From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jan 1 08:07:03 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:07:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ebola bets and Happy 02018 Message-ID: <3D40F3BB-6985-4B30-9B52-96B413037E82@gmail.com> http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2018/01/i_win_all_my_eb.html I recall a friend becoming extremely anxious when the Ebola crisis was underway. He told me things like that he feared his life was over (he was 28) because civilization would soon collapse. Happy New Year! Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 1 16:49:37 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2018 11:49:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year Message-ID: One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ============== One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ============== One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ Happy New Year all. I predict that a paper reporting positive psi results will NOT appear in Nature or Science in the next year. This may seem an outrageous prediction, after all psi is hardly a rare phenomena, millions of people with no training have managed to observe it, or claim they have. And I am sure the good people at Nature and Science would want to say something about this very important and obvious part of our natural world if they could, but I predict they will be unable to find anything interesting to say about it.You might think my prediction is crazy, like saying a waitress with an eight's grade education in Duluth Minnesota can regularly observe the Higgs boson with no difficulty but the highly trained Physicists at CERN in Switzerland cannot. Nevertheless I am confident my prediction is true because my ghostly spirit guide Mohammad Duntoldme spoke to meabout it in a dream. PS: I am also confident I can make this very same prediction one year from today. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From col.hales at gmail.com Mon Jan 1 20:28:04 2018 From: col.hales at gmail.com (col.hales at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 07:28:04 +1100 Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5a4a99f1.c7df620a.d2158.0c07@mx.google.com> Your spooky prescience on this matter goes unassailed. Happy new year! Colin Sent from my Windows 10 phone From: John Clark Sent: Tuesday, January 2, 2018 3:51 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ============== One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ============== One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. ================ Happy New Year all. I predict that a paper reporting positive psi results will NOT appear in Nature or Science in the next year. This may seem an outrageous prediction, after all psi is hardly a rare phenomena, millions of?people with no training have managed to observe it, or claim they have.?And I am sure the good people at Nature and Science would want to?say something about this very important and obvious part of our natural?world if they could, but I predict they will be unable to find anything?interesting to say about it.You might think my prediction is crazy, like saying a waitress with an?eight's grade education in Duluth Minnesota can regularly observe the Higgs boson with no difficulty but the highly trained Physicists at CERN in Switzerland cannot. Nevertheless I am confident my prediction is true?because my ghostly spirit guide Mohammad Duntoldme spoke to meabout it in a dream. PS: I am also confident I can make this very same prediction one year from?today. ? ? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 2 12:49:06 2018 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 12:49:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Charlie Stross foresees a bleak future (mainly due to tech misuse) Message-ID: Dude, you broke the future! By Charlie Stross This is the text of my keynote speech at the 34th Chaos Communication Congress in Leipzig, December 2017. Abstract: We're living in yesterday's future, and it's nothing like the speculations of our authors and film/TV producers. As a working science fiction novelist, I take a professional interest in how we get predictions about the future wrong, and why, so that I can avoid repeating the same mistakes. Science fiction is written by people embedded within a society with expectations and political assumptions that bias us towards looking at the shiny surface of new technologies rather than asking how human beings will use them, and to taking narratives of progress at face value rather than asking what hidden agenda they serve. In this talk, author Charles Stross will give a rambling, discursive, and angry tour of what went wrong with the 21st century, why we didn't see it coming, where we can expect it to go next, and a few suggestions for what to do about it if we don't like it. ------------------ BillK From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 3 02:31:03 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 18:31:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 9:55 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Forbidden Words >?Sorry, Spike--didn't mean any offense. Just that such political nonsense belies your intelligence, especially when a lot of people saying the same kind of thing truly are unintelligent. Still friends? :D Cheers, -Will Hi Will, no worrries, no offense perceived. I already know plenty of dummies say the kinds of stuff I posted. But that in itself doesn?t actually prove anything, or even necessarily even indicate anything. A question occurred to me while I was vacationing: suppose we theorize that a political party is smarter (or dumber) than another. How do we test it? Then I had an idea. But before I share that, any notions? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 3 06:27:18 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 22:27:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] UFOs again or AAVs for the first time In-Reply-To: <7be74d133211deb3720dc1567b8ec2d8.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <7be74d133211deb3720dc1567b8ec2d8.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <021501d3845b$e8b012e0$ba1038a0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge > >> Without some kind of Hollywoody magic, spacecraft that size will not cross interstellar gaps. >...Are you aware of the Alcubierre drive, Spike? It's a solution to Einstein's equations of GR that allows the use of negative energy to form a bubble of flat space-time that a ship can safely sit in while the space behind the bubble expands like dark energy and the space in front of the bubble contracts like gravity...Stuart LaForge Stuart my fond hope is that some outrageously cool technology will prove me wrong wrong wrong on everything I think I understand about physics. The past couple years has been full of developments I never woulda predicted, the LIGO stuff, the apparent re-emergence of neural nets, the Bitcoin explosion, oh mercy. spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 3 15:37:58 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 07:37:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride Message-ID: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> Wooohooo, did you guys already discuss this while I was away? https://www.space.com/39164-elon-musk-unveils-falcon-heavy-rocket-photos.htm l?utm_source=sdc-newsletter &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20171221-sdc Good luck and evolution-speed Mr. Musk. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 18:21:27 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 13:21:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> Message-ID: I hope it works but one thing that makes me nervous is the first stage has 27 small engines, that's 27 ways things can go wrong. The Apollo moon rocket had 5 large engines, the USSR tried to make something comparable with their N1-L3 rocket but the first stage had 30 small engines instead of 5 large ones and it blew up every time they ?tried? ? to launch it. John K Clark 27 first-stage engines On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 10:37 AM, spike wrote: > > > > > Wooohooo, did you guys already discuss this while I was away? > > > > https://www.space.com/39164-elon-musk-unveils-falcon- > heavy-rocket-photos.html?utm_source=sdc-newsletter&utm_ > medium=email&utm_campaign=20171221-sdc > > > > Good luck and evolution-speed Mr. Musk. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 18:30:03 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 10:30:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> Message-ID: On Jan 3, 2018, at 10:21 AM, John Clark wrote: > > I hope it works but one thing that makes me nervous is the first stage has 27 small engines, that's 27 ways things can go wrong. The Apollo moon rocket had 5 large engines, the USSR tried to make something comparable with their N1-L3 rocket but the first stage had 30 small engines instead of 5 large ones and it blew up every time they ?tried?? to launch it. To be sure, they?ve been doing the nine engine thing for a while and even dealing with problems like engine failures during otherwise successful flights... They can survive engine failures and continue to orbit. Then again, didn?t they blow an engine a couple of months ago during testing? I mean unexpectedly. And I don?t disagree with your abstract point: more complex systems tend to have more things that can go wrong. Regards, Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 18:35:11 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 13:35:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> Message-ID: I'm curious, does anyone here know why they took the approach of many smaller engines versus much fewer larger ones? On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 1:30 PM, Dan TheBookMan wrote: > On Jan 3, 2018, at 10:21 AM, John Clark wrote: > > I hope it works but one thing that makes me nervous is the first stage has > 27 small engines, that's 27 ways things can go wrong. The Apollo moon > rocket had 5 large engines, the USSR tried to make something comparable > with their N1-L3 rocket but the first stage had 30 small engines instead of > 5 large ones and it blew up every time they > ?tried? > ? > to launch it. > > > To be sure, they?ve been doing the nine engine thing for a while and even > dealing with problems like engine failures during otherwise successful > flights... They can survive engine failures and continue to orbit. Then > again, didn?t they blow an engine a couple of months ago during testing? I > mean unexpectedly. > > And I don?t disagree with your abstract point: more complex systems tend > to have more things that can go wrong. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": > http://mybook.to/SandTrap > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 18:51:38 2018 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 13:51:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 1:35 PM, Dylan Distasio wrote: > I'm curious, does anyone here know why they took the approach of many > smaller engines versus much fewer larger ones? > Scalability? -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 19:21:39 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 11:21:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> Message-ID: <95A6AC1C-A7AB-4027-AFB5-215A722EBA82@gmail.com> On Jan 3, 2018, at 10:51 AM, Dave Sill wrote: >> On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 1:35 PM, Dylan Distasio wrote: >> I'm curious, does anyone here know why they took the approach of many smaller engines versus much fewer larger ones? > > Scalability? That is my guess too. Regards, Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 19:23:25 2018 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 12:23:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> Message-ID: The Soviet rocket had 24 engines on one hull, and tried to regulate everything with extremely clever plumbing and fluid dynamics. Three hulls with 9 engines per gives a lot more flexibility to dampen out the vibrations that made the Soviet design unworkable, and the control electronics on the SpaceX hulls are much more responsive and flexible than anything you could build in the 60s. The precision on the mechanical components is probably dramatically superior too. On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 11:51 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 1:35 PM, Dylan Distasio > wrote: > >> I'm curious, does anyone here know why they took the approach of many >> smaller engines versus much fewer larger ones? >> > > Scalability? > > -Dave > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 19:26:28 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 14:26:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: <95A6AC1C-A7AB-4027-AFB5-215A722EBA82@gmail.com> References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> <95A6AC1C-A7AB-4027-AFB5-215A722EBA82@gmail.com> Message-ID: Not being a rocket scientist, I guess that makes sense in general, but to John's point, it doesn't seem like a great idea when you are increasing complexity in a system that is somewhat prone to blowing up. In any case, I wish them a lot of success with the launch and am excited about the prospect of a rocket with that much power coming back into the space exploration toolkit. On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 2:21 PM, Dan TheBookMan wrote: > On Jan 3, 2018, at 10:51 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 1:35 PM, Dylan Distasio > wrote: > >> I'm curious, does anyone here know why they took the approach of many >> smaller engines versus much fewer larger ones? >> > > Scalability? > > > That is my guess too. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": > http://mybook.to/SandTrap > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 3 20:11:09 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 12:11:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] perfect sense in some circumstances... was: RE: Dark Energy and Causal Cells Message-ID: <012d01d384cf$0048bce0$00da36a0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace >?Yes, there are plenty of fools around - casinos aren't lacking for customers, eh? Can you think of circumstances where casino betting would make perfectly good sense? Assume one finds no recreational value in gambling (I don?t (understatement, I find the whole notion most distasteful (but that might be my puritan roots I just cannot completely sever.))) >? Like second marriages - the triumph of hope over experience. bill w Vaguely related to the first question, run with it if you wish: can you think of circumstances where a second marriage makes perfectly good sense? Assume one finds recreational value in marriage (I do (understatement, I find the whole notion most tasteful (but that might be my puritan roots I just cannot completely sever (and have no desire to do so in this case.)))) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 20:45:26 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 12:45:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> <95A6AC1C-A7AB-4027-AFB5-215A722EBA82@gmail.com> Message-ID: <8FC7BBF2-F88E-4425-ACEF-08D7B86505FD@gmail.com> On Jan 3, 2018, at 11:26 AM, Dylan Distasio wrote: > > Not being a rocket scientist, I guess that makes sense in general, but to John's point, it doesn't seem like a great idea when you are increasing complexity in a system that is somewhat prone to blowing up. > > In any case, I wish them a lot of success with the launch and am excited about the prospect of a rocket with that much power coming back into the space exploration toolkit. Not rocket engineer either... I think they?ve demonstrated some success with the modular scalable approach. Building a bigger engine would mean basically having to go through the whole design, develop, test, and use process again for just that one component. Now they have a reliable engine with many successful flights. They?ve also tested some failure modes in flights ? shutting down engines and such. IIRC, no engine explosion has caused a failure of the Falcon 9 family of rockets in flight or on the pad. The explosions were caused by other components ? not the engines. I believe we?re all hoping for success here. If it all goes well, SpaceX will have a Mars-ready rocket. That might mean that Musk?s aggressive plan to put people on Mars in a few years will come to pass. Regards, Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 20:56:40 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 14:56:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] perfect sense in some circumstances... was: RE: Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: <012d01d384cf$0048bce0$00da36a0$@att.net> References: <012d01d384cf$0048bce0$00da36a0$@att.net> Message-ID: Can you think of circumstances where casino betting would make perfectly good sense? Assume one finds no recreational value in gambling - spike 1 - NO. If no recreational value, no gambling makes any sense (unless you, like me, are on a boat full of volunteer firemen who have no clue as to the odds on rolling dice, and are just as likely to bet on a 4 as a 6 - cleaned them out in less than a hour - I was called a poor sport for not betting on a 4 when that was what I rolled - "Yeah, you just roll and bet -that's the game". Well, my game was to take the money and run. No bets on low odds. I almost never bet on my own point - just bet on others' throws.) can you think of circumstances where a second marriage makes perfectly good sense? 2 - Yes. Plenty of reasons for a second marriage - enjoy monogamy, security, love, money, children - i.e. all of the reasons for a first marriage. What are you thinking? bill w On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 2:11 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace > > > > >?Yes, there are plenty of fools around - casinos aren't lacking for > customers, eh? > > > > Can you think of circumstances where casino betting would make perfectly > good sense? Assume one finds no recreational value in gambling (I don?t > (understatement, I find the whole notion most distasteful (but that might > be my puritan roots I just cannot completely sever.))) > > > > >? Like second marriages - the triumph of hope over experience. bill w > > > > Vaguely related to the first question, run with it if you wish: can you > think of circumstances where a second marriage makes perfectly good sense? > Assume one finds recreational value in marriage (I do (understatement, I > find the whole notion most tasteful (but that might be my puritan roots I > just cannot completely sever (and have no desire to do so in this case.)))) > > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 3 21:24:56 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 13:24:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] tabby's star news Message-ID: <015701d384d9$4dc9d940$e95d8bc0$@att.net> Tabetha Boyajean is announcing results inconsistent with alien megastructures: https://www.space.com/39263-alien-megastructure-tabbys-star-dust.html?utm_so urce=notification However. she has not taken into account that the dimming could be due to S-Brains. Do we have anyone here who is friends with, or knows anyone who is friends with her? If so, could they introduce her to the concept of S-Brains? Anyone have a good link to an explanation of that concept? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 21:59:35 2018 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 13:59:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Charlie Stross foresees a bleak future (mainly due to tech misuse) (BillK) Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 10:52 AM, BillK wrote: > Dude, you broke the future! > By Charlie Stross > > This is the text of my keynote speech at the 34th Chaos Communication > Congress in Leipzig, December 2017. > > > snip Fascinating talk. Charles Stross was on this list back in the early days. I will never forget my surprise at finding an exchange on the list between Hans Moravec and me had been turned into a plot element in Accelerando. (That was a real honor!) Unfortunately, the archives from those days seem to be lost. Keith From protokol2020 at gmail.com Thu Jan 4 00:40:39 2018 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2018 01:40:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Charlie Stross foresees a bleak future (mainly due to tech misuse) (BillK) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Standard crap. He's a disappointment. On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 10:59 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 10:52 AM, BillK wrote: > > > Dude, you broke the future! > > By Charlie Stross > > > > This is the text of my keynote speech at the 34th Chaos Communication > > Congress in Leipzig, December 2017. > > > > dude-you-broke-the-future.html> > > > snip > > Fascinating talk. > > Charles Stross was on this list back in the early days. I will never > forget my surprise at finding an exchange on the list between Hans > Moravec and me had been turned into a plot element in Accelerando. > (That was a real honor!) > > Unfortunately, the archives from those days seem to be lost. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 4 05:21:40 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 21:21:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ebola bets and Happy 02018 In-Reply-To: <3D40F3BB-6985-4B30-9B52-96B413037E82@gmail.com> References: <3D40F3BB-6985-4B30-9B52-96B413037E82@gmail.com> Message-ID: <02e301d3851b$e7519110$b5f4b330$@att.net> ?Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan Subject: [ExI] Ebola bets and Happy 02018 >? he feared his life was over (he was 28) because civilization would soon collapse?Dan I?m different from your friend: I sometimes fear civilization will soon emerge. Either way, his life isn?t over. Dan tell him to get over it and enjoy youth. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 4 07:43:34 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 23:43:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ebola bets and Happy 02018 In-Reply-To: <02e301d3851b$e7519110$b5f4b330$@att.net> References: <3D40F3BB-6985-4B30-9B52-96B413037E82@gmail.com> <02e301d3851b$e7519110$b5f4b330$@att.net> Message-ID: I believe the facts caught up with him. ;) TBH, he seems like the type who likes to be in a crisis state. :/ Regards, Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap > On Jan 3, 2018, at 9:21 PM, spike wrote: > > > ?Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan > Subject: [ExI] Ebola bets and Happy 02018 > > > >? he feared his life was over (he was 28) because civilization would soon collapse?Dan > > > > I?m different from your friend: I sometimes fear civilization will soon emerge. > > Either way, his life isn?t over. Dan tell him to get over it and enjoy youth. > > spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 4 16:12:21 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2018 08:12:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> Message-ID: <03a401d38576$cd8c3770$68a4a650$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] musk's ride >?I hope it works but one thing that makes me nervous is the first stage has 27 small engines, that's 27 ways things can go wrong. The Apollo moon rocket had 5 large engines, the USSR tried to make something comparable with their N1-L3 rocket but the first stage had 30 small engines instead of 5 large ones and it blew up every time they ?tried? to launch it? John K Clark Ja I saw that. On the other hand? we don?t make those big Apollo engines anymore, but the Russians are still making those smaller engines. Good chance Musk is buying a lot of their rocket parts and subsystems. Yanks do control systems really well, but the commies do the big rocketry stuff better than we do, damn em. spike 27 first-stage engines On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 10:37 AM, spike > wrote: Wooohooo, did you guys already discuss this while I was away? https://www.space.com/39164-elon-musk-unveils-falcon-heavy-rocket-photos.html?utm_source=sdc-newsletter &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20171221-sdc Good luck and evolution-speed Mr. Musk. spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 4 17:03:13 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2018 09:03:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: <8FC7BBF2-F88E-4425-ACEF-08D7B86505FD@gmail.com> References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> <95A6AC1C-A7AB-4027-AFB5-215A722EBA82@gmail.com> <8FC7BBF2-F88E-4425-ACEF-08D7B86505FD@gmail.com> Message-ID: <040801d3857d$e911a410$bb34ec30$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan ? >?Not rocket engineer either... I think they?ve demonstrated some success with the modular scalable approach. Building a bigger engine would mean basically having to go through the whole design, develop, test, and use process again for just that one component? Ja in spite of the scary number of nozzles, the whole notion is growing on me. Mass production is something the rocket industry needs desperately. There are so many one-time costs in space stuff, so many really big ones, where a facility was built and used for four or six units. If that can be spread across hundreds of units and we can tolerate a little lower reliability, this might be a great step forward. Regarding reliability: with our Saturn 5-ish yankee approach, so much of the reliability model was educated guesswork. With clusters of instrumented engines, you get something the rocket guy loves: data, lots of performance data, frabjous day, callooh callay, reams of yummy data. I am still hoping for the best from the air-breathing crowd, but until the Skylon notion is ready to fly, this whole rocket cluster thing might be our best bet for heavy lift. I count myself as a reluctant Musk supporter. >?I believe we?re all hoping for success here. If it all goes well, SpaceX will have a Mars-ready rocket. That might mean that Musk?s aggressive plan to put people on Mars in a few years will come to pass. Dan Dan I am reluctant to put a turd in the punchbowl, but that humans to Mars notion ain?t happening. Musk is doing and has done marvelous things. But that won?t fly. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 4 17:19:31 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2018 09:19:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] tabby's star news In-Reply-To: <015701d384d9$4dc9d940$e95d8bc0$@att.net> References: <015701d384d9$4dc9d940$e95d8bc0$@att.net> Message-ID: <041201d38580$2fa3fa20$8eebee60$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike Subject: [ExI] tabby's star news >.Tabetha Boyajean is announcing results inconsistent with alien megastructures: https://www.space.com/39263-alien-megastructure-tabbys-star-dust.html?utm_so urce=notification >.However. she has not taken into account that the dimming could be due to S-Brains. Do we have anyone here who is friends with, or knows anyone who is friends with her? If so, could they introduce her to the concept of S-Brains? spike BillW, isn't Tabetha Boyajean one of your former colleagues? Do you have any contacts there at the University? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 4 17:24:17 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2018 09:24:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] musk's ride In-Reply-To: <040801d3857d$e911a410$bb34ec30$@att.net> References: <002101d384a8$d5c4e820$814eb860$@att.net> <95A6AC1C-A7AB-4027-AFB5-215A722EBA82@gmail.com> <8FC7BBF2-F88E-4425-ACEF-08D7B86505FD@gmail.com> <040801d3857d$e911a410$bb34ec30$@att.net> Message-ID: On Jan 4, 2018, at 9:03 AM, spike wrote: > > From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan > ? > > >?Not rocket engineer either... I think they?ve demonstrated some success with the modular scalable approach. Building a bigger engine would mean basically having to go through the whole design, develop, test, and use process again for just that one component? > > Ja in spite of the scary number of nozzles, the whole notion is growing on me. Mass production is something the rocket industry needs desperately. There are so many one-time costs in space stuff, so many really big ones, where a facility was built and used for four or six units. If that can be spread across hundreds of units and we can tolerate a little lower reliability, this might be a great step forward. It already is a great step forward ? given the number of engines they built and flown and now reflown. I imagine, too, recovered engines gave them some good data too. (I?m sure some of the flown Saturn F-1 and other engines were recovered and studied.) > Regarding reliability: with our Saturn 5-ish yankee approach, so much of the reliability model was educated guesswork. With clusters of instrumented engines, you get something the rocket guy loves: data, lots of performance data, frabjous day, callooh callay, reams of yummy data. > > I am still hoping for the best from the air-breathing crowd, but until the Skylon notion is ready to fly, this whole rocket cluster thing might be our best bet for heavy lift. I count myself as a reluctant Musk supporter. I hope SpaceX inspires more competition in this area. I?m skeptical of exotic approaches when the making things better and cheaper will do ? and when the exotic approach requires huge up front investments though (as usual) promises to pay off if and when it works. > >?I believe we?re all hoping for success here. If it all goes well, SpaceX will have a Mars-ready rocket. That might mean that Musk?s aggressive plan to put people on Mars in a few years will come to pass. Dan > > Dan I am reluctant to put a turd in the punchbowl, but that humans to Mars notion ain?t happening. Musk is doing and has done marvelous things. But that won?t fly. I?m skeptical myself ? more of his aggressive schedule than of the overall outcome. To be sure, in terms of wanting to get more humans away from Earth, I?d much rather see space settlements than Mars settlements. Seems like much effort to me to simply stick people down another gravity well. Regards, Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 4 17:33:53 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2018 09:33:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Charlie Stross foresees a bleak future (mainly due to tech misuse) (BillK) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <043301d38582$31c6a120$9553e360$@att.net> -----Original Message----- >...On Behalf Of Keith Henson Subject: Re: [ExI] Charlie Stross foresees a bleak future (mainly due to tech misuse) (BillK) >...Charles Stross was on this list back in the early days. I will never forget my surprise at finding an exchange on the list between Hans Moravec and me had been turned into a plot element in Accelerando. (That was a real honor!) Unfortunately, the archives from those days seem to be lost...Keith _______________________________________________ If anyone can find those archives, that mine is rich ore indeed. There was a subgroup we had somewhere in the 1999-2002 timeframe which might be even more valuable: the one Hal Finney started to discuss what I think contained the roots of Bitcoin. He was learning all he could about ways to secure digital currency. Eugen Leitl was on that, I think Anders was there, they let me tag along, Robert Bradbury, Wei Dei, the big thinkers of the time. If we can find those discussions, I think we can find where Bitcoin was born. I do think Hal Finney was probably the originator of the idea which became block chain. I think that Prime95 accidentally spawned the notion of numbers as actual currency. If this month's Scientific American is right, Bitcoin might be the future of money. What a time to be living, oh mercy. spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 01:33:31 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2018 20:33:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] New Mersenne Prime number found Message-ID: It was announced ? on Thursday that ? 2^77,232,917 -1 is ? a prime number, the largest one know, ?it has 23,249,425 digits and is the ? 50th Known Mersenne Prime ?.? https://www.mersenne.org/ John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 02:05:03 2018 From: ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com (ilsa) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2018 18:05:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] New Mersenne Prime number found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This makes me smile! Thank you for sharing. Smile, ilsa Ilsa Bartlett Institute for Rewiring the System http://ilsabartlett.wordpress.com http://www.google.com/profiles/ilsa.bartlett www.hotlux.com/angel "Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person." -John Coltrane On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 5:33 PM, John Clark wrote: > It was announced > ? on Thursday that ? > 2^77,232,917 -1 is > ? a prime number, the largest one know, ?it has > 23,249,425 > digits and is the ? > 50th Known Mersenne Prime > ?.? > > https://www.mersenne.org/ > > > John K Clark > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 7 06:30:41 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2018 22:30:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] New Mersenne Prime number found In-Reply-To: <001701d3877c$e0090ba0$a01b22e0$@rainier66.com> References: <001701d3877c$e0090ba0$a01b22e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004d01d38781$0ab03f50$2010bdf0$@att.net> Over the past two years, one can say the size of the largest known prime number doubled about every 20 seconds. The previous record was set on 7 Jan 2016, the new one on 26 December 2017, the new record prime is 2^3025636 times bigger than the previous record. Time for a party! spike From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2018 5:34 PM To: ExI chat list > Subject: [ExI] New Mersenne Prime number found It was announced ? on Thursday that ? 2^77,232,917 -1 is ? a prime number, the largest one know, ?it has 23,249,425 digits and is the ? 50th Known Mersenne Prime ?.? https://www.mersenne.org/ John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 12:41:33 2018 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2018 12:41:33 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Charlie Stross foresees a bleak future (mainly due to tech misuse) (BillK) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3 January 2018 at 21:59, Keith Henson wrote: > On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 10:52 AM, BillK wrote: > >> Dude, you broke the future! >> By Charlie Stross >> >> This is the text of my keynote speech at the 34th Chaos Communication >> Congress in Leipzig, December 2017. >> >> >> > snip > > Fascinating talk. > There are now 292 comments and discussion, some from Charlie Stross himself. Mostly supportive, adding / changing emphasis.... BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 21:49:33 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2018 15:49:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: <6b3053874e2154c38decc4da1d192e84.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <6b3053874e2154c38decc4da1d192e84.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: I am against dogma in general. But if dogma fills an emotional need for security, it should be as rational a dogma as possible. stuart I think of dogma as being totally authoritarian - accept what the authority (person, book, etc.) says and don't question it, don't use reason and logic because that is a different epistemology - authorities don't want you to think - emotions like fear, love, deserve a place in decisions about beliefs, but only a very small one - strong emotions tend to overgeneralize a lot. bill w On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 4:07 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > Bill W wrote: > > >> Just an opportunity to appeal to those who prefer > >> dogma to discovery. Feel free to share the good news. > > > You have just described a big difference between conservatives and > > liberals. Conservatives are motivated mainly by fear, and what is the > > best cure for that? Certainty. Which dogma gives. More religious, more > > irrational. > > I am against dogma in general. But if dogma fills an emotional need for > security, it should be as rational a dogma as possible. > > Two satellites designed to map our cosmic microwave background, WMAP and > Planck have both reported that there is a greater than 50% chance that the > universe is either flat or open. Both of those geometries are infinite. > > Therefore, as bets go, betting that the universe is infinite is at least a > rational one. Perhaps one could make a case it would also make a more > rational dogma than most. > > >> When experience fails, as it often does when environmental changes are > >> sudden and unexpected, hopeful foolishness is not a bad fallback option. > >> From an evolutionary perspective that is. > > -- > > It makes me wonder how depression [becomes] so entrenched in many people, > > because what they tend to do in a crisis [is] sit and worry and feel bad. > > There are actually some psych studies showing that unwarranted optimism > > can be a very good strategy. A false confidence is better than no > > confidence, which breeds inactivity. Fools, as you say.---- > > There is really no such thing as unwarranted optimism. There is just our > attitude toward change. To embrace change as being just as likely to be > better as worse than the same old shit is not false confidence. It is > simply confidence. > > > causal cells - what? (I googled it and got nothing). If you have followed > > my posts over the few years I've been around,and sometimes, notably, the > > absence of them, you realize, with a wry smile, that you have left me > > entirely in the dust with your explanation of multiple mes. > > You can't find causal cells on Google because they are a neologism I > coined here on the list a few months ago. The concept itself has been > steadily evolving as I research it. As far as a rigorous mathematical > definition goes, I have yet to figure that out. > > In General Relativity, they seem to be isomorphic with the Schwarzschild > metric with the allowance that two or more such metrics can be nested > inside one another yet remain causally independent except with regard to > the reversal of the direction of the arrow of time, the polarity of the > event horizon, and the vacuum energy of the interior. > > So in short causal cells are black holes and their time reversals, also > known as white holes, possibly inside other larger black/white holes. > > Those black/white holes with the correct internal vacuum energy, should be > able to support life. So a possible working definition of a causal cell is > a Schwarzschild metric that contains observers and thus constitute > somebody's "observable universe". > > Although causal cells are by definition certainly *not* the entire > universe but instead simply a finite and causally self-contained region of > space-time in a universe which is itself infinite in space and time. > > Thus from the outside, causal cells have only the properties of > black/white holes. i.e. mass, spin, and charge. But from the inside, they > are "observable universes" in their own right. > > > What I want > > to know is just who or what is putting together all these infinite > > possibilities? These legos. The proverbial monkeys? I don't buy the > > argument that if it can happen, it will. Does the universe have nothing > > to do but sit around and make copies of me differing only by one cell? > > Nobody is putting together atoms to make you. It is just the truly > universal laws of physics like gravity, thermodynamics, and entropy > driving and constraining reality. > > You are no more, or less, miraculous than water running down hill. If the > ingredients are present and the laws of physics are in place, your > existence is compulsory in a very small percentage of causal cells. Which, > if the universe is infinite, is an infinite number of them. > > You are not what the universe *does*, you are a part of what the universe > *is*. The universe, like stable polities, are ruled by laws, and not men > or gods or even machines. > > The whole trick of it is to figure out what those laws are. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Jan 7 20:49:17 2018 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2018 12:49:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells Message-ID: John Clark wrote: > ?A few years ago the idea that ?causal cells and black holes were > equivalent was popular but the discovery that the universe is accelerating > made holding that view much more difficult. Recently I saw a picture of > a galaxy and the caption said it was 13.3 billion light years away, the > most distant galaxy known. What that meant is that the light traveled for > 13.3 billion years before it entered > one of out telescopes, so that's what it looked like a very long time ago > not now, and due to the expansion of the universe today it is much further > away than 13.3 billion light years, in fact it is in a very real sense > infinitely far away today. John, the nature of nested Schwarzschild geometries makes sense out of all our observations to date. Observers within causal cells can never see anything actually leave their causal cell. The image of whatever crossed an event horizon is forever squashed on the event horizon getting redder and redder until it fades out at infinite time. It is the same whether you are falling into a black hole or leaving our observable universe. Nobody ever *sees* you leave. And no, John it can't be an infinite distance away because it has not had infinite time to accelerate. > ?The universe is not only expanding it is accelerating, ?so by now that > galaxy is moving away from us faster than the speed of light. Space itself > can move faster than light but spaceships can't so there is no way we > could ever visit that galaxy in finite time, we can no longer influence it > in any way and it can no longer influence us. And yet we can see it, so > 13.3 > billion years ago it must have been in our causal but it no longer is. I have already explained that the outward acceleration is caused by the black hole that swallowed our causal cell. When that happened, our causal cell went from being a black hole to being a time-reversed black hole: a white hole. Now our causal cell is spewing all the energy, matter, and information that it had ever swallowed in its former life as a black hole into the interior of the larger black hole. The larger black hole's own Schwarzschild radius grew larger as a result of swallowing us by just a little less than than a Hubble radius which is what our causal cell's Schwarzschild radius is. > If > the universe were a black hole and that galaxy were in our black hole > 13.3 > billion years ago it still should be. But it isn't. So black holes and > causal cells are not equivalent. Because of that acceleration as time > goes on there is less and less stuff that we can influence and less and > less stuff that can influence us. Well it won't go on forever. At some point we too will be ejected from our white hole causal cell, and enter the containing causal cell. Then as we fall toward that causal cell's singularity, we would experience a *long* free fall followed by spaghettification about 1/10th of a second before the "big crunch". That is unless a still larger black hole intervenes by swallowing our container cell. And again reversing the arrow of time for us. >> I have the math to back it up >> > ?It's not the math I'm worried about its the physics.? What's wrong? Don't you trust general relativity? All I did was generalize it still further. Stuart LaForge From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 22:15:10 2018 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2018 14:15:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] perfect sense in some circumstances... was: RE: Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: <012d01d384cf$0048bce0$00da36a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 12:56 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Can you think of circumstances where casino betting would make perfectly > good sense? Assume one finds no recreational value in gambling - spike > > 1 - NO. If no recreational value, no gambling makes any sense (unless you, > like me, are on a boat full of volunteer firemen who have no clue as to the > odds on rolling dice, and are just as likely to bet on a 4 as a 6 - cleaned > them out in less than a hour - I was called a poor sport for not betting on > a 4 when that was what I rolled - "Yeah, you just roll and bet -that's the > game". Well, my game was to take the money and run. No bets on low odds. > I almost never bet on my own point - just bet on others' throws.) Indeed. If you are the house, people gambling at your casino makes sense - for you. > can you think of circumstances where a second marriage makes perfectly good > sense? > > 2 - Yes. Plenty of reasons for a second marriage - enjoy monogamy, > security, love, money, children - i.e. all of the reasons for a first > marriage. What are you thinking? Adding to that: if the other partner of the first marriage is dead, or may as well be in terms of ability to contribute to and benefit from said first marriage. From avant at sollegro.com Sun Jan 7 23:06:08 2018 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2018 15:06:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells Message-ID: Will Steinberg wrote: > Wondering what you think about what it means between if your black hole and > another if they have both been swallowed by a third? Like everything else in GR, except the speed of light, what it means depends on where the observer is located when he observes the "swallowing". From the outside, you would see the same thing that LIGO sees: A larger black hole swallowing a smaller one to form a single black hole whose Schwarzschild radius is the sum of the Schwarzschild radii of the two that collided minus some "cosmic change" which radiates away as gravitational waves. What observers inside our causal cell would see however is an entirely a different story. Because of the iterated reversals of the arrow of time for successive swallowings, allow me to formulate the temporal polarity rule: Only black holes holes will ever be observed inside of white holes and only white holes will be observed inside of black holes. A black hole that swallows a smaller black hole reverses the smaller black hole's temporal polarity and coverts it into a white hole inside the larger black hole. Therefore the white hole is hidden from external observers because of the event horizon of the black hole that contains it. This satisfies the Cosmic Censorship Hypothesis prohibiting naked singularities which actually only applies to observers within white holes. Within black holes *only* white holes with naked singularities should be seen and the cosmic horizon should be blue-shifted instead of red-shifted. This is why we don't see any white holes in our causal cell, because we are already in a white hole. Observers within white holes only see one singularity, their "big bang", the other singularities are hidden from view inside black holes. Observers within black holes see white holes with naked singularities every time their casual cell swallows a smaller black hole. But as far as their own singularity goes, it lies in their future and no light can escape from it so they *cant* see it. So with that background, I can finally get to answering your question. If the black hole that contains our white hole were to be swallowed by a still larger black hole, then we should see the arrow of time reverse itself again. Our causal cell should change from a white hole to a black hole. All the black holes at the center of galaxies and roaming interstellar space should all become white holes. Furthermore since our parent black hole had become a white hole, our causal cell's cosmic horizon should become white instead of black, hot instead of cold. Our CMB would become x-rays. > What if they are the > only pair of black holes in a long string of monotonic swallowings? All > these permutations of cell linking would exist too. So there are infinite > structures of casual cells as well. Yes, a long string of monotonic swallowings is the easiest to visualize, but the actual picture is more complicated. Causal cells can share 3 types of relationships with one another parent, child, and peer. It's like a crazy 4-dimensional space-time fractal. > This would lead me to believe that what you call causal cells are MUCH more > [dense] and foamy than you're letting on. Dense and foamy? On a supercosmic scale of trillions of light years, I suppose it would be. But from our scale, it's pretty slow and ponderous. :-) > Possible answer is that: > 1) EVERYTHING is black holes, big and small. Yes. There is 5 times more dark matter in our causal cell, than there is visible matter and I warrant *all* of it is in black holes of assorted sizes. > 2) If we are just patterns of causal cell linking, perhaps we cannot [yet?] > see certain attributes of the units within this network, such as the speed > of pattern accretion or separation, which we witness with universal > expansion. Not quite yet, but LIGO rings off the hook every time they power it up, so we might have a btter idea of this in the future. > 3) I have a feeling that the boundaries of these cells might fade when they > are very densely accreted in the "black hole swallowing level of > abstraction" unit. I.e. When your string of black holes has more beads > than neighboring strings. This unit would look like a helix in time, I > think, according to your stuff. Umm. You kind of lost me here. The boundaries are just event horizons which are in effect the speed of light limit in either inward or outward directions. Event horizons are like universal diodes. Matter and energy can only flow in one direction, inward or outward, across them depending on the horizon's temporal polarity. > So we are black hole time helices? And fate is whatever actions of them > give birth to probability distributions in reality. Some kind of > conservation of timespring tension and handedness. > Two oppositely wound springs would dialectically materialize and unwind > (relative to their spring neighborhood.) I guess you could think of the universe as branching "time helices". In fact , aside from trying to explain dark matter, dark energy, and so forth, my theory was in part motivated to give a general relativistic framework for Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics to operate within. So yes, your fate is determined when your wave-function decoheres and you discover which causal cell you have been living in all this time. The theory of causal cells allow quantum randomness and relativistic superdeterminism to become the same thing at the limit of infinity. As far as your "timespring" idea, it sounds a little bit like "torsion" that Lee Smolin and the Loop Quantum Gravity guys say caused our causal cell to bounce back from a big crunch before reaching infinite density and cause the big bang. Torsion may or may not be real, but it is not integral to my theory. Stuart LaForge From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 8 01:40:51 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2018 19:40:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] gadgets Message-ID: Some of these look pretty cool. Anyone have any bad experiences with any of them? bill w http://thedailywise.com/gadgets/viral/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john at ziaspace.com Thu Jan 11 03:09:22 2018 From: john at ziaspace.com (John Klos) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 03:09:22 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ExI] Mailing list issues Message-ID: Happy 2018, all! It has been an eventful year so far, and it has barely begun. Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities have kept me very busy throughout. If that weren't enough, it seems that some spam engine has decided to target extropy.org. For several days we've been getting a few million spam delivery attempts per day. At some point, mailman (the software which handles the mailing lists) fell over and died. I've restarted it and the lists should work, plus I'm collecting all the information I can to see if we can narrow down the issue that causes mailman to die so we can fix it. In the meanwhile, I'll keep a closer eye on mailman to make sure it doesn't happen again. Feel free to email me directly if you have any questions or concerns, or if you notice any issues with email. Thanks very much, John Klos -- I don't know which scares me more - that people adhere to the idea of an omnipotent being powerful enough to create the universe, but whose supposedly most cherished creation is a race modeled after himself which can't stop hurting and killing each other, or the idea that those same people cannot or will not consider the possibility that the universe is random and unfeeling, and it's up to us to create order and beauty out of chaos and entropy. From john at ziaspace.com Thu Jan 11 06:52:04 2018 From: john at ziaspace.com (John Klos) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 06:52:04 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ExI] Mailing list issues In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ...and if spam overload wasn't enough, there were DNS problems after bringing things back up... Please do let me know if any problems continue. From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 00:29:32 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2018 19:29:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 3:49 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: ?> ? > John, the nature of nested Schwarzschild geometries makes sense out of all > ? ? > our observations to date. > I don't think so.The Schwarzschild ? equation says that the future of everything inside the event horizon of a non rotating black hole is in the direction of the singularity at the center, but what our telescopes tell us is things are not going to collapse into a singularity but instead the universe is expanding and accelerating and the singularity was in our past not out future. ? ? Physicists Sean Carroll ? has more to say about this in a article called "The Universe is Not a Black Hole" at ? http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/04/28/ the-universe-is-not-a-black-hole/#.WlKd-tQrLMo > ?> ? > Observers within causal cells can never see > ? > anything actually leave their causal cell. The image of whatever crossed > an event horizon is forever squashed on the event horizon getting redder > ? > and redder until it fades out at infinite time. That's what some thought before it was discovered that the universe is not only expanding but accelerating. You only need to wait a finite amount of time before a distant galaxy you can see now will accelerate till it is moving away from you faster than the speed of light, and then it becomes unobservable. We will see this happen for every galaxy in the universe in a finite amount of time, except for Andromeda and a dozen of so dwarf galaxy that are gravitational bound together with the Milky Way in the local Group. And you keep using the term " ?c? ausal cell" but its not a common term in cosmology and I am no longer sure what you mean by it. Is it the volume of the universe ? that could have had a effect on us ? or the volume of we can see now, or the volume we can still effect? ? Those are 3 different volumes and if its the last 2 its shrinking with the passage of time. And its not invariant, ever point in spacetime would be at the center of a different (and shrinking) "causal cell", so it doesn't seem like a very useful concept. ?> ? > And no, John it can't be an infinite distance away because it has not had > ? ? > infinite time to accelerate. > Because the universe is not only expanding but accelerating a galaxy we can see right now can ? be infinity far away in spacetime, ? ? that is to say ? we can't reach ? it any finite amount of time because we can't accelerate through space ? toward the galaxy until we're going faster than light ? but space itself can ? and so can that galaxy embedded in space. ?> ? > I have already explained that the outward acceleration is caused by the > ? ? > black hole that swallowed our causal cell. > ? > I don't see why that would cause a uniform outward acceleration. > > ?> > When that happened, our causal > ? > cell went from being a black hole to being a time-reversed black hole: a > ? > white hole. ? That sounds a bit like a Einstein-Rosen ? bridge ? that connects a Black Hole to a White Hole, but to make one of those you'd need matter with negative mass, that is matter that accelerates in the direction opposite to ? the ? applied force, and although such stuff would not cause any mathematical inconsistencies there is no evidence such a thing actually exists. There is no evidence White Holes exist either and there should be because they would be even more conspicuous than Black Holes. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 20:26:02 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2018 12:26:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Missing or not? Message-ID: <16F01288-1A80-4BCD-9779-92ADB02ECE47@gmail.com> https://www.cnet.com/news/spacex-zuma-spy-satellite-northrop-grumman-military/ Just hoping their Falcon Heavy launch is a big success. Regards, Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 8 22:05:38 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2018 17:05:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 3:49 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: ?> ? > John, the nature of nested Schwarzschild geometries makes sense out of all > ? ? > our observations to date. > I don't think so.The Schwarzschild ? equation says that the future of everything inside the event horizon of a non rotating black hole is in the direction of the singularity at the center, but what our telescopes tell us is things are not going to collapse into a singularity but instead the universe is expanding and accelerating and the singularity was in our past not out future. ? Physicists Sean Carroll ? has more to say about this in a article called "The Universe is Not a Black Hole" at ?: ? http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/04/28/ the-universe-is-not-a-black-hole/#.WlKd-tQrLMo > ?> ? > Observers within causal cells can never see > ? > anything actually leave their causal cell. The image of whatever crossed > an event horizon is forever squashed on the event horizon getting redder > ? > and redder until it fades out at infinite time. That's what some thought before it was discovered that the universe is not only expanding but accelerating. You only need to wait a finite amount of time before a distant galaxy you can see now will accelerate till it is moving away from you faster than the speed of light, and then it becomes unobservable. We will see this happen for every galaxy in the universe in a finite amount of time, except for Andromeda and a dozen of so dwarf galaxy that are gravitational bound together with the Milky Way in the local Group. And you keep using the term "? causal cell ?" but its not a common term in cosmology and I am no longer sure what you mean by it. Is it the volume of the universe that could have had a effect on us ?,? ?or the volume of we can see now, or the volume we can still effect? ? ?Those are 3 different volumes ?and if its the last 2 its shrinking with the passage of time. And its not invariant, ever point in spacetime would be at the center of a different (and shrinking) "causal cell", so it doesn't seem like a very useful concept. ?> ? > And no, John it can't be an infinite distance away because it has not had > ? ? > infinite time to accelerate. > Because the universe is not only expanding but accelerating a galaxy we can see right now can ? be infinity far away in ?spacetime? ?,? that is to say ? we can't reach ? it any finite amount of time because we can't accelerate through space ? toward the galaxy until we're going faster than light ? but space itself can ? and so can that galaxy embedded in space. ?