From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Apr 1 19:29:57 2018
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 12:29:57 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ Essay Prize:
Message-ID: <003c01d3c9ef$d21f7500$765e5f00$@natasha.cc>
Humanity+ Essay Prize 2018 on the
"Mutual Benefits of Blockchain and Transhumanism"
GENERAL INFORMATION
1. Entries are welcome from authors anywhere in the world.
2. There is no cost to enter an Essay.
3. Essays are limited to one essay per author.
4. Deadline for submitting is June 23, 2018.
HOW TO ENTER
5. Submitting entries via email is required: essay at humanityplus.org.
6. Entries should be either PDFs or Word documents.
7. Entries must have a title page, sources cited in text and referenced
and all tables, figures must be numbered.
8. The author's name must not appear in the document or in the name of
the digital file because judging is conducted blind.
9. Entrants will receive automatic confirmation of receipt to the email
address used when entering.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
10. Essays must be written in English.
11. Essays must be original works authored by original author or authors.
12. Essays must not infringe on copyright protection of another author or
publication.
13. Essays that are deemed to be plagiarism will be disqualified.
ELIGIBILITY DECLARATION
All authors must agree to the following declaration:
14. I declare that this essay is the author(s) own work. Portions of the
essay may have been previously published, but 75% is original writing. This
essay will not be published elsewhere until the announcement of the Final
Winner, on October 19, 2018.
PRIZES
15. Three runner-up essays receive $1,000.00 each and will be announced at
the Humanity+ @ Beijing, China Conference opening reception on July 14,
2018.
16. Final selection of the Winning Essay receives $5,000.00 and will be
announced at the TransVision 2018 Conference in Madrid, Spain on October 19,
2018.
JUDGING PROCESS
17. Seven Judges will be selected by the Board: three from Humanity+ full
members, two Board members, and two Advisory members.
18. Each Judge will have one vote.
Dr. Natasha Vita-More
Professor, Graduate and Undergraduate Departments,
UAT
Executive Director, Humanity+, Inc.
Author and Co-Editor:
The Transhumanist Reader
Lead Science Researcher:
Memory Project
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From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Apr 2 01:57:49 2018
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 20:57:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] resurrection
Message-ID:
Read today:
"The evangelicals wouldn't vote for a resurrected Jesus if he ran as a
Democrat."
billw
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From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 2 03:26:59 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 20:26:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
Message-ID: <003601d3ca32$766bace0$634306a0$@rainier66.com>
Recall about 4 yrs ago when I tested the theory that perhaps ants engaged in
intra-species combat would not bite or sting (some types of ants can do
both.) My reasoning was that bees will not sting when they are in the
process of swarming (they are single-minded beasts, with a job (find a new
place to build a hive.)) I reasoned that ants in battle have a job: find
some bitch from the other colony and fight. Perhaps they would not bite,
nor could even be compelled to do so.
Back then, I verified my notion: I scooped a bunch of warring ants into my
hand, never could get them to bite.
This evening right at dusk, I noticed there was another battle, right about
where a similar war took place last year and the year before, but this time
it was late in the day. Bees are more likely to sting at the end of the
day. They don't fly in the dark, but they crawl until they find something
to sting. So. I reasoned that since bees and ants evolved from a common
ancestor, perhaps ants could be compelled to sting at dusk, just as bees
seem determined to do if they can.
So I tried it this evening at dusk and discovered the answer: ants won't
bite even at dusk if they are involved in battle.
Or rather these won't, apparently.
So here's what I still don't know: will other species of ants behave
likewise? Some species of ants have both a sting and a bite. As far as I
can tell these ants shown have only a bite, and even that seems a bit
half-hearted, never eagerly engaged upon (you hafta hassle these gals a bit
to get them to chomp down on you.) But. the good old Florida fire ant is
what I don't know about. Those bitches will also go to war, but they don't
seem to go at it like these local black pismires. On the other hand, they
are aggressive as all get out, and will bite and sting eagerly. If I
scooped a handful while they were warring, would they sting but not bite?
They could maintain a mandible lock on an opponent and sting at the same
time perhaps? Or perhaps they need to bite in order to sting? They need to
hang on to something in order to drive in the stinger.
In any case it gives me an idea: perhaps if we could somehow figure out what
chemical pheromone ants use to tell each other to go to war would be a way
to make them harmless?
spike
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From rocket at earthlight.com Mon Apr 2 18:43:37 2018
From: rocket at earthlight.com (Re Rose)
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2018 14:43:37 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
Message-ID:
"The only way we'll know for sure that any Cryonics procedure works is when
we
successfully revive somebody"
Actually I'm not sure that will be helpful in all cases. I imagine a
scenario where a backup copy is uploaded to a host. Upon reanimation it
will be completely convinced its consciouness is as the person who was
uploaded. Why shouldn't it be? IMHO, the only individual who will even be
able to know if the copy is in fact "you" will be you - a copy will not be
able to tell. Not even your friends or partners can say if its you. They
may be convinced it is you. Only your subjective, internal experience will
allow you to be sure if it is you, and that agent will not be able to
convince anyone else (including copies) of that.
--Regina
> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 2:08 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote:
>
> > https://turingchurch.net/cryonics-for-uploaders-
> discussion-video-1f59e77b3aa9
>
>
> Thanks for the link Giulio that was interesting, especially Kenneth
> Hayworth's comment that in his opinion preserving the brain connectome
> would be good enough for uploading and infusing glutaraldehyde would help
> in allowing you to evenly distribute cryoprotectant better; but his idea
> ASC should not be offered until its been proven to work made no sense to me
> and insisting it should go through the same amount of red tape that a new
> cancer drug does before its approved made even less sense. The only way
> we'll know for sure that any Cryonics procedure works is when we
> successfully revive somebody, and if the technology was that good curing
> any disease would be easy so nobody would ever need to be cryopreserved
> again.
>
> John K Clark
>
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From atymes at gmail.com Mon Apr 2 19:46:00 2018
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2018 19:46:00 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
> Only your subjective, internal experience will allow you to be sure if it
is you, and that agent will not be able to convince anyone else (including
copies) of that.
Two problems:
1) In the scenario describe, "you" are no longer available for comment,
most likely permanently, and thus become irrelevant.
2) It is presumably possible for that agent to "convince" Re Rose of the
argument that Re Rose just made.
On Mon, Apr 2, 2018, 11:47 AM Re Rose wrote:
> "The only way we'll know for sure that any Cryonics procedure works is
> when we
> successfully revive somebody"
>
> Actually I'm not sure that will be helpful in all cases. I imagine a
> scenario where a backup copy is uploaded to a host. Upon reanimation it
> will be completely convinced its consciouness is as the person who was
> uploaded. Why shouldn't it be? IMHO, the only individual who will even be
> able to know if the copy is in fact "you" will be you - a copy will not be
> able to tell. Not even your friends or partners can say if its you. They
> may be convinced it is you. Only your subjective, internal experience will
> allow you to be sure if it is you, and that agent will not be able to
> convince anyone else (including copies) of that.
>
> --Regina
>
>
>> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 2:08 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote:
>>
>> > https://turingchurch.net/cryonics-for-uploaders-
>> discussion-video-1f59e77b3aa9
>>
>>
>> Thanks for the link Giulio that was interesting, especially Kenneth
>> Hayworth's comment that in his opinion preserving the brain connectome
>> would be good enough for uploading and infusing glutaraldehyde would help
>> in allowing you to evenly distribute cryoprotectant better; but his idea
>> ASC should not be offered until its been proven to work made no sense to
>> me
>> and insisting it should go through the same amount of red tape that a new
>> cancer drug does before its approved made even less sense. The only way
>> we'll know for sure that any Cryonics procedure works is when we
>> successfully revive somebody, and if the technology was that good curing
>> any disease would be easy so nobody would ever need to be cryopreserved
>> again.
>>
>> John K Clark
>>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 2 20:16:09 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2018 13:16:09 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <002201d3cabf$70a25f10$51e71d30$@rainier66.com>
From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Monday, April 2, 2018 12:46 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
>> ?Only your subjective, internal experience will allow you to be sure if it is you, and that agent will not be able to convince anyone else (including copies) of that.
>?Two problems:
>?1) In the scenario describe, "you" are no longer available for comment, most likely permanently, and thus become irrelevant.
Ja, by choice. As soon as I realize I perished but now I am up and running again, I want to become Anders Sandberg. If Anders is also up and running, he might not like that, so? I would then choose to become Andrew Wiles. Or Martin Gardner. Or John Horton Conway. I can think of a couple dozen people I want to become if that is ever an option. Staying me is in the top 40 choices somewhere (depending on what your definition of me is (assuming that term still has a definition in software.))
spike
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From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Apr 2 21:29:13 2018
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2018 17:29:13 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 2:43 PM, Re Rose wrote:
?>?
> I imagine a scenario where a backup copy is uploaded to a host. Upon
> reanimation it will be completely convinced its consciouness is as the
> person who was uploaded. Why shouldn't it be?
>
For exactly precisely was the same reason Regina was convinced she was the
same conscious person she was when she awoke this morning as she was when
she went to bed last night.
> ?> ?
> IMHO, the only individual who will even be able to know if the copy is in
> fact "you" will be you
>
If there is a backup copy that means "you" duplicating machines are
available, and that means it would no longer be possible to point to
something and say "that and only that is
??
you". Once nanotech powered "you" duplicating machines are invented the
English language is going to need a major revision, particularly in the way
it uses personal pronouns.
> ?>?
> a copy will not be able to tell.
>
Yes exactly, the copy could not tell the difference and neither could
anybody else. If subjectively it make no difference and objectively it
makes no difference then I have no choice but to conclude it just makes no
difference.
?>?
Only your subjective, internal experience will allow you to be sure if it
is you,
?
Yes, the only reason I am sure I am the same person i was yesterday is
because I remember being John Clark yesterday.
?>?
> and that agent will not be able to convince anyone else (including
> copies) of that.
In the future if something looks and behave like John Clark other people
will be convinced it is John Clark, no different than how things are right
now.
John K Clark?
>
>
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From zoielsoy at gmail.com Mon Apr 2 21:41:31 2018
From: zoielsoy at gmail.com (Angel Z. Lopez)
Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2018 21:41:31 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
The brain works on a frequency, when the frequency subsides it looses
recognition. You don?t have the technology to reset the exact frequency of
that individual.
On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 5:31 PM John Clark wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 2:43 PM, Re Rose wrote:
>
> ?>?
>> I imagine a scenario where a backup copy is uploaded to a host. Upon
>> reanimation it will be completely convinced its consciouness is as the
>> person who was uploaded. Why shouldn't it be?
