI is littered with absurd pronouncements of researchers asked how much resources it would take for human equivalent. From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 24 13:40:19 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:40:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <20120124080208.GO7343@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20120124134019.GG7343@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 09:32:15AM +0000, BillK wrote: > On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 8:02 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > We're not in anybody's smart light cone. Galaxy has nothing to > > do with it. > > > > Irrelevant. We don't need to be in anyone's light cone. The age of Relevant. In order to be able to be aware of any event you need to be in that event's lightcone. In case of relativistically expanding cultures they're hugging their light cone (counted from the moment they've become expansive and hence observable) pretty closely. (There's some set up time, but it's short). Which means the delay between observability and arrival (and elimination of observer, unless observer is also expansive) is short. Try observing a bullet fired at your head across the room. Your chances are better if you watch a sniper from km distance so you see the muzzle flash before the bullet arrives and removes the observer's ability to observe. > the galaxy means that the whole galaxy should already have been swept > many times over by waves of expanding species. If it was you wouldn't be able to read this message. So by writing it you've proved above didn't happen. > > Relativistic travel is easy, so any expansion will become > > relativistic after a few hops latest by way of self-selection > > of front organisms. > > > > Agreed. So where are they? We are a very young species compared to > the age of the galaxy. Again, we can only see the expanding kind, and even then not very well (because they then eat you). The best explanation for "where are they?" is that they're not there yet. Same applies for us eating other hatchling aliens. This strikes people as improbable, but statistics doesn't work in a perfectly biased self-observation sample, so the only information you have is that there's at least one instance of you. > Either we are are the first in the galaxy, or after relativistic The galaxy has nothing to do with it, it's a question of how soon somebody could have hatched, considered metallicity and setup time for sufficient evolutionary complexity in absence of sterilizing events. That number is arguably gigayears, so a lot bigger than just one small dinky galaxy. > travel becomes possible for some reason civs don't expand. If there are two explanations: there is nobody, so you're observing nothing, or there are many, and *all* of them (this is now a statistical argument) are non-expansive, then pick the branch Occam suggests to you. I think we're just lucky. From bbenzai at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 17:20:03 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:20:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Pluto probe nearing target In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327425603.90523.YahooMailClassic@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Dan asked: > http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Just_A_Three_Year_Cruise_Left_Before_Pluto_Flyby_999.html > > Recall that many years ago someone here said this probe was > a waste as by the time it reached Pluto better, faster > probes would be available or maybe that body would even be > disassembled for other uses.... Well, it's got three more > years to get there, but the Singularity hasn't happened yet. > Anyone want to take any bets that the probe will get there > long before any other hyperoptimistic outcomes? :) There's a bloke here called Zeno who's willing to bet it will never get there! Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 17:36:29 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:36:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Perception of time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Anders Sandberg wrote: > > On 23/01/2012 19:49, BillK wrote: > > If your suggestion is correct, then it also implies > that life is > > extremely rare and we are the first of that type of > life in the > > galaxy. The age of the galaxy allows plenty of time for > the galaxy to > > have been colonised many times over, even at sub-light > speeds. > > It is worse than that. My colleauge Stuart Armstrong and me > are > presenting a paper next week where we show that massive > intergalactic > colonization seems to be feasible - it is possible to spam > the universe > with your civilisation. Which means that the Fermi question > just gets > tougher. As a member of a species that seems to find it infeasible to even colonise a single moon 1/4 of a million miles away, I'd like to see that paper! Ben Zaiboc From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 18:00:35 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:00:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 5:00 AM, "spike" wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson > ... > >>...If you want to stay connected to the mainstream culture, and if that > culture accelerates substantially faster than what can be supported by a > human brain, you will be forced to give up slow bodies/brains and move into > a simulation. ?This has awful consequences with respect to humans even > spreading out in the solar system, much less trying to go interstellar. > Keith > > > Ja, this realization is what caused me to suggest a variation of the MBrain > a few years ago, which is the SBrain. ?It uses the nodes from an MBrain, but > instead of orbiting a star, they cluster more tightly and orbit as a > cluster, perhaps the size of Saturn, in a collective orbit somewhere. ?Such > a structure could coexist with an MBrain, vaguely analogous to a swarm of > bees on the move. ?I can envision a few trillion such nodes collected in a > region of space such that any one node is less than a tenth of a light > second from any other. ?If a few trillion nodes exist in this ?less than a > milli-cubic light second region of space, it would be so sparse as to be > invisible to an outside observer. ?An object passing through the SBrain > would be quite unlikely to hit anything. ?But the SBrain would have a far > lower latency in communicating with the other nodes. > > Even if the SBrain compacted another order of magnitude to further reduce > latency, such that the diameter is a Luna-like hundredth of a light second, > the few trillion nodes in the resutling micro cubic light second would still > be a diaphanous wisp of matter, orbiting unnoticed inside the MBrain, > yakking away with itself, vaguely analogous to a highly populated but > compact city in an otherwise sparsely populated region. I get 11.6 ms for light to cross a lunar diameter. Collectively you could talk to such a thing because it wouldn't be any faster than a human brain. Taking 1 GHz as the processor node speed (not much over current clock rates for low power) and giving it a factor of 3000 processor cycles to wait for the far side of a conversation to return, (1000 latency out, 1000 for the far node to think about it, 1000 back) the whole assemblage can't exceed 300 meters in diameter. At human class volume, a ten cm cube, and configured as a disk there would be 100 per square meter x 70,000 square meters or seven million in a "community." Configured as a sphere, (with a hole to pump cooling water) 28 million human brain class minds. At 20 kW per mind, (1000 times the 20 W/brain we run on) such a community would draw 540 MW. I am assuming the rest of the million to one speed up comes from hardware being more efficient than biological brains. If each 10 cm square section had a 0.1 m/s water flow through it, that would be 1 l/s, which would carry off 4.2 kW per deg C rise in temperature, about 5 deg C. Would you want to move from a slum where there was only a 100,000 to one speed up to one of these "elite" places with a million to one speed up? Unless we can find a way around the speed of light, then I don't see a future for M brains, S brains or even Luna sized brains. YMMV Keith (And please check my numbers) > spike > > From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 24 19:32:50 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:32:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120124193250.GQ7343@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 11:00:35AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > I get 11.6 ms for light to cross a lunar diameter. Collectively you > could talk to such a thing because it wouldn't be any faster than a > human brain. The question is why we seem to assume a monolithic "thing" instead of a city, an ecosystem, or at least a hierachical process assembly. > Taking 1 GHz as the processor node speed (not much over current clock There won't be any clocks. Relativistic limit for computation is some 10^17 refreshes/second, the power dissipation will limit it to a lot lower. > rates for low power) and giving it a factor of 3000 processor cycles No cycles. You're thinking in terms of serial sections. Think asynchronously firing assemblies, and sychronisation by locally coupled oscillators on a much higher level. > to wait for the far side of a conversation to return, (1000 latency > out, 1000 for the far node to think about it, 1000 back) the whole > assemblage can't exceed 300 meters in diameter. Human cities can never be larger than 500 m in diameter. Because otherwise you can't yell loud enough for the others to hear. Biological organisms can never be larger than a few microns. Because, otherwise, how can cells communicate over large distances? > At human class volume, a ten cm cube, and configured as a disk there You'd want spherical assemblies. > would be 100 per square meter x 70,000 square meters or seven million > in a "community." Configured as a sphere, (with a hole to pump > cooling water) 28 million human brain class minds. At 20 kW per mind, > (1000 times the 20 W/brain we run on) such a community would draw 540 > MW. I am assuming the rest of the million to one speed up comes from We really can't tell how hot these things will run because we don't have anything other than CMOS. > hardware being more efficient than biological brains. > > If each 10 cm square section had a 0.1 m/s water flow through it, that > would be 1 l/s, which would carry off 4.2 kW per deg C rise in > temperature, about 5 deg C. > > Would you want to move from a slum where there was only a 100,000 to > one speed up to one of these "elite" places with a million to one > speed up? Species will occupy every niche available. > Unless we can find a way around the speed of light, then I don't see a > future for M brains, S brains or even Luna sized brains. Help! I'm trapped in a sphexic loop, and can't get out! > YMMV > > Keith > > (And please check my numbers) > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- Eugen* Leitl leitl http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 00:45:08 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:45:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] DVD Movie Review- "Margin Call" Message-ID: <1327452308.15206.YahooMailNeo@web164510.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> While not strictly extropic, this list often discusses the current market economic system and how to make it better. This film is a close up look into the lives about a dozen fictionalized Wall Street bankers who?are cought up in the middle of the crash of 2008. Although the firm they work for is a fictitious one,?the film is so realistic that you are convinced the film is?about Lehman Brothers.?The film is remarkably objective?in that the bankers are portrayed as human enough?for you to feel?as much sympathy for them as you allow yourself to as you watch their angst and hand-wringing?leading up to their deliberately poison the nation's economy with MBS in order to preserve their own wealth. The only judgement the film-makers pass is allegorical with Kevin Spacey burying his dead dog in his ex-wife's yard. ? In any case, the film was an eye opener for me and I am sure the film will give this list lots of grist for discussion. It's out on DVD so it's?well worth a rental. ? ? Stuart LaForge ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 02:24:00 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:24:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time In-Reply-To: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ----- > From: Ben Zaiboc > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Cc: > Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 9:36 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Perception of time > As a member of a species that seems to find it infeasible to even colonise a > single moon 1/4 of a million miles away, I'd like to see that paper! > > Ben Zaiboc It is most certainly feasible. You just need to build a logistical supply chain one small step at a time. You guys are really good at this. Think about it terms of warfare. You guys can get supplies to your troops on the other side of this planet. That is pi*earth's radius away. The moon is 60?earth radii?away. The supply chain to the?Afghanistan war is over 5% the distance to the moon. Now leverage your existing assetts. You have a space station in low earth orbit. Use it as a base camp to build a station in earth-moon L1 Langrange point. Now you have conquered?what amounts to a hill between the gravity wells of the earth and the moon. I suggest this be an international venture because the Earth-Moon L1 is of inestimable strategic value with regards to both the earth and the moon allowing easy access to both. In any case, conquer?lunar L1 and the moon is yours. Maybe we should?lobby congress into declaring war on space in retaliation for?the death of brave astronauts from Apollo 1 to Challenger.? Stuart LaForge ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 02:41:21 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:41:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis Message-ID: <1327459281.33116.YahooMailNeo@web164509.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Remember Panbiogenesis,?my whacky theory that once a long time ago the entire universe was a warm and wet primoridal?soup of life? Well check out this recent news: ? http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-bacteria-extreme-gravity.html ? Apparently bacteria *thrive* under?an acceleration of?over a?hundred thousand g's. That is the surface gravity of a *star*. And yes, admittedly this also evidence for Crick's Panspermia but Panbiogenesis and Panspermia are not mutually exclusive theories.? ? ? Stuart LaForge ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 05:38:45 2012 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:38:45 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time In-Reply-To: <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 25 January 2012 13:24, The Avantguardian wrote: > Maybe we should?lobby congress into declaring war on space in > retaliation for?the death of brave astronauts from Apollo 1 to Challenger. Now, if we could only find oil on the moon.... Dwayne -- ? ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna ? ? ? ?? ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... ? ? ? ? http://tinyurl.com/he-is-right-you-know-jpg our aim is wakefulness,? our enemy is dreamless sleep From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 07:22:29 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:22:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Fw: Colonizing Space was Perception of time In-Reply-To: <1327476108.47208.YahooMailNeo@web164514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327476108.47208.YahooMailNeo@web164514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1327476149.20722.YahooMailNeo@web164502.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ----- Forwarded Message ----- > From: The Avantguardian > To: "ddraig at pobox.com" > Cc: > Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 11:21 PM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- >> From: ddraig >> To: The Avantguardian ; ExI chat list > >> Cc: >> Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 9:38 PM >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time >> >> On 25 January 2012 13:24, The Avantguardian > >> wrote: >> >>> Maybe we should?lobby congress into declaring war on space in >>> retaliation for?the death of brave astronauts from Apollo 1 to > Challenger. >> >> Now, if we could only find oil on the moon.... > > > We have found (likely) oil on *a moon*. Just not our own. But it is still the > same principle; just a longer supply chain. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon) > > > > Stuart LaForge > ? > ?Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the > solution." -Clay Shirky > From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 25 07:40:03 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:40:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time In-Reply-To: <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120125074003.GT7343@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 06:24:00PM -0800, The Avantguardian wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Ben Zaiboc > > As a member of a species that seems to find it infeasible to even colonise a > > single moon 1/4 of a million miles away, I'd like to see that paper! Machines can be people, too. Canned monkeys will never amount to much in space. > It is most certainly feasible. You just need to build a logistical The Moon is not Antarctica. > supply chain one small step at a time. You guys are really good at > this. Think about it terms of warfare. You guys can get supplies to > your troops on the other side of this planet. That is pi*earth's > radius away. The moon is 60?earth radii?away. The supply chain to Distance is not relevant, potential energy is http://xkcd.com/681_large/ > the?Afghanistan war is over 5% the distance to the moon. Now > leverage your existing assetts. You have a space station in low earth > orbit. Use it as a base camp to build a station in earth-moon > L1 Langrange point. Now you have conquered?what amounts to a hill Absolutely not, because there are no resources there. An orbit is an absence of material resources, so you can't even utilize the abundant radiant energy. > between the gravity wells of the earth and the moon. I suggest > this be an international venture because the Earth-Moon L1 is of > inestimable strategic value with regards to both the earth and Strategic value? Which? Other than a passing point for your lunar elevator or an observatory, maybe. > the moon allowing easy access to both. In any case, conquer?lunar L1 and the moon is yours. As soon as you're out of Earth gravity well and don't have to get down another one or build up delta v everything is easy. > Maybe we should?lobby congress into declaring war on space > in retaliation for?the death of brave astronauts from Apollo 1 to Challenger.? Even if the Moon was pure platinum, mining it would be barely cost-effective. The most utility of it is where it is, in situ. From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 08:43:53 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:43:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time In-Reply-To: <20120125074003.GT7343@leitl.org> References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125074003.GT7343@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1327481033.92561.YahooMailNeo@web164514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ----- > From: Eugen Leitl > To: The Avantguardian ; ExI chat list > Cc: > Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 11:40 PM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time > > On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 06:24:00PM -0800, The Avantguardian wrote: >> ----- Original Message ----- >> > From: Ben Zaiboc >> > As a member of a species that seems to find it infeasible to even > colonise a >> > single moon 1/4 of a million miles away, I'd like to see that > paper! > > Machines can be people, too. Canned monkeys will never amount > to much in space. With the right preservatives, canned monkeys will be fine. >> It is most certainly feasible. You just need to build a logistical > > The Moon is not Antarctica. How is this relevant? It's not Dubai either. >> supply chain one small step at a time. You guys are really good at >> this. Think about it terms of warfare. You guys can get supplies to >> your troops on the other side of this planet. That is pi*earth's >> radius away. The moon is 60?earth radii?away. The supply chain to > > Distance is not relevant, potential energy is > http://xkcd.com/681_large/ This just helps my argument. The ISS is about 4% of the trip to the moon potential-wise. GEO is over 86%. >> the?Afghanistan war is over 5% the distance to the moon. Now >> leverage your existing assetts. You have a space station in low earth >> orbit. Use it as a base camp to build a station in earth-moon >> L1 Langrange point. Now you have conquered?what amounts to a hill > > Absolutely not, because there are no resources there. > An orbit is an absence of material resources, so you > can't even utilize the abundant radiant energy. In warfare, *position* is a resource. >> between the gravity wells of the earth and the moon. I suggest >> this be an international venture because the Earth-Moon L1 is of >> inestimable strategic value with regards to both the earth and? > Strategic value? Which? Other than a passing point for > your lunar elevator or an observatory, maybe. High ground is a strategic advantage. The earth-moon L-1 is the highest ground in the neighborhood. From L1, a hostile would have a window to drop a rock anywhere along the ecliptic (celestial equator)?relative to earth's or moon's?surface with a minimum of effort. Depending on the time of day, that could be anywhere except for the north or south poles.?Plus the hostile would?laser?line of sight to any satellite orbiting the earth or the moon?for most of the satellite's?orbital period.??That is *huge* strategic advantage. >> the moon allowing easy access to both. In any case, conquer?lunar L1 and > the moon is yours. > > As soon as you're out of Earth gravity well and don't have to > get down another one or build up delta v everything is easy. That's my point. Set up a staging area up there so that you can assemble a serious space mission, one small payload at a time. >> Maybe we should?lobby congress into declaring war on space >> in retaliation for?the death of brave astronauts from Apollo 1 to > Challenger.? > > Even if the Moon was pure platinum, mining it would be barely > cost-effective. The most utility of it is where it is, in situ. Moon rocks are incredibly valuable.?In 1993, three small fragments from?Luna 16,?weighing 0.2?g, were sold for US?