> ? > I have already explained that the outward acceleration is caused by the > ? ? > black hole that swallowed our causal cell. > ? > I don't see why that would cause a uniform outward acceleration. > > ?> > When that happened, our causal > ? > cell went from being a black hole to being a time-reversed black hole: a > ? > white hole. ? That sounds a bit like a Einstein-Rosen ? bridge ? that connects a Black Hole to a White Hole, but to make one of those you'd need matter with negative mass, that is matter that accelerates in the direction opposite ?to? ? the ? applied force, and although such stuff would not cause any mathematical inconsistencies there is no evidence such a thing actually exists. There is no evidence White Holes exist either and there should be because they would be even more conspicuous than Black Holes. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Jan 8 18:07:36 2018 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2018 13:07:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] perfect sense in some circumstances... was: RE: Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: <012d01d384cf$0048bce0$00da36a0$@att.net> Message-ID: > > On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 12:56 PM, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > ...no gambling makes any sense (unless you, > > like me, are on a boat full of volunteer firemen who have no clue as to > the > > odds on rolling dice, and are just as likely to bet on a 4 as a 6 - > cleaned > > them out in less than a hour... So, gambling doesn't make sense...unless you believe you can win? Sounds familiar. Still a statistical belief; still a value judgment. Same reason many/most people gamble, because they think they have an edge somehow. Fail to see how your example is any different. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 16:46:29 2018 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 11:46:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] perfect sense in some circumstances... was: RE: Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: <012d01d384cf$0048bce0$00da36a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 1:07 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 12:56 PM, William Flynn Wallace >> wrote: >> > ...no gambling makes any sense (unless you, >> > like me, are on a boat full of volunteer firemen who have no clue as to >> the >> > odds on rolling dice, and are just as likely to bet on a 4 as a 6 - >> cleaned >> > them out in less than a hour... > > > So, gambling doesn't make sense...unless you believe you can win? Sounds > familiar. > > Still a statistical belief; still a value judgment. Same reason many/most > people gamble, because they think they have an edge somehow. Fail to see > how your example is any different. > I think his point is that there are times when gambling isn't purely luck and the odds aren't stacked in the house's favor. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 17:23:23 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 11:23:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] perfect sense in some circumstances... was: RE: Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: <012d01d384cf$0048bce0$00da36a0$@att.net> Message-ID: So, gambling doesn't make sense...unless you believe you can win? Sounds familiar. Still a statistical belief; still a value judgment. Same reason many/most people gamble, because they think they have an edge somehow. Fail to see how your example is any different. will wrote Yeah, beliefs can go crazy. Lucky this and that - clearly superstitions. I am talking about virtual certainties - in the long run. If we are dicing and you are betting on 4s and 10s, then I will beat you in the long run - no question. Fact, not belief. Luck, to me, is simply beating the odds, which can be done in the short run. Not in the long. My favorite advice to students - don't repeat your mistakes. Belief in your ability to beat odds is surely a mistake. Often a fatal one. Or costly. Have you read A Random Walk on Wall Street? Don't invest without doing so. bill w On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 12:07 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 12:56 PM, William Flynn Wallace >> wrote: >> > ...no gambling makes any sense (unless you, >> > like me, are on a boat full of volunteer firemen who have no clue as to >> the >> > odds on rolling dice, and are just as likely to bet on a 4 as a 6 - >> cleaned >> > them out in less than a hour... > > > So, gambling doesn't make sense...unless you believe you can win? Sounds > familiar. > > Still a statistical belief; still a value judgment. Same reason many/most > people gamble, because they think they have an edge somehow. Fail to see > how your example is any different. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 17:26:58 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 12:26:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells Message-ID: This is the third time I tried to post this, it bounced the other 2 times. ======== On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 3:49 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: ?> ? > John, the nature of nested Schwarzschild geometries makes sense out of all > ? ? > our observations to date. > I don't think so.The Schwarzschild ? ? equation says that the future of everything inside the event horizon of a non rotating black hole is in the direction of the singularity at the center, but what our telescopes tell us is things are not going to collapse into a singularity but instead the universe is expanding and accelerating and the singularity was in our past not out future. ? ? Physicists Sean Carroll has more to say about this in a article called "The Universe is Not a Black Hole" at ? http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/04/28/ the-universe-is-not-a-black-hole/#.WlKd-tQrLMo > ?> ? > Observers within causal cells can never see > ? > anything actually leave their causal cell. The image of whatever crossed > an event horizon is forever squashed on the event horizon getting redder > ? > and redder until it fades out at infinite time. That's what some thought before it was discovered that the universe is not only expanding but accelerating. You only need to wait a finite amount of time before a distant galaxy you can see now will accelerate till it is moving away from you faster than the speed of light, and then it becomes unobservable. We will see this happen for every galaxy in the universe in a finite amount of time, except for Andromeda and a dozen of so dwarf galaxy that are gravitational bound together with the Milky Way in the local Group. And you keep using the term ?"? causal cell" but its not a common term in cosmology and I am no longer sure what you mean by it. Is it the volume of the universe ? ? that could have had a effect on us ? ? or the volume of we can see now, or the volume we can still effect? Those are 3 different volumes and if its the last 2 its shrinking with the passage of time. And its not invariant, ever point in spacetime would be at the center of a different (and shrinking) "causal cell", so it doesn't seem like a very useful concept. ?> ? > And no, John it can't be an infinite distance away because it has not had > ? ? > infinite time to accelerate. > Because the universe is not only expanding but accelerating a galaxy we can see right now can ? ? be infinity far away in spacetime, that is to say ? ? we can't reach ? ? it any finite amount of time because we can't accelerate through space ? ? toward the galaxy until we're going faster than light ? ? but space itself canand so can that galaxy embedded in space. ?> ? > I have already explained that the outward acceleration is caused by the > ? ? > black hole that swallowed our causal cell. > ? > I don't see why that would cause a uniform outward acceleration. > > ?> > When that happened, our causal > ? > cell went from being a black hole to being a time-reversed black hole: a > ? > white hole. ? That sounds a bit like a Einstein-Rosen ? ? bridge ? ? that connects a Black Hole to a White Hole, but to make one of those you'd need matter with negative mass, that is matter that accelerates in the direction opposite to ? ? the ? ? applied force, and although such stuff would not cause any mathematical inconsistencies there is no evidence such a thing actually exists. There is no evidence White Holes exist either and there should be because they would be even more conspicuous than Black Holes. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fhb3.evolute at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 18:09:02 2018 From: fhb3.evolute at gmail.com (Forrest Bennett) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 10:09:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Missing or not? In-Reply-To: <16F01288-1A80-4BCD-9779-92ADB02ECE47@gmail.com> References: <16F01288-1A80-4BCD-9779-92ADB02ECE47@gmail.com> Message-ID: >From TFA regarding the Zuma launch: In a statement issued Tuesday morning, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said: "For clarity: after review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly on Sunday night. If we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will report it immediately." ?Since the data reviewed so far indicates that no design, operational or other changes are needed, we do not anticipate any impact on the upcoming launch schedule," Shotwell said. "Falcon Heavy has been rolled out to launchpad LC-39A for a static fire later this week, to be followed shortly thereafter by its maiden flight. We are also preparing for an F9 launch for SES and the Luxembourg Government from SLC-40 in three weeks.? There is a lot of speculation about what is really going on here regarding this super secret satellite. If there had really been a problem with the launch on the SpaceX side, you can be 100% certain that the existing launch schedule would be pushed back for 3-6 months. Since the existing launch schedule is unchanged, we can be sure that the SpaceX Falcon 9 performed nominally. If there was a failure, it had to be on the side of the satellite builder (Northrop Grumman). Forrest On Tue, Jan 9, 2018 at 12:26 PM, Dan TheBookMan wrote: > https://www.cnet.com/news/spacex-zuma-spy-satellite- > northrop-grumman-military/ > > Just hoping their Falcon Heavy launch is a big success. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": > http://mybook.to/SandTrap > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 21:05:38 2018 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 16:05:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 12:26 PM, John Clark wrote: > This is the third time I tried to post this, it bounced the other 2 times. > Hmm. It's the third time I've seen it. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 22:20:57 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 14:20:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Missing or not? In-Reply-To: References: <16F01288-1A80-4BCD-9779-92ADB02ECE47@gmail.com> Message-ID: <9B0CD553-9D69-4CED-A476-D880F51B4A71@gmail.com> On Jan 11, 2018, at 10:09 AM, Forrest Bennett wrote: > > From TFA regarding the Zuma launch: > > In a statement issued Tuesday morning, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said: "For clarity: after review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly on Sunday night. If we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will report it immediately." > > ?Since the data reviewed so far indicates that no design, operational or other changes are needed, we do not anticipate any impact on the upcoming launch schedule," Shotwell said. "Falcon Heavy has been rolled out to launchpad LC-39A for a static fire later this week, to be followed shortly thereafter by its maiden flight. We are also preparing for an F9 launch for SES and the Luxembourg Government from SLC-40 in three weeks.? > > There is a lot of speculation about what is really going on here regarding this super secret satellite. > > If there had really been a problem with the launch on the SpaceX side, you can be 100% certain that the existing launch schedule would be pushed back for 3-6 months. Since the existing launch schedule is unchanged, we can be sure that the SpaceX Falcon 9 performed nominally. > > If there was a failure, it had to be on the side of the satellite builder (Northrop Grumman). I agree with your evaluation, especially regarding the launch sched. Regards, Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 14 02:21:45 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2018 20:21:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] puzzler Message-ID: Here's one you can get your psychological teeth into: When England?s Bath and North East Somerset Council, at a cost of 871,000 pounds (US$1.18 million), lowered the speed limit to 20 mph in 13 high-accident zones, it made a difference, and quickly: in the first year, fatalities and serious injuries due to traffic increased significantly. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 15 00:15:34 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2018 18:15:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] perfect sense in some circumstances... was: RE: Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: <012d01d384cf$0048bce0$00da36a0$@att.net> Message-ID: > I think his point is that there are times when gambling isn't purely luck > and the odds aren't stacked in the house's favor. > > -Dave > ?Is this within traveling distance of central Mississippi? Poker is not a game of luck - it's skill, which bends all the odds. In blackjack it's the ability to memorize the cards, which also distorts the odds (assuming you are not at a casino where they use multiple decks, changed frequently, esp. if they suspect a counter is there). Otherwise, unless there is some form of cheating, odds rule. Odds, that is, derived from the game itself, not from opinions on horses, pro teams, and so forth. Bottom line - you have a much better chance playing War than going to a casino. There are people who go to casinos knowing that they are going to lose and dedicate a certain amount of money such that when they lose that much, they quit. Supposedly. Is losing that entertaining? bill w? > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jan 15 06:08:43 2018 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2018 22:08:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells Message-ID: <23fb76981dbfcb8143fffa80b5aacf84.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> John Clark wrote: > I don't think so.The Schwarzschild > equation says that the future of everything inside the event horizon of a > non rotating black hole is in the direction of the singularity at the > center, but what our telescopes tell us is things are not going to > collapse into a singularity but instead the universe is expanding and > accelerating and the singularity was in our past not out future. ? ? Yes, that is true. But consider the case when there are two black holes that collide. In all such cases, at least temporarily, there are *two* such singularities. Now since you can draw a straight line connecting the two singularities, the singularities are colinear and the time axis in the "intersingular" spacetime is precisely that line. But which direction does time flow along that axis? An observer never experiences it going both directions at once. Therefore I am making it an axiom that time always runs in the direction of the more massive of the two singularities. That implies that the smaller of two singularities becomes a past-singularity instead of a future-singularity. And the smaller of the two black holes becomes a white hole that spews matter and energy into the interior of larger black hole. Since a past-singularity is indistinguishable from a big bang, our observable universe is indistinguishable from a white hole. You could visualize the flow of time as somewhat like a magnetic field with lines of force emanating from the north pole and terminating on the south pole of a magnet. Only in this case, it is world lines representing time itself that emanate from the past-singularity and terminate at the future-singularity. Since the space-time between these singularities is curved, an infinite number of time-like geodesics connecting the two singularities are equally valid paths for world-lines to follow. In other words, no matter what direction you point your finger you are pointing toward the future-singularity. Just like as if you were standing on the south pole of the earth, no matter which direction you face, you are facing north. > Physicists Sean Carroll > ? > has more to say about this in a article called "The Universe is Not a > Black > Hole" at > ? > http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/04/28/ > the-universe-is-not-a-black-hole/#.WlKd-tQrLMo Sean Carroll wrote: "But a black hole is not ?a place where a lot of mass has been squeezed inside its own Schwarzschild radius.? It is, as Wikipedia is happy to tell you, ?a region of space from which nothing, including light, can escape.? The implication being that there is a region outside the black hole from which things could at least imagine escaping to. For the universe, there is no such outside region. So at a pretty trivial level, the universe is not a black hole." ----------------------------- That is correct. The universe is infinite and, unless there are more than 4 dimensions, there is no outside. It is baked into the common definition of "universe" as "all existing matter and space" that there is no outside, and therefore no such thing as other universes or a multi-verse. That's why I invented causal cells so that we can have a sensible discussion about the region of space-time that we live in and what "inside" and "outside" really mean. Sean Carroll wrote: "The spacetime solution to Einstein?s equation that describes a universe expanding from the Big Bang is very similar to the time-reversal of a black hole, but you don?t really learn much from making that statement, especially because there is no outside; everything you wanted to know was already there in the original cosmological language." -------------------------------------------- Ok so Sean Carroll didn't learn much from making that statement. I on the other hand, learned a hell of a lot from making that same statement. There is no outside of the universe but there is an outside to our causal cell. Where else would galaxies that cross the Hubble/Schwarzschild radius go if not outside our causal cell? Surely that galaxy continues to exist somewhere. That somewhere is outside of our causal cell and into another. Same thing when an observer falls into a black hole. When they cross the event horizon of the black hole, they go somewhere if but only briefly. That somewhere is outside of our causal cell and into another. I deliberately created the terminology of causal cells to keep cosmologists like Carroll from using the vaguely defined word universe to dance back and forth across a very real cosmic event horizon. >> Observers within causal cells can never see >> anything actually leave their causal cell. The image of whatever crossed >> an event horizon is forever squashed on the event horizon getting >> redder ? >> and redder until it fades out at infinite time. I should have prefaced my words above with "According to the Schwarzschild metric [. . .] > That's what some thought before it was discovered that the universe is > not only expanding but accelerating. You only need to wait a finite amount > of time before a distant galaxy you can see now will accelerate till it is > moving away from you faster than the speed of light, and then it > becomes unobservable. We will see this happen for every galaxy in the > universe in a finite amount of time, except for Andromeda and a dozen of > so dwarf galaxy that are gravitational bound together with the Milky Way > in the local Group. I have always wondered if the "forever stuck at the horizon effect" was an artifact of the Schwartzschild metric which presupposes that the Schwartzschild radius doesn't change with time. In real black holes and white holes, it does change with time. Through matter accretion in the