>>
>
> For exactly precisely was the same reason Regina was convinced she was the
> same conscious person she was when she awoke this morning as she was when
> she went to bed last night.
>
>
>> ?> ?
>> IMHO, the only individual who will even be able to know if the copy is in
>> fact "you" will be you
>>
>
> If there is a backup copy that means "you" duplicating machines are
> available, and that means it would no longer be possible to point to
> something and say "that and only that is
> ??
> you". Once nanotech powered "you" duplicating machines are invented the
> English language is going to need a major revision, particularly in the way
> it uses personal pronouns.
>
>
>> ?>?
>> a copy will not be able to tell.
>>
>
>
> Yes exactly, the copy could not tell the difference and neither could
> anybody else. If subjectively it make no difference and objectively it
> makes no difference then I have no choice but to conclude it just makes no
> difference.
>
> ?>?
> Only your subjective, internal experience will allow you to be sure if it
> is you,
> ?
>
> Yes, the only reason I am sure I am the same person i was yesterday is
> because I remember being John Clark yesterday.
>
>
> ?>?
>> and that agent will not be able to convince anyone else (including
>> copies) of that.
>
>
> In the future if something looks and behave like John Clark other people
> will be convinced it is John Clark, no different than how things are right
> now.
>
> John K Clark?
>
>
>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From rocket at earthlight.com Mon Apr 2 22:57:49 2018
From: rocket at earthlight.com (Re Rose)
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2018 18:57:49 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
Message-ID:
If you agree that "...In the scenario describe, "you" are no longer
available for comment, most likely permanently, and thus become
irrelevant." then I don't see why we would be reanimating, or more to the
point, I don't really care how you reanimate me because if it's not me then
I'm dead and gone, which personally my goal is NOT to be. So I think we are
agreeing here, except I care about being continuous with my previous self
and you may not.
The proposal that both reanimation and consciouness-continuity are related
to the same phenomenon of self-continuity experienced after sleep (or more
persuasively, after general anesthesia) is interesting. As for sleep, I do
not agree such continuity is the same as reanimation after an upload would
be as I don't agree that consciouness is "off" during sleep in the first
place. Rather, I think of sleep as inducing an organized neural hub network
disconnection as per Susan Greenfield's thesis of small vs large neural
assemblies. Neural "hubs" dynamically assemble and these assemblies vary in
size related to the agent's level of consciouness -- the hubs assemble into
lager assemblies as consciouness levels increase or dissociate into smaller
assembles as the agent transitions into a sleep state. So, your brain
resumes its function in the same body. Also remember, your body maintains
continuous connectivity to your brain as well as having communication with
neural receptors scattered through organs other than your brain (ie, in the
gut). I see this as a complex system. A reboot in an exogenous body won't
the same, in a very fundamental way.
Since the agency of an individual is subjective we have to be very careful
we're not creating new beings with our uploading technology and still dying
as individuals - unless your goal is to make an animated library of people
patterned on existing people who died (or maybe didn't even die yet). We
might all agree it would be very, very great to have certain people's
connectomes preserved and reanimated - I'd have dinner with a reanimated
Feynman or Turing in one second flat while jumping with joy for the good
their re-existence would do the whole damn world while I'm at it, but if
the originals would still be dead and gone - well, if that's the case, we
should know that it is.
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2018 19:46:00 +0000
> From: Adrian Tymes
>
>
> > Only your subjective, internal experience will allow you to be sure if it
> is you, and that agent will not be able to convince anyone else (including
> copies) of that.
>
> Two problems:
>
> 1) In the scenario describe, "you" are no longer available for comment,
> most likely permanently, and thus become irrelevant.
>
> 2) It is presumably possible for that agent to "convince" Re Rose of the
> argument that Re Rose just made.
>
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018, 11:47 AM Re Rose wrote:
>
> > "The only way we'll know for sure that any Cryonics procedure works is
> > when we
> > successfully revive somebody"
> >
> > Actually I'm not sure that will be helpful in all cases. I imagine a
> > scenario where a backup copy is uploaded to a host. Upon reanimation it
> > will be completely convinced its consciouness is as the person who was
> > uploaded. Why shouldn't it be? IMHO, the only individual who will even be
> > able to know if the copy is in fact "you" will be you - a copy will not
> be
> > able to tell. Not even your friends or partners can say if its you. They
> > may be convinced it is you. Only your subjective, internal experience
> will
> > allow you to be sure if it is you, and that agent will not be able to
> > convince anyone else (including copies) of that.
> >
> > --Regina
>
>
>
> From: Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Monday, April 2, 2018 12:46 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
>
>
> >?1) In the scenario describe, "you" are no longer available for comment,
> most likely permanently, and thus become irrelevant.
>
>
> Ja, by choice. As soon as I realize I perished but now I am up and
> running again, I want to become Anders Sandberg. If Anders is also up and
> running, he might not like that, so? I would then choose to become Andrew
> Wiles. Or Martin Gardner. Or John Horton Conway. I can think of a couple
> dozen people I want to become if that is ever an option. Staying me is in
> the top 40 choices somewhere (depending on what your definition of me is
> (assuming that term still has a definition in software.))
>
> spike
>
>
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Apr 2 23:40:09 2018
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2018 16:40:09 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
Message-ID:
Spike wrote:
> Recall about 4 yrs ago when I tested the theory that perhaps ants . .. .
snip
And how long has it been since we shared a common ancestor with ants?
As most of you know, I moved to San Diego about 4 years ago. Three of
those years we had a swarm of ants in the house. Two of those years,
the swam ended when the ants found a way to crawl into the freezer.
This was so weird I took pictures and looked to see if I should post
about it. Nope, well known that ants do that.
This last year no ants at all. No idea why.
snip
> In any case it gives me an idea: perhaps if we could somehow figure out what
chemical pheromone ants use to tell each other to go to war would be a way
to make them harmless?
We already know how to do this. Humans respond to a perceived bleak
future. Get them to think they have a bright future. I know, this
can't be done given the resource crisis. But there may be technical
ways to make people better off and not put more pressure on resources.
Keith
From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Apr 3 01:00:42 2018
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2018 21:00:42 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 5:41 PM, Angel Z. Lopez wrote:
> ?> ?
> The brain works on a frequency, when the frequency subsides it looses
> recognition. You don?t have the technology to reset the exact frequency of
> that individual.
>
Oh that explains it! Back in 1986 there was a bizarre incident that puzzled
many people, CBS news anchorman Dan Rather was walking down Park Avenue in
New York City when a strange man came up to him and asked "What is the
frequency Kenneth?", when Rather said he didn't know what he meant the man
knocked him to the ground and started kicking him while screaming over and
over again "What is the frequency Kenneth?!". A doorman to one of the
luxury apartments saw it all and came over to help, the man ran off and was
never caught.
And so Kenneth I have one question for you, what is the frequency?
John K Clark
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From giulio at gmail.com Tue Apr 3 03:27:54 2018
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 05:27:54 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Here's my story on "cryonics for uplaoders,
" published in Vice Motherboard
Message-ID:
Here's my story on "cryonics for uplaoders," published in Vice Motherboard
I Want to Preserve My Brain So My Mind Can Be Uploaded to a Computer
in the Future
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43baam/uploading-the-mind-to-a-computer-cryonics
From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Apr 4 15:38:44 2018
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 08:38:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Uploading and Cryonics article and event in Second Life -
Message-ID: <003f01d3cc2b$042526c0$0c6f7440$@natasha.cc>
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43baam/uploading-the-mind-to-a-co
mputer-cryonics
Thank you Guilio!
Dr. Natasha Vita-More
Professor, Graduate and Undergraduate Departments,
UAT
Executive Director, Humanity+, Inc.
Author and Co-Editor:
The Transhumanist Reader
Lead Science Researcher:
Memory Project
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From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 4 18:56:31 2018
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 11:56:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The Cambridge Analytica scandal
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
Starting off by comparing a (massive, granted) invasion of privacy
with nuclear weapons and poison gas, or even dynamite?
This article is a rather pure form of distasterbation/hype-mongering.
Its predictions are bunk, of course, and everything this article is
arguing for, this article causes those who could actually implement
these changes to take less seriously, not more. (Which leads to
friction when the general public takes these things seriously and gets
irritated when those who can do something roll their eyes or laugh off
the public's concerns.)
In other words, this article is the opposite of helpful, towards its
stated ends.
On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 8:32 PM, Keith Henson wrote:
> Bit long, but our brush with our computer overlords did not work out so well.
>
> Keiht
>
> Computer science faces an ethics crisis. The Cambridge Analytica scandal
> proves it.
> March 22, 2018
> Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg speaks at a conference in San Jose,
> Calif., in 2017. Cambridge Analytica scraped up Facebook data from more
> than 50 million people.
>
> Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg speaks at a conference in San Jose,
> Calif., in 2017. Cambridge Analytica scraped up Facebook data from more
> than 50 million people.
>
> Cambridge Analytica built a weapon. They did so understanding what uses
> its buyers had for it, and it worked exactly as intended. To help
> clients manipulate voters, the company built psychological profiles from
> data that it surreptitiously harvested from the accounts of 50 million
> Facebook users. But what Cambridge Analytica did was hardly unique or
> unusual in recent years: a week rarely goes by when some part of the
> Internet, working as intended, doesn=E2=80=99t cause appreciable harm.
>
> I didn=E2=80=99t come up in computer science; I began my career as a
> physicist.
> That transition gave me a specific perspective on this situation. That
> the field of computer science, unlike other sciences, has not yet faced
> serious negative consequences for the work its practitioners do.
>
> Chemistry had its first reckoning with dynamite; horror at its
> consequences led its inventor, Alfred Nobel, to give his fortune to the
> prize that bears his name. Only a few years later, its second reckoning
> began when chemist Clara Immerwahr committed suicide the night before
> her husband and fellow chemist, Fritz Haber, went to stage the first
> poison gas attack on the Eastern Front. Physics had its reckoning when
> nuclear bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and so many physicists
> became political activists =E2=80=94 some for arms control, some for weapons
> development. Human biology had eugenics. Medicine had Tuskegee and
> thalidomide. Civil engineering, a series of building, bridge, and dam
> collapses. (My thanks to many Twitter readers for these examples.)
>
> These events profoundly changed their respective fields, and the way
> people come up in them. Before these crises, each field was dominated by
> visions of how it could make the world a better place. New dyes, new
> materials, new sources of energy, new modes of transport =E2=80=94 everyone
> could see the beauty. Afterward, everyone became painfully aware of how
> their work could be turned against their dreams.