$442,500. Now obviously, they will drop in value as the supply is increased but nonetheless, I believe you could fund an entire moon mission by selling the rocks you bring back on Ebay. Also there is some titanium on the moon. Not much but some. Stuart LaForge From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 25 09:52:36 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:52:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time In-Reply-To: <1327481033.92561.YahooMailNeo@web164514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125074003.GT7343@leitl.org> <1327481033.92561.YahooMailNeo@web164514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120125095236.GV7343@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 12:43:53AM -0800, The Avantguardian wrote: > > Machines can be people, too. Canned monkeys will never amount > > to much in space. > > With the right preservatives, canned monkeys will be fine. No, because ~100 kg buys you a slowtime bag of water, and carries according burden of many tons of life support. In machine-phase, a single kg goes a long way. Loss of volaties is no problem since there are no volatiles to start with. Tell that to lyophilized space monkey jerky after explosive decompression. > >> It is most certainly feasible. You just need to build a logistical > > > > The Moon is not Antarctica. > > How is this relevant? It's not Dubai either. Are you familiar with the logistics required to support a tiny polar settlement on Earth? How many tons/person freight for life support? Now add need to carry volatiles and necessity to use vaccuum suits (deep sea diving has nothing on this) or teleoperation in a *really* hostile environment, and look at costs/kg. > >> supply chain one small step at a time. You guys are really good at > >> this. Think about it terms of warfare. You guys can get supplies to > >> your troops on the other side of this planet. That is pi*earth's > >> radius away. The moon is 60?earth radii?away. The supply chain to > > > > Distance is not relevant, potential energy is > > http://xkcd.com/681_large/ > > This just helps my argument. The ISS is about 4% of the trip to the moon potential-wise. GEO is over 86%. The ISS (-29.6 MJ/kg, LEO is -17 MJ/kg, Moon -0.5 MJ/kg specific orbital energy)) is not Afghanistan, and of course LEO gives you the advantage of being able to use electric propulsion. > > Strategic value? Which? Other than a passing point for > > your lunar elevator or an observatory, maybe. > > > High ground is a strategic advantage. The earth-moon L-1 is the > highest ground in the neighborhood. Any orbital constellation provides complete coverage with few platforms. > From L1, a hostile would have a window to drop a rock > anywhere along the ecliptic (celestial equator)?relative > to earth's or moon's?surface with a minimum of effort. To be able to drop a rock you have to be able to put up a rock first. I suggest low-albedo nuke. You don't see them coming. > Depending on the time of day, that could be anywhere except for the north or south poles.?Plus the hostile would?laser?line of sight to any satellite orbiting the earth or the moon?for most of the satellite's?orbital period.??That is *huge* strategic advantage. If you can see it, you can blind it or shoot it down (using the entire resources of the Earth, if required). It works both ways. Being stationary makes it easier. > >> the moon allowing easy access to both. In any case, conquer?lunar L1 and > > the moon is yours. > > > > As soon as you're out of Earth gravity well and don't have to > > get down another one or build up delta v everything is easy. > > That's my point. Set up a staging area up there so that you can assemble a serious space mission, one small payload at a time. Gentlement. I give you some staging area: the surface of the Moon. > >> Maybe we should?lobby congress into declaring war on space > >> in retaliation for?the death of brave astronauts from Apollo 1 to > > Challenger.? > > > > Even if the Moon was pure platinum, mining it would be barely > > cost-effective. The most utility of it is where it is, in situ. > > Moon rocks are incredibly valuable.? Moon rocks have zero intrinsic value. > In 1993, three small fragments from?Luna 16,?weighing 0.2?g, were sold for US?$442,500. Now obviously, they will drop in value as the supply is increased but nonetheless, I believe you could fund an entire moon mission by selling the rocks you bring back on Ebay. Also there is some titanium on the moon. Not much but some. There is plenty of titanium on the Moon but even if the Moon was made from pure titanium or had gold ingots laying around it would be currently not cost effective to transport it. We need to get rid of the squirrel mentality. Space squirrels set up shop where there's plenty of space nuts -- not trying to carry everything home. Space squirrels are optimally adapted to their habitats. Let's face it, we make pretty terrible space squirrels. From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 25 10:31:27 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:31:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <1327459281.33116.YahooMailNeo@web164509.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327459281.33116.YahooMailNeo@web164509.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F1FD9FF.5080404@aleph.se> On 25/01/2012 02:41, The Avantguardian wrote: > Remember Panbiogenesis, my whacky theory that once a long time ago the entire universe was a warm and wet primoridal soup of life? Well check out this recent news: > > http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-bacteria-extreme-gravity.html > > Apparently bacteria *thrive* under an acceleration of over a hundred thousand g's. I don't see the link to panbiogenesis, the article merely mentions panspermia, which is something entirely different. And even there the link is tenuous: for panspermia to work, bacteria have to survive being launched by meteor impacts and then freeze dryed for very long time - they do not have to grow in high gravity environments. While the paper shows that life could exist on even heavier worlds than we previously thought (good news for all those big waterworlds we think are out there), this doesn't improve chances of panspermia much since heavy worlds are much less likely to be sources of launched life than lighter worlds. So this paper at most bumps up our estimate of the amount of life on heavy worlds, but it does not support panspermia or panbiogenesis. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 10:36:14 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:36:14 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time In-Reply-To: <20120125095236.GV7343@leitl.org> References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125074003.GT7343@leitl.org> <1327481033.92561.YahooMailNeo@web164514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125095236.GV7343@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 9:52 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > We need to get rid of the squirrel mentality. > Space squirrels set up shop where there's plenty > of space nuts -- not trying to carry everything > home. > > Space squirrels are optimally adapted to their > habitats. Let's face it, we make pretty terrible space squirrels. > Eeeek, Eeeeek! [image: 143f38i.jpg] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 25 10:36:59 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:36:59 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120124095308.GU7343@leitl.org> References: <4F1DE9ED.3010808@aleph.se> <20120124095308.GU7343@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4F1FDB4B.8070800@aleph.se> On 24/01/2012 09:53, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 11:14:53PM +0000, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> It is worse than that. My colleauge Stuart Armstrong and me are >> presenting a paper next week where we show that massive intergalactic >> colonization seems to be feasible - it is possible to spam the universe >> with your civilisation. Which means that the Fermi question just gets >> tougher. > What is your problem with the answer "we're not in anybody's smart light cone"? I do not have a problem with it. I just want to figure our whether the Great Filter is in our past or future. Intelligence being absurdly rare is after all *good news* from a survival perspective. > Obviously, probability doesn't apply, so we can be as rare as we want. Not arbitrarily rare. Random self-asembly of adult humans has a finite chance. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 10:42:55 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:42:55 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time In-Reply-To: References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125074003.GT7343@leitl.org> <1327481033.92561.YahooMailNeo@web164514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125095236.GV7343@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 10:36 AM, BillK wrote: > Eeeek, ?Eeeeek! > > From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 11:50:28 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:50:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125074003.GT7343@leitl.org> <1327481033.92561.YahooMailNeo@web164514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125095236.GV7343@leitl.org> Message-ID: <1327492228.59874.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ----- > From: Eugen Leitl > To: The Avantguardian ; ExI chat list > Cc: > Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 1:52 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time > > On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 12:43:53AM -0800, The Avantguardian wrote: > >> > Machines can be people, too. Canned monkeys will never amount >> > to much in space. >> >> With the right preservatives, canned monkeys will be fine. > > No, because ~100 kg buys you a slowtime bag of water, and carries > according burden of many tons of life support. In machine-phase, > a single kg goes a long way. Loss of volaties is no problem since > there are no volatiles to start with. Tell that to lyophilized > space monkey jerky after explosive decompression. I am not saying canned monkeys would be more efficient than machine phase in space. I am saying canned monkeys in space are every bit as feasible as monkeys o' war in the middle east. I would argue that machine phase would have fought the war in the middle east more efficiently as well. If you could reversibly vitrify your canned monkeys, life support would be enormously cheapened. ? >> >> It is most certainly feasible. You just need to build a logistical > >> > >> > The Moon is not Antarctica. >> >> How is this relevant? It's not Dubai either. > > Are you familiar with the logistics required to > support a tiny polar settlement on Earth? How many tons/person > freight for life support? Now add need to carry volatiles and > necessity to use vaccuum suits (deep sea diving has nothing > on this) or teleoperation in a *really* hostile environment, > and look at costs/kg. If you book your trip to Antartica through National Geographic, it is about $1500 per person per day. http://www.nationalgeographicexpeditions.com/expeditions/antarctica-cruise/detail Admittedly space will be more expensive but volatiles can be recycled. My whole point is that yes it is expensive but it is cheaper than war. >> >> supply chain one small step at a time. You guys are really good at > >> >> this. Think about it terms of warfare. You guys can get supplies > to >> >> your troops on the other side of this planet. That is > pi*earth's >> >> radius away. The moon is 60?earth radii?away. The supply chain to >> > >> > Distance is not relevant, potential energy is >> > http://xkcd.com/681_large/ >> >> This just helps my argument. The ISS is about 4% of the trip to the moon > potential-wise. GEO is over 86%. > > The ISS (-29.6 MJ/kg, LEO is -17 MJ/kg, Moon -0.5 MJ/kg specific > orbital energy)) is not Afghanistan, and of course LEO gives you > the advantage of being able to use electric propulsion. That's not that far off from the energy cost per soldier in the middle east which was about 1.1 MJ per soldier per day. http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/AD/us_ad_EnergySecurity052010.pdf So for the price of supporting?300 soldiers for one day in the middle east, you can send one 100 kg?astronaut?to the moon.?For an additional 100 soldiers per day you?could give?that astronaut?life support for a month. So at its peak, a single day's spending?on the Iraq/Afghan wars could have funded?a 430?astronaut?lunar base for a month. Even at current troop levels in the middle east (approx. 67500), for every day the war continues, we could send send about 168 astronauts to the moon for a month.? ? >> From L1, a hostile would have a window to drop a rock >> anywhere along the ecliptic (celestial equator)?relative >> to earth's or moon's?surface with a minimum of effort. > > To be able to drop a rock you have to be able to put > up a rock first. >From time to time, you?would get the opportunity to grab a NEO. L1 would not be a bad place for that either, especially if?the NEO?was a?civilization-ender. > There is plenty of titanium on the Moon but even if > the Moon was made from pure titanium or had gold ingots > laying around it would be currently not cost effective > to transport it. Even if the moon were made of feces, the ROI of sending astronauts to the moon would probably be higher than that of the war thus far. ? > Space squirrels are optimally adapted to their > habitats. Let's face it, we make pretty terrible space squirrels. Life?didn't crawl up onto dry land fully adapted to the environment. No, some poor fish had to flop up there in a most ungainly fashion, gills burning, at huge risk to itself?only find out that land was difficult but not impossible. Stuart LaForge From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jan 25 14:02:40 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:02:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> Message-ID: <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 5:44 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment On 24 January 2012 00:30, Anders Sandberg wrote: >But much of biological cognition is strongly hardware dependent "I am quite skeptical as the existence of forms of cognition, or any other information processing for that matter, that would be "hardware dependent" at all. "The real question remains however of what kind of performance hit you are going to suffer by running some of, or all, the relevant routines on "hardware" which can be much, much less optimised to do so. "This is why, BTW, in spite of steampunk fantasies to the contrary we do not seriously consider the development of AGIs on punch-card machines. I have to say I agree Stefano. And I am surprised that Andes does not include, on some level, chemistry since he is a neuroscientist. In fact, Margulis + Sandberg AGI model might be fascinating. Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 14:30:16 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:30:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Perception of time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327501816.71786.YahooMailClassic@web114412.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> The Avantguardian wrote: > Ben Zaiboc wrote: > > As a member of a species that seems to find it infeasible to even colonise a > > single moon 1/4 of a million miles away, I'd like to see that paper! > It is most certainly feasible ... In another thread, Eugen observed: > Species will occupy every niche available Well, it seems one of you is wrong. Otherwise, where is our moon colony? The fact that not even a single base has been set up there, despite having proven, /over 30 years ago/, that we can get there, suggests that the moon is not an available niche for us, at least not up to now, and maybe not ever, for biological humans. As Eugen has also observed, machines can be people too. If anyone does any off-earth colonising, it will almost certainly be machine-people. Biologicals may possibly follow, once the hard stuff is done, but I suspect the probability of O'Neill cylinders filling the sky is low-to-zero. Martian cities ditto. Plucky asteroid miners living on the wild frontier of the Kuiper belt in their pressurised domes are right out. As far as colonising the moon is concerned, it's not distance that's the important factor, it's energy. Maybe we can start thinking about going back to the moon when we stop denying ourselves energy abundance (it's not an energy shortage that we have, it's an energy short-sightedness). I'm not holding my breath. Ben Zaiboc From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 25 14:56:33 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:56:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time In-Reply-To: <1327501816.71786.YahooMailClassic@web114412.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327501816.71786.YahooMailClassic@web114412.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120125145633.GD7343@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 06:30:16AM -0800, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Well, it seems one of you is wrong. > > Otherwise, where is our moon colony? We haven't gone solid state yet. Minimal threshold of entry is ISRU with closure of unity or over. > The fact that not even a single base has been set > up there, despite having proven, /over 30 years ago/, > that we can get there, suggests that the moon is not > an available niche for us, at least not up to now, For us, no. The costs for bootstrap alone would be prohibitive. You need teleoperation and ISRU, plus remote bootup of closed-loop ecosystems. We don't have such technologies in the drawer, though they're not far removed in development space, if allocated the right budget and time. Of course, both are not very probable under the current circumstances. > and maybe not ever, for biological humans. > As Eugen has also observed, machines can be > people too. If anyone does any off-earth > colonising, it will almost certainly be machine-people. > Biologicals may possibly follow, once the hard stuff > is done, but I suspect the probability of O'Neill > cylinders filling the sky is low-to-zero. Martian cities > ditto. Plucky asteroid miners living on the wild > frontier of the Kuiper belt in their pressurised domes are right out. We agree. > As far as colonising the moon is concerned, it's not > distance that's the important factor, it's energy. Chemical rockets don't work for heavy logistics, and any sustainable Moon shot would require quite a lot of it for bootstrap. > Maybe we can start thinking about going back to the > moon when we stop denying ourselves energy abundance > (it's not an energy shortage that we have, it's an > energy short-sightedness). I'm not holding my breath. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 14:45:27 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:45:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <4F1FD9FF.5080404@aleph.se> References: <1327459281.33116.YahooMailNeo@web164509.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F1FD9FF.5080404@aleph.se> Message-ID: <1327502727.23238.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ----- > From: Anders Sandberg > To: The Avantguardian ; ExI chat list > Cc: > Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 2:31 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Panbiogenesis > > On 25/01/2012 02:41, The Avantguardian wrote: >> Remember Panbiogenesis, my whacky theory that once a long time ago the > entire universe was a warm and wet primoridal soup of life? Well check out this > recent news: >> ? http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-bacteria-extreme-gravity.html >> ? Apparently bacteria *thrive* under an acceleration of over a hundred > thousand g's. > > I don't see the link to panbiogenesis, the article merely mentions > panspermia, which is something entirely different. And even there the link is > tenuous: for panspermia to work, bacteria have to survive being launched by > meteor impacts and then freeze dryed for very long time - they do not have to > grow in high gravity environments. ? Well at 400,000 g's acceleration, I was thinking more about supernovae shockwaves than meteor impacts. But I agree that the evidence is tenuous. ? Stuart LaForge From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 25 18:07:01 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:07:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> Message-ID: <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> On 25/01/2012 14:02, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > > I have to say I agree Stefano. And I am surprised that Andes does not > include, on some level, chemistry since he is a neuroscientist. In > fact, Margulis + Sandberg AGI model might be fascinating. > Isn't chemistry obvious? Or maybe not... I hear a lot of people object to brain emulation because they think it cannot simulate brain chemistry or that we haven't thought about it. The fact that one could replace chemistry or tendon elasticity with an equivalent digital circuit (at least in my functionalist philosophy... that not every transhumanist buys!) doesn't mean they are irrelevant. The quirks of my body chemistry affect my mood, my habits and "style" of health. The causes are simple genetic variations, receptor levels, physiological feedback states etc. that are fairly meaningless on their own, but their combination is important for maintaining my individuality. If I were to change them as part of my life project, that would change me. Which is OK if I do it deliberatly and cautiously. But a change that just replaced them with a standard physiology would likely change me in an inauthentic direction, removing my contingent uniqueness. Keeping their functional effects but implementing them effectively would on the other hand IMHO not change who I am or my life. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 25 18:10:34 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:10:34 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <1327502727.23238.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327459281.33116.YahooMailNeo@web164509.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F1FD9FF.5080404@aleph.se> <1327502727.23238.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F20459A.4030707@aleph.se> On 25/01/2012 14:45, The Avantguardian wrote: > Well at 400,000 g's acceleration, I was thinking more about supernovae > shockwaves than meteor impacts. But I agree that the evidence is tenuous. Well, in supernovae the problem is heating rather than acceleration. I wonder if anybody has run a hydrocode on what happens to a terrestrial planet subjected to its sun going supernova? It would be interesting to see if any material is ejected that is not subjected to extreme heating and radiation. Not that planets orbiting stars able to supernova are that likely to be filled with life - they have a very short lifespan. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 17:56:30 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:56:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Colonizing Space was Perception of time In-Reply-To: <1327492228.59874.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327426589.11259.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1327458240.93604.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125074003.GT7343@leitl.org> <1327481033.92561.YahooMailNeo@web164514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125095236.GV7343@leitl.org> <1327492228.59874.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 3:50 AM, The Avantguardian wrote: > Admittedly space will be more expensive but volatiles can be recycled. My whole point is that yes it is expensive but it is cheaper than war. Irrelevant, unless there are several companies distributed throughout the US that can milk the government for billions of dollars each from a space mission. There are only a few such companies. And no one on the Moon can be said to have attacked us, so you can't fool voters into thinking you're getting "revenge" or "justice". From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jan 25 19:25:43 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:25:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20120125142543.a3in2lr808wsccwk@webmail.natasha.cc> Quoting Anders Sandberg : > On 25/01/2012 14:02, Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> >> I have to say I agree Stefano.? And I am surprised that Andes does? >> not include, on some level, chemistry since he is a >> neuroscientist.? ? In fact, Margulis + Sandberg AGI model might be >> fascinating. >> > > Isn't chemistry obvious? Or maybe not... I hear a lot of people object > to brain emulation because they think it cannot simulate brain > chemistry or that we haven't thought about it. I was referring to chemical matter not computation vis a vis machines. > The fact that one could replace chemistry or tendon elasticity with an > equivalent digital circuit (at least in my functionalist philosophy... > that not every transhumanist buys!) doesn't mean they are irrelevant. Of course, but this is not what I was referring to.? Why does it have to be about the machine?? Is human-machine absolute?? Is there not another possible way in which the brain and its functioning could be?expanded/extended that does not rely exculsive on computational codes?? Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 19:45:02 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:45:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <4F20459A.4030707@aleph.se> References: <1327459281.33116.YahooMailNeo@web164509.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F1FD9FF.5080404@aleph.se> <1327502727.23238.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F20459A.4030707@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 6:10 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Well, in supernovae the problem is heating rather than acceleration. > > I wonder if anybody has run a hydrocode on what happens to a terrestrial > planet subjected to its sun going supernova? It would be interesting to see > if any material is ejected that is not subjected to extreme heating and > radiation. Not that planets orbiting stars able to supernova are that likely > to be filled with life - they have a very short lifespan. > I doubt if exploding suns eject any cooler material! :) But they can eject whole planets from their system and push some planets out to larger orbits. Though those planets still exist, I expect they are pretty crisply toasted. See: Red Giant Sun May Not Destroy Earth How Planets Can Survive a Supernova BillK From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 25 23:06:31 2012 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:06:31 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1327532791.31080.YahooMailNeo@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> The crucial area between transhumanism and the concept of embodiment I think is how well are we going to translate into other substrates? Staying as a bunch of neurons inside a roughly mammalian body cuts away some (but not all) of the problems. Uploading and some extreme modifications can be problematical. To use analogies: consider the porting of computer software - your favourite software originally designed for machine X running operating system Y may have difficulty with other machines, and may require heavy modification to work on different OSes. The user experience may be slightly different on other machines. This is despite them all being written for semi-conductor based chips running programs, we're not trying to translate them to a network of synthetic neurons or run them on a Babbage engine. To use a more poetic analogy, consider adaptations of stories: from prose to plays to movies to games and all back again, they all offer different experiences of similar stories or source material. How well will our minds translate to other forms of being?? Consider hormones - these chemical messengers affect our thinking continuously but won't show up under straight brain mapping. As a man, I've had a complicated relationship with testosterone and I'm sure it's no easier for women to deal with the effects of their sex hormones on their brain. If you fail to take these into account, your translation of your mind will lose something along the way. Some may see this as freeing - a chance to live without the distractions of hormones. Some would consider it a terrible loss. (Here's a thought - would a community of uploads without hormone emulation experience a truly post-gendered world? Or would their experiences in a biologically gendered body before uploading mean that gender continues as before?) Consider sleep and dreaming - nearly all mammals do this, and research has linked REM sleep to learning and creativity. Would a translation without these have radically different learning and creativity? Some would see this as freedom from wasted hours of sleep, those who enjoy dreams may see it as a sacrifice too far.? Consider reproduction - currently making more minds is a matter in which we have little choice - you get male gametes and female gametes together, implant the embryo in a uterus (the first two steps can be natural or heavily medicalised), bring to term, deliver baby, and a mind slowly develops in response to its environment. For a human (and who knows how many other large-brained species) this general purpose learning machine picks up on cues from its parents and the world around it, and adults have a lot more developed mind than their infant selves. As an upload, how are you going to get new minds? Can you program new ones, or would you be dependent on more humans being born to be uploaded? What sort of population dynamics would uploads have placing pressure on their reproduction? Uploading before you had worked this out would mean sacrificing your ability to have children. These are just the first three areas that spring to mind when considering a translation from human-ish transhuman to radically different forms of being. Tom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Jan 26 00:09:20 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:09:20 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: References: <1327459281.33116.YahooMailNeo@web164509.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F1FD9FF.5080404@aleph.se> <1327502727.23238.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F20459A.4030707@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4F2099B0.4000001@aleph.se> On 25/01/2012 19:45, BillK wrote: > On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 6:10 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> I wonder if anybody has run a hydrocode on what happens to a terrestrial >> planet subjected to its sun going supernova? It would be interesting to see >> if any material is ejected that is not subjected to extreme heating and >> radiation. ... > But they can eject whole planets from their system and push some > planets out to larger orbits. Though those planets still exist, I > expect they are pretty crisply toasted. Yes. I found this paper when looking for the answer to my question: http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.1239 "The Great Escape: How Exoplanets and Smaller Bodies Desert Dying Stars" - apparently quite a lot of planets and smaller bodies can escape a system where the star is undergoing mass loss or supernovas. Even more intriguing is http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009APS..4CF.C5005P "Can a Planetary System Survive a Host Star Supernova Explosion?" where the abstract (the only thing available, it seems) says: > Our calculations show that even a small Earth-like planet is not > destroyed mechanically nor thermally in such an explosion (and larger > planets are even more stable). Nor is a planet kicked out of its orbit > due to the momentum of exploding star shell or of due to star's > radiation pressure. In some cases even a portion of a planetary > biosphere (deep in planet's crust) can survive. So there is likely some chance of supernovae seeding space with thrown-off pieces of rock, or old terrestrials drifting around with frozen subsurface biospheres. Good news for panspermia. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Thu Jan 26 00:27:09 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:27:09 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120125142543.a3in2lr808wsccwk@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> <20120125142543.a3in2lr808wsccwk@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <4F209DDD.9090206@aleph.se> On 25/01/2012 19:25, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > Is there not another possible way in which the brain and its > functioning could be expanded/extended that does not rely exculsive on > computational codes? > I think computational codes are universal, so that any form of transhuman modification/extension can be seen as modifying the code. This is convenient for analysing them. But in practice of course all computation is embodied as something - flesh, silicon, nanomachines, wood, what have you. And sometimes it might not even be obvious what the computation *is* (other than that it is doing what it is doing), in which case it might be very hard to re-represent it without making an identical copy of the system or a cumbersome element-by-element emulation. Also, there is ignorance. I don't know what modafinil does to my mind computationally when I take a pill, but I can make use of the effects. We do not have access to the computational structure of a lot of things right now. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Thu Jan 26 01:06:47 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:06:47 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Oxford - Postdoc Research Fellowship - Machine Superintelligence and the Future of AI In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F20A727.8070201@aleph.se> *Alexander Tamas Research Fellowship: Machine Superintelligence and the Future of AI with the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology *University of Oxford Faculty of Philosophy The Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford Martin School Grade 7: ?29,099??39,107 per annum Protocol reference number: HUM/11042F/E Applications are invited for a fixed-term, three-year Research Fellowship within the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, an interdisciplinary programme within the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University. The Programme, directed by Professor Nick Bostrom, analyzes possibilities related to long-range technological change and potential social impacts of future transformative technologies. Research foci include the future of computing and machine intelligence, existential risks, predictive and evaluative uncertainty, and related philosophical issues. The postholder will research topics related to the long-term future of machine intelligence, focusing on impacts, risks, current technical developments and foundational issues. The post does not involve developing specific AI applications. Possible backgrounds include (but are not restricted to) computer science, mathematics, or philosophy. For further particulars and application details, please see: www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/get_involved/future_tech_vacancies/futuretech or contact: futuretech at philosophy.ox.ac.uk. The deadline for applications is *Monday 27^th February* Dr. Se?n ? h?igeartaigh Academic Project Manager, Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology Oxford Martin School & Faculty of Philosophy Suite 8, Littlegate House St Ebbe?s Street Oxford OX1 1PT Website: http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk Email: sean.oheigeartaigh at philosophy.ox.ac.uk Telephone: 01865 286269 / 07712638318 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 26 02:06:34 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:06:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <4F20459A.4030707@aleph.se> References: <1327459281.33116.YahooMailNeo@web164509.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F1FD9FF.5080404@aleph.se> <1327502727.23238.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F20459A.4030707@aleph.se> Message-ID: <00ad01ccdbcf$216656d0$64330470$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] Panbiogenesis On 25/01/2012 14:45, The Avantguardian wrote: >> Well at 400,000 g's acceleration, I was thinking more about supernovae >> shockwaves than meteor impacts. But I agree that the evidence is tenuous. >Well, in supernovae the problem is heating rather than acceleration... I haven't done the calcs on this, but a supernova would also send out an enormous wave of neutrinos. The tiny fraction of them that interact with the matter in the life forms would cause all manner of problems, ja? >...I wonder if anybody has run a hydrocode on what happens to a terrestrial planet subjected to its sun going supernova? It would be interesting to see if any material is ejected that is not subjected to extreme heating and radiation... Anders Sandberg Life on the night side at the time of the supernova might have a chance against everything except the neutrinos, which would pass through the planet and zap everything, regardless of the size of the planet. I'm pretty sure a supernova sterilizes everything in the stellar neighborhood. spike From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jan 26 13:25:00 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:25:00 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F209DDD.9090206@aleph.se> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> <20120125142543.a3in2lr808wsccwk@webmail.natasha.cc> <4F209DDD.9090206@aleph.se> Message-ID: <009b01ccdc2d$e8aa84b0$b9ff8e10$@cc> Anders wrote Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 6:27 PM On 25/01/2012 19:25, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > Is there not another possible way in which the brain and its > functioning could be expanded/extended that does not rely exculsive on > computational codes? "I think computational codes are universal, so that any form of transhuman modification/extension can be seen as modifying the code." Are you saying that all perceptual and psychological attributes of the human body can be negotiated and in doing so, can transform these molecular/chemical actions and reactions into computer codes? "This is convenient for analysing them. But in practice of course all computation is embodied as something - flesh, silicon, nanomachines, wood, what have you. Yes, and this is my argument against notions of disembodiment. "And sometimes it might not even be obvious what the computation *is* (other than that it is doing what it is doing), in which case it might be very hard to re-represent it without making an identical copy of the system or a cumbersome element-by-element emulation." Okay, here is an problem: You have two well-informed and skilled experts in the domain of AGI. They are equally skilled, give or take, but they are different. One is dyslexic and the other has aspersers syndrome. How would they approach uploading? Might they "see" it or approach it somewhat differently? Best, Natasha From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jan 26 12:59:23 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:59:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F209DDD.9090206@aleph.se> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> <20120125142543.a3in2lr808wsccwk@webmail.natasha.cc> <4F209DDD.9090206@aleph.se> Message-ID: <009a01ccdc2a$54056a80$fc103f80$@cc> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 6:27 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment On 25/01/2012 19:25, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > Is there not another possible way in which the brain and its > functioning could be expanded/extended that does not rely exculsive on > computational codes? > I think computational codes are universal, so that any form of transhuman modification/extension can be seen as modifying the code. This is convenient for analysing them. But in practice of course all computation is embodied as something - flesh, silicon, nanomachines, wood, what have you. And sometimes it might not even be obvious what the computation *is* (other than that it is doing what it is doing), in which case it might be very hard to re-represent it without making an identical copy of the system or a cumbersome element-by-element emulation. Also, there is ignorance. I don't know what modafinil does to my mind computationally when I take a pill, but I can make use of the effects. We do not have access to the computational structure of a lot of things right now. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 15:52:06 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:52:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 24 January 2012 19:00, Keith Henson wrote: > Would you want to move from a slum where there was only a 100,000 to > one speed up to one of these "elite" places with a million to one > speed up? > > Unless we can find a way around the speed of light, then I don't see a > future for M brains, S brains or even Luna sized brains. Mmhhhh. I do not take it for a minute as a justification for the deafening silence out there or as an intrinsic limitation for the size of computational systems. Going from A to B takes the same time of going from B to C if the distance is identical, so if it makes sense to expand from A to B, it identically makes sense to expand from B to C. Sure, the latency involve in A to C communications will be doubled, but who says that communication between extremes is all that matters? This simply means that computational dividends of integration are going to be weighed against those involved in higher degrees of autonomy of subcomponents. Moreover, even the peripheral subcomponents would profit from a more than bidimensional access to neighbouring units (say, those adiacent on the sphere surface and those adiacent in the direction of the centre). But this is also true for trivial systems such as human societies, or contemporary supercomputing clusters (take for instance the approaches to proteomics of respectively Andon and Folding at Home). What else is new? Our own brain often makes only use of proximity nodes, and need not involve the whole of them for everything it does. An M-brain would probably have an even more scattered and decentralised way of working, but nothing prevents us to consider it nevertheless a single system as long as at least *some* communication takes place between its "processors". -- Stefano Vaj From amon at doctrinezero.com Thu Jan 26 16:27:11 2012 From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:27:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 15:52, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > Our own brain often makes only use of proximity nodes, and need not > involve the whole of them for everything it does. An M-brain would > probably have an even more scattered and decentralised way of working, > but nothing prevents us to consider it nevertheless a single system as > long as at least *some* communication takes place between its > "processors". > Yes, given that no-one is assuming a humanlike neural architecture, I agree. I'm often surprised when people do make this criticism, since it seems to be the case that they're placing unwarranted restrictions on the system architecture. Or, at least, restrictions that we don't currently know to be warranted. - A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 17:10:23 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:10:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 5:00 AM, "spike" wrote: > > On 25/01/2012 14:45, The Avantguardian wrote: >>> Well at 400,000 g's acceleration, I was thinking more about supernovae >>> shockwaves than meteor impacts. But I agree that the evidence is tenuous. > >>Well, in supernovae the problem is heating rather than acceleration... > > I haven't done the calcs on this, but a supernova would also send out an > enormous wave of neutrinos. ?The tiny fraction of them that interact with > the matter in the life forms would cause all manner of problems, ja? > >>...I wonder if anybody has run a hydrocode on what happens to a terrestrial > planet subjected to its sun going supernova? It would be interesting to see > if any material is ejected that is not subjected to extreme heating and > radiation... Anders Sandberg > > Life on the night side at the time of the supernova might have a chance > against everything except the neutrinos, which would pass through the planet > and zap everything, regardless of the size of the planet. ?I'm pretty sure a > supernova sterilizes everything in the stellar neighborhood. The distance is usually quoted as 30-50 light year. Taking 10 gray as lethal, i.e., 10 j/kg, the flux would be 1000 j/kg at 3 light year, 100,000 j/kg at 0.3 ly. Taking the specific heat capacity of typical stuff at 1 kJ/kg deg K, rocks and such would heat up by 100 deg out to 0.3 light year. Three tenths of a light year is ~20,000 AU. The energy dumped in a kg of material at 1 AU would be 400 M times as that of at 0.3 light year, or around 40 B j/kg or around 20 M kWh/kg, or something around a million times the energy released in the formation of of the earth. The reasonable assumption is that a planet at earth's distance from a supernova would blow up spectacularly from the neutrino flux, if it were not totally eclipsed by the supernova glare. Keith From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 26 17:31:42 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:31:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120126173142.GC7343@leitl.org> On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 04:27:11PM +0000, Amon Zero wrote: > Yes, given that no-one is assuming a humanlike neural architecture, I > agree. I'm often surprised when people do make this criticism, since it > seems to be the case that they're placing unwarranted restrictions on the > system architecture. Or, at least, restrictions that we don't currently > know to be warranted. We do know it's going to be a small world network. From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 26 17:40:01 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:40:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003801ccdc51$8804f630$980ee290$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson ... > Life on the night side at the time of the supernova might have a > chance against everything except the neutrinos, which would pass > through the planet and zap everything, regardless of the size of the > planet. ?I'm pretty sure a supernova sterilizes everything in the stellar neighborhood. >...Three tenths of a light year is ~20,000 AU. The energy dumped in a kg of material at 1 AU would be 400 M times as that of at 0.3 light year, or around 40 B j/kg or around 20 M kWh/kg, or something around a million times the energy released in the formation of of the earth. The reasonable assumption is that a planet at earth's distance from a supernova would blow up spectacularly from the neutrino flux, if it were not totally eclipsed by the supernova glare. Keith OK ja, those numbers are ringing a bell from a long time ago when I did some BOTECs on this. Supernova neutrino flux is really bad news for life forms as we know it, because it causes one out of every jillion protons to absorb a neutrino and (somehow) grabs an electron to become a neutron. Then if it is part of a carbon nucleus (plenty of those in every life form that we know) that carbon becomes a boron atom with a half-life of about .02 seconds. Most of those decays revert back to carbon 12, but a few of them screw up the works as I vaguely recall for a long time ago. If that life form manages to survive the heating, the biochemistry is screwed up by the neutrino flux. As I also vaguely recall there is on the order of a thousand stars within that lethal range, 30 to 50 light years. Fortunately none of them are candidates for that kind of supernova. spike From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 17:41:52 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:41:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Another step towards "real" nanotech Message-ID: Free full text available online at: http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/23/6/065304/article. Title: Automated nanomanipulation for nanodevice construction Note the summarizing sentence3 at the end of the abstract: "This technology represents a seamless integration of wafer-scale microfabrication and automated nanorobotic manipulation for producing nano-FET sensors with consistent response across devices." Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles Abstract Nanowire field-effect transistors (nano-FETs) are nanodevices capable of highly sensitive, label-free sensing of molecules. However, significant variations in sensitivity across devices can result from poor control over device parameters, such as nanowire diameter and the number of electrode-bridging nanowires. This paper presents a fabrication approach that uses wafer-scale nanowire contact printing for throughput and uses automated nanomanipulation for precision control of nanowire number and diameter. The process requires only one photolithography mask. Using nanowire contact printing and post-processing (i.e. nanomanipulation inside a scanning electron microscope), we are able to produce devices all with a single-nanowire and similar diameters at a speed of ~1 min/device with a success rate of 95% (n = 500). This technology represents a seamless integration of wafer-scale microfabrication and automated nanorobotic manipulation for producing nano-FET sensors with consistent response across devices. From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 00:46:04 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:46:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Another step towards "real" nanotech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > Free full text available online at: > http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/23/6/065304/article. > > Title: Automated nanomanipulation for nanodevice construction > > Note the summarizing sentence3 at the end of the abstract: > > "This technology represents a seamless integration of wafer-scale > microfabrication and automated nanorobotic manipulation for producing > nano-FET sensors with consistent response across devices." I know it's great ('n all) - but could you explain why I should be more excited about it? From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 27 05:04:49 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:04:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <003801ccdc51$8804f630$980ee290$@att.net> References: <003801ccdc51$8804f630$980ee290$@att.net> Message-ID: <1327640689.63811.YahooMailNeo@web164501.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > From: spike > To: 'ExI chat list' > Cc: > Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 9:40 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Panbiogenesis > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson > ... >> Life on the night side at the time of the supernova might have a >> chance against everything except the neutrinos, which would pass >> through the planet and zap everything, regardless of the size of the >> planet. ?I'm pretty sure a supernova sterilizes everything in the > stellar > neighborhood. > >> ...Three tenths of a light year is ~20,000 AU.? The energy dumped in a kg > of material at 1 AU would be 400 M times as that of at 0.3 light year, or > around 40 B j/kg or around 20 M kWh/kg, or something around a million times > the energy released in the formation of of the earth. > The reasonable assumption is that a planet at earth's distance from a > supernova would blow up spectacularly from the neutrino flux, if it were not > totally eclipsed by the supernova glare.? Keith > > OK ja, those numbers are ringing a bell from a long time ago when I did some > BOTECs on this.? Supernova neutrino flux is really bad news for life forms > as we know it, because it causes one out of every jillion protons to absorb > a neutrino and (somehow) grabs an electron to become a neutron.? Then if it > is part of a carbon nucleus (plenty of those in every life form that we > know) that carbon becomes a boron atom with a half-life of about .02 > seconds.? Most of those decays revert back to carbon 12, but a few of them > screw up the works as I vaguely recall for a long time ago.? If that life > form manages to survive the heating, the biochemistry is screwed up by the > neutrino flux. Well as far as I know, lethal doses and exposure limits to neutrinos hasn't been determined for any species. And while you might be right, keep in mind I am not talking about your run of the mill life forms here. I am talking extremophiles: ? Like ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermococcus_gammatolerans ? and ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans ? Organisms which can withstand instaneous doses of 5000 Gray and go about business as usual. Organisms that can survive the vaccuum of space, radiation, dessication, and now accelerations that typically are found on the surfaces of white dwarf stars and the shock waves of supernovas. Killing these guys is like trying to atomize dust particles. I imagine it would be very hard to do. And if just *one* of these guys makes it to a new planet, the whole?cycle begins anew. ? An unlikely scenario perhaps but it is certainly possible. ? Stuart LaForge ? "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 06:25:07 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:25:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] I would like to note Message-ID: That we are not the only ones thinking about AI. http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2085 (The chick with the magenta hair is a robot/AI.) Keith From giulio at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 06:57:21 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:57:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: I agree that intelligence must be "embodied" in the sense that it must have sensors and actuators to act upon its environment (physical reality, or whatever synthetic scape it inhabits) and to communicate with other intelligences, but this sense is so weak that it is almost tautological. I don't think intelligence must be necessarily based on biology, and I don't think it will remain uniquely based on biology for long. Uploading technology to leave biology behind will be developed, probably not as soon as I wish to see, but sooner than many people think. I like to think that those who want to stay in organic bodies will be free to do so, those who want to upload to robotic bodies will be free to do so, and those who want to migrate to synthetic scapes will be free to do so (the flesher, gleaners and polices scenario in Egan's Diaspora). But history shows that there are always fundamentalist zealots, persuaded that their way is The Way, who want to force others to follow them, and therefore I am afraid things will not be so clean and simple. 2012/1/21 : > What the heck is Hayles (How We Became Posthuman) talking about when she > says that posthumans are disembodied?? I had thought that she meant > that?posthumans?will forgo?a body to be Moravecean robots.? That > transhumanists don't give a rat's behind about having any body, not even a > series of codes that might be interpreted as a platform or system.? But when > I look at the concept of embodiment it is most definitely not Cartesian. > Does it mean that our bodies form us?? That our minds are the product of the > body?? Certainly this can't be -- unless one is more artistic and defends > perceptions and sensorial interpretations of the world far above other > cognitive processes performed by the brain. > > Embodiment is a big term in the area of human enhancement.? Can someone > unpack it for me and give me a clear understanding of just what it is? > Where did it originate?? Psychology or philosophy? > > Thanks, I am indebted to your cleverness, as I certainly don't have any on > this. > > Natasha > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From anders at aleph.se Fri Jan 27 09:53:42 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:53:42 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <009b01ccdc2d$e8aa84b0$b9ff8e10$@cc> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> <20120125142543.a3in2lr808wsccwk@webmail.natasha.cc> <4F209DDD.9090206@aleph.se> <009b01ccdc2d$e8aa84b0$b9ff8e10$@cc> Message-ID: <4F227426.6040900@aleph.se> On 26/01/2012 13:25, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > "I think computational codes are universal, so that any form of > transhuman modification/extension can be seen as modifying the code." > > Are you saying that all perceptual and psychological attributes of the human > body can be negotiated and in doing so, can transform these > molecular/chemical actions and reactions into computer codes? What do you mean by the word "negotiated" in that question? I am not sure, and hence unable to answer. > Okay, here is an problem: > You have two well-informed and skilled experts in the domain of AGI. They > are equally skilled, give or take, but they are different. One is dyslexic > and the other has aspersers syndrome. How would they approach uploading? > Might they "see" it or approach it somewhat differently? Do dyslectic and Asperger carpenters make different furniture? Do hetero or gay composers make different music? I think the answer is: sometimes. It depends a bit on the project: some domains have much more degrees of freedom and hence depend more on who is doing them and their style of work. But even in very constrained domains there is often space for different choices (what kind of joints in the drawers?), and if there are enough such choice points style will be noticeable. And of course, a lot depends on what the creators try to express. Different scientists certainly have different styles, based not just in skill but on personality. I am right now looking at disc representations of hyperbolic geometry, and the Beltrami model *feels* very different from the Poincare model - it is straightforward, yet in its pursuit of practical results it lacks the conceptual "curvy" elegance of the Poincare model. I can certainly imagine different uploading projects becoming different because of their lead scientists. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Fri Jan 27 10:02:38 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:02:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <1327640689.63811.YahooMailNeo@web164501.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <003801ccdc51$8804f630$980ee290$@att.net> <1327640689.63811.YahooMailNeo@web164501.