>
> Get Truth and Consequences in your inbox:
> Michael A. Cohen tekes on the absurdities and hypocrisies of the current
> political moment.
> Each field dealt with its reckoning in its own way. Physics and
> chemistry rarely teach dedicated courses on ethics, but the discussion
> is woven into every aspect of daily life, from the first days of one=E2=80=99s
>
> education. As a graduate student, one of the two professors I was
> closest to would share stories of the House Un-American Activities
> Committee and the anti-war movement; the other would talk obliquely
> about his classified work on nuclear weapons. Engineering, like
> medicine, developed codes of ethics and systems of licensure. Human
> biology, like psychology, developed strong institutional review boards
> and processes.
>
> None of these processes, of course, prevent all ethical lapses, and they
> neither require nor create agreement about which choices are right. Many
> physicists, for example, began avoiding working on problems with
> military applications in the years after the McCarthy hearings and the
> Vietnam War. But many others do such research, and the issue is
> frequently and hotly debated.
>
> Computer science is a field of engineering. Its purpose is to build
> systems to be used by others. But even though it has had its share of
> events which could have prompted a deeper reckoning =E2=80=94 from the
> Therac-25
> accidents, in which misprogrammed radiation therapy machines killed
> three people, up to IBM=E2=80=99s role in the Holocaust =E2=80=94 and even
> though the
> things it builds are becoming as central to our lives as roads and
> bridges, computer science has not yet come to terms with the
> responsibility that comes with building things which so profoundly
> affect people=E2=80=99s lives.
>
> Software engineers continue to treat safety and ethics as specialities,
> rather than the foundations of all design; young engineers believe they
> just need to learn to code, change the world, disrupt something.
> Business leaders focus on getting a product out fast, confident that
> they will not be held to account if that product fails catastrophically.
> Simultaneously imagining their products as changing the world and not
> being important enough to require safety precautions, they behave like
> kids in a shop full of loaded AK-47=E2=80=99s.
>
> * * *
>
> What would a higher standard of care look like? First of all, safety
> would be treated as a principal concern at all stages, even when =E2=80=9Cjust
>
> trying to get something out the door,=E2=80=9D and engineers=E2=80=99
> education would
> equip them to do so. If safety came first, the Facebook Graph API used
> by Cambridge Analytica, which raised widespread alarm among engineers
> from the moment it first launched in 2010, would likely never have seen
> the light of day.
>
> Tech companies focus intensely on preventing crashes. A rigorous effort
> to anticipate what could go wrong is already standard practice for
> specialists in system reliability, which deals with =E2=80=9Cwhat-ifs=E2=80=9D
> around
> computer failures. A higher standard for safety would simply do the same
> for =E2=80=9Cwhat-ifs=E2=80=9D around human consequences. This would not imply
> that all
> systems should be built to the same safety standards; nobody expects a
> tent to be built like a skyscraper. But the civil engineer=E2=80=99s approach
> would require a substantial shift of priorities.
>
> Such a shift would sometimes be resisted for business reasons, but
> working codes of ethics give engineers (and others) more power to say
> =E2=80=9Cno.=E2=80=9D If breaking ethics rules would mean the end of
> someone=E2=80=99s career,
> an employer couldn=E2=80=99t easily replace someone who refuses to cheat. If
> the
> systems for enforcement are well-built, a competitor couldn=E2=80=99t easily
> work around those standards. Uniform codes of ethics give engineers more
> of a voice in protecting the public.
>
> Underpinning all of these need to be systems for deciding on what
> computer science ethics should be, and how they should be enforced.
> These will need to be built by a consensus among the stakeholders in the
> field, from industry, to academia, to capital, and most importantly,
> among the engineers and the public, who are ultimately most affected. It
> must be done with particular attention to diversity of representation.
> In computer science, more than any other field, system failures tend to
> affect people in different social contexts (race, gender, class,
> geography, disability) differently. Familiarity with the details of real
> life in these different contexts is required to prevent disaster.
>
> There are many methods by which different fields enforce their ethics,
> from the institutional review boards that screen life-sciences
> experiments on humans and animals, to the mid-career certification of
> professional engineers who then oversee projects used by the
> unsuspecting public, to the across-the-board licensure of doctors and
> lawyers. Each of these approaches has advantages, and computer science
> would need to combine ideas and innovate on them to build something
> suited to its specific needs. What would not be acceptable is the
> consequence of inaction. The public would lose trust in technology, and
> computer scientists would face a host of practical, commercial, and
> regulatory consequences.
>
> Computers have made having friends on the other side of the world as
> normal as having them next door, have put the sum of human knowledge in
> our pockets, and have made nearly every object we encounter more
> reliable and less expensive. Yet their failure, whether by accident or
> by unthinking design, can have catastrophic consequences for individuals
> and society alike.
>
> What stands between these is attention to the core questions of
> engineering: to what uses might a system be put? How might it fail? And
> how will it behave when it does? Computer science must step up to the
> bar set by its sister fields, before its own bridge collapse =E2=80=94 or
> worse,
> its own Hiroshima.
>
> Yonatan Zunger, now at the startup Humu, is a former distinguished
> engineer in security and privacy at Google. Follow him on Twitter
> @yonatanzunger.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> End of hackers-l Digest - Monday, March 26, 2018
> *********
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
From tara at taramayastales.com Wed Apr 4 15:35:56 2018
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 08:35:56 -0700
Subject: [ExI] resurrection
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
If that were true, it would be a point in their favor. Not because of the party issue, but because it would indicate that as individuals they sticking to their principles based on their own values, not submitting blindly to authority.
Of course, I assume that the point was actually that most people wouldn?t be thinking as individuals either, but treating the R or D as a tribal god to blindly follow above all other gods. Sadly, I know plenty of those types on both sides.
Tara Maya
> On Apr 1, 2018, at 6:57 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
>
> Read today:
>
> "The evangelicals wouldn't vote for a resurrected Jesus if he ran as a Democrat."
>
> billw
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From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Apr 6 20:00:41 2018
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 15:00:41 -0500
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
But there may be technical
ways to make people better off and not put more pressure on resources.
Keith
I suggest putting it in the tap water. But unfortunately there is no 'get
a life' drug. People are having an identity crisis along with the country
and are reaching out for something to believe in. Maybe there is something
to this idea that when religion fades it's a troubling sign. Maybe
religion is better than some alternatives.
bill w
On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 6:40 PM, Keith Henson wrote:
> Spike wrote:
>
> > Recall about 4 yrs ago when I tested the theory that perhaps ants . .. .
>
> snip
>
> And how long has it been since we shared a common ancestor with ants?
>
> As most of you know, I moved to San Diego about 4 years ago. Three of
> those years we had a swarm of ants in the house. Two of those years,
> the swam ended when the ants found a way to crawl into the freezer.
> This was so weird I took pictures and looked to see if I should post
> about it. Nope, well known that ants do that.
>
> This last year no ants at all. No idea why.
>
> snip
>
> > In any case it gives me an idea: perhaps if we could somehow figure out
> what
> chemical pheromone ants use to tell each other to go to war would be a way
> to make them harmless?
>
> We already know how to do this. Humans respond to a perceived bleak
> future. Get them to think they have a bright future. I know, this
> can't be done given the resource crisis. But there may be technical
> ways to make people better off and not put more pressure on resources.
>
> Keith
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Apr 6 21:09:18 2018
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 16:09:18 -0500
Subject: [ExI] resurrection
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 10:35 AM, Tara Maya wrote:
> I
> Of course, I assume that the point was actually that most people wouldn?t
> be thinking as individuals either, but treating the R or D as a tribal god
> to blindly follow above all other gods. Sadly, I know plenty of those types
> on both sides.
>
> Tara Maya
>
?Sadly, people mistake constancy for virtue, not realizing that the parties
believe whatever is convenient at the time. Unelected members of the
parties, the voters, are far more moral than the ones they elect, on
average. Just a tiny look at the history of politics in the USA and the
parties shows that they are just demagogues. The elected officials know
this very well and will jump to another party if that's the way the wind
blows. Here in Mississippi people will vote for a Baptist above anyone
else and are surprised one more time when they turn out to be as corrupt as
anyone else.?
bill w
>
>
>
> On Apr 1, 2018, at 6:57 PM, William Flynn Wallace
> wrote:
>
> Read today:
>
> "The evangelicals wouldn't vote for a resurrected Jesus if he ran as a
> Democrat."
>
> billw
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From sparge at gmail.com Sat Apr 7 01:29:11 2018
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 21:29:11 -0400
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 4:00 PM, William Flynn Wallace
wrote:
>
>
> Maybe there is something to this idea that when religion fades it's a
> troubling sign.
>
Not believing in irrational fantasies is a good thing, in itself. But,
yeah, whether that's an overall positive thing or not depends on what, if
anything, people do believe in. The old BEST DO IT SO (Boundless Expansion,
Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, and
Spontaneous Order) Extropian principles would be a good basis for a
rational alternative to religion.
-Dave
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From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Apr 7 01:40:58 2018
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 20:40:58 -0500
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
Dave Sill wrote:
>> ??
>> Extropian principles would be a good basis for a rational alternative to
>> religion.
>>
>
?No one on this list will argue with that. But, unlike us, many people are
not looking for a rational anything. They want emotional things - some
things to love, to hate, to be for, to be against, to rant on, to go to war
for, to get insulted by, to fear - well, you get the idea?.
In the Deep South, the black churches I have been to for funerals are the
epitome of emotional expressions very overtly acted out (lots of standing
up and shrieking something and then fainting). It's not about what or how
we think. It's about how we feel.
bill w
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Apr 7 09:36:48 2018
From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben)
Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2018 10:36:48 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <5AC89130.4080302@yahoo.com>
Re Rose wrote:
"Since the agency of an individual is subjective we have to be very careful
we're not creating new beings with our uploading technology and still dying
as individuals - unless your goal is to make an animated library of people
patterned on existing people who died (or maybe didn't even die yet). We
might all agree it would be very, very great to have certain people's
connectomes preserved and reanimated - I'd have dinner with a reanimated
Feynman or Turing in one second flat while jumping with joy for the good
their re-existence would do the whole damn world while I'm at it, but if
the originals would still be dead and gone - well, if that's the case, we
should know that it is."
This whole concept of a 'me that is not me' baffles me. Leaving aside
ideas like the 'soul' (which I hope we can all agree is nonsense), what
is it that constitutes an individual? More importantly, what is it that
constitutes an individual that is somehow inherently not reproducible? I
can't think of a single candidate. There are several ideas about what is
necessary for an individual mind to exist, but all of the elements
involved are reproducible.