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F22763E.9010903@aleph.se> On 27/01/2012 05:04, The Avantguardian wrote: > An unlikely scenario perhaps but it is certainly possible. That is the important point. Panspermia depends on very unlikely events, but there is so long time and so many planets that it has a chance. Consider a biosphere lasting 5 billion years, that manages to seed just one other planet out of (say) 10 billion available in the galaxy. That means a probability of 1 in 50 billion billion per year. A slightly higher probability in this model, and more planets will be seeded and the galaxy will "quickly" be colonized. One can try to bound probabilities in various ways, but things are very uncertain. However, it is not too hard to build a joint model of spontaneous biogenesis and panspermia, and then plug in our sole data point of when life appeared on Earth. That produces a fairly thin maximum likeliehood ridge in parameter space, showing a relationship between the panspermia and biogensis probabilities. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Fri Jan 27 10:07:00 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:07:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <4F22763E.9010903@aleph.se> References: <003801ccdc51$8804f630$980ee290$@att.net> <1327640689.63811.YahooMailNeo@web164501.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F22763E.9010903@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20120127100700.GR7343@leitl.org> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 10:02:38AM +0000, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Consider a biosphere lasting 5 billion years, that manages to seed just > one other planet out of (say) 10 billion available in the galaxy. That > means a probability of 1 in 50 billion billion per year. A slightly > higher probability in this model, and more planets will be seeded and > the galaxy will "quickly" be colonized. There's no known mechanism for interstellar transfer of impact ejecta though. In case Oort cloud is life-bearing this might be different, as there could be interactions with other star's extended icy body clouds which pass through vicinity. Are you aware of any panspermia papers which deal with interstellar Oort-Oort transfers? > One can try to bound probabilities in various ways, but things are very > uncertain. However, it is not too hard to build a joint model of > spontaneous biogenesis and panspermia, and then plug in our sole data > point of when life appeared on Earth. That produces a fairly thin > maximum likeliehood ridge in parameter space, showing a relationship > between the panspermia and biogensis probabilities. From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 10:45:36 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:45:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <4F22763E.9010903@aleph.se> References: <003801ccdc51$8804f630$980ee290$@att.net> <1327640689.63811.YahooMailNeo@web164501.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F22763E.9010903@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > That is the important point. Panspermia depends on very unlikely events, but > there is so long time and so many planets that it has a chance. > > Consider a biosphere lasting 5 billion years, that manages to seed just one > other planet out of (say) 10 billion available in the galaxy. ?That means a > probability of 1 in 50 billion billion per year. A slightly higher > probability in this model, and more planets will be seeded and the galaxy > will "quickly" be colonized. > That is very similar maths logic as to why the galaxy should have already been colonised by the first expansive space-faring species. See: Quote: What's fascinating about the Hair and Hedman paper is that they are not cosmologists or astrobiologists, but rather mathematicians?and it is through the lens of number-cruching that they sought an answer to the question of how long it would take a civilization to colonize its local region given a specific set of parameters. And their findings are disturbing: No matter how they reworked the numbers, they came to the same conclusion: the Galaxy should be colonized by now: ------------ (Apparently the paper is not available online yet) BillK From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 27 12:29:33 2012 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:29:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Panbiogenesis In-Reply-To: <4F22763E.9010903@aleph.se> References: <003801ccdc51$8804f630$980ee290$@att.net> <1327640689.63811.YahooMailNeo@web164501.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F22763E.9010903@aleph.se> Message-ID: <1327667373.87425.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ----- > From: Anders Sandberg > To: ExI chat list > Cc: > Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 2:02 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Panbiogenesis > > On 27/01/2012 05:04, The Avantguardian wrote: >> An unlikely scenario perhaps but it is certainly possible. > > That is the important point. Panspermia depends on very unlikely events, but > there is so long time and so many planets that it has a chance. > > Consider a biosphere lasting 5 billion years, that manages to seed just one > other planet out of (say) 10 billion available in the galaxy.? That means a > probability of 1 in 50 billion billion per year. A slightly higher probability > in this model, and more planets will be seeded and the galaxy will > "quickly" be colonized. > > One can try to bound probabilities in various ways, but things are very > uncertain. However, it is not too hard to build a joint model of spontaneous > biogenesis and panspermia, and then plug in our sole data point of when life > appeared on Earth. That produces a fairly thin maximum likeliehood ridge in > parameter space, showing a relationship between the panspermia and biogensis > probabilities. That sounds like a cool idea for a project. As a fellow Bayesian, I would give the following advice about your priors. Keep in mind that biogenesis (at some space-time coordinate) has a probability?of one because life exists. However in almost 250 years of watching and tinkering, biologists have not one documented case of biogenesis being observed either in a laboratory setting or spontaneously "in the wild". That means it has near zero probablity *here and now*. The biogenesis people say that is because conditions on early earth?were different. That is fine. But we can simulate early earth chemically in a lab. We get organics but not life, not yet, *not once*, not after decades of trying. Panspermia allows you to push the time and place of the probability-one genesis event back as far as you need to until the?conditions of the universe itself were different.?Perhaps the current value of fine structure constant?does not permit biogenesis?whereas at some point it did. Let me know what you figure out. :-) ? Stuart LaForge ? "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson? From bbenzai at yahoo.com Fri Jan 27 13:38:40 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:38:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > ???Quoting Anders Sandberg : > > > On 25/01/2012 14:02, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > > ???I was referring to chemical matter not > computation vis a vis machines. > > > The fact that one could replace chemistry or tendon > elasticity with an > > equivalent digital circuit (at least in my > functionalist philosophy... > > that not every transhumanist buys!) doesn't mean they > are irrelevant. > > ???Of course, but this is not what I was > referring to.? Why does it? > have to be about the machine?? Is human-machine absolute?? > Is there? > not another possible way in which the brain and its > functioning could? > be?expanded/extended that does not rely exculsive on > computational? > codes?? I don't understand this. Life is computation. Thought is computation. Up to now, this has been done on machines made of protein, water, lipids, etc., but we are now contemplating making equivalent machines, able to do equivalent (at least) computations with other kinds of materials, and with greater understanding of the processes involved. Everything that processes information is 'about the machine'. Not only is there no getting away from that, the very idea of information processing without /some/ form of machinery is incoherent. Stephano's remark about cognition not having to be embodied (at least I think that was what he was saying) is really the same issue. All information-processing must be embodied, in some form. There is no such thing as information on its own (except as a concept, which is a form of information-processing itself, and must be embodied). Just /how/ it is embodied is one of the issues that we constantly discuss. Some people think it doesn't really matter if the embodiment is in electronic circuits, optronics, beer cans and string, magnetic fields, etc., and some think it can only be in tiny bags of wet chemicals. Some think it can be in any software system that's capable of building models of other physical systems, like a brain emulation. But that software has to run on some kind of hardware, always. Even if it's purely in the form of patterns of energy (if that's possible), it's still embodiment of information. Machines, embodiment, without them there is nothing. Ben Zaiboc From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Jan 27 14:45:53 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:45:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F227426.6040900@aleph.se> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> <20120125142543.a3in2lr808wsccwk@webmail.natasha.cc> <4F209DDD.9090206@aleph.se> <009b01ccdc2d$e8aa84b0$b9ff8e10$@cc> <4F227426.6040900@aleph.se> Message-ID: <008701ccdd02$5f83fba0$1e8bf2e0$@cc> Anders wrote: On 26/01/2012 13:25, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > "I think computational codes are universal, so that any form of > transhuman modification/extension can be seen as modifying the code." > > Are you saying that all perceptual and psychological attributes of the human > body can be negotiated and in doing so, can transform these > molecular/chemical actions and reactions into computer codes? "What do you mean by the word "negotiated" in that question? I am not sure, and hence unable to answer." Design terminology, meaning how to decide. > Okay, here is an problem: > You have two well-informed and skilled experts in the domain of AGI. They > are equally skilled, give or take, but they are different. One is dyslexic > and the other has aspersers syndrome. How would they approach uploading? > Might they "see" it or approach it somewhat differently? "Do dyslectic and Asperser carpenters make different furniture? The furniture, if commissioned, would based on the design formula or model. How the furniture maker gets there is not. So, the mental processes the dyslectic and Asperser's carpenters go through, would be different most likely, unless they are on drugs to help the brain form "normal" connections. "Do hetero or gay composers make different music?" Are you suggesting gays and straights have different neurological functioning? "I think the answer is: sometimes. It depends a bit on the project: some domains have much more degrees of freedom and hence depend more on who is doing them and their style of work. But even in very constrained domains there is often space for different choices (what kind of joints in the drawers?), and if there are enough such choice points style will be noticeable." Is the chemistry of the brain and it electrical firings, that sometimes are different (as with Dyslectic and Aspersers) based on choice? I'm not necessarily looking at the outcome, although your bring up an important point. Maybe the processes don't matter and we should be just focused on the outcome, but I am not convinced. From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Jan 27 15:16:48 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:16:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <009a01ccdd06$b0ccb610$12662230$@cc> Ben wrote: >>Is there not another possible way in which the brain and its >>functioning could be expanded/extended that does not rely exculsive on >>computational codes?? Sorry Ben, but I snipped most of your post, but that is because I agree with you. This is where you address the question: "Even if it's purely in the form of patterns of energy (if that's possible), it's still embodiment of information." Yes definitely. I cannot see it otherwise. (Hayles is speaking from postmodernist rhetoric, much like Don Ihde and Jean-Pierre Duprey.) Natasha From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Jan 27 18:29:20 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:29:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Human Design or Evolution - Helsinki Finland Message-ID: <010d01ccdd21$96b5d520$c4217f60$@cc> This should be great fun! http://humandesign.mlog.taik.fi/ Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Chairman, Humanity+ Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 22:49:04 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:49:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: On 27 January 2012 07:57, Giulio Prisco wrote: > I agree that intelligence must be "embodied" in the sense that it must > have sensors and actuators to act upon its environment (physical > reality, or whatever synthetic scape it inhabits) and to communicate > with other intelligences, but this sense is so weak that it is almost > tautological. > > I don't think intelligence must be necessarily based on biology, and I > don't think it will remain uniquely based on biology for long. > Uploading technology to leave biology behind will be developed, > probably not as soon as I wish to see, but sooner than many people > think. > > I like to think that those who want to stay in organic bodies will be > free to do so, those who want to upload to robotic bodies will be free > to do so, and those who want to migrate to synthetic scapes will be > free to do so (the flesher, gleaners and polices scenario in Egan's > Diaspora). But history shows that there are always fundamentalist > zealots, persuaded that their way is The Way, who want to force others > to follow them, and therefore I am afraid things will not be so clean > and simple. > One Egan's novel where intelligence seems actually disembodied is Permutation City. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Jan 27 22:58:32 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:58:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <008701ccdd02$5f83fba0$1e8bf2e0$@cc> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> <20120125142543.a3in2lr808wsccwk@webmail.natasha.cc> <4F209DDD.9090206@aleph.se> <009b01ccdc2d$e8aa84b0$b9ff8e10$@cc> <4F227426.6040900@aleph.se> <008701ccdd02$5f83fba0$1e8bf2e0$@cc> Message-ID: <4F232C18.1040407@aleph.se> On 27/01/2012 14:45, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Anders wrote: > > On 26/01/2012 13:25, Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> "I think computational codes are universal, so that any form of >> transhuman modification/extension can be seen as modifying the code." >> >> Are you saying that all perceptual and psychological attributes of the > human >> body can be negotiated and in doing so, can transform these >> molecular/chemical actions and reactions into computer codes? No, it is not certain they can be determined. While I think computation is universal, it is not always possible to get the data necessary to copy a computation. For example, this happens a lot in quantum mechanics due to the No Cloning Theorem. Whether this is relevant for mapping the body remains to be seen. I am optimistic that it is fairly classical and accessible for measurement, analysis and copying, but I recognize this is an assumption I am making. (Thanks for telling me that meaning of 'negotiated', I have never heard that usage before.) > "I think the answer is: sometimes. > It depends a bit on the project: some domains have much more degrees of > freedom and hence depend more on who is doing them and their style of > work. But even in very constrained domains there is often space for > different choices (what kind of joints in the drawers?), and if there > are enough such choice points style will be noticeable." > > Is the chemistry of the brain and it electrical firings, that sometimes are > different (as with Dyslectic and Aspersers) based on choice? > > I'm not necessarily looking at the outcome, although your bring up an > important point. Maybe the processes don't matter and we should be just > focused on the outcome, but I am not convinced. We are dynamical systems that change the way we work based on our decisions. I trivially change my brain chemistry and structure by what I eat, what I read, what decisions I make. And these decisions are of course based on past ones, and so on. Plus genetics and environment. In some domains circumstances and logic might force convergent actions and convergent brain structure (say training to become a London taxidriver). But I suspect a lot of what happens during our life makes us ever more different in outlook, function and results. We are born as copies and die as originals. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Fri Jan 27 23:18:30 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:18:30 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> On 27/01/2012 13:38, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > I don't understand this. Life is computation. Thought is computation. How do you *know* this? Suppose I said life and thought was electricity. I would point at cells and neurons having ion channels and electrical potentials essential for their function. But I think you would not be convinced that that was a proper definition of life. Generally, I think ontological questions tend to be a waste of time. It is better to try to see if one can replicate various aspects and levels of systems, learning more about them in the process. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 28 00:01:37 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:01:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] latest kepler results: there are loooots of planets out there Message-ID: <00d601ccdd50$02073250$061596f0$@att.net> This makes the Fermi Paradox all the more puzzling: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/27/alien-worlds-abound-nasa-scope-fin ds-26-alien-planets/ spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Jan 28 00:31:04 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:31:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F232C18.1040407@aleph.se> References: <1327150354.92113.YahooMailClassic@web114410.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120122125726.GW21917@leitl.org> <4F1DED83.7030508@aleph.se> <005401ccdb6a$00b65f30$02231d90$@cc> <4F2044C5.8080103@aleph.se> <20120125142543.a3in2lr808wsccwk@webmail.natasha.cc> <4F209DDD.9090206@aleph.se> <009b01ccdc2d$e8aa84b0$b9ff8e10$@cc> <4F227426.6040900@aleph.se> <008701ccdd02$5f83fba0$1e8bf2e0$@cc> <4F232C18.1040407@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20120127193104.k9z1llreo0swkk4w@webmail.natasha.cc> Quoting Anders Sandberg : > On 27/01/2012 14:45, Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> Anders wrote: >> >> On 26/01/2012 13:25, Natasha Vita-More wrote: >>> "I think computational codes are universal, so that any form of >>> transhuman modification/extension can be seen as modifying the code." >>> >>> Are you saying that all perceptual and psychological attributes of the >> human >>> body can be negotiated and in doing so, can transform these >>> molecular/chemical actions and reactions into computer codes? > > No, it is not certain they can be determined. While I think computation > is universal, it is not always possible to get the data necessary to > copy a computation. Right. >For example, this happens a lot in quantum > mechanics due to the No Cloning Theorem. Whether this is relevant for > mapping the body remains to be seen. I am optimistic that it is fairly > classical and accessible for measurement, analysis and copying, but I > recognize this is an assumption I am making. Time will tell. > (Thanks for telling me that meaning of 'negotiated', I have never heard > that usage before.) Sure!? I prefer to use words like "patterns"?for "codes" and "process" for compuational. >> "I think the answer is: sometimes. >> It depends a bit on the project: some domains have much more degrees of >> freedom and hence depend more on who is doing them and their style of >> work. But even in very constrained domains there is often space for >> different choices (what kind of joints in the drawers?), and if there >> are enough such choice points style will be noticeable." >> >> Is the chemistry of the brain and it electrical firings, that sometimes are >> different (as with Dyslectic and Aspersers) based on choice? >> >> I'm not necessarily looking at the outcome, although your bring up an >> important point.? Maybe the processes don't matter and we should be just >> focused on the outcome, but I am not convinced. > > We are dynamical systems that change the way we work based on our > decisions. I trivially change my brain chemistry and structure by what > I eat, what I read, what decisions I make. And these decisions are of > course based on past ones, and so on. Plus genetics and environment. > > In some domains circumstances and logic might force convergent actions > and convergent brain structure (say training to become a London > taxidriver). But I suspect a lot of what happens during our life makes > us ever more different in outlook, function and results. We are born as > copies and die as originals. But it is the process along the way that brings forth our individuation in becoming original. That is worth the trek. Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 00:34:19 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:34:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: 2012/1/27 Stefano Vaj : > One Egan's novel where intelligence seems actually disembodied is > Permutation City. Was that disembodied or simply happening on a less-tangible substrate? I took the ascension (for lack of a better word) of the CA aliens as an example of a leap from one level of understanding to another by a configuration that had an inherent efficiency to use knowledge in ways humans did not. The catalyst for the paradigm shift was delivered by human intervention, but then the gnats integrated the new information into a higher-complexity world-view and effectively popped out of perception. The precedence was set earlier in book by the world-seed continuing after the 2 minute simulation had ended. The idea, as i understood it, was that self-consistent rules 'resonate' constructively with reality generation but the underlying machinery was left unexplained. I also linked this idea to Tegmark Level IV multiverse[1]. But I guess this only defers the embodiment implementation to "somewhere else" as in "turtles all the way down" [1] http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Jan 28 03:41:05 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:41:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> References: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> Message-ID: <004b01ccdd6e$aa50b9e0$fef22da0$@cc> Anders wrote: On 27/01/2012 13:38, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >>I don't understand this. Life is computation. Thought is computation. >How do you *know* this? >Suppose I said life and thought was electricity. I would point at cells >and neurons having ion channels and electrical potentials essential for >their function. But I think you would not be convinced that that was a >proper definition of life. This resonates with me, as does Margulis and Sagan's "transmutation of energy and matter" and Greg Fahy's summation of "[t]he final most stable state of biomolecules at the end of all possible degradation is, for the most part, carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen gas or nitrogen compounds, and sulfur compounds, with inorganic and trace amounts of organic minerals". >Generally, I think ontological questions tend to be a waste of time. It >is better to try to see if one can replicate various aspects and levels >of systems, learning more about them in the process. Humm. Yes. Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Chairman, Humanity+ Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Jan 28 04:02:36 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:02:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <004f01ccdd71$ac259990$0470ccb0$@cc> On 27 January 2012 07:57, Giulio Prisco wrote: "I like to think that those who want to stay in organic bodies will be free to do so, those who want to upload to robotic bodies will be free to do so, and those who want to migrate to synthetic scapes will be free to do so (the flesher, gleaners and polices scenario in Egan's Diaspora). But history shows that there are always fundamentalist zealots, persuaded that their way is The Way, who want to force others to follow them, and therefore I am afraid things will not be so clean and simple." I think we have pretty much squelch disembodiment. I enjoyed reading Mike Dougherty's post, which was refreshing. Max and I have been discussing disembodiment for many months now, approaching it from different angles and disembodiment is not logical. I was talking with artist Sonja Baumel today and the physical/corporeal body and its relationship with time and space, and the molecules of bacterium and their architectural formations. http://imaginesciencefilms.com/2011/09/invisible/ It is quite different from Stelarc's work that he calls embodied, but it seems be a Cartesian approach. Giulio, I agree with you that persons ought to do what they are comfortable with and exist in whatever substrate they select. The idea of embodiment has a multitude of possibilities, my Primo Posthuman prototype is just one. That we can be a substrate-independent mind is a powerful notion the most fascinating and exciting idea around because it is deeply connected to our life expansion, and not a theoretical puzzle, such as many worlds and simulation arguments (Derrida). Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Chairman, Humanity+ Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 04:16:23 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:16:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Another step towards "real" nanotech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Mike, Steady progress. New discoveries are exciting and all, but steady progress is the meat and potatoes. And whipping those unruly nanotubes into uniform legions of actual nano-components,... I'm impressed. Pleased more than impressed, really. Knew it was coming. Just had to wait,... patiently. And here it is. Bingo, I'm pleased. What's next? Okay, well maybe it's not all that big. Nano worship? Maybe a little of that, too. Wish it was a mechanism with moving parts, and not just an electronic component. jeff On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 4:46 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: >> Free full text available online at: >> http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/23/6/065304/article. >> >> Title: Automated nanomanipulation for nanodevice construction >> >> Note the summarizing sentence3 at the end of the abstract: >> >> "This technology represents a seamless integration of wafer-scale >> microfabrication and automated nanorobotic manipulation for producing >> nano-FET sensors with consistent response across devices." > > I know it's great ('n all) - but could you explain why I should be > more excited about it? > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 10:13:30 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:13:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> References: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 28 January 2012 00:18, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 27/01/2012 13:38, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >> >thought is computation. > > How do you *know* this? I think it is fair to say that thought is computation by definition. In other words, I am inclined to call "thought" the computations performed by organic brains, and not, for instance, the releases of hormones they may operate. Another issue is whether life (or, for that matter, everything) is computation. I think this is simply the perspective dictated by our current paradigm, same as the ones that used to see the universe as a mechanical device or the playground of preternatural forces. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 09:58:05 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:58:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] latest kepler results: there are loooots of planets out there In-Reply-To: <00d601ccdd50$02073250$061596f0$@att.net> References: <00d601ccdd50$02073250$061596f0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/28 spike : > This makes the Fermi Paradox all the more puzzling: > > http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/27/alien-worlds-abound-nasa-scope-finds-26-alien-planets/ Planets are becoming boring. :-) -- Stefano Vaj From eugen at leitl.org Sat Jan 28 11:18:01 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:18:01 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <20120128111801.GI7343@leitl.org> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:49:04PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote: > One Egan's novel where intelligence seems actually disembodied is > Permutation City. Unfortunately, most of Egan's scenarios are incompatible with current knowledge of physics, with some having even more serious problems (e.g. dust). Hence most of Egan fills me with disappointment, since I cannot engage sufficient suspension of disbelief. From eugen at leitl.org Sat Jan 28 12:04:12 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:04:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] latest kepler results: there are loooots of planets out there In-Reply-To: <00d601ccdd50$02073250$061596f0$@att.net> References: <00d601ccdd50$02073250$061596f0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20120128120412.GM7343@leitl.org> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 04:01:37PM -0800, spike wrote: > This makes the Fermi Paradox all the more puzzling: > > > > http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/27/alien-worlds-abound-nasa-scope-finds-26-alien-planets/ It doesn't at all, since it gives you no data on even how common primitive life is, nevermind how rare expansive life is (notice we haven't even starting expanding yet, though we're tantalizingly close). That circumstellar orbiting rocks are common enough is not that surprising. It would be interesting to speculate how the local effects of retrocausal boundary condition of a future Omega point would look like. Would it be something like an increasingly heavy bias on what should be random events, or something weirder still? It's too bad Omega point as formulated so far is bunk. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 12:21:11 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:21:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <20120128111801.GI7343@leitl.org> References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> <20120128111801.GI7343@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 28 January 2012 12:18, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Hence most of Egan fills me with disappointment, since > I cannot engage sufficient suspension of disbelief. Yes, especially Quarantine, but compare that with Ursula K. Le Guin, and Egan becomes all the more engaging... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Jan 28 14:51:50 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:51:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327762310.6110.YahooMailClassic@web114401.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Anders wrote: On 27/01/2012 13:38, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >>I don't understand this. Life is computation. Thought is computation. >How do you *know* this? I don't *know* this (I'm not religous), I deduce it. >Suppose I said life and thought was electricity. I would point at cells >and neurons having ion channels and electrical potentials essential for >their function. Then I would say you are probably wrong, and point to examples of life that don't use electricity. Then you would point out that Ah, they DO use electricity, as electrons are moving from place to place (also protons, which is another arguable definition of electricity). Then I would say, well duh, in that case, /everything/ is electricity, not just life, because electrons are constantly moving around. I would argue, though, that electricity is computation. This is just as valid, and just as true, as saying that the translation of genes into proteins is a form of computation, and the processing of information in a brain is computation. Whenever a probability-cloud of negative charge is to be found in one place rather than another, that can be seen as the result of a computation. I'm not saying that computation is a definition of life and thought, but that life and thought consist of computation, as do many other things. Obviously the computation must be of a certain kind. The movement of celestial bodies doesn't (probably) constitute life or thought, although it is a form of computation. There are only five kinds of things (afaik): Space, Time, Matter, Energy and Information. Some people would reduce that to three things: Space/Time, Matter/Energy, and Information. Computation, in its broadest sense, is the rearrangement of matter/energy in space/time, according to informational patterns. Hence my assertion that /everything/ is computation. Anything that is of the slightest interest is a computational machine, and possibly everything, period. Anyway, to go back to the topic, my contribution is to observe that there is not, and cannot be, such a thing as 'disembodiment', only different-embodiments. If you upload into a computer core and exist purely as software, you are not 'disembodied'. The computation which is your mind is just as embodied in a computer as it is in a two-pound lump of cholesterol and water. Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Jan 28 14:56:28 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:56:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327762588.33464.YahooMailClassic@web114419.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Eugen Leitl declared: > On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:49:04PM +0100, Stefano Vaj > wrote: > > > One Egan's novel where intelligence seems actually > disembodied is > > Permutation City. > > Unfortunately, most of Egan's scenarios are incompatible > with current knowledge of physics, with some having even > more serious problems (e.g. dust). > > Hence most of Egan fills me with disappointment, since > I cannot engage sufficient suspension of disbelief. To be fair, though, this is fiction. The function of fiction is to inspire, not to thrash out the nitty-gritty of real-world problems. I'm sure there are practical problems with his vision of a galactic network of routers, where people travel as gamma ray laser beams over thousands of years. But isn't it *inspiring*? Ben Zaiboc From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 28 15:33:29 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:33:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] latest kepler results: there are loooots of planets out there In-Reply-To: References: <00d601ccdd50$02073250$061596f0$@att.net> Message-ID: <013c01ccddd2$2fbedd10$8f3c9730$@att.net> 2012/1/28 spike : >> This makes the Fermi Paradox all the more puzzling: > >> http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/27/alien-worlds-abound-nasa-scope-fin ds-26-alien-planets/ >...Planets are becoming boring. :-) -- Stefano Vaj Not to me. {8-] spike From eugen at leitl.org Sat Jan 28 15:53:32 2012 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:53:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <1327762588.33464.YahooMailClassic@web114419.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327762588.33464.YahooMailClassic@web114419.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120128155332.GW7343@leitl.org> On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 06:56:28AM -0800, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Eugen Leitl declared: > > > On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:49:04PM +0100, Stefano Vaj > > wrote: > > > > > One Egan's novel where intelligence seems actually > > disembodied is > > > Permutation City. > > > > Unfortunately, most of Egan's scenarios are incompatible > > with current knowledge of physics, with some having even > > more serious problems (e.g. dust). > > > > Hence most of Egan fills me with disappointment, since > > I cannot engage sufficient suspension of disbelief. > > > To be fair, though, this is fiction. The function of Pedagogical fiction, only slightly less so than Vinge's. > fiction is to inspire, not to thrash out the nitty-gritty of real-world problems. I have no problems with suspension of disbelief in fantasy, but if I see something obviously impossible in science fiction it's just jarring (call it uncanny fiction valley, if you wish). Like obviously fake physics in Hollywood, it disrupts one's enjoyment of the ride. There's very little novelty in Egan to any seasoned transhumanist, but it's certainly good to see this pushed out to the wider muggle audience. Albeit this can backfire, it's hard to explain feasibility of machine-phase to those already exposed to a Hollywood version of it via science fiction movies. Once misclassified, it's an uphill battle. > I'm sure there are practical problems with his vision of a > galactic network of routers, where people travel as gamma > ray laser beams over thousands of years. No, that part is straightforward. Wouldn't do it with gamma, though, longer-wavelength are more practical. Purely photonical routing is actually closer than most people think ftp://chacha.hpcl.titech.ac.jp/IEEE-ST.ppt We have InterPlaNet (DTN), NASA is experimenting with line of sight laser signalling to augment its deep space network so we'll get a system of optical line of sight relays in this solar system soon enough. > But isn't it *inspiring*? Not really. I found the impossibility of dust a harder nut to crack. We know Hash Life works (though I'm not sure what the simulation-internal observer would see, that would take some simulated signal tracing), why doesn't dust work? From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Jan 28 14:10:05 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:10:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> Message-ID: <000001ccddc6$896ce520$9c46af60$@cc> On 28 January 2012 00:18, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 27/01/2012 13:38, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >>thought is computation. > > How do you *know* this? Stefano replied: "I think it is fair to say that thought is computation by definition. In other words, I am inclined to call "thought" the computations performed by organic brains, and not, for instance, the releases of hormones they may operate. "Another issue is whether life (or, for that matter, everything) is computation. Marguis seemed to think it is, as did La Mettrie (1747), Fedorov (1828-1903), Finot (1856-1922). "I think this is simply the perspective dictated by our current paradigm, same as the ones that used to see the universe as a mechanical device or the playground of preternatural forces." Good point. Natasha From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 17:34:56 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:34:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <000001ccddc6$896ce520$9c46af60$@cc> References: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> <000001ccddc6$896ce520$9c46af60$@cc> Message-ID: On 28 January 2012 15:10, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > "Another issue is whether life (or, for that matter, everything) is > computation. > > Marguis seemed to think it is, as did La Mettrie (1747), Fedorov > (1828-1903), Finot (1856-1922). > Yes, this goes back after a fashion more than we usually think, My most immediate references were in fact Wolfran and Seth Lloyd, but I think that Turing himself philosophised on the subject, or did he? -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 17:36:00 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:36:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Another step towards "real" nanotech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:16 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > Mike, > > Steady progress. ?New discoveries are exciting and all, but steady > progress is the meat and potatoes. ?And whipping those unruly > nanotubes into uniform legions of actual nano-components,... I'm > impressed. ?Pleased more than impressed, really. ?Knew it was coming. > Just had to wait,... patiently. ?And here it is. ?Bingo, I'm pleased. > What's next? ?Okay, well maybe it's not all that big. ?Nano worship? > Maybe a little of that, too. > > Wish it was a mechanism with moving parts, and not just an electronic component. I thought it was cool for the sake of being high-tech. I don't understand the implication of what real-world uses it will bring. Are we talking about a potential computing platform (CPU, etc.) or a new textile (for solar panels, nano-construction, w/e) or a coating to improve the function of other items (possibly also solar panels, or reducing friction on ship hulls, or nonstick coating on cookware/porcelain/etc) I like to see the public announcements of super-cool new tech and imagine where I should be investing in companies that turn those ideas into profitable products - so where do you think this tech is likely to impact the market? (because by the time a product is actually ready to market, the early-investment opportunity has passed) From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 17:54:52 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:54:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Another step towards "real" nanotech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 9:36 AM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > I like to see the public announcements of super-cool new tech and > imagine where I should be investing in companies that turn those ideas > into profitable products - so where do you think this tech is likely > to impact the market? ?