I don't think anyone would argue against the idea that a copy of a mind
is not the same as the original, but the mistake lies in thinking that
this means it doesn't recreate the /same mind/. Just as copying a CD of
Beethoven's 9th Symphony recreates the same music.
Arguments centring around continuity don't work, and it doesn't require
proof of the quantisation of time to show why. People have had all brain
activity stopped for hours and been successfully revived (accidents
involving falling into icy water and 'dying' before they drowned).
Arguing that they therefore can't be the 'same person' is rather silly,
and would be impossible to prove.
Ben Zaiboc
From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Apr 7 17:20:57 2018
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2018 13:20:57 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 6:57 PM, Re Rose wrote:
*> if it's not me then I'm dead and gone, which personally my goal is NOT
> to be.*
What does it mean to be me? It means if something tomorrow remembers being
me today then that thing is me. What else could it possibly mean?
*> I think we are agreeing here, except I care about being continuous with
> my previous self and you may not. *
I don't know what NOT ?being continuous with my previous self " could even
mean. Consciousness is subjective and to me it is always continuous, if I
undergo anesthesia many hours or even days may pass but to me it will be
instantaneous, to me it would be the external world that suddenly jumped
ahead discontinuously not me.
*> I think of sleep as inducing an organized neural hub network
> disconnection as per Susan Greenfield's thesis of small vs large neural
> assemblies.*
And I think Susan Greenfield is a anti technology nut, she believes there
is a link between autism and use of digital media. Here are a few more of
her words of wisdom:
*"people's sense of smell has been linked to powerful emotional responses.
This has caused many to worry that 'smellovision', which allows people to
experience any smell at any time, will turn us into emotionally stunted
robots".*
*"the human brain has evolved to recognise faces, so there is a very real
possibility that automated Rhytidectomy kits will cause our brains to get
confused, leaving us unable to recognise our own mothers" *
*> Neural "hubs" dynamically assemble and these assemblies vary in size
> related to the agent's level of consciouness -- the hubs assemble into
> lager assemblies as consciouness levels increase or dissociate into smaller
> assembles as the agent transitions into a sleep state.*
Any scientific theory that talks about consciousness but not intelligent
behavior is not a scientific theory, it is religious crap.
> *> A reboot in an exogenous body won't the same, in a very fundamental
> way. Since the agency of an individual is subjective we have to be very
> careful we're not creating new beings with our uploading technology and
> still dying as individuals*
Apparently you believe in philosophical zombies, you think if Feynman or
Turing had been frozen and brought back they might be as knowledgeable,
intelligent, witty and charming as ever but have no more consciousness than
a rock. But that could only be possible if Charles Darwin was dead wrong.
Evolution can?t directly detect consciousness in others any better than we
can so there is no way Evolution could have produced it unless
consciousness is a unavoidable byproduct of something that Evolution can
detect, something like intelligent behavior. Whatever causes consciousness
it can?t be something that was just tacked on that produces consciousness
and does nothing else because that would have no additional survival value
so to Natural Selection it would be irrelevant. And by the way, I don?t
think Charles Darwin was dead wrong.
> *> We might all agree it would be very, very great to have certain
> people's connectomes preserved and reanimated - I'd have dinner with a
> reanimated Feynman or Turing in one second flat while jumping with joy for
> the good their re-existence would do the whole damn world while I'm at it,
> but if the originals would still be dead and gone*
With due respect, I think the opinions of your dinner companions on whether
their originals were actually dead and gone would be more important than
your opinion on the matter. Would the reanimated Feynman or Turing have any
reason to feel they were still dead when they can still think as clearly as
they ever did, would they think they were not the original Feynman or
Turing even though they both remember being children and both remember
working on projects during the second world war? And what would they
consider was so original about the mighty "ORIGINAL" anyway ? Being men of
science they would know the the atoms in their bodies were not the same
atoms as the atoms that were in their bodies a year before they died, and
they were not the same atoms that were in their bodies a year before that.
And Turing and Feynman would also know that the atoms in your body right
now have exactly the same properties as the atoms in their bodies, the only
difference is in the way those atoms are arranged, a difference that can be
encapsulated as information. That information can be stored as frozen
biological tissue or as a pattern of ones and zeros in a computer memory.
John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Apr 7 19:01:06 2018
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2018 14:01:06 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 4:41 PM, Angel Z. Lopez wrote:
> The brain works on a frequency, when the frequency subsides it looses
> recognition. You don?t have the technology to reset the exact frequency of
> that individual.
>
> ?It is my understanding that frequency depends on neuron firing? and that
>> will vary depending on where you record from the electrodes, right? One
>> part of the brain, say the medulla, is doing one thing, and another, say,
>> the auditory cortex, is doing another. So I don't think there can be one
>> frequency, much less one that is constant.
>>
>
?bill w?
>
>> For exactly precisely was the same reason Regina was convinced she was
>> the same conscious person she was when she awoke this morning as she was
>> when she went to bed last night.
>>
>>
>>> ?> ?
>>> IMHO, the only individual who will even be able to know if the copy is
>>> in fact "you" will be you
>>>
>>
>> If there is a backup copy that means "you" duplicating machines are
>> available, and that means it would no longer be possible to point to
>> something and say "that and only that is
>> ??
>> you". Once nanotech powered "you" duplicating machines are invented the
>> English language is going to need a major revision, particularly in the way
>> it uses personal pronouns.
>>
>>
>>> ?>?
>>> a copy will not be able to tell.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Yes exactly, the copy could not tell the difference and neither could
>> anybody else. If subjectively it make no difference and objectively it
>> makes no difference then I have no choice but to conclude it just makes no
>> difference.
>>
>> ?>?
>> Only your subjective, internal experience will allow you to be sure if
>> it is you,
>> ?
>>
>> Yes, the only reason I am sure I am the same person i was yesterday is
>> because I remember being John Clark yesterday.
>>
>>
>> ?>?
>>> and that agent will not be able to convince anyone else (including
>>> copies) of that.
>>
>>
>> In the future if something looks and behave like John Clark other people
>> will be convinced it is John Clark, no different than how things are right
>> now.
>>
>> John K Clark?
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Apr 9 03:02:39 2018
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 20:02:39 -0700
Subject: [ExI] H+ BLOCKCHAIN ESSAY PRIZE
Message-ID: <000b01d3cfaf$39868520$ac938f60$@natasha.cc>
Humanity+ Essay Prize 2018
on the
"Mutual Benefits of Blockchain and Transhumanism"
GENERAL INFORMATION
1. Entries are welcome from authors anywhere in the world.
2. There is no cost to enter an Essay.
3. Essays are limited to one essay per author.
HOW TO ENTER
4. Submitting entries to
essay at humanityplus.org is required.
5. Entries should be either PDFs or Word documents.
6. Entries must have a title page, sources cited in text and referenced
and all tables, figures must be numbered.
7. The author's name must not appear in the document or in the name of
the digital file because judging is conducted blind.
8. The full name should only include the title of the Essay.
9. Entrants will receive automatic confirmation of receipt to the email
address used when entering.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
10. Essays must be written in English.
11. Essays must be original works authored by original author or authors.
12. Essays must not infringe on copyright protection of another author or
publication.
13. Essays that are deemed to be plagiarism will be disqualified.
ELIGIBILITY DECLARATION
All authors must agree to the following declaration:
14. I declare that this essay is the author(s) own work. Portions of the
essay may have been previously published, but 75% is original writing. This
essay will not be published elsewhere until the announcement of the Final
Winner, on October 19, 2018.
PRIZES
15. Three runner-up essays receive $1,000.00 each and will be announced at
the Humanity+ @ Beijing, China Conference opening reception on July 14,
2018.
16. Final selection of the Winning Essay receives $5,000.00 and will be
announced at the TransVision 2018 Conference in Madrid, Spain on October 19,
2018.
JUDGING PROCESS
17. Seven Judges will be selected by the Board: three from Humanity+ full
members, two Board members, and two Advisory members.
18. Each Judge will have one vote.
Dr. Natasha Vita-More
Professor, Graduate and Undergraduate Departments,
UAT
Executive Director, Humanity+, Inc.
Author and Co-Editor:
The Transhumanist Reader
Lead Science Researcher:
Memory Project
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From atymes at gmail.com Mon Apr 9 18:22:26 2018
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 11:22:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] H+ BLOCKCHAIN ESSAY PRIZE
In-Reply-To: <000b01d3cfaf$39868520$ac938f60$@natasha.cc>
References: <000b01d3cfaf$39868520$ac938f60$@natasha.cc>
Message-ID:
You might want to also list the judging criteria.
Are you looking for abstract philosophical thought? Practical
implementation plans? Surveys to summarize the current status and use of
blockchain? (It's meaningless to say, "Yes to all of those.")
What is the audience? Will essays be judged better or worse if they
painstakingly define "blockchain" (as appropriate for the general public
but not for those who already work with it)? What is the target length
(2-3 pages, 10 pages, novella length, full novel length)?
(Also, it is unclear if you mean for the author's name to appear on the
title page only, or not even on the title page.)
On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 8:02 PM, Natasha Vita-More
wrote:
> [image:
> https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/g6KNPBH9_caJ-CFbDDOPkRvc-gWpwqrpvk4xqPTQXo7eXe7QWwYAJjMXFZsQFzIbS6tjsznds3tEh2eQrtSPI6rcw5JkQJGPXMQe8VuYJQx_MCJtIbo1UqorF32rTSVC3rYuVqC4ydXBSf8DTg]
>
>
> *Humanity+ Essay Prize 2018
>
> on the ?Mutual Benefits of Blockchain and Transhumanism? *
>
>
>
> *GENERAL INFORMATION*
>
> 1. Entries are welcome from authors anywhere in the world.
>
> 2. There is no cost to enter an Essay.
>
> 3. Essays are limited to one essay per author.
>
> *HOW TO ENTER*
>
> 4. Submitting entries to *essay at humanityplus.org*
> * is* required.
>
> 5. Entries should be either PDFs or Word documents.
>
> 6. Entries must have a title page, sources cited in text and
> referenced and all tables, figures must be numbered.
>
> 7. The author?s name must not appear in the document or in the name
> of the digital file because judging is conducted blind.
>
> 8. The full name should only include the title of the Essay.
>
> 9. Entrants will receive automatic confirmation of receipt to the
> email address used when entering.
>
> *TERMS AND CONDITIONS*
>
> 10. Essays must be written in English.
>
> 11. Essays must be original works authored by original author or authors.