(because by the time a product is actually > ready to market, the early-investment opportunity has passed) If you really want to commercialize the tech from this kind of announcement, and you really have (or can get) money to invest, talk to the guys who made it. They're mentioned in the story; a bit of googling should get you their contact info, or at least contact info for the lab they work at (where you can inquire and get their contact info). They will probably have ideas for where it might be useful (not always the best ideas, but it's a starting point from which you can come up with others - easy to make and/or sufficiently high profit margin for the early stages of a new business, which almost always turns out to have higher costs than expected). They will also have the expertise necessary to make the thing - critical for commercializing it, at least until you can get them to teach others by some means. From gsantostasi at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 19:29:26 2012 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:29:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> <000001ccddc6$896ce520$9c46af60$@cc> Message-ID: There is an inherent and maddening inconsistency in people that are resistant to transhumanist ideas. When I discuss these topics with these people they are appalled by the idea that a transhumanist would not mind to have an non biological or cyborg-like body if having this body would extend life and give enhanced capabilities. They seem to be attached to their physical bodies as essential part of their identity (which body is the question because most of these body-luddite would not mind to rejuvenate for example) . At the same time they are against life-extension through a new embodiment in a non biological form because they think somehow that the "soul" would be trapped in a mechanical box (as if the biological box is less of a cage). The same person that argues about the existence of the soul, in fact declaring how fundamental the soul is in terms of its immortality and essential qualities in comparison with the mortal and corruptible flesh, would have a fit in proposing discarding the limited biological body in favor of a more perfected and lasting one. If the soul is more fundamental, if the soul leaves the body behind why so much attachment to which form or material the body would have? This apparent contradiction can be resolved by realizing that this cognitive approach, this world view is highly "disembodied" (in terms of what has been discussed in this thread). At first it seems that in this cognitive attitude (that is but away, in different variants the most commonly adopted by people) the body is very important per se and preserving the biological form is essential because it is somehow the most natural way for the soul to express itself in the material world. But notice how the body is in this way a subordinate to the soul, it is an external manifestation of the immaterial, incorruptible soul, that has in fact a shape and a form but is not in itself embodied. It uses a body but it is not the body. The resistance to the idea of changing radically the nature of the body, making more powerful, less limited, more resistance and durable, in fact more changeable, more expressive and communicative gives the expression to the biological-body luddite that the body would not need a soul anymore, in effect unifying the soul and the body. And this why transhumanism becomes a threat for anybody that believes in a soul. Transhumanism liberates from the dichotomy of body and soul making the soul the body and the body the soul. It is not a fixed body, it can change, transform in radical ways, but it does in a way that is under control of the individual, it can be plasmed and improved to embody, literally, in a more directed way the essence of the individual in a way that a biological body cannot do. And in being able to extend the life of the individual indefinitely a non-biological transhumanist body has also the other fundamental characteristic of the soul, its immortality. It is not an immortality in a ethereal other word, but it lives in the material world and on the way of transcending its limitations as a limited life span, disease, pain. So my answer is that transhumanism is more embodied than the alternative world view because the emphasis is in expressing individuality and existence through a body, not a particular one but one that is changing, transforming, adapting whatever form, material, shape is useful or necessary. But then the body is the object and the subject at the same time. The transhumanism vision in freeing us from a biological body allows the mind to transform the body to express itself more directly, powerfully and freely and the body being more free and less limited influence and inform the mind with new diverse and capable senses, possibilities and ranges of experiences. Transhumanism then really frees us from the Cartesian dichotomy, not just recognizing the body and mind are one (as modern science has already done) but creatively, through technology, making mind and body one and the same. Giovanni 2012/1/28 Stefano Vaj > On 28 January 2012 15:10, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > >> "Another issue is whether life (or, for that matter, everything) is >> computation. >> >> Marguis seemed to think it is, as did La Mettrie (1747), Fedorov >> (1828-1903), Finot (1856-1922). >> > > Yes, this goes back after a fashion more than we usually think, > > My most immediate references were in fact Wolfran and Seth Lloyd, but I > think that Turing himself philosophised on the subject, or did he? > > -- > Stefano Vaj > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 02:04:50 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:04:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <004f01ccdd71$ac259990$0470ccb0$@cc> References: <20120120183207.dyb2mvrgg4844scg@webmail.natasha.cc> <004f01ccdd71$ac259990$0470ccb0$@cc> Message-ID: 2012/1/27 Natasha Vita-More : > Giulio, I agree with you that persons ought to do what they are comfortable > with and exist in whatever substrate they select. The idea of embodiment has > a multitude of possibilities, my Primo Posthuman prototype is just one. That > we can be a substrate-independent mind is a powerful notion the most > fascinating and exciting idea around because it is deeply connected to our > life expansion, and not a theoretical puzzle, such as many worlds and > simulation arguments (Derrida). Prior to reading your thoughts on the sensual nature of our native flesh I hadn't considered the inherent value of our as-is systems in light of all the trashumanist marketing for the to-be state of "upload" (either robotic or mostly-sim). This got me thinking about the difference between a well-proven classic, either restored or enhanced to the ideal, and a first-generation robot body. I know the details will improve over time. Perhaps the early adopters will be those with failing bodies who have no other recourse. But what of those who are ready to leave an otherwise good-enough biological body to take up a literal new lease on life as non-biological version of themselves? Do they 'donate' their old residence either in parts or as a ready-to-inhabit machine itself? The organ donor program is well within the acceptable norm of our society - but how far must mainstream imagination stretch to understand that once we have the ability to leave biological bodies we will likely have the ability to enter and re-enter them? (thanks Keith for reminding us of this point every time the discussion appears to forget it) So where will we be when up/down operations are ubiquitous as the daily commute? I imagine I would have little use for actuating a keyboard while sitting in a cube for 8 hours. After I'm finished exchanging my time/mental energy/focus with my employer for money to live, I am no more interested in "going to the gym" than I am now. It would seem that if I can afford it, I would hire a personal trainer to perform the maintenance on my 'person' while I'm not using it. If that seems perhaps too personal, consider that I take my car to a mechanic because they ostensibly enjoy that work. Similarly, there are those who seem to enjoy the gym - so I'd pay them for doing what I consider work. But then back to embodiment... Whether my thoughts are computed in a flesh brain, a silicon brain emulation, or some yet-inconceivable form, are they influenced by the substrate? I say yes, of course. That's not a problem though. By analogy: I wear sneakers pretty much everywhere. I don't really pay much attention to shoes most of the time. Obviously there are some events with a dress code that make sneakers unacceptable - that's a social convention that makes the shoe decision for me. While I can go hiking in sneakers, they really aren't ideal for the terrain - that's a decision based on using the right tool for the job. The type of shoe is influenced and influences the type of walking one may do. For the sake of argument, I expect thought-computing substrates may be changed as easily as shoes. Decision-making about which is appropriate for the occasion may be by etiquette or utility or a personal style preference. Are any of these factors enough to determine a person's identity? Perhaps no more than what shoes they are wearing. It'll be interesting to see how language adapts. I'd say this was a "no brainer" but at some point that might refer to a protected class of non-resident persons-at-idle. (which must not be confused with persons-at-idol, but that's another topic) From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 16:53:52 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:53:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: katherine hayles Date: Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 5:34 AM Subject: Re: folks seeking clarification of your "disembodied" To: Jeff Davis Dear Jeff Davis, Anders, Natasha and others, I am not sure where folks got the idea that I think humans are disembodied.? Indeed, the thrust of my argument in "How We Became Posthuman" is to insist that humans are embodied, as are machines also, for that matter, although in very different ways than humans.? From my point of view, embodiment--the neocortex, central nervous system, peripheral nervous system, viscera, endocrine system, flesh in general--is the ground for human being.? I wrote "Posthuman" specifically to combat the fantasy that I found in Hans Moravec and other transhumanists that it would be possible to transfer human subjectivity, perceived as an informational pattern, into a computer without losing anything essential.? This view sees information as disembodied and reduces the enormous complexity of human embodiment only to an informational pattern.? Because it is a pattern, this reasoning goes, it can be duplicated in another substrate without any significant loss.? This view, I think, is profoundly mistaken on several counts.? I would be sad if anyone is under the illusion that I support this view.?? I think the transhumanists have some things right, in particular, that human-machine cognitions are already entwined in developed countries and will become more so as the 21st century progresses.? But this won't be because humans will leave their bodies behind.? My new book, "How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis," explores this idea in depth and tries to sort out its implications.? Thanks for your message, Jeff; I hope the explanation above clears up things a bit.? Katherine Hayles From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 17:57:34 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:57:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 29 January 2012 17:53, Jeff Davis wrote: > I wrote "Posthuman" specifically to combat the fantasy that I found in > Hans Moravec and other transhumanists that it would be possible to > transfer human subjectivity, perceived as an informational pattern, > into a computer without losing anything essential. This view sees > information as disembodied and reduces the enormous complexity of > human embodiment only to an informational pattern. > Mmhhh. This sounds as a petition of principle, as long as the loss remains ineffable, and arguments are not made explicit as to why what is lost should be considered as "essential" (to whom? for what purpose?). *Of course* information processing needs to be embodied in a substrate. Of course, discarding and/or replacing this substrate implies a "loss" of the relevant components. But the reason why Ulysses in the Hades recognises the shadow of Tiresias as Tiresias, and the reason why I am recognised by my acquaintances in spite of the progressive, and at some point total, replacement of my bodily atoms as being myself, is because human subjectivity is exactly perceived as an informational pattern, which is abstracted from the "underlying complexity". Accordingly, when any Tom, Dick and Harry will be "cheated" well enough about the fact that a computer is (inhabited by the soul of) their respective wife, the computer will *be* their amputee wife for all practical and epistemological purposes, nothing else being there that could define "human subjectivity" in non-metaphysical terms. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 30 09:43:08 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:43:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment Message-ID: <20120130044308.twwl4mleck400c4s@webmail.natasha.cc> I would have preferred that anyone forwarding my post or interpretation of views would have asked me first. Apparently Hayles misunderstands my original post on this list or was not given it in a way that corresponds with my reason for creating the thread. I did not say or assume that Hayles things humans are disembodied. I said that she thinks transhumanists support disembodiment. Anyway, now that this has been done, let me respond to this list and I will email her and explain. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Katherine Hayles Date: Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 5:34 AM Subject: Re: folks seeking clarification of your "disembodied" To: Jeff Davis "Dear Jeff Davis, Anders, Natasha and others, I am not sure where folks got the idea that I think humans are disembodied." I never said this and I do not think this. I wrote that she thinks transhumanists support disembodiment because of her interpretation of Moravec. As this thread has shown, disembodiement is the accurate interpretion of the transhumanist view. This is why I authored the thread. Natasha From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Jan 30 14:50:10 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:50:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327935010.25155.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Jeff Davis forwarded: > I wrote "Posthuman" specifically to combat the fantasy that I found in > Hans Moravec and other transhumanists that it would be possible to > transfer human subjectivity, perceived as an informational pattern, > into a computer without losing anything essential. OK, ignoring that assumption of 'fantasy', what, exactly, is essential that would be lost in such a transfer? It's all very well to talk about 'something essential', but you have to actually say /what/ this essential something is, or there is no argument. > This view sees > information as disembodied and No, it doesn't. Nobody is claiming that any information is or can be, disembodied. The idea is to take the information that is embodied in one form, and embody it in another. Even during the transfer of information, it is embodied, as electrons, photons, magnetic domains, whatever. Information is *always* embodied, or it ceases to exist. Has the information in a book, when scanned into a computer and turned into a digital file, become disembodied? Has something essential been lost in this process? > reduces the enormous complexity of > human embodiment only to an informational pattern. *Only* an informational pattern?! This phrasing implies that there is something somehow inferior about informational patterns. Inferior to what, I wonder? A more accurate rewrite of that might be: "This view sees information as fundamental, and faces the challenge presented by the enormous complexity that is the informational pattern of human embodiment". Think about the word itself: Inform-ation. It lies behind everything. All meaning, all perception, all experience, all structure, it's all information. If there is anything else to these things, I'd like to know about it. Space/Time, Matter/Energy, and Information. That's all there is. So if anything in existence can't be boiled down to these elements, it doesn't exist (or our understanding of the world - and thus the underpinning of all science - is waaaay off). > Because it is a > pattern, this reasoning goes, it can be duplicated in another > substrate without any significant loss. In theory. We all understand that practice doesn't always follow theory as well as we'd like. There will undoubtedly be challenges in achieving the fidelity of duplication that will be necessary to fully reproduce a person's mind. We currently don't even know what level of detail will be needed. > This view, I think, is > profoundly mistaken on several counts. ...? Which are? Ben Zaiboc From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 30 16:22:29 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:22:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] avengers aren't human? Message-ID: <003e01ccdf6b$64ba2fc0$2e2e8f40$@att.net> Whaaaaat? Oh this is such an outrage. Dolls are taxed at 12 percent. Toys are taxed at 6.8. I demand a 5.2 percent refund on my companion. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/30/x-men-arent-human-us-govt-says-but -hulk-is/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 21:47:30 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:47:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] avengers aren't human? In-Reply-To: <003e01ccdf6b$64ba2fc0$2e2e8f40$@att.net> References: <003e01ccdf6b$64ba2fc0$2e2e8f40$@att.net> Message-ID: 2012/1/30 spike : > Whaaaaat?? Oh this is such an outrage. ?Dolls are taxed at 12 percent.? Toys > are taxed at 6.8.? I demand a 5.2 percent refund on my companion. > > http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/30/x-men-arent-human-us-govt-says-but-hulk-is/ I hope this ruling isn't some day used as a precedent for denying genetically modified humans their human rights. That would suck. -Kelly From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 22:19:05 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:19:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] avengers aren't human? In-Reply-To: References: <003e01ccdf6b$64ba2fc0$2e2e8f40$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > 2012/1/30 spike : >> Whaaaaat?? Oh this is such an outrage. ?Dolls are taxed at 12 percent.? Toys >> are taxed at 6.8.? I demand a 5.2 percent refund on my companion. >> >> http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/30/x-men-arent-human-us-govt-says-but-hulk-is/ > > I hope this ruling isn't some day used as a precedent for denying > genetically modified humans their human rights. That would suck. The gist of it seems to be, these figures depict figures that are (in many cases, obviously) not potentially representative of any actual human being. If and when genetically modified humans come into being which look like these figures and are capable of the same feats as the fictional characters, the logic behind the ruling - and thus, potentially the ruling itself - would be overturned. Similarly, prior to 2008, anyone could argue that a figure depicting a black US president was obviously fictitious, and (barring substantial other circumstances) not possibly a reference to any given individual, past or present. That is no longer the case. From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 01:55:24 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:55:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <1327935010.25155.