>
> 12. Essays must not infringe on copyright protection of another author or
> publication.
>
> 13. Essays that are deemed to be plagiarism will be disqualified.
>
> *ELIGIBILITY DECLARATION*
>
> All authors must agree to the following declaration:
>
> 14. I declare that this essay is the author(s) own work. Portions of the
> essay may have been previously published, but 75% is original writing. This
> essay will not be published elsewhere until the announcement of the Final
> Winner, on October 19, 2018.
>
> *PRIZES*
>
> 15. Three runner-up essays receive $1,000.00 each and will be announced
> at the Humanity+ @ Beijing, China Conference opening reception on July 14,
> 2018.
>
> 16. Final selection of the Winning Essay receives $5,000.00 and will be
> announced at the TransVision 2018 Conference in Madrid, Spain on October
> 19, 2018.
>
> *JUDGING PROCESS*
>
> 17. Seven Judges will be selected by the Board: three from Humanity+
> full members, two Board members, and two Advisory members.
>
> 18. Each Judge will have one vote.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Dr. Natasha Vita-More *
>
> Professor, Graduate and Undergraduate Departments, UAT
>
>
> Executive Director, Humanity+ , Inc.
>
> Author and Co-Editor: *The Transhumanist Reader
> *
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From rocket at earthlight.com Tue Apr 10 13:16:40 2018
From: rocket at earthlight.com (Re Rose)
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 09:16:40 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video
Message-ID:
>
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2018 10:36:48 +0100
> From: Ben
> To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John
> Clark)
> Message-ID: <5AC89130.4080302 at yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Re Rose wrote:
>
> "Since the agency of an individual is subjective we have to be very careful
> we're not creating new beings with our uploading technology and still dying
> as individuals - unless your goal is to make an animated library of people
> patterned on existing people who died (or maybe didn't even die yet). We
> might all agree it would be very, very great to have certain people's
> connectomes preserved and reanimated - I'd have dinner with a reanimated
> Feynman or Turing in one second flat while jumping with joy for the good
> their re-existence would do the whole damn world while I'm at it, but if
> the originals would still be dead and gone - well, if that's the case, we
> should know that it is."
>
>
> This whole concept of a 'me that is not me' baffles me. Leaving aside
> ideas like the 'soul' (which I hope we can all agree is nonsense), what
> is it that constitutes an individual? More importantly, what is it that
> constitutes an individual that is somehow inherently not reproducible? I
> can't think of a single candidate. There are several ideas about what is
> necessary for an individual mind to exist, but all of the elements
> involved are reproducible.
> -------------
> >>
> >> Only your subjective, internal experience will allow you to be sure if
> >> it is you
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> In the future if something looks and behave like John Clark other people
> >> will be convinced it is John Clark, no different than how things are
> right
> >> now.
> >>
> >> John K Clark?
>
I don't think anyone would argue against the idea that a copy of a mind
> is not the same as the original, but the mistake lies in thinking that
> this means it doesn't recreate the /same mind/. Just as copying a CD of
> Beethoven's 9th Symphony recreates the same music.
Thing 1 (Ben): We all do seem to agree. If a perfect copy is made, the copy
is a conscious mind and it IS the SAME mind.
Thing 2 (Ben): Continuity needs to be defined. I don't believe sleeping
causes a discontinuity. I do believe reanimating a copy of the mind in
another agent is a discontinuity. I also believe reanimating the copy in
the same body (for example, after a traumatic brain injury or other cause
of significant neural information loss or derangement, with preservation of
the underlying physical connectome or some significant portion of it) is an
open question, my belief is that is a continuous experience, and the
reanimation is the same individual.
Thing 3 (John): "What does it mean to be me? It means if something tomorrow
remembers being me today then that thing is me. What else could it possibly
mean?". I respectfully disagree - what if we made 5 copies, or 8321 copies?
Are they all you? I suggest we need new language to keep up with this new
technology. Robin Hanson started this ball rolling with his "ems". IN this
case, no one is suggesting the copies work with or for you (although they
could, I guess). I am saying they are free conscious agents that are NOT
YOU. Even if they think they are, that's their error because we don't have
a concept yet for being a copy. The are independent agents with your
connectome, which will immediately diverge from your actual connectome (if
you remain living) and/or all other copies connectomes.
The essential concept I am trying to get across is that a copy of you, in
another agent of any kind, will *not be you*. You will still be dead. If
the point of the copying process is so that your YOU has extended life, I
think we should pay attention to this. Remember, a copy will honestly
believe its you - and everyone else who knows you, even your mother, will
believe its you. It is a you. the only agent who will know for sure its not
the original you is YOU. You will be dead. That, for me, does not work. I
want to come back, me myself. A copy is a nice legacy, but I won't be in
it. It will be some other Regina, and she will be very glad someone has
developed the technology, but she and I will be different people. If we
met, we would have different lives after the copy point. We would do
different things, and eat different meals, and hang out with different
people on different days, and our lives - after the copy point - would be
unique. I'd love to meet her someday.
Thing 4 (John): Please note I do not believe in all of Susan Greenfield's
theories, but I do believe in neural hub assembly, which has been shown by
others besides Greenfield both experimentally, and in theoretical
calculations of spiking neural assemblies and other dynamic neural models.
In any case, it was just meant as an example of levels of consciousness
being linked to underlying physical neural phenomena. I'm not married to
the way it happens, just the concept that as conscious states change
(alertness to somnolent, as example), neural correlations change.
Regina
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From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Apr 10 15:31:29 2018
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 15:31:29 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Tue, 10 Apr 2018 at 11:20 pm, Re Rose wrote:
>
>> Message: 4
>> Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2018 10:36:48 +0100
>> From: Ben
>> To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John
>> Clark)
>> Message-ID: <5AC89130.4080302 at yahoo.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>>
>> Re Rose wrote:
>>
>> "Since the agency of an individual is subjective we have to be very
>> careful
>> we're not creating new beings with our uploading technology and still
>> dying
>> as individuals - unless your goal is to make an animated library of people
>> patterned on existing people who died (or maybe didn't even die yet). We
>> might all agree it would be very, very great to have certain people's
>> connectomes preserved and reanimated - I'd have dinner with a reanimated
>> Feynman or Turing in one second flat while jumping with joy for the good
>> their re-existence would do the whole damn world while I'm at it, but if
>> the originals would still be dead and gone - well, if that's the case, we
>> should know that it is."
>>
>>
>> This whole concept of a 'me that is not me' baffles me. Leaving aside
>> ideas like the 'soul' (which I hope we can all agree is nonsense), what
>> is it that constitutes an individual? More importantly, what is it that
>> constitutes an individual that is somehow inherently not reproducible? I
>> can't think of a single candidate. There are several ideas about what is
>> necessary for an individual mind to exist, but all of the elements
>> involved are reproducible.
>> -------------
>> >>
>> >> Only your subjective, internal experience will allow you to be sure if
>> >> it is you
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> In the future if something looks and behave like John Clark other
>> people
>> >> will be convinced it is John Clark, no different than how things are
>> right
>> >> now.
>> >>
>> >> John K Clark?
>>
>
> I don't think anyone would argue against the idea that a copy of a mind
>> is not the same as the original, but the mistake lies in thinking that
>> this means it doesn't recreate the /same mind/. Just as copying a CD of
>> Beethoven's 9th Symphony recreates the same music.
>
>
> Thing 1 (Ben): We all do seem to agree. If a perfect copy is made, the
> copy is a conscious mind and it IS the SAME mind.
>
> Thing 2 (Ben): Continuity needs to be defined. I don't believe sleeping
> causes a discontinuity. I do believe reanimating a copy of the mind in
> another agent is a discontinuity. I also believe reanimating the copy in
> the same body (for example, after a traumatic brain injury or other cause
> of significant neural information loss or derangement, with preservation of
> the underlying physical connectome or some significant portion of it) is an
> open question, my belief is that is a continuous experience, and the
> reanimation is the same individual.
>
> Thing 3 (John): "What does it mean to be me? It means if something
> tomorrow remembers being me today then that thing is me. What else could
> it possibly mean?". I respectfully disagree - what if we made 5 copies, or
> 8321 copies? Are they all you? I suggest we need new language to keep up
> with this new technology. Robin Hanson started this ball rolling with his
> "ems". IN this case, no one is suggesting the copies work with or for you
> (although they could, I guess). I am saying they are free conscious agents
> that are NOT YOU. Even if they think they are, that's their error because
> we don't have a concept yet for being a copy. The are independent agents
> with your connectome, which will immediately diverge from your actual
> connectome (if you remain living) and/or all other copies connectomes.
>
> The essential concept I am trying to get across is that a copy of you, in
> another agent of any kind, will *not be you*. You will still be dead. If
> the point of the copying process is so that your YOU has extended life, I
> think we should pay attention to this. Remember, a copy will honestly
> believe its you - and everyone else who knows you, even your mother, will
> believe its you. It is a you. the only agent who will know for sure its not
> the original you is YOU. You will be dead. That, for me, does not work. I
> want to come back, me myself. A copy is a nice legacy, but I won't be in
> it. It will be some other Regina, and she will be very glad someone has
> developed the technology, but she and I will be different people. If we
> met, we would have different lives after the copy point. We would do
> different things, and eat different meals, and hang out with different
> people on different days, and our lives - after the copy point - would be
> unique. I'd love to meet her someday.
>
> Thing 4 (John): Please note I do not believe in all of Susan Greenfield's
> theories, but I do believe in neural hub assembly, which has been shown by
> others besides Greenfield both experimentally, and in theoretical
> calculations of spiking neural assemblies and other dynamic neural models.
> In any case, it was just meant as an example of levels of consciousness
> being linked to underlying physical neural phenomena. I'm not married to
> the way it happens, just the concept that as conscious states change
> (alertness to somnolent, as example), neural correlations change.
>
Is it possible that you are not really the Regina of last year, since most
of the matter in your body has been replaced using the food you eat? Of
course you and everyone else think you are the same person, but it is a
delusion. If this is correct, does the idea worry you or change anything
you do? For example, if you could pay to undergo a process whereby you keep
the original matter, would it be a worthwhile investment?
> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Apr 10 16:29:41 2018
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 12:29:41 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 9:16 AM, Re Rose wrote:
*> We all do seem to agree. If a perfect copy is made, the copy is a
> conscious mind and it IS the SAME mind.*
That's because mind is not a physical thing, mind is what a physical thing
does.
> *> Continuity needs to be defined. *
Why not use the same sort of definition of continuity that mathematicians
use to define the continuity of a line? Consciousness is continuous if for
any conscious event and for every conscious interval greater than zero
there is another conscious event less than that interval away.
> *> I don't believe sleeping causes a discontinuity.*
Neither do I.
> * > I do believe reanimating a copy of the mind in another agent is a
> discontinuity. *
I?m not sure what you mean by "agent? but whatever it is if it is doing the
same thing that my brain is doing then we are of the same mind.
> *> I also believe reanimating the copy in the same body (for example,
> after a traumatic brain injury or other cause of significant neural
> information loss or derangement, with preservation of the underlying
> physical connectome or some significant portion of it) is an open question,
> my belief is that is a continuous experience, and the reanimation is the
> same individual. *
So you'd rather be reanimated in the same body even if it was a damaged
body and much of the information that was in your brain was missing than be
reanimated in a different body in perfect shape with all your memories
intact. Why? Do you believe the atoms in your body somehow have your name
scratched on them? I don?t because atoms constantly cycle in and out of our
bodies throughout life and because science can?t find any difference
between one carbon atom and another (if of course they are of the same
isotope).
> *> what if we made 5 copies, or 8321 copies? Are they all you? *
If tomorrow 8321 copies of John Clark are made then tomorrow there will be
8321 copies of John Clark tomorrow. The answer to the other question
depends on the meaning of the personal pronoun ?you?. In a world of Drexler
style Nanotechnology and people duplicating machines who exactly is this
mysterious Mr. You? If ?you" means being exactly precisely identical
tomorrow as at this instant then none of the 8321 are Mr. You, but that
illustrates nothing. Forget people duplicators, people are always changing,
the ?you? of yesterday is similar to but not identical to the ?you? of
today, and yet if 8321 copies of me has been made then Mr. You has survived
for another day.
> *> I suggest we need new language to keep up with this new
> technology. Robin Hanson started this ball rolling with his "ems?. *
Yes, Robin was kind enough to mention me in the acknowledgements for the
book. I disagreed with Robin about one thing, if a em was created to
perform at particular task after that task was completed I don?t think the
em would cheerfully kill itself so the mighty ?ORIGINAL" could benefit from
the fruits of its labor. I can?t figure out what?s so original about the
original, if you proved to me that I was a em and the original John Clark
now wanted me dead I wouldn?t kill myself, we may have been identical at
one time but we?ve diverged since then and I have hopes and ideas of my own
and if John Clark doesn?t like the fact that I didn?t kill myself John
Clark can lump it.
> * > I am saying they are free conscious agents that are NOT YOU. *
Capital letters will not make that personal pronoun unique in a world that
contains ?you? duplicating machines.
> *> Even if they think they are, that's their error *
Your error is in thinking individuality can be defined by looking toward
the future but that is like pushing on a string, individuality is defined
by looking into the past. I remember that yesterday I and only I did this
and that, and the day before that I and only I did other things, but what
I?ll do tomorrow I don?t know, I might do nothing I might be dead. If I am
copied today tomorrow all 8321 John Clarks will say to themselves ?I
remember that in the third grade I and only I did this and that? and all
8321 will be absolutely correct, that is indeed what they remember.
> *> because we don't have a concept yet for being a copy. *
I don?t see why we need such a concept.
> *> The are independent agents with your connectome, which will immediately
> diverge from your actual connectome *
Yes exactly, and that is why we don?t need "a concept for being a copy?. A
copy of me has just as much a right to call himself John Clark as I do.
> *> The essential concept I am trying to get across is that a copy of you,
> in another agent of any kind, will not be you. You will still be dead.*
Maybe John Clark died yesterday and today John Clark just thinks he?s still
alive, if true that would be wonderful news because it would mean death was
no big deal, in fact the word would be pretty much meaningless. But
unfortunately I don?t think that?s correct. I think death means having a
last thought, so if I think I?m dead I?m not dead because I?m still
thinking. Stanley Kubrick said The Shining was the most optimistic movie he
ever made because it was the only one that suggested death was not oblivion.
> *> If the point of the copying process is so that your YOU has extended
> life, I think we should pay attention to this. *
And the best way to do that, in fact the only way to do that is by
preserving the information in the brain, the atoms themselves are
unimportant because atoms are generic.
> *> Remember, a copy will honestly believe its you - and everyone else who
> knows you, even your mother, will believe its you. *
And that my friend is good enough for me!!
> *> the only agent who will know for sure its not the original you is YOU. *
Where can I find this Mr. You, do you have his Email address I?d like to
drop him a line.
> *> I want to come back, me myself. A copy is a nice legacy, but I won't be
> in it.*
How could you tell if you were the copy or not? If I gave you proof that
you were a copy would there be a reason to be upset? I can?t think of one.
> *> It will be some other Regina, and she will be very glad someone has
> developed the technology, but she and I will be different people. If we
> met, we would have different lives after the copy point. *
Yes, but both will always remember being the same person before the copy
point. And there is nothing unique about the copy point, even in everyday
life without people duplicating machines there are environmental factors
(some random some not) at every instant of our lives that push us around
and could lead us to entirely different fates.
> *> Please note I do not believe in all of Susan Greenfield's theories, but
> I do believe in neural hub assembly, which has been shown by others besides
> Greenfield both experimentally, and in theoretical calculations of spiking
> neural assemblies and other dynamic neural models. In any case, it was just
> meant as an example of levels of consciousness being linked to underlying
> physical neural phenomena.*
I don?t see how that is relevant. A neural assembly is a physical object
and so is a computer, if the atoms in them are organized correctly what
both those physical systems will be doing will be the same, both will be
doing mind.
John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 10 17:35:53 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 10:35:53 -0700
Subject: [ExI] good luck and evolution-speed, mr. musk
Message-ID: <008101d3d0f2$60a622c0$21f26840$@rainier66.com>
Apparently he isn't kidding:
https://www.space.com/40243-spacex-mars-spaceship-elon-musk-photo.html?utm_s
ource=sdc-newsletter
&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20180410-sdc
spike
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From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Apr 11 16:52:25 2018
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 11:52:25 -0500
Subject: [ExI] emotions
Message-ID:
I really don't know how to put this and not insult anyone, which I
sincerely hope not to do.
After Bill K's response to a post and my comment, I posted something about
people not looking for something rational, but something emotional they can
get behind and support. No one responded.
Now maybe it was because what I said was so obvious that no reply was
needed, but it also might be that this highly rational and scientific group
just don't like to consider emotions. I don't know which it is.
I'll bet that most of us in this group think that evangelicals are a bunch
of nuts, and most religious people are not far behind. Ja?
Maybe making decisions based on emotions is just anathema to this group,
but every single decision contains some emotion. People who are
brain-damaged and cut off from their emotions don't know how to make even
simple choices. "Do you want a roll or cornbread?" Can't choose.
Lurking, therefore, behind our rational beings are emotions. Why use
anything but rationality? Because that's the way brains are built, and we
have to come to grips with it.
The national political mood among many, and I won't name a political party,
though you know who it is, is anti-scientific to the point of complete
irrationality. I am not sure what we have to do with to win these people
over, but if we don't the nation will go down and down and we will be
unprepared for climate change, among other things. I think we are already
unprepared for that.
We just can't ignore them. There are too many of them and they won't go
away, and they are a major political force - we have to deal with them and
preaching to them about reason and science is not getting the job done.
Ideas?
bill w
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From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Apr 12 13:16:24 2018
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 09:16:24 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Aubrey de Grey
Message-ID:
Most on this list probably know that biologist and Alcor member Aubrey de
Grey is very interested in life extension, but may not know he is also an
amateur mathematician and apparently a very good one because he just made a
discovery that had eluded the professionals for almost 70 years:
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02385.pdf
John K Clark
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From atymes at gmail.com Mon Apr 16 16:20:02 2018
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 09:20:02 -0700
Subject: [ExI] emotions
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
In my case, at least, "so obvious that no reply was needed" was the case.
Thing is, rationality is the product of an educated mind: one that has
been shown that science and logic really do work a lot better than
wishing and drama. That very concept has been under attack for
decades, in many of the areas that now vote for what has been termed
"anti-science". Education seems like it would be the surest way to
fix this - but it is slow, and how to get it in when those currently
in power rail against it at every turn they can?
Fortunately this is not every turn. There remain those rightly
convinced that, if nothing else, education can get their children
better jobs. Making education - specifically, job retraining - more
available to out-of-work adults as well, so that education can get
them better jobs (better than "none", a low bar to clear), might be
one means of counterattack.
On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 9:52 AM, William Flynn Wallace
wrote:
> I really don't know how to put this and not insult anyone, which I sincerely
> hope not to do.
>
> After Bill K's response to a post and my comment, I posted something about
> people not looking for something rational, but something emotional they can
> get behind and support. No one responded.
>
> Now maybe it was because what I said was so obvious that no reply was
> needed, but it also might be that this highly rational and scientific group
> just don't like to consider emotions. I don't know which it is.
>
> I'll bet that most of us in this group think that evangelicals are a bunch
> of nuts, and most religious people are not far behind. Ja?
>
> Maybe making decisions based on emotions is just anathema to this group, but
> every single decision contains some emotion. People who are brain-damaged
> and cut off from their emotions don't know how to make even simple choices.
> "Do you want a roll or cornbread?" Can't choose.
>
> Lurking, therefore, behind our rational beings are emotions. Why use
> anything but rationality? Because that's the way brains are built, and we
> have to come to grips with it.
>
> The national political mood among many, and I won't name a political party,
> though you know who it is, is anti-scientific to the point of complete
> irrationality. I am not sure what we have to do with to win these people
> over, but if we don't the nation will go down and down and we will be
> unprepared for climate change, among other things. I think we are already
> unprepared for that.
>
> We just can't ignore them. There are too many of them and they won't go
> away, and they are a major political force - we have to deal with them and
> preaching to them about reason and science is not getting the job done.
>
> Ideas?
>
> bill w
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 16 16:26:17 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (Spike Jones)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 09:26:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <004001d3d59f$a6936430$f3ba2c90$@rainier66.com>
>? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] ants again
>? churches I have been to for funerals are the epitome of emotional expressions very overtly acted out (lots of standing up and shrieking something and then fainting). It's not about what or how we think. It's about how we feel?bill w
Ja. I am in shock and awe to learn that Aubrey de Gray made a breakthrough on Hadwiger-Nelson. Oh that is cool. But I can perhaps concentrate on something else for long enough to post on this other.