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327935010.25155.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:50 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Jeff Davis forwarded: > >> I wrote "Posthuman" specifically to combat the fantasy that I found in >> Hans Moravec and other transhumanists that it would be possible to >> transfer human subjectivity, perceived as an informational pattern, >> into a computer without losing anything essential. > > OK, ignoring that assumption of 'fantasy', what, exactly, is essential that would be lost in such a transfer? ?It's all very well to talk about 'something essential', but you have to actually say /what/ this essential something is, or there is no argument. What is essential to me may not be essential to you. This could be very tricky to resolve. For example, suppose I consider blue eyes an essential part of my identity. For whatever reason I decide to start taking the eyelash-increasing drug Latisse. Also suppose that I am ignorant of the side effects and instead focus solely on having more eyelashes. After I have successfully grown twice the number of eyelashes as I had started with, I notice my eyes are evidently brown(ish). Is there some essence lost? Maybe, or maybe I am not concerned with the loss of this part of my identity compared with the benefits of more eyelashes. Either way, I don't know why anyone would seek out the side effect of a glaucoma treatment - has anyone ever said, "They'd be really attractive if only they had more eyelashes"? I also wonder about the essential parts of emotional reaction to situations. If during a depression one decides to selectively edit / remove the ability to feel depressed (seems like a good idea, right?) then later realizes that the creative introspection that came with the depressed state is also no longer accessible, what is lost? I think about those early adopters who initially report that everything is fine and encourage others to jump in the pool... only to realize later that the long-term (and effectively infinite would certainly qualify for long-term) effect of disembodiment is a literal lack of connection with embodied community. It may be no different than moving to another city and losing the immediate access to your friends but it still qualifies as a sense of loss. If restoration to flesh is not possible, then the one-way trip might induce a buyers' remorse that is not easily shaken. Perhaps the choice for what to keep and what to leave behind is simple, but if you've ever forgotten to pack your toothbrush to go away overnight you can understand the fear of "losing" something. Imagine the horror of reaching the post-uploaded state without the equivalent of your toothbrush, especially if you can't just buy one at the convenience center because the convenience center hasn't been built by the nerds overseeing the upload process. Well maybe we can just edit out one's sense of embarrassment too... no problem; solid-state human patterns won't retain any of those social customs/taboos, right? From amon at doctrinezero.com Tue Jan 31 08:50:49 2012 From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:50:49 +0000 Subject: [ExI] avengers aren't human? In-Reply-To: References: <003e01ccdf6b$64ba2fc0$2e2e8f40$@att.net> Message-ID: On 30 January 2012 22:19, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > The gist of it seems to be, these figures depict figures that are (in > many cases, obviously) not potentially representative of any actual > human being. To the extent that this isn't about tax revenue, it may simply be about the fact that 8-year-old boys will happily ask their mothers to buy "action figures"... but not so much "dolls"... ;-) - A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 10:45:32 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:45:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <1327935010.25155.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 31 January 2012 02:55, Mike Dougherty wrote: > What is essential to me may not be essential to you. > > This could be very tricky to resolve. No, this is the key which resolves the conundrum of essentialist approaches, as I have been maintaining in a number of writings by saying the identity is not an ontological, but a sociological issue. In fact, nobody doubts of that if we are speaking of, eg, national or cultural identities, but when we consider the identity of the "society of the mind", even many perfectly secular people go all mystical. In fact, one is perfectly free to consider blue eyes the essential part of what defines her identity, but the truth is that almost everybody "recognises" Mr. Jones, including, say, in a Turing test, or after a period long enough for his atoms to have been entirely replaced, after a major amputation, or as a voice whispering during a spiritualist s?ance ("is that Mr. Jones speaking?", says the medium) , *on the basis of a sufficient similarity to previous experiences of Mr. Jones's informational pattern*. So, the fact that, eg, Mr. Jones corpse is not Mr. Jones in spite of keeping his blue eyes, while a computer behaving closely enough to the precedently experienced Mr.s Joneses is likely to be simply considered as Mr. Jones, is not something requiring a theoretical investigation or justification, is simply a conclusion dictated by what "identity" linguistically means to most of us. And we should note that the similarity level required to establish identity is pretty low. Just consider how different a person may become with time, or after a major turn or trauma in life. Yet, the protests "you are not the same person that I married" are pretty rhetorical in nature, since no matter what bodily modifications may have taken place, one does not really consider the modified Mr. Jones as a *really* different person, as long as some basic memories and/or behavioural patterns are maintained. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Tue Jan 31 12:36:49 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:36:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment Message-ID: <1328013409.38691.YahooMailClassic@web114420.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:50 AM, Ben Zaiboc > wrote: > > Jeff Davis > forwarded: > > > >> I wrote "Posthuman" specifically to combat the > fantasy that I found in > >> Hans Moravec and other transhumanists that it would > be possible to > >> transfer human subjectivity, perceived as an > informational pattern, > >> into a computer without losing anything essential. > > > > OK, ignoring that assumption of 'fantasy', what, > exactly, is essential that would be lost in such a transfer? > ?It's all very well to talk about 'something essential', but > you have to actually say /what/ this essential something is, > or there is no argument. > > What is essential to me may not be essential to you. > > This could be very tricky to resolve.? For example, > suppose I consider > blue eyes an essential part of my identity.? For > whatever reason I > decide to start taking the eyelash-increasing drug > Latisse.? Also > suppose that I am ignorant of the side effects and instead > focus > solely on having more eyelashes.? After I have > successfully grown > twice the number of eyelashes as I had started with, I > notice my eyes > are evidently brown(ish).? Is there some essence > lost?? Um, not if you put in blue contact lenses. > > I also wonder about the essential parts of emotional > reaction to > situations.? If during a depression one decides to > selectively edit / > remove the ability to feel depressed (seems like a good > idea, right?) > then later realizes that the creative introspection that > came with the > depressed state is also no longer accessible, what is lost? etc. OK, these are practical concerns, not philosophical ones.? They are addressed by improvements in the relevant technology.? Assuming that an upload can go 'perfectly', and these practical concerns can be easily fixed (analogous to the blue contact lenses example), there should be no theoretical considerations of anything being lost, should there? > ...the long-term (and effectively infinite would certainly qualify for long-term) effect of disembodiment is... Please, not 'disembodiment'. I know you mean 'dis-organic-embodiment', but using the term 'disembodied' for this is just asking people to misunderstand. There's enough confusion over terminology here without adding to it unnecessarily. I think the problem is that people tend to assume 'embody' only refers to the kind of bodies they have now, whereas it can refer to any kind of embodiment, including a virtual body and environment (which is itself necessarily embodied in a physical substrate). The contrast is between a 'natural' and 'synthetic' body, and using the word 'embodiment' to refer to only one of these implies that the other is inherently inferior. I know there are people who assume that a natural body is bound to be superior to a synthetic one, but the great difference between them is that the synthetic one is constantly improving, whereas the natural one isn't (not in any timescale that matters, anyway). So an assumption like that is going to look pretty stupid in a very short time, I think. If we persist in (mis)using the word this way, I'm going to have to claim that I'm currently disembodied, and am hoping for the chance to become properly embodied in a suitable substrate that is vastly superior to a biological 'body'. Ben Zaiboc From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 13:22:26 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:22:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <1328013409.38691.YahooMailClassic@web114420.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1328013409.38691.YahooMailClassic@web114420.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 7:36 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Um, not if you put in blue contact lenses. Is wearing glasses good-enough to be equivalent to natural 20/20 eyesight? If so, are contact lenses better? I'm curious how many add-ons we need use to make everyone equally capable. Not that I have this goal, but as a point of reference. > OK, these are practical concerns, not philosophical ones.? They are addressed by improvements in the relevant technology.? Assuming that an upload can go 'perfectly', and these practical concerns can be easily fixed (analogous to the blue contact lenses example), there should be no theoretical considerations of anything being lost, should there? I am more interested in practical concerns than philosophical ones. If I need to get from New York to London, I only need to know that the plane is guaranteed sufficient safety and reliability to complete the task - there's no point discussing man's inherent right to flight. In the same sense, I would not have been the first to fly over the Atlantic. I appreciate that a more daring adventurer took the risk to establish our new norm. I wonder how many longevity-intentioned transhumans are living similarly risk-averse lifestyles in order to see a farther future. > Please, not 'disembodiment'. ?I know you mean 'dis-organic-embodiment', but using the term 'disembodied' for this is just asking people to misunderstand. ?There's enough confusion over terminology here without adding to it unnecessarily. Understood. I'm not a big fan of that word in the first place. I was using it only because of the subject of this thread. It reeks of Cartesian mind/body distractions. Do you have a more succinct replacement terminology for the set of ideas being discussed here? I'll gladly adopt them instead. > I think the problem is that people tend to assume 'embody' only refers to the kind of bodies they have now, whereas it can refer to any kind of embodiment, including a virtual body and environment (which is itself necessarily embodied in a physical substrate). ?The contrast is between a 'natural' and 'synthetic' body, and using the word 'embodiment' to refer to only one of these implies that the other is inherently inferior. Devil you know... > > I know there are people who assume that a natural body is bound to be superior to a synthetic one, but the great difference between them is that the synthetic one is constantly improving, whereas the natural one isn't (not in any timescale that matters, anyway). So an assumption like that is going to look pretty stupid in a very short time, I think. > > If we persist in (mis)using the word this way, I'm going to have to claim that I'm currently disembodied, and am hoping for the chance to become properly embodied in a suitable substrate that is vastly superior to a biological 'body'. Cool. 'cept that state of being makes it very difficult to go on rides that have a requirement "you must be at least this tall..." From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 13:10:26 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:10:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: <1327935010.25155.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2012/1/31 Stefano Vaj : > So, the fact that, eg, Mr. Jones corpse is not Mr. Jones in spite of keeping > his blue eyes, while a computer behaving closely enough to the precedently > experienced Mr.s Joneses is likely to be simply considered as Mr. Jones, is > not something requiring a theoretical investigation or justification, is > simply a conclusion dictated by what "identity" linguistically means to most > of us. identity, disembodied, transhuman <-- they're all just words aren't they? What I understand those terms to mean are grounded in my lifetime and any similarity in nuance to your own definition is likely related by the degree to which we have some similar histories. > And we should note that the similarity level required to establish identity > is pretty low. Just consider how different a person may become with time, or > after a major turn or trauma in life. Yet, the protests "you are not the > same person that I married" are pretty rhetorical in nature, since no matter > what bodily modifications may have taken place, one does not really consider > the modified Mr. Jones as a *really* different person, as long as some basic > memories and/or? behavioural patterns are maintained. 100% agreed. If not for the "from" address of most of the emails on this list I would have a very difficult time keeping any of your personality signatures distinct in my mind. I think it's already happening that individuals enter into conflicts with "the internet" because it's easier than facing the millions of others out there as equals. Consider the number of possible permutations of 140 character tweets. Remove from that total the number of non-communicative gibberish and examine only the gibberish that remains. That's what passes as communication these days. :) 'makes me love this list that much more. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 15:53:00 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:53:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > > Jeff Davis forwarded: > >> I wrote "Posthuman" specifically to combat the fantasy that I found in >> Hans Moravec and other transhumanists that it would be possible to >> transfer human subjectivity, perceived as an informational pattern, >> into a computer without losing anything essential. > > OK, ignoring that assumption of 'fantasy', what, exactly, is essential that would be lost in such a transfer? ?It's all very well to talk about 'something essential', but you have to actually say /what/ this essential something is, or there is no argument. I have argued (and nobody has expressed an objection) that the upload/download process should be completely reversible. In fact I would not want to try it before that point. :-) >> This view sees >> information as disembodied and > > No, it doesn't. ?Nobody is claiming that any information is or can be, disembodied. ?The idea is to take the information that is embodied in one form, and embody it in another. ?Even during the transfer of information, it is embodied, as electrons, photons, magnetic domains, whatever. ?Information is *always* embodied, or it ceases to exist. Exactly so to the limits of our knowledge. Keith From gsantostasi at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 17:06:07 2012 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:06:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Natasha has pointed out at this already but I want to emphasize how fundamental is what the new embodiment would have access to experientialy and how the new embodiment would be perceived by other agents. The body per se, in whatever form, is not much meaningful if one doesn't consider its relationship with the environment real or artificial. In fiction a ghost has certain abilities as being able to go through walls but it looses others as the capability to interact with objects fully (sometime you are able to open cabinets and tilt pictures on the wall, ; ) ). This new embodiment is less satisfactory than a real body even with the enhanced ability of going through walls. So it is understood as a frustrating "disembodiment" even when the ghost has similar appearance (when occasionally seen by a psychic lets say) than the original living person. It seems fundamental not just how the new embodiment processes information, or its internal pattern of information but also which information can receive and how then the new body can act back into the environment and into itself (self modification and feedback). Of course it is also important how the new embodiment is perceived by the other agents in the world (real or virtual). Aesthetic, social signals of different kinds (is the new embodiment threatening, pleasant, visible, invisible to the usual senses) need to be considered to determine what is the impact of a different kind of embodiment on the sense of identity as it is understood by the self and others. Giovanni On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 9:53 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > > > > Jeff Davis forwarded: > > > >> I wrote "Posthuman" specifically to combat the fantasy that I found in > >> Hans Moravec and other transhumanists that it would be possible to > >> transfer human subjectivity, perceived as an informational pattern, > >> into a computer without losing anything essential. > > > > OK, ignoring that assumption of 'fantasy', what, exactly, is essential > that would be lost in such a transfer? It's all very well to talk about > 'something essential', but you have to actually say /what/ this essential > something is, or there is no argument. > > I have argued (and nobody has expressed an objection) that the > upload/download process should be completely reversible. > > In fact I would not want to try it before that point. :-) > > >> This view sees > >> information as disembodied and > > > > No, it doesn't. Nobody is claiming that any information is or can be, > disembodied. The idea is to take the information that is embodied in one > form, and embody it in another. Even during the transfer of information, > it is embodied, as electrons, photons, magnetic domains, whatever. > Information is *always* embodied, or it ceases to exist. > > Exactly so to the limits of our knowledge. > > Keith > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 23:23:29 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:23:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Wrestling with Embodiment In-Reply-To: <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> References: <1327671520.46560.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F2330C6.3050404@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 4:18 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 27/01/2012 13:38, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >> I don't understand this. Life is computation. Thought is computation. > > How do you *know* this? Nobody knows anything... but Descartes had a thing or two to say about this particular theory of existence. I figure Descartes is a little smarter than I am... -Kelly