This shrieking and fainting business makes me want to create an instrument to measure something I can make from a battery powered Rasberry Pi instrument. I have been thinking of trying to rig up a Pi to do real-time fast Fourier transforms in order to identify the sound of a buzzing bee. If so, such an instrument might be designed to differentiate a shrieking visionary from a dweedling church organ and a humming choir, just as a Nielsen rating meter can somehow differentiate an audio signal from a TV or radio in a noisy room.
Many people today suffer from osteoporosis, so any fall runs a high risk of breaking a bone. A head-impact is very dangerous to people over 60, and a collision with a wooden pew could potentially lead to injury or serious fatality from impact-induced stroke.
Cool, suppose I can write software to detect and log church-shriekers and we set it to run on Raspberry Pi, place it in some inconspicuous place with the permission of the pastor and potential shriekers, set to turn on whenever church is in session. Then we could log incidents of the shrieker/fainters, and compare with the records from the local ER. Then we could estimate the correlation between faith-induced injury and hospitalization. As ER costs rise, we may find that it is a high-value public health investment to install cushions on the pews and a coupla extra layers of padding under the carpets of the more shriek-prone high faint risk churches.
As I work on that, I must estimate the risk of my shrieking/fainting related injury when I hear of Aubrey de Gray having made progress on Hadwiger-Nelson, and the realization that I was at a small private party with that man and even had a pleasant discussion with him. It is a fun story I will tell if anyone wants to hear it: he fell asleep. At a party. Right there in the middle of the party. {8^D
spike
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From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Apr 16 17:17:54 2018
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 13:17:54 -0400
Subject: [ExI] emotions
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 12:52 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
?> ?
> After Bill K's response to a post and my comment, I posted something about
> people not looking for something rational, but something emotional they can
> get behind and support.
>
Steven Pinker points out in his new book that often people's erroneous
ideas are not the result of ignorance but the desire to remain a loyal
member of a tribe. There are certain hot button issues on things like gun
control, taxes, abortion, global warming, drugs and healthcare that label
you as a member of the liberal or the conservative tribe, many people feel
that its more important to display the correct label than to be correct on
the issue. Well educated conservatives were asked to answer the following
question true or false "when 2 parties in a free market economy
voluntarily make a trade the end result always benefits both of them" they
answered "true" even though it is obviously not true, they made the same
mistake on "drug legalization would help black market drug gangs". Well
educated liberals answered true on the following even though they are false
"climate warming is causing the depletion of the ozone layer" and "there is
no evidence whatsoever that IQ is related to inheritance".
> ?> ?
> No one responded.
>
?Maybe its just me but your post only showed up in my mailbox a few minutes
ago, its dated April 11 but today is April 16.
John K Clark
?
> We just can't ignore them. There are too many of them and they won't go
> away, and they are a major political force - we have to deal with them and
> preaching to them about reason and science is not getting the job done.
>
> Ideas?
>
> bill w
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From atymes at gmail.com Mon Apr 16 17:44:41 2018
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:44:41 -0700
Subject: [ExI] emotions
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 10:17 AM, John Clark wrote:
> Maybe its just me but your post only showed up in my mailbox a few minutes
> ago, its dated April 11 but today is April 16.
More than a few minutes ago here, but here as well it arrived long
after it was apparently sent.
From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 16 17:50:38 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (Spike Jones)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:50:38 -0700
Subject: [ExI] emotions
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <003501d3d5ab$6e796610$4b6c3230$@rainier66.com>
From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2018 10:18 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] emotions
On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 12:52 PM, William Flynn Wallace > wrote:
?> ?>?After Bill K's response to a post and my comment, I posted something about people not looking for something rational, but something emotional they can get behind and support.
>?Steven Pinker points out in his new book that often people's erroneous ideas are not the result of ignorance but the desire to remain a loyal member of a tribe. There are certain hot button issues on things like gun control, taxes, abortion, global warming, drugs and healthcare that label you as a member of the liberal or the conservative tribe?
Ja. Belief isn?t what it appears to be. Examples are many, but since we were discussing church shriekers earlier, keep in mind that there are pleeeeeenty of people in churches for plenty of reasons other than they believe the subject matter of the shrieking. The most obvious is that so many attractive and desirable women go there. Single men can get cleaned up once a week, put on a nice suit, go look around for the non-shriekers, who are also there looking for the male non-shriekers. Both groups recognize that this is a good place to find a partner most likely to successfully raise a family, find one likely to still be there twenty years down the road, etc.
Before you laugh and toss that paradoxical comment, think it over and ask yourself what alternatives does our modern society offer? If one is looking for stable family-oriented partner, he or she is unlikely to find that in the bar or night club, best not to look for it at work, and when you think about it, most clubs are mostly one gender or the other (Ja? The Gun Club will be mostly men, the motorcycle touring club older married couples and single men, the knitting circle will be mostly women, etc.) Churn all that around in your mind for a while, you end up with the best and most target-rich hunting grounds is? at church.
Please my flaming atheist single friends, where do you go? What do you do? Assume you aren?t a raging intellect, so the local MENSA meeting is out, and the geek meetings that you and I go for are mostly non-starters. Assume average intellect, either gender, mainstream hetero looking for a life partner for raising children and, you know, the nice stable family like the one a lot of our grandparents had. Where do you find that?
The heart has reasons that reason knows not. Blaise Pascal
>?and "there is no evidence whatsoever that IQ is related to inheritance".
?> ?>?No one responded.
?Imagine that. Be careful with that one John. It is explosive.
>?Maybe its just me but your post only showed up in my mailbox a few minutes ago, its dated April 11 but today is April 16?John K Clark
I got BillW?s first post and second one six minutes apart. I was puzzled on why he commented that no one responded to his first post.
spike
?
We just can't ignore them. There are too many of them and they won't go away, and they are a major political force - we have to deal with them and preaching to them about reason and science is not getting the job done.
Ideas?
bill w
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From sparge at gmail.com Mon Apr 16 18:00:28 2018
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 14:00:28 -0400
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
For the record, this showed up in my mailbox today.
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 9:40 PM, William Flynn Wallace
wrote:
>
> Dave Sill wrote:
>
>
>>> ??
>>> Extropian principles would be a good basis for a rational alternative to
>>> religion.
>>>
>>
> ?No one on this list will argue with that. But, unlike us, many people
> are not looking for a rational anything. They want emotional things - some
> things to love, to hate, to be for, to be against, to rant on, to go to war
> for, to get insulted by, to fear - well, you get the idea?.
>
> In the Deep South, the black churches I have been to for funerals are the
> epitome of emotional expressions very overtly acted out (lots of standing
> up and shrieking something and then fainting). It's not about what or how
> we think. It's about how we feel.
>
Clearly people want emotion, and there's nothing irrational about that.
There's no need to be anti-rationality to be pro-emotionality. There are
many examples of people who get excited about logic, math, science, etc.
Spike is a shining example. :-)
-Dave
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From ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com Mon Apr 16 18:17:14 2018
From: ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com (ilsa)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 18:17:14 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Aubrey de Grey
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
Thanks for posting. I had a beer or two way back with Aubrey, at a
conference. It's good news.
Smile, ilsa
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 7:51 AM John Clark wrote:
> Most on this list probably know that biologist and Alcor member Aubrey de
> Grey is very interested in life extension, but may not know he is also an
> amateur mathematician and apparently a very good one because he just made a
> discovery that had eluded the professionals for almost 70 years:
>
> https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/
>
>
> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02385.pdf
>
>
> John K Clark
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 16 18:36:59 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (Spike Jones)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 11:36:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <003e01d3d5b1$e8526d00$b8f74700$@rainier66.com>
From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 9:40 PM, William Flynn Wallace > wrote:
>>? (lots of standing up and shrieking something and then fainting). It's not about what or how we think. It's about how we feel.
>?Clearly people want emotion, and there's nothing irrational about that. There's no need to be anti-rationality to be pro-emotionality. There are many examples of people who get excited about logic, math, science, etc. Spike is a shining example. :-) -Dave
Dave, you are too kind, sir.
But it?s worse than that. I have experienced more than mere excitement at some kinds of logic, math, science, etc. It goes toward what might delicately be called arousal in some cases, even if the discovery was made by men, and even if the discoverer has long perished. Examples are many, but I will mercifully spare you the details.
Somewhere in here I must insert a fun story about Aubrey de Grey. We had a local event about 15 yrs ago with all the usual suspects. I don?t even remember which one it was, but it might have been Eliezer?s Singularity Ahead summit he organized at Stanford. Christine Petersen invited me to a reception afterwards at her house (Christine if you are lurking here, I do thank you a thousand times kind lady.) Aubrey showed up, so I struggled to prevent myself from falling on the floor at his feet in humble adoration. He plopped down on a couch next to the one I was sitting on already, and just sat quietly, didn?t even get food. Of course people came, brought him stuff and chatted him up; nice guy, soft spoken, smart as a whip, British accent and all that. Then? after about less than half an hour, he dozed off. Right there sitting upright on the couch at Christine?s party, about 15 or 20 people there. We figured it had been a hard flight over from Jolly Olde. We let him sleep. {8^D
I have a notion that mathematical arousal can occur even after more traditional mechanisms have faded because of natural decline in hormone levels and so forth. We have such rich and abundant terminology that we currently use on copulation; it seems we can borrow some from that deep reservoir. The terminology in this area needs work, but ExI might be an ideal forum for proposing such terms. Postulate panting? Equation arousal? Theorem boner? Calculust?
spike
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From spike at rainier66.com Mon Apr 16 18:41:01 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (Spike Jones)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 11:41:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Aubrey de Grey
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <004d01d3d5b2$78c57da0$6a5078e0$@rainier66.com>
From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of ilsa
Subject: Re: [ExI] Aubrey de Grey
Thanks for posting. I had a beer or two way back with Aubrey, at a conference. It's good news.
Smile, ilsa
Ilsa, weren?t you with us at the Singularity Ahead conference? Seems I recall you used to hang out with the locals back in the days when I had a lot more time for fun stuff like that. It astonishes me that people as smart and visionary as Aubry de Grey can still be so kind, friendly, human, not a trace of evidence it has gone to his head, still bother with us mere geeks. What a guy!
spike
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From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Apr 16 19:51:05 2018
From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 12:51:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Aubrey de Grey
In-Reply-To:
Message-ID: <20180416125105.d116f5e08926a7036dd11a0a743afc19.2b994e886a.mailapi@email17.godaddy.com>
Congratulations Aubrey!
Natsha
--------- Original Message --------- Subject: Re: [ExI] Aubrey de Grey
From: "ilsa"
Date: 4/16/18 11:17 am
To: "ExI chat list"
Thanks for posting. I had a beer or two way back with Aubrey, at a conference. It's good news. Smile, ilsa
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 7:51 AM John Clark wrote:
Most on this list probably know that biologist and Alcor member Aubrey de Grey is very interested in life extension, but may not know he is also an amateur mathematician and apparently a very good one because he just made a discovery that had eluded the professionals for almost 70 years:
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02385.pdf
John K Clark
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
_______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From tech101 at gmail.com Mon Apr 16 21:45:28 2018
From: tech101 at gmail.com (Adam A. Ford)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 21:45:28 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Aubrey de Grey
In-Reply-To: <20180416125105.d116f5e08926a7036dd11a0a743afc19.2b994e886a.mailapi@email17.godaddy.com>
References:
<20180416125105.d116f5e08926a7036dd11a0a743afc19.2b994e886a.mailapi@email17.godaddy.com>
Message-ID:
Wow that's so good to hear! Congratulations Aubrey de Grey!
On Tue, 17 Apr 2018, 06:12 , wrote:
>
> Congratulations Aubrey!
>
> Natsha
>
> --------- Original Message ---------
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Aubrey de Grey
> From: "ilsa"
> Date: 4/16/18 11:17 am
> To: "ExI chat list"
>
> Thanks for posting. I had a beer or two way back with Aubrey, at a
> conference. It's good news.
> Smile, ilsa
>
> On Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 7:51 AM John Clark wrote:
>
>> Most on this list probably know that biologist and Alcor member Aubrey de
>> Grey is very interested in life extension, but may not know he is also an
>> amateur mathematician and apparently a very good one because he just made a
>> discovery that had eluded the professionals for almost 70 years:
>>
>> https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/
>>
>>
>>
>> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02385.pdf
>>
>>
>>
>> John K Clark
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From atymes at gmail.com Mon Apr 16 22:03:33 2018
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:03:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] good luck and evolution-speed, mr. musk
In-Reply-To: <008101d3d0f2$60a622c0$21f26840$@rainier66.com>
References: <008101d3d0f2$60a622c0$21f26840$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID:
Hopefully Boeing is:
https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/04/boeing-tow-elon-musks-tesla-roadster/
On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 10:35 AM, wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Apparently he isn?t kidding:
>
>
>
> https://www.space.com/40243-spacex-mars-spaceship-elon-musk-photo.html?utm_source=sdc-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20180410-sdc
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Apr 17 16:40:32 2018
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 11:40:32 -0500
Subject: [ExI] emotions
In-Reply-To: <003501d3d5ab$6e796610$4b6c3230$@rainier66.com>
References:
<003501d3d5ab$6e796610$4b6c3230$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID:
I got BillW?s first post and second one six minutes apart. I was puzzled
on why he commented that no one responded to his first post.
spike
Well, that solves the mystery. How on earth did Gmail take so long to
deliver my messages? Never happened to me before - you?
I read where some AI people are trying to develop a separate module for
emotions. My question is: just how are they going to do that since we
don't understand much at all about human emotions? We know quite a lot
about the anatomy and physiology of emotions, but not the psychology - just
how do emotions influence attitudes and behaviors? (technical note: an
attitude has three components - behavioral, intellectual, and emotional -
if the emotional part is missing it's an opinion). We have tons of work to
do, lasting, I am sure, for decades, before we say definitive things about
human emotions.
I really despaired when I got no responses. I have been trying since I
joined to get some discussions going, and mostly have failed miserably.
Nothing ongoing. I do understand that a lot of things went on before I
joined, but have those opinions cemented into stone tablets? Surely we all
modify our opinions as time and experience goes on, so what's wrong with
starting a new discussion on an old topic?
One that comes to my mind: just what will the post-human be like?
Anatomy, physiology, psychology? I got very little from y'all when I first
asked that question, which was my first one.
bill w
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 12:50 PM, Spike Jones wrote:
>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf
> Of *John Clark
> *Sent:* Monday, April 16, 2018 10:18 AM
> *To:* ExI chat list
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] emotions
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 12:52 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ?> ?>?After Bill K's response to a post and my comment, I posted
> something about people not looking for something rational, but something
> emotional they can get behind and support.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >?Steven Pinker points out in his new book that often people's erroneous
> ideas are not the result of ignorance but the desire to remain a loyal
> member of a tribe. There are certain hot button issues on things like gun
> control, taxes, abortion, global warming, drugs and healthcare that label
> you as a member of the liberal or the conservative tribe?
>
>
>
> Ja. Belief isn?t what it appears to be. Examples are many, but since we
> were discussing church shriekers earlier, keep in mind that there are
> pleeeeeenty of people in churches for plenty of reasons other than they
> believe the subject matter of the shrieking. The most obvious is that so
> many attractive and desirable women go there. Single men can get cleaned
> up once a week, put on a nice suit, go look around for the non-shriekers,
> who are also there looking for the male non-shriekers. Both groups
> recognize that this is a good place to find a partner most likely to
> successfully raise a family, find one likely to still be there twenty
> years down the road, etc.
>
>
>
> Before you laugh and toss that paradoxical comment, think it over and ask
> yourself what alternatives does our modern society offer? If one is
> looking for stable family-oriented partner, he or she is unlikely to find
> that in the bar or night club, best not to look for it at work, and when
> you think about it, most clubs are mostly one gender or the other (Ja? The
> Gun Club will be mostly men, the motorcycle touring club older married
> couples and single men, the knitting circle will be mostly women, etc.)
> Churn all that around in your mind for a while, you end up with the best
> and most target-rich hunting grounds is? at church.
>
>
>
> Please my flaming atheist single friends, where do you go? What do you
> do? Assume you aren?t a raging intellect, so the local MENSA meeting is
> out, and the geek meetings that you and I go for are mostly non-starters.
> Assume average intellect, either gender, mainstream hetero looking for a
> life partner for raising children and, you know, the nice stable family
> like the one a lot of our grandparents had. Where do you find that?
>
>
>
> The heart has reasons that reason knows not. Blaise Pascal
>
>
>
>
>
> >?and "there is no evidence whatsoever that IQ is related to inheritance".
>
>
>
>
> ?> ?>?No one responded.
>
>
>
> ?Imagine that. Be careful with that one John. It is explosive.
>
>
>
> >?Maybe its just me but your post only showed up in my mailbox a few
> minutes ago, its dated April 11 but today is April 16?John K Clark
>
>
>
> I got BillW?s first post and second one six minutes apart. I was puzzled
> on why he commented that no one responded to his first post.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> We just can't ignore them. There are too many of them and they won't go
> away, and they are a major political force - we have to deal with them and
> preaching to them about reason and science is not getting the job done.
>
>
>
> Ideas?
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From sparge at gmail.com Tue Apr 17 17:02:53 2018
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 13:02:53 -0400
Subject: [ExI] emotions
In-Reply-To:
References:
<003501d3d5ab$6e796610$4b6c3230$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID:
On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 12:40 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
> Well, that solves the mystery. How on earth did Gmail take so long to
> deliver my messages? Never happened to me before - you?
>
It might not have been Gmail that caused the delay. The list server could
also have been stuck.
One that comes to my mind: just what will the post-human be like?
> Anatomy, physiology, psychology? I got very little from y'all when I first
> asked that question, which was my first one.
>
Nobody really knows until it happens, but likely there will be a wide range
of options. Pretty much anything imaginable is possible, and lots of things
we haven't even dreamed up yet will come to pass.
-Dave
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From spike at rainier66.com Tue Apr 17 17:53:46 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (Spike Jones)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 10:53:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] emotions
In-Reply-To:
References:
<003501d3d5ab$6e796610$4b6c3230$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <00f001d3d675$09164b10$1b42e130$@rainier66.com>
From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 10:03 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] emotions
>>?One that comes to my mind: just what will the post-human be like? Anatomy, physiology, psychology? I got very little from y'all when I first asked that question, which was my first one.
>?Nobody really knows until it happens, but likely there will be a wide range of options. Pretty much anything imaginable is possible, and lots of things we haven't even dreamed up yet will come to pass. -Dave
Ja. With regard to machine emotions, we can settle for fake ones, and even just the positive emotions. I want my robot to be incapable of anger (for obvious reasons) and I don?t want it to ever experience fear or sadness. But I want it to laugh at my jokes and silliness.
spike
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 18 04:16:01 2018
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 21:16:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Surveillance, crime, and revolutions
Message-ID:
The human animal is not well suited to the currently interacting
numbers of people. We have partly compensated by studying our
accessible history and drawing conclusions as to what kind of leader
behavior is tolerable.
Anyway, technology is changing lots of things. There are so many
cameras around that we invented a sort of time machine.
An increasing number of crimes are solved with security cameras.
Unfortunately, since the police are usually under the control of the
political section of the government, this is also going to make
organizing a rebellion harder. At least the government could trace
anyone who met with the rebellion leaders (meme spreaders).
Given the nature of genes (and the survival machines genes build) is
it possible to predict future developments at the political level due
to a misty time machine?
Keith
From spike at rainier66.com Wed Apr 18 04:34:32 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (Spike Jones)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 21:34:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Surveillance, crime, and revolutions
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <003901d3d6ce$8cafe0e0$a60fa2a0$@rainier66.com>
-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of
Keith Henson
Subject: [ExI] Surveillance, crime, and revolutions
>...Anyway, technology is changing lots of things. There are so many
cameras around that we invented a sort of time machine.
>...An increasing number of crimes are solved with security cameras...Keith
_______________________________________________
Is this a cool time to be living or what?
All the stuff we talked about here over the years is coming to pass, in
remarkable agreement with what we envisioned, the same things Julian Assange
posted here, the things Hal Finney and the other smart guys posted, they saw
it all.
Clearly we have entered an age of information warfare, and just as Hal and
the others suggested, we can't really tell who the adversaries are, but we
can only see the digital salvos being fired.
Governments are having a harder time hiding the kinds of activities they
have always done. Corrupt organizations, corporations, political parties,
the seats of power are finding they must follow the rules or be exposed.
Oh life is good.
spike
From spike at rainier66.com Fri Apr 20 04:02:54 2018
From: spike at rainier66.com (Spike Jones)
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 21:02:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] evolutionary psychology in a meme war
Message-ID: <000001d3d85c$7644af40$62ce0dc0$@rainier66.com>
We have heard of how evolutionary psychology predicts a society will engage
in warfare when there is a sufficient level of collective pessimism about
the future.
OK, sure that makes sense in the traditional definition of warfare. But
now, if we embrace the notion that modern warfare is primarily memetic and
the battlefield is digital, the weapons entirely digital where none of the
participants actually perish, can we extend traditional evolutionary
psychology to now?
spike
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