case of black holes and matter expulsion with regard to white holes. So maybe when something falls into a black hole, its image is only caught at the event horizon until enough other stuff falls in, then the black hole expands and swallows the image too. > And you keep using the term " > ?c? > ausal cell" but its not a common term in cosmology and I am no longer sure > what you mean by it. A causal cell is a finite volume of space-time enclosed by an event horizon wherein all observers should agree on the temporal ordering of events. That is to say everyone in a causal cell shares the same arrow of time. > Is it the volume of the universe ? > that could have had a effect on us ? > or the volume of we can see now, or the volume we can still effect? ? > Those are 3 different volumes and if its the last 2 its shrinking with the > passage of time. Technically it is none of those volumes. In our specific case, it is the Hubble volume. It is a volume of space-time enclosed in a spherical shell whose surface area A multiplied by the average density D of the space enclosed is equal to a constant I call L. L:= Linear Shell Saturation Density = (3c^2)/(2G) ~ 2.02*10^27 kg/m So for all *currently* observable space-times, A*D will always be <= L. But if A*D = L exactly, that that is a boundary to the observation of future events, then the volume of space contained within A is a causal cell and A is the event horizon of said causal cell. So you can still see stuff that has left your causal cell, but you can never see what happened to it next. It's just image on the horizon, like a photograph of bygone days. If the scalar density field within a causal cell changes over time, so will the size the causal cell as its event horizon expands (for black holes) or contracts (for white holes). And while causal cells give rise to "observable universes" i.e. you can use one to calculate the other, they are not the same volume of space. > And its not invariant, ever point in spacetime would be > at the center of a different (and shrinking) "causal cell", so it doesn't > seem like a very useful concept. Yes, causal cells are not invariant. What is invariant is the product of the density and event horizon surface area of a casual cell. However you do hit upon a spot that is giving me a bit of trouble in my math. My math predicts that the our causal should be shrinking, its contents being hoovered up by the black hole that ate us. But my math also seems to show that our causal cell is bigger than it should be. I hate to admit it but it seems something is keeping our event horizon from shrinking as fast as it should be or perhaps even from shrinking at all. Right now I am investigating this anomaly as the pressure differential between our causal cell and the interior of the black hole that ate our causal cell. So dark energy could still exist in causal cells as a pressure differential caused by differing scalar density fields with event horizons being the boundary between those density fields. >> And no, John it can't be an infinite distance away because it has not >> had ? ? >> infinite time to accelerate. >> > > Because the universe is not only expanding but accelerating a galaxy we > can see right now can ? > be infinity far away in spacetime, ? ? > that is to say ? > we can't reach ? > it any finite amount of time because we can't accelerate through space ? > toward the galaxy until we're going faster than light ? > but space itself can ? > and so can that galaxy embedded in space. Ok, fine a little more infinity can't hurt anyone. ;-) Anyways yes you are right but that galaxy's proper time has not ticked an infinite number of times since the photons we saw left it. Its direction in time however has changed. It's future is now our spatial direction. In other words, its future is west of us. It's arrow of time is independent of ours. It is therefore in another causal cell. In a sense not even space can go FTL. All it can do is rotate in Minkowski space and swap its x and t axes. From its own perspective, that galaxy is not going FTL relative to anything it can communicate with. >> I have already explained that the outward acceleration is caused by the >> ? ? >> black hole that swallowed our causal cell. ? > I don't see why that would cause a uniform outward acceleration. This is tricky problem. I haven't been able to parameterize the black hole that swallowed us yet but I am still working on it. >> When that happened, our causal >> cell went from being a black hole to being a time-reversed black hole: a >> white hole. > > That sounds a bit like a Einstein-Rosen > bridge > that connects a Black Hole to a White Hole, but to make one of those you'd > need matter with negative mass, that is matter that accelerates in the > direction opposite to ? > the ? > applied force, and although such stuff would not cause any mathematical > inconsistencies there is no evidence such a thing actually exists. There > is no evidence White Holes exist either and there should be because they > would be even more conspicuous than Black Holes. I thought the negative mass was only necessary to make the Einstein-Rosen bridge traversible, but that quantum scale E-R bridges were stable without it? Microscopic wormholes are kind of popular these days for a mechanism for explaining quantum entanglement . . . at least according to Leonard Susskind. Just google "ER=EPR" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER%3DEPR As far as white holes not existing, that is because their properties make them elusive. Whereas black holes are gravitationally attracted to one another and can thus collide and merge, white holes are gravitationally repulsed by other white holes and so never merge although they could theoretically fission. For this reason, from inside a white hole, you will never see another white hole. For you, the closest white hole is always over the cosmic horizon so to speak. Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jan 15 10:53:20 2018 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2018 02:53:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I mistakenly wrote: > A causal cell is a finite volume of space-time enclosed by an event > horizon wherein all observers should agree on the temporal ordering of > events. That is to say everyone in a causal cell shares the same arrow of > time. I meant to write: A causal cell is a finite volume of space-time enclosed by an event horizon wherein all observers should agree on the temporal ordering of events for which they were mutually present. That is to say everyone in a causal cell shares the same arrow of time. Stuart LaForge From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 15 23:30:24 2018 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2018 15:30:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] puzzler In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 6:21 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Here's one you can get your psychological teeth into: > > When England?s Bath and North East Somerset Council, at a cost of 871,000 > pounds (US$1.18 million), lowered the speed limit to 20 mph in 13 > high-accident zones, it made a difference, and quickly: in the first year, > fatalities and serious injuries due to traffic increased significantly. Why was England marking something in miles per hour instead of kilometers per hour? From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 15 23:41:14 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2018 17:41:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] puzzler In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Why was England marking something in miles per hour instead of kilometers per hour? adrian Dunno. Maybe the author of the post I read converted to mph. bill w On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 5:30 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 6:21 PM, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > Here's one you can get your psychological teeth into: > > > > When England?s Bath and North East Somerset Council, at a cost of 871,000 > > pounds (US$1.18 million), lowered the speed limit to 20 mph in 13 > > high-accident zones, it made a difference, and quickly: in the first > year, > > fatalities and serious injuries due to traffic increased significantly. > > Why was England marking something in miles per hour instead of > kilometers per hour? > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 15:16:59 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 10:16:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: <23fb76981dbfcb8143fffa80b5aacf84.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <23fb76981dbfcb8143fffa80b5aacf84.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 1:08 AM, Stuart LaForge wrote: ?> ? > A causal cell is a finite volume of space-time enclosed by an event > ? ? > horizon wherein all observers should agree on the temporal ordering of > ? > events If you and I are moving with respect to each other we won't agree on the temporal ordering of events if the events happen at different positions in space. ?> ? > for which they were mutually present. I'm not sure what you mean by that, two different observers can't occupy the same position in space.? >> >> ? ? >> Is it >> ? ? >> [a causal cell] >> ? ? >> the volume of the universe that could have had a effect on us >> ?, ? >> or the volume of we can see now, or the volume we can still effect? Those >> are 3 different volumes and if its the last 2 its shrinking with the >> ? ? >> passage of time. > > ?> ? > T > ?? > echnically it is none of those volumes. In our specific case, it is the > ? ? > Hubble volume. If your "causal cell" is the Hubble volume then it is case #2 that I mentioned above, it is the volume of the universe we can see now. If they mean the same thing I think it would be wise to use the more standard term rather than one you made up, it would help avoid confusion. ?> ? > It is a volume of space-time enclosed in a spherical shell > ? ? > whose surface area A multiplied by the average density D of the space > ? > enclosed is equal to a constant I call L. If L=A*D then L can not be a constant because, due to the expansion and acceleration of the universe, the area A of the Hubble volume is shrinking, and so is the density of the Hubble volume. > ?> ? > Yes, causal cells are not invariant. What is invariant is the product of > ? > the density and event horizon surface area of a casual cell. I don't see how that could be if both are shrinking. > ?> ? > However you > ? ? > do hit upon a spot that is giving me a bit of trouble in my math. My math > ? ? > predicts that the our causal should be shrinking, That's not a bug that's a feature, if causal cell means Hubble volume then the math should say its shrinking because it is shrinking. ?> ? > consider the case when there are two black holes > ? > that collide. In all such cases, at least temporarily, there are *two* > such singularities. Now since you can draw a straight line connecting the > ? > two singularities, the singularities are colinear and the time axis in the > ? > "intersingular" spacetime is precisely that line. > ? > But which direction does time flow along that axis? I think if you're going to talk about reversing the arrow of time you can't just stick with General Relativity, you're going to have to get into Quantum Mechanics because CPT Symmetry says a observer couldn't tell if time reversed direction,...well..., that is to say an observer couldn't tell if positive and negative electrical charge was also reversed and things were viewed in a mirror. ?John K Clark? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 18:13:14 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 13:13:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test Message-ID: Microsoft achieved 82,650 on the Stanford University reading and comprehension test, the best human score so far is 82,304. http://www.kurzweilai.net/deep-neural-network-models-score-higher-than-humans-in-reading-and-comprehension-test?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c8f5d1257b-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-c8f5d1257b-282205341 John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 18:21:11 2018 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 13:21:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *However, challenging the ?comprehension? description, Gary Marcus, PhD, a Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU, notes in a tweet that ?the SQUAD test shows that machines can highlight relevant passages in text, not that they understand those passages.?* Yep. -Dave On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:13 PM, John Clark wrote: > Microsoft achieved 82,650 on the Stanford University reading and > comprehension test, the best human score so far is 82,304. > > http://www.kurzweilai.net/deep-neural-network-models- > score-higher-than-humans-in-reading-and-comprehension- > test?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign= > c8f5d1257b-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-c8f5d1257b- > 282205341 > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 18:31:20 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 13:31:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is the Achilles heel of all the deep learning that I've been exposed to. Deep nets are also great at image recognition until an adversarial attack is injected that will fool a net, but not a human child. There is zero comprehension. The nets are dead behind the eyes. I believe the folks attempting to replicate actual biological neuron function (the bulk of deep learning is not much more than high school math and a gradient descent function to find a global minima) have the best chance of building something that actually understands what it is doing. In the mean time, this will become more and more of a problem as these systems get embedded in our environment and become open to exploit for profit: https://blog.openai.com/adversarial-example-research/ On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:21 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > *However, challenging the ?comprehension? description, Gary Marcus, PhD, a > Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU, notes in a tweet that > ?the SQUAD test shows that machines can highlight relevant passages in > text, not that they understand those passages.?* > > Yep. > > -Dave > > On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:13 PM, John Clark wrote: > >> Microsoft achieved 82,650 on the Stanford University reading and >> comprehension test, the best human score so far is 82,304. >> >> http://www.kurzweilai.net/deep-neural-network-models-score- >> higher-than-humans-in-reading-and-comprehension-test?utm_ >> source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c8f5d1 >> 257b-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33- >> c8f5d1257b-282205341 >> >> John K Clark >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 16 18:31:37 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 10:31:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00dc01d38ef8$3f0b86f0$bd2294d0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sill Subject: Re: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test http://www.kurzweilai.net/deep-neural-network-models-score-higher-than-humans-in-reading-and-comprehension-test?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter &utm_campaign=c8f5d1257b-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-c8f5d1257b-282205341 However, challenging the ?comprehension? description, Gary Marcus, PhD, a Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU, notes in a tweet that ?the SQUAD test shows that machines can highlight relevant passages in text, not that they understand those passages.? Yep. -Dave Please can we get the grounds crew out here? We have some goal posts we need moved. And have them take out that fence back there too, we will need that space. And somebody needs to move the cars out of that parking lot over yonder. Might want to see if those houses out there are for sale? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 16 18:54:30 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 10:54:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test References: Message-ID: <011701d38efb$71939830$54bac890$@att.net> From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2018 10:49 AM To: 'ExI chat list' >?When that happens, we too are dead behind the eyes. spike As soon as we understand what intelligence really is, it really isn?t anymore. Or we aren?t. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 16 18:25:08 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 10:25:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00d101d38ef7$578a3ce0$069eb6a0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2018 10:13 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test Microsoft achieved 82,650 on the Stanford University reading and comprehension test, the best human score so far is 82,304. http://www.kurzweilai.net/deep-neural-network-models-score-higher-than-humans-in-reading-and-comprehension-test?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter &utm_campaign=c8f5d1257b-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-c8f5d1257b-282205341 John K Clark The areas in which the candidate AIs are surpassing humans are getting steadily harder for skeptics to dismiss by schm-ing the concept. In recent memory, accomplishments in AI could be dismissed with a casual wave of the hand and a simple ??Eh, chess schmess? and ??Eh, go schmo.? Now it is ??Eh, comprehension schmomprehension.? The schm-ed words are getting far more difficult to pronounce. Progress! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 16 18:48:48 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 10:48:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <011201d38efa$a59fd540$f0df7fc0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio Subject: Re: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test >?This is the Achilles heel of all the deep learning that I've been exposed to. Deep nets are also great at image recognition until an adversarial attack is injected that will fool a net, but not a human child? Ja, this is all Stanford?s fault. I bet I could write a test that would fool that evil computer and those wily programmers. >?There is zero comprehension. The nets are dead behind the eyes? Sooner or later, we are going to figure out how our own comprehension works, and model it mathematically. When that happens, we too are dead behind the eyes. Hey, it happened in chess and go. >?In the mean time, this will become more and more of a problem as these systems get embedded in our environment and become open to exploit for profit: >?https://blog.openai.com/adversarial-example-research/ Wait what? Exploiting for profit is a problem? I thought that was the solution. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 18:58:54 2018 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 13:58:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: <00dc01d38ef8$3f0b86f0$bd2294d0$@att.net> References: <00dc01d38ef8$3f0b86f0$bd2294d0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:31 PM, spike wrote: > > > Please can we get the grounds crew out here? We have some goal posts we > need moved. And have them take out that fence back there too, we will need > that space. And somebody needs to move the cars out of that parking lot > over yonder. Might want to see if those houses out there are for sale? > This isn't moving the goal posts, Spike. This deep learning stuff is useful but it really isn't comparable to understanding. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 16 19:50:53 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 11:50:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: <00dc01d38ef8$3f0b86f0$bd2294d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <004001d38f03$523a9080$f6afb180$@att.net> On Behalf Of Dave Sill Subject: Re: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:31 PM, spike > wrote: Please can we get the grounds crew out here? We have some goal posts we need moved. And have them take out that fence back there too, we will need that space. And somebody needs to move the cars out of that parking lot over yonder. Might want to see if those houses out there are for sale? >?This isn't moving the goal posts, Spike. This deep learning stuff is useful but it really isn't comparable to understanding. -Dave Dave I no longer really understand the definition of really understanding. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 19:55:49 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 14:55:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: <011201d38efa$a59fd540$f0df7fc0$@att.net> References: <011201d38efa$a59fd540$f0df7fc0$@att.net> Message-ID: Sorry, to be more specific, in theory, adversarial attacks can be used to game machine learning systems in a black hat hacking sort of way. You could trick the system into doing exactly what you want it to just by feeding it bad data for ill gotten gain. On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:48 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > > Wait what? Exploiting for profit is a problem? I thought that was the > solution. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 20:23:40 2018 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 15:23:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: <004001d38f03$523a9080$f6afb180$@att.net> References: <00dc01d38ef8$3f0b86f0$bd2294d0$@att.net> <004001d38f03$523a9080$f6afb180$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 2:50 PM, spike wrote: > > > Dave I no longer really understand the definition of really understanding. > It's not trivial but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding Is pretty good. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 16 21:51:22 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 13:51:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test Message-ID: <009b01d38f14$269a2330$73ce6990$@att.net> >. So. is there anyone else here who does reading comprehension tests that way? spike An SAT is a race: if you can get all the way through one of them, you have a huge advantage over those who read carefully, answer half the questions perfectly and never see the rest. So of course my method got me way up into the thin air on those tests. But hey, I never claimed to be smart at reading comprehension. So now. I hear they managed to teach software to do that same trick. Then it occurred to me: the way SAT is done, there isn't any way to defeat those who learn the tricks. But with computers we can. We can take SAT questions, show the test taker the passage, then remove the passage, then present the questions with no additional access to the passage. Then a prole must read and understand, and remember what was in the passage, ja? OK then, my next idea is that we can have contests where we are forced to that method, human vs human for now. Khan Academy offers a bunch of SAT practice tests (free!) so we could set a timer and do the tests that way, then compare our results. It would be a self-report honor system contest, where you read the passage, then scroll down to hide the text, then off you go. I fear I would be dumber than a dog turd at that. I would suck worse than Hubert Cecil Booth. It is a different skill from the one I honed to a fine edge in my misspent childhood and youth. My point: computers would kill us at that game. They remember everything they see, perfectly. We need to leverage that ability of computers, and this software is a great encouragement that we are on the right track. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 16 21:49:13 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 13:49:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: <00dc01d38ef8$3f0b86f0$bd2294d0$@att.net> <004001d38f03$523a9080$f6afb180$@att.net> Message-ID: <009601d38f13$da033430$8e099c90$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sill Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2018 12:24 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 2:50 PM, spike > wrote: Dave I no longer really understand the definition of really understanding. >?It's not trivial but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding >?Is pretty good. -Dave Ja, cool thanks. Understanding is described loosely as being enabled to make inferences. It takes understanding in order to see the humor in satire. Computers are terrible at that and will be for the foreseeable future. The experiment with regard to reading comprehension shows that software can be given a passage in which it (very quickly) finds key phrases, rather than understanding the passage. The problem I see with that approach: that?s how I do those tests too. It is a skill which can be mastered, and if you do, you can really fly on those kinds of tests, go like the wind. So? is there anyone else here who does reading comprehension tests that way? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 22:35:27 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 17:35:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:31 PM, Dylan Distasio wrote: > ?> ? > There is zero comprehension. > ? If that is true and if neural networks can can now answer questions about what they just read better than a human can (and they can) then I don't know what "comprehension" means, ?but ? whatever it means it can't be anything very important. > ?>? > The nets are dead behind the eyes. ?If that is true then being "? dead behind the eyes ?" is an advantage because it makes you more intelligent. Regardless of how you want to spin it the fact remains that as of today a computer can answer questions about what it just read better than a human can, and the implications of that fact are momentous. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 22:44:00 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 17:44:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: <011201d38efa$a59fd540$f0df7fc0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 2:55 PM, Dylan Distasio wrote: > ?> ? > in theory, adversarial attacks can be used to game machine learning > systems in a black hat hacking sort of way. You could trick the system > into doing exactly what you want it to just by feeding it bad data for ill > gotten gain. > ?It's certainly a good thing that unlike computers its impossible ?to fool human beings, ?otherwise we could end up with a president who was not only crazy but also stupid, but of course such a thing could never happen. John K Clark ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 22:45:29 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 17:45:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: John- I'm not trying to take anything away from the accomplishments, but current deep learning architectures are nowhere close to strong AI, and in my humble opinion are likely a dead end in that regard. I will quote the inventor of Keras which is a heavily used deep learning library layered on top of Tensorflow (or other) architecture to sum up my views: "Neural networks" are a sad misnomer. They're neither neural nor even networks. They're chains of differentiable, parameterized geometric functions, trained with gradient descent (with gradients obtained via the chain rule). A small set of highschool-level ideas put together and "I'd say ML is both overhyped and underrated. People overestimate the intelligence & generalization power of ML systems (ML as a magic wand), but underestimate how much can be achieved with relatively crude systems, when applied systematically (ML as the steam power of our era)" On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 5:35 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:31 PM, Dylan Distasio > wrote: > > >> ?> ? >> There is zero comprehension. >> > > ? > If that is true and if neural networks can can now answer questions about > what they just read better than a human can (and they can) then I don't > know what "comprehension" means, > ?but ? > whatever it means it can't be anything very important. > > >> ?>? >> The nets are dead behind the eyes. > > > ?If that is true then being "? > dead behind the eyes > ?" is an advantage because it makes you more intelligent. Regardless of > how you want to spin it the fact remains that as of today a computer can > answer questions about what it just read better than a human can, and > the implications of that fact are momentous. > > John K Clark > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 22:48:17 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 17:48:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: <011201d38efa$a59fd540$f0df7fc0$@att.net> Message-ID: Ha. I'm not going to bite anymore on the political stuff :-). The point I am trying to make about these systems is that they are very brittle and have no human level understanding behind them. I believe Dave is on the same page, as are many of the researchers who actually do this stuff. On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 5:44 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 2:55 PM, Dylan Distasio > wrote: > > >> ?> ? >> in theory, adversarial attacks can be used to game machine learning >> systems in a black hat hacking sort of way. You could trick the system >> into doing exactly what you want it to just by feeding it bad data for ill >> gotten gain. >> > > ?It's certainly a good thing that unlike computers its impossible ?to fool > human beings, > > ?otherwise we could end up with a president who was not only crazy but > also stupid, but of course such a thing could never happen. > > John K Clark ? > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 22:50:42 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 17:50:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Google Brain 2017 year in review Message-ID: To offset what may appear my bashing of machine learning (which is not intended) in the other thread, here's a very nice summary (in two parts) of what Google Brain has been working on for the past year. Definitely some interesting stuff in here: The Google Brain team works to advance the state of the art in artificial intelligence by research and systems engineering, as one part of the overall Google AI effort. Last year we shared a summary of our work in 2016. Since then, we?ve continued to make progress on our long-term research agenda of making machines intelligent, and have collaborated with a number of teams across Google and Alphabet to use the results of our research to improve people?s lives. This first of two posts will highlight some of our work in 2017, including some of our basic research work, as well as updates on open source software, datasets, and new hardware for machine learning. In the second post we?ll dive into the research we do in specific domains where machine learning can have a large impact, such as healthcare, robotics, and some areas of basic science, as well as cover our work on creativity, fairness and inclusion and tell you a bit more about who we are. Core Research A significant focus of our team is pursuing research that advances our understanding and improves our ability to solve new problems in the field of machine learning. Below are several themes from our research last year. https://research.googleblog.com/2018/01/the-google-brain- team-looking-back-on.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 16 22:50:59 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 14:50:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: <011201d38efa$a59fd540$f0df7fc0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00e101d38f1c$7ab89610$7029c230$@att.net> On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 2:55 PM, Dylan Distasio > wrote: ?> >??in theory, adversarial attacks can be used to game machine learning systems in a black hat hacking sort of way. You could trick the system into doing exactly what you want it to just by feeding it bad data for ill gotten gain. ?>?It's certainly a good thing that unlike computers its impossible ?to fool human beings, otherwise we could end up with a president who was not only crazy but also stupid.... John K Clark ? I am eager for AI systems to get smarter than humans. Then we can see which political party they join, see if they switch parties as they self-train and get smarter, etc. That would be a kick: we could set some of them to get all their information from CNN, another from Reason.com, another from Fox, make bets on their scores from I-Side-With, that kinda thing. That would be a hoot. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 00:33:36 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 19:33:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Dylan Distasio wrote: ?> ? > I will quote the inventor of Keras which is a heavily used deep learning > library layered on top of Tensorflow (or other) architecture to sum up my > views: > > "Neural networks" are a sad misnomer. They're neither neural nor even > networks. They're chains of differentiable, parameterized geometric > functions, trained with gradient descent (with gradients obtained via the > chain rule). A small set of highschool-level ideas put together > I look at something marvelous but so complex I can't understand it, ?I then ?break that marvelous thing up into smaller and smaller parts ?until? eventually I come to a part that is so simple it can easily be understood even by a child. And that proves I was originally mistaken, when all those billions of simple parts were working together it couldn't have been marvelous after all. I don't know why people make such a big deal about Shakespeare, all he did was place one ASCII character after another, even a child can do that. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 01:15:12 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 19:15:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: <00e101d38f1c$7ab89610$7029c230$@att.net> References: <011201d38efa$a59fd540$f0df7fc0$@att.net> <00e101d38f1c$7ab89610$7029c230$@att.net> Message-ID: I am eager for AI systems to get smarter than humans. Then we can see which political party they join, see if they switch parties as they self-train and get smarter, etc. That would be a kick: we could set some of them to get all their information from CNN, another from Reason.com, another from Fox, make bets on their scores from I-Side-With, that kinda thing. That would be a hoot. spike The problem is that who is smart should be determined by who makes the most correct predictions. That's how we judge a theory, right? Being economics blind I cannot judge their predictions, but I do know that every year they seem to appear in Congress trying to explain why their predictions from last year didn't work out. Then they give a new set of predictions. I have often said that the worst mistake is to keep repeating your mistakes. But, you say, who else would they listen to? Somebody with a better track record. That, of course, will change every year, or quarter, or month.................. The Law of Unintended Consequences fouls everything. So many variables when you are dealing with worldwide things like economics. Even a 40 acre farmer has too many to make successful predictions every year. So, for people, or for AIs, please define 'smart'. Compared to the 'real world', chess is simple. Give an AI a problem like this: what will happen to the economy as a result of the new tax laws. Ask a panel of economists the same question. Now that's a game I'd like to see played. I predict that both will lose, giving poor predictions. Did you ever notice that 'now then...' is completely absurd? bill w On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 4:50 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *On Behalf Of *John Clark > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading > and comprehension test > > > > On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 2:55 PM, Dylan Distasio > wrote: > > > > ?> >??in theory, adversarial attacks can be used to game machine learning > systems in a black hat hacking sort of way. You could trick the system > into doing exactly what you want it to just by feeding it bad data for ill > gotten gain. > > > > ?>?It's certainly a good thing that unlike computers its impossible ?to > fool human beings, otherwise we could end up with a president who was not > only crazy but also stupid.... John K Clark ? > > > > > > I am eager for AI systems to get smarter than humans. Then we can see > which political party they join, see if they switch parties as they > self-train and get smarter, etc. That would be a kick: we could set some > of them to get all their information from CNN, another from Reason.com, > another from Fox, make bets on their scores from I-Side-With, that kinda > thing. That would be a hoot. > > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 17 01:05:23 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 17:05:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <016e01d38f2f$414d82b0$c3e88810$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark >?I don't know why people make such a big deal about Shakespeare, all he did was place one ASCII character after another, even a child can do that. John K Clark Ja! All Shakespeare did was take a bunch of famous quotes and string them together to make a story out of them. Child?s play. >? I look at something marvelous but so complex I can't understand it, ?I then ?break that marvelous thing up into smaller and smaller parts ?until? eventually I come to a part that is so simple it can easily be understood Let us this about chemistry for a minute. Big complicated field of study, churns out lots of PhDs and such. But let?s take a single hydrogen atom and think of how many parameters we need to describe that atom completely. We need a velocity with respect to something, the excitation state of its electron (if present) any neutrons, etc, but we can see that it is a finite number of parameters needed to completely describe that atom. Likewise we can do the same trick with a helium, with a lot more numbers required, but if we have an ordered understanding of what each of those numbers mean (electronegativity, mass, phase change conditions and forth) we can completely describe that helium, and the same argument can be used to describe every element in the chart, well over a hundred of them. A list of numbers is a vector from the point of view of the computer; it doesn?t care how many numbers are in the vector. It handles multi-dimensional space with no sweat on its processor. It?s what computers do. No worries. The vector completely describing everything there is to know about an atom can be used to completely understand how two atoms can interact with each other, with some kind of operator. So with that, any two-atom molecule can be completely described, and so can molecules with three atoms, or four or more, with each compound made of molecules which can be completely described by a list of numbers, or a vector (for our linear algebra fans among us.) By logical extension, all chemistry could be reduced to a field of mathematics, but I prefer to think of it as elevated to a field of mathematics. The computed doesn?t need to memorize a bunch of chemical names. It doesn?t care if this list of numbers is a molecule of paradichlorobenzene, it knows everything that molecule can do, knows the location of every reaction site, knows how it interacts with other similar molecules and so on. Structures are made of molecules that interact with each other in a special way, so these too can be described as vectors (really really big ones, but still just a list of numbers, the kind of things computers do so very well.) Living tissues are made of structures, and membranes are made of tissues and cells are made of membranes, so if we can completely describe interactions of molecules with vectors, we can operate ourselves right on up to the cell level with vectors and from there on up to organs, such as? our brains. Sure it is soft and squishy, but it is made up entirely of atoms which we already agreed could be described by a list of numbers. It is a machine that runs on the principles of chemistry. Given sufficient technology, chemistry can be modeled (we are doing that today already.) With still more technology (more memory and processor power) then more complex chemistry can be modeled or simulated. If we ever get to the point where we can sim a brain? we have arrived. We don?t know if we are smart enough to ever sim a brain. Can a brain simulate a copy of itself? We don?t know that. But unless we assume a brain is smart enough to create a simulation of itself, we never will. I hope we will. So? I prefer to think we eventually will, and keep working toward that goal. Because if we can?t, we already know what will become of us. If we make the goal, we don?t. I want to not know what will eventually become of us. So? I am thrilled with every cool new achievement, even if we know it isn?t ?understanding? or it isn?t ?intelligence? exactly but just a cool math trick. Fun parting shot on my little essay: I have been following AI for many years. I was one of those caught up in the hype in the 1980s over neural nets, and tried my hand at it back in the day. I realize we ended up with a big goose egg on our time invested, but just in the last year or two, notice how it has been one thing after another? Even if it is misleading headline grabbers (and I do think most of it is that) it might be something new and something promising. Is this a great time to be living or what? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 02:20:34 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 20:20:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: <016e01d38f2f$414d82b0$c3e88810$@att.net> References: <016e01d38f2f$414d82b0$c3e88810$@att.net> Message-ID: If we ever get to the point where we can sim a brain? we have arrived. spike And I think you will have arrived at the beginning. What they have to do is the get rid of all the bad aspects of the brain's processing. Far too apt to make cognitive errors (again I refer you to Wikipedia's list of them). Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is one of the worst. Superstitions galore. Maybe then we can gengineer the human brain to be free of these massive problems, simming the AI, how ironic would that be? bill w On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 7:05 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *John Clark > > > > >?I don't know why people make such a big deal about Shakespeare, all he > did was place one ASCII character after another, even a child can do that. > John K Clark > > > > > > Ja! All Shakespeare did was take a bunch of famous quotes and string them > together to make a story out of them. Child?s play. > > > > > > >? I look at something marvelous but so complex I can't understand it, ?I > then ?break that marvelous thing up into smaller and smaller parts ?until? > eventually I come to a part that is so simple it can easily be understood > > > > Let us this about chemistry for a minute. Big complicated field of study, > churns out lots of PhDs and such. > > > > But let?s take a single hydrogen atom and think of how many parameters we > need to describe that atom completely. We need a velocity with respect to > something, the excitation state of its electron (if present) any neutrons, > etc, but we can see that it is a finite number of parameters needed to > completely describe that atom. > > > > Likewise we can do the same trick with a helium, with a lot more numbers > required, but if we have an ordered understanding of what each of those > numbers mean (electronegativity, mass, phase change conditions and forth) > we can completely describe that helium, and the same argument can be used > to describe every element in the chart, well over a hundred of them. > > > > A list of numbers is a vector from the point of view of the computer; it > doesn?t care how many numbers are in the vector. It handles > multi-dimensional space with no sweat on its processor. It?s what > computers do. No worries. > > > > The vector completely describing everything there is to know about an atom > can be used to completely understand how two atoms can interact with each > other, with some kind of operator. So with that, any two-atom molecule can > be completely described, and so can molecules with three atoms, or four or > more, with each compound made of molecules which can be completely > described by a list of numbers, or a vector (for our linear algebra fans > among us.) > > > > By logical extension, all chemistry could be reduced to a field of > mathematics, but I prefer to think of it as elevated to a field of > mathematics. The computed doesn?t need to memorize a bunch of chemical > names. It doesn?t care if this list of numbers is a molecule of > paradichlorobenzene, it knows everything that molecule can do, knows the > location of every reaction site, knows how it interacts with other similar > molecules and so on. > > > > Structures are made of molecules that interact with each other in a > special way, so these too can be described as vectors (really really big > ones, but still just a list of numbers, the kind of things computers do so > very well.) > > > > Living tissues are made of structures, and membranes are made of tissues > and cells are made of membranes, so if we can completely describe > interactions of molecules with vectors, we can operate ourselves right on > up to the cell level with vectors and from there on up to organs, such as? > our brains. > > > > Sure it is soft and squishy, but it is made up entirely of atoms which we > already agreed could be described by a list of numbers. It is a machine > that runs on the principles of chemistry. Given sufficient technology, > chemistry can be modeled (we are doing that today already.) With still > more technology (more memory and processor power) then more complex > chemistry can be modeled or simulated. > > > > If we ever get to the point where we can sim a brain? we have arrived. > > > > We don?t know if we are smart enough to ever sim a brain. Can a brain > simulate a copy of itself? We don?t know that. But unless we assume a > brain is smart enough to create a simulation of itself, we never will. I > hope we will. > > > > So? I prefer to think we eventually will, and keep working toward that > goal. Because if we can?t, we already know what will become of us. If we > make the goal, we don?t. I want to not know what will eventually become of > us. So? I am thrilled with every cool new achievement, even if we know it > isn?t ?understanding? or it isn?t ?intelligence? exactly but just a cool > math trick. > > > > Fun parting shot on my little essay: I have been following AI for many > years. I was one of those caught up in the hype in the 1980s over neural > nets, and tried my hand at it back in the day. I realize we ended up with > a big goose egg on our time invested, but just in the last year or two, > notice how it has been one thing after another? Even if it is misleading > headline grabbers (and I do think most of it is that) it might be something > new and something promising. > > > > Is this a great time to be living or what? > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 01:15:24 2018 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 20:15:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:31 PM, Dylan Distasio wrote: > This is the Achilles heel of all the deep learning that I've been exposed > to. Deep nets are also great at image recognition until an adversarial > attack is injected that will fool a net, but not a human child. There is > zero comprehension. The nets are dead behind the eyes. I believe the > folks attempting to replicate actual biological neuron function (the bulk > of deep learning is not much more than high school math and a gradient > descent function to find a global minima) have the best chance of building > something that actually understands what it is doing. > > ### I agree with the general tenor of your remarks but I would not go as far as saying "zero comprehension". Current deep learning systems are very brittle, much more so than humans but they are on to something - small parts of the world models that humans build over decades of learning are already present in the networks. They are not fleshed out with enough cross-references to different but complementary representations of aspects of the world, which is why they are brittle. I cannot guess whether the Microsoft or Baidu systems have 1% or 10% of adult human understanding of the world but I would argue it is not zero. I also doubt that the secret of human intelligence is in human neurons. Neurons have been around a long time and human neurons are about 99% identical biologically to monkey neurons - but we have more of them and especially more of them wired to perform high-level integrative data analysis. In effect, our brain's networks are just deeper than other deep learning networks in existence, whether animal or artificial, but still using only high school math to do their job. I guess. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 01:31:41 2018 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 20:31:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 9:31 PM, spike wrote: > > > > A question occurred to me while I was vacationing: suppose we theorize > that a political party is smarter (or dumber) than another. > ### Research indicates that Democratic voters are on average dumber than Republican voters, the difference is a couple IQ points if I remember correctly. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 19 02:30:26 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 18:30:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> Message-ID: <004901d390cd$77cceb10$6766c130$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2018 5:32 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Forbidden Words On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 9:31 PM, spike > wrote: A question occurred to me while I was vacationing: suppose we theorize that a political party is smarter (or dumber) than another. ### Research indicates that Democratic voters are on average dumber than Republican voters, the difference is a couple IQ points if I remember correctly. Rafal IQ tests are controversial. Even if we could figure out some kind of acceptable IQ test, the data set would be microscopic and self-selected. Are there any other metrics we could use? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 06:40:15 2018 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 01:40:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: <004901d390cd$77cceb10$6766c130$@att.net> References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> <004901d390cd$77cceb10$6766c130$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 9:30 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *Rafal Smigrodzki > *Sent:* Thursday, January 18, 2018 5:32 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Forbidden Words > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 9:31 PM, spike wrote: > > > > A question occurred to me while I was vacationing: suppose we theorize > that a political party is smarter (or dumber) than another. > > > > ### Research indicates that Democratic voters are on average dumber than > Republican voters, the difference is a couple IQ points if I remember > correctly. > > > > Rafal > > > > > > IQ tests are controversial. Even if we could figure out some kind of > acceptable IQ test, the data set would be microscopic and self-selected. > Are there any other metrics we could use? > > > > > ### Dumb people often oppose IQ testing, and in that sense IQ tests are controversial but that is hardly a strong argument against IQ testing. Acceptable IQ tests include Stanford-Binet and Wechsler, as well as proxies such as vocabulary tests. No other metrics come close to these tests in value as measures of intelligence. Data sets showing intelligence of Democracts and Republicans are enormous, for example the GSS. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 15:16:49 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 09:16:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> Message-ID: ?### Research indicates that Democratic voters are on average dumber than Republican voters, the difference is a couple IQ points if I remember correctly. Rafal ? In other words, well within sampling error. Duh bill w On Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 7:31 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 9:31 PM, spike wrote: >> >> >> >> A question occurred to me while I was vacationing: suppose we theorize >> that a political party is smarter (or dumber) than another. >> > > ### Research indicates that Democratic voters are on average dumber than > Republican voters, the difference is a couple IQ points if I remember > correctly. > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 19 15:51:47 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 07:51:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> <004901d390cd$77cceb10$6766c130$@att.net> Message-ID: <004001d3913d$6a6590b0$3f30b210$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki IQ tests are controversial. Even if we could figure out some kind of acceptable IQ test, the data set would be microscopic and self-selected. Are there any other metrics we could use? ### Dumb people often oppose IQ testing, and in that sense IQ tests are controversial ? Rafal Ja I get that. We know that only a tiny fraction of people have ever taken an IQ test. So what else can we use? For instance, we know that some sports are really dumb, like championship rasslin?. We can measure those kinds of proxies for intelligence that a way bigger percentage of people use, ja? SAT scores? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 18:51:27 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 13:51:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 8:31 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: ?> ? > ### Research indicates that Democratic voters are on average dumber than > Republican voters, the difference is a couple IQ points if I remember > correctly. > That myth started from something called "IAHYM News Network? and claimed that Harvard University found that conservatives had significantly higher IQ?s than liberals. However most didn?t read the entire article, if they had they would have ?realized? the entire thing was a satire. This is the very last paragraph ?:? *"Oh yeah, and everything in that bullsh*t you just read is completely and totally false. There has been no such conclusive study, and all of the ?Finds? are based on public paranoia. Chances are good that if you are a conservative, you were empowered by this new find. If you, even for a second, thought this find might be true, you are probably an idiot.? * https://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/iqpolitics.asp There ?is ? however a real study ? made in 2010? , not on Republican versus Democrat ?but? on the IQ of liberal versus conservative ?;? I can?t vouch for the quality of the study but for whatever its worth it says: *"respondents who identify themselves as "very conservative" in their early adulthood have a mean adolescent IQ of 94.82, whereas those who identify themselves as "very liberal" have a mean adolescent IQ of 106.42.* *? ?* *Respondents who identify themselves as "very religious" in their early adulthood have a mean adolescent IQ of 97.14, whereas those who identify themselves as "not at all religious" have a mean adolescent IQ of 103.09.?"?* http://www.asanet.org/research-and-publications/journals/social-psychology-quarterly/why-liberals-and-atheists-are-more-intelligent I should mention that back in 2010 ?? I was a Republican and had been a member of the party of Lincoln, for many years, but that was before they proudly declared themselves to be the stupid party ? and tried to renege ?on the national debt and decided that what the country really needed was a unstable ignoramus to lead it. ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 19 19:06:13 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 11:06:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> Message-ID: <014501d39158$938590b0$ba90b210$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark ?? >?I was a Republican and had been a member of the party of Lincoln, for many years, but that was ? John K Clark Ja, but my question wasn?t aimed at establishing this party or that party as dumb or smart. Those kinds of claims come and go regularly. My question is with regard to how you would measure it. Only a tiny fraction of people will ever do an IQ test. Those who do get those tests makes the sample unrepresentative and uninformative, and can be very misleading. So how would you measure such a claim? spike ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 21:34:56 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 15:34:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: <014501d39158$938590b0$ba90b210$@att.net> References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> <014501d39158$938590b0$ba90b210$@att.net> Message-ID: My question is with regard to how you would measure it. Only a tiny fraction of people will ever do an IQ test. Those who do get those tests makes the sample unrepresentative and uninformative, and can be very misleading. So how would you measure such a claim? spike Here's one way: http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/greiq.aspx On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 1:06 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *John Clark > > ?? > > >?I was a Republican and had been a member of the party of Lincoln, for > many years, but that was ? > > John K Clark > > > > > > Ja, but my question wasn?t aimed at establishing this party or that party > as dumb or smart. Those kinds of claims come and go regularly. My > question is with regard to how you would measure it. Only a tiny fraction > of people will ever do an IQ test. Those who do get those tests makes the > sample unrepresentative and uninformative, and can be very misleading. > > > > So how would you measure such a claim? > > > > spike > > ? > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 19 21:45:19 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 13:45:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> <014501d39158$938590b0$ba90b210$@att.net> Message-ID: <001301d3916e$cdab1dd0$69015970$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace >>?So how would you measure such a claim? spike >?Here's one way: http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/greiq.aspx OK cool, this gets us part of the way there (and I like what it says.) Since we don?t know how any individual scorers voted (and cannot get at that data) we can look at state composite SAT scores. We know how the states voted. This technique isn?t perfect (is isn?t even good) but it might be a start. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 00:09:03 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 18:09:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words In-Reply-To: <001301d3916e$cdab1dd0$69015970$@att.net> References: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net> <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net> <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net> <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net> <011d01d3843a$e7bd5170$b737f450$@att.net> <014501d39158$938590b0$ba90b210$@att.net> <001301d3916e$cdab1dd0$69015970$@att.net> Message-ID: This technique isn?t perfect (is isn?t even good) but it might be a start. spike What I think you would find: Republicans dumber than Democrats in the South, smarter on the coasts. Overall maybe a wash. bill w On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 3:45 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace > > >>?So how would you measure such a claim? spike > > > > >?Here's one way: > > http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/greiq.aspx > > > > OK cool, this gets us part of the way there (and I like what it says.) > Since we don?t know how any individual scorers voted (and cannot get at > that data) we can look at state composite SAT scores. We know how the > states voted. > > > > This technique isn?t perfect (is isn?t even good) but it might be a start. > > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sat Jan 20 03:21:02 2018 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 19:21:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells Message-ID: >> A causal cell is a finite volume of space-time enclosed by an event >> ? ? >> horizon wherein all observers should agree on the temporal ordering of ? >> events > If you and I are moving with respect to each other we won't agree on the > temporal ordering of events if the events happen at different positions in > space. Ok, let me a rephrase that again: A causal cell is a finite volume of space-time enclosed by an event horizon wherein all inertial observers should agree on the temporal ordering of time-like or light-like separated events, thus sharing an arrow of time. In other words, if there was any possible way A could have caused B, then we would all agree that A happened before B. >>> Is >>> [a causal cell] >>> the volume of the universe that could have had a effect on us ?, ? >>> or the volume of we can see now, or the volume we can still effect? >>> Those >>> are 3 different volumes and if its the last 2 its shrinking with the ? >>> passage of time. >> Technically it is none of those volumes. In our specific case, it is the >> Hubble volume. > > If your "causal cell" is the Hubble volume then it is case #2 that I > mentioned above, it is the volume of the universe we can see now. If they > mean the same thing I think it would be wise to use the more standard > term rather than one you made up, it would help avoid confusion. Firstly, "now" is a word fraught with peril in General Relativity. Whose now? My now? Your now? The now of galaxy at the edge of the cosmic event horizon? All those nows are different. Furthermore, most real things in physics cannot resolve actual mathematical *points* in space-time. There is too much quantum fuzziness, so for normal matter "here" and "now" are small intervals and not mathematical points. Secondly, my term "causal cell" is more general than "Hubble volume". The Hubble volume is an example of a causal cell. As are the space-times within all black holes and white holes. Any space-time enclosed in an event horizon is a causal cell. Furthermore, there is no real equivalent term in physics that can fit the bill. Unless you want to go with "holes", "grey holes", or "desegregated holes" or some such silliness. Moreover, most of the time, I am talking about their interiors. So I feel completely justified defining the term and using it. >> It is a volume of space-time enclosed in a spherical shell >> whose surface area A multiplied by the average density D of the space >> enclosed is equal to a constant I call L. > > If L=A*D then L can not be a constant because, due to the expansion and > acceleration of the universe, the area A of the Hubble volume is > shrinking, and so is the density of the Hubble volume. I know that equation looks ridiculously simple but it is derived from the Schwartzschild metric and as counter intuitive as it sounds, a white-hole's density should *increase* as it loses matter and energy and its event horizon shrinks. It's baked right into the definition of the Schwartzschild radius. >> Yes, causal cells are not invariant. What is invariant is the product of >> the density and event horizon surface area of a casual cell. > > I don't see how that could be if both are shrinking. That's just it. It is not possible for both of them to be shrinking. The Friedmann Equations are wrong because they are based on the Robertson-Walker metric. The R-W metric takes it as an assumption the universe is isotropic and homogeneous. While observations clearly indicate it is neither. The universe cannot possibly be isotropic because you have anisotropies in the CMB manifesting as cold spots and hot spots. And more importantly, the so-called-universe cannot possibly be homogeneous because there is an actual bona-fide event horizon 14 billion light years away from us. Event horizons are barriers to causal mixing because time is running at right angles on either side of them. Therefore thermodynamic equilibrium cannot be achieved across them. The Robertson-Walker metric is wrong and everything predicted by it is paradoxical bullshit. >> However you >> do hit upon a spot that is giving me a bit of trouble in my math. My >> math predicts that the our causal should be shrinking, > > That's not a bug that's a feature, if causal cell means Hubble volume > then the math should say its shrinking because it is shrinking. Yes, but it should also be getting more dense. Eventually we could be the only galaxy in our causal cell. Surely you can see how one galaxy could be denser than the so-called universe is now? > I think if you're going to talk about reversing the arrow of time you > can't just stick with General Relativity, you're going to have to get into > Quantum Mechanics because CPT Symmetry says a observer couldn't tell if > time reversed direction,...well..., that is to say an observer couldn't > tell if positive and negative electrical charge was also reversed and > things were viewed in a mirror. If I want to bring electrical charges into it, I have to switch from Schwarzschild metric to Reissner?Nordstr?m metric. Maybe later, after I have the fundamentals down. Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 17:03:29 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2018 12:03:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 10:21 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > Ok, let me a rephrase that again: A causal cell is a finite volume of > space-time enclosed by an event > ? ? > horizon wherein all inertial observers should agree on the temporal > ordering of time-like or light-like separated events, thus sharing an arrow > of time. In other words, if there was any possible way A could have caused > B, then we would all agree that A happened before B. If I say A caused me to do B nobody within my Hubble volume would disagree and say my doing B caused A to happen, although somebody outside my Hubble volume might. >> If your "causal cell" is the Hubble volume then it is case #2 that I >> mentioned above, it is the volume of the universe we can see now. If they >> mean the same thing I think it would be wise to use the more standard term >> rather than one you made up, it would help avoid confusion. > > > >Firstly, "now" is a word fraught with peril in General Relativity. Whose > now? My now? Your now? If we?re talking about my Hubble volume then the answer to your question is my now, if you?re standing a foot from me your Hubble volume will be slightly different than mine, very very very slightly. >> If L=A*D then L can not be a constant because, due to the expansion and >> acceleration of the universe, the area A of the Hubble volume is shrinking, >> and so is the density of the Hubble volume. > > > > I know that equation looks ridiculously simple but it is derived from > the Schwartzschild metric and as counter intuitive as it sounds, a > white-hole's density should *increase* as it loses matter and energy and > its event horizon shrinks. Then we can?t be living in a white hole because there is no experimental evidence the density of the universe is increasing and plenty of evidence it is decreasing. >>> Yes, causal cells are not invariant. What is invariant is the product >>> of the density and event horizon surface area of a casual cell. >> >> >> I don't see how that could be if both are shrinking. > > > That's just it. It is not possible for both of them to be shrinking. > The Friedmann Equations are wrong because they are based on > the Robertson-Walker metric. Forget the mathematics, in physics as in all science empirical evidence always outranks theory, if what a theory predicts and the facts about the universe are inconsistent the universe doesn?t care because facts remain facts. Experiment outranks theory and the facts say both the density and the area of our Hubble volume are decreasing, so the product of the two can?t be constant. > The R-W metric takes it as an assumption the universe is isotropic and > homogeneous. While observations clearly indicate it is neither. Obviously on a small scale that is true, but if you look at boxes a few hundred million light years on a side it is pretty homogeneous, and without simplifying assumptions none of the fundamental laws of physics would have ever been discovered because things are just too complicated. > the so-called-universe cannot possibly be homogeneous because there is an > actual bona-fide event horizon 14 billion light years away from us. You?re using the same word for both the surface area of a Black Hole and of a Hubble volume, and I think that?s a bad idea. If I?m anywhere inside a Black Hole I will come into contact with things at the event horizon when we both reach the singularity, but I will never come into contact with things on the surface of my Hubble volume. >> I think if you're going to talk about reversing the arrow of time you >> can't just stick with General Relativity, you're going to have to get into >> Quantum Mechanics because CPT Symmetry says a observer couldn't tell if >> time reversed direction,...well..., that is to say an observer couldn?t >> tell if positive and negative electrical charge was also reversed and >> things were viewed in a mirror. > > >If I want to bring electrical charges into it, I have to switch from > Schwarzschild metric to Reissner?Nordstr?m metric. Maybe later, after I > have the fundamentals down. If you want to preserve CPT symmetry I think you?ll need to switch to the Kerr?Newman metric because although Reissner?Nordstr?m understands electrical charge it ignores spin, and a key element of spin is parity. And parity is the P in CPT. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 18:16:19 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2018 13:16:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Progress toward Drexler style Nanotechnology Message-ID: The cover story in the journal Science that came out yesterday (Jan 19 2018) is about a 25-nanometer-long robotic arm that can move things with 2.5 nanometer precise that is at least five orders of magnitude faster than anything made before. The authors say in addition to constructing stuff the arm could be used as mechanical memory just as in Babbage?s 19th century Analytical Engine, only about a billion times smaller. I think anyone can get to this page but you may need to login to read the article itself: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6373/279.full John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sun Jan 21 02:53:31 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2018 21:53:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For those interested, this is a very good write up on how the Microsoft architecture works: https://codeburst.io/understanding-r-net-microsofts-superhuman-reading-ai-23ff7ededd96 The actual paper is here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/r-net.pdf On Jan 18, 2018 8:17 PM, "Rafal Smigrodzki" wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 1:31 PM, Dylan Distasio > wrote: > >> This is the Achilles heel of all the deep learning that I've been exposed >> to. Deep nets are also great at image recognition until an adversarial >> attack is injected that will fool a net, but not a human child. There is >> zero comprehension. The nets are dead behind the eyes. I believe the >> folks attempting to replicate actual biological neuron function (the bulk >> of deep learning is not much more than high school math and a gradient >> descent function to find a global minima) have the best chance of building >> something that actually understands what it is doing. >> >> > ### I agree with the general tenor of your remarks but I would not go as > far as saying "zero comprehension". Current deep learning systems are very > brittle, much more so than humans but they are on to something - small > parts of the world models that humans build over decades of learning are > already present in the networks. They are not fleshed out with enough > cross-references to different but complementary representations of aspects > of the world, which is why they are brittle. I cannot guess whether the > Microsoft or Baidu systems have 1% or 10% of adult human understanding of > the world but I would argue it is not zero. > > I also doubt that the secret of human intelligence is in human neurons. > Neurons have been around a long time and human neurons are about 99% > identical biologically to monkey neurons - but we have more of them and > especially more of them wired to perform high-level integrative data > analysis. In effect, our brain's networks are just deeper than other deep > learning networks in existence, whether animal or artificial, but still > using only high school math to do their job. I guess. > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sun Jan 21 09:21:05 2018 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2018 09:21:05 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Progress toward Drexler style Nanotechnology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for sharing, this looks super interesting. If the article is paywalled, download via sci-hub (I think current working url is sci-hub.tw). On 2018. Jan 20., Sat at 19:18, John Clark wrote: > The cover story in the journal Science that came out yesterday (Jan 19 > 2018) is about a 25-nanometer-long robotic arm that can move things with > 2.5 nanometer precise that is at least five orders of magnitude faster than > anything made before. The authors say in addition to constructing stuff the > arm could be used as mechanical memory just as in Babbage?s 19th century > Analytical Engine, only about a billion times smaller. > > I think anyone can get to this page but you may need to login to read the > article itself: > > http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6373/279.full > > John K Clark > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sun Jan 21 09:27:05 2018 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2018 09:27:05 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Progress toward Drexler style Nanotechnology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Without self-replication it's not yet Drexlerian nanotech, but certainly an important milestone. On 2018. Jan 21., Sun at 10:21, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Thanks for sharing, this looks super interesting. If the article is > paywalled, download via sci-hub (I think current working url is sci-hub.tw > ). > > On 2018. Jan 20., Sat at 19:18, John Clark wrote: > >> The cover story in the journal Science that came out yesterday (Jan 19 >> 2018) is about a 25-nanometer-long robotic arm that can move things with >> 2.5 nanometer precise that is at least five orders of magnitude faster than >> anything made before. The authors say in addition to constructing stuff the >> arm could be used as mechanical memory just as in Babbage?s 19th century >> Analytical Engine, only about a billion times smaller. >> >> I think anyone can get to this page but you may need to login to read the >> article itself: >> >> http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6373/279.full >> >> John K Clark >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sun Jan 21 14:41:04 2018 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2018 15:41:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Progress toward Drexler style Nanotechnology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The link given by John is a review article, the full article is: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aao4284 Press release here: https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/detail/article/34408/ On Sun, Jan 21, 2018 at 10:27 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > > Without self-replication it's not yet Drexlerian nanotech, but certainly an > important milestone. > > On 2018. Jan 21., Sun at 10:21, Giulio Prisco wrote: >> >> Thanks for sharing, this looks super interesting. If the article is >> paywalled, download via sci-hub (I think current working url is sci-hub.tw). >> >> On 2018. Jan 20., Sat at 19:18, John Clark wrote: >>> >>> The cover story in the journal Science that came out yesterday (Jan 19 >>> 2018) is about a 25-nanometer-long robotic arm that can move things with 2.5 >>> nanometer precise that is at least five orders of magnitude faster than >>> anything made before. The authors say in addition to constructing stuff the >>> arm could be used as mechanical memory just as in Babbage?s 19th century >>> Analytical Engine, only about a billion times smaller. >>> >>> I think anyone can get to this page but you may need to login to read the >>> article itself: >>> >>> http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6373/279.full >>> >>> John K Clark >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jan 22 00:30:44 2018 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2018 16:30:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells Message-ID: John Clark wrote: >> A causal cell is a finite volume of space-time enclosed by an event >> horizon wherein all inertial observers should agree on the temporal >> ordering of time-like or light-like separated events, thus sharing an >> arrow of time. > > If I say A caused me to do B nobody within my Hubble volume would disagree > and say my doing B caused A to happen, although somebody outside my Hubble > volume might. Yes, nobody who is currently inside your Hubble volume would disagree with your ordering of events. But nobody outside your Hubble volume would ever disagree with you either because they could not see you even in principle. I think that is whole point of event horizons is that they are like curtains that prevent observers from seeing violations of causality, like seeing A happening to you somewhere *while* they see you are doing B at the same time somewhere else. Or in the case of reversed time, B causing you to do A. Event horizons prevent us from seeing places where time is flowing in a different direction than it is for us thus we are spared from seeing temporal paradoxes and violations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics such as supernovae unexploding. > If we?re talking about my Hubble volume then the answer to your question > is > my now, if you?re standing a foot from me your Hubble volume will be > slightly different than mine, very very very slightly. That's only true if the Cosmological Principle is true and the universe really is isotropic and homogeneous forever and since my own theoretical research has given me reason to doubt this, I call bullshit. If my Theory of Causal Cells is true, however, the cosmological event horizon is a real event horizon that everything in our causal cell is falling outward toward. In other words, it is an actual real place with coordinates and everything. If the Cosmological Principle is true, then you are right, and every observer sees their own unique Hubble volume and it follows them around as they move. That means that all observers must always be at rest with respect to *their* cosmological event horizon regardless of the direction and magnitude of their momentum. Is that true? Let's see. http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CMB-DT.html See that gradient of white to black shading on the second picture in the top row? That white spot is the spot on the CMB surface of last scattering that our solar system is moving toward at a velocity of 386 km/s. When you factor in that our solar system is orbiting the black hole designated as Sagittarius A*, aka center of the Milky Way galaxy, obliquely *away* from that spot at a velocity of 230 km/s, that means that Sagittarius A* and the whole galaxy are hurtling toward the cosmological event horizon at 631 km/s or about 1/500 the speed of light. So you see, the fact that there is such a thing as CMB rest frame that our galaxy can be moving with respect to violates the Cosmological Principle and invalidates it. Couple that with the fact that the cosmic microwave background is spatially the largest dipole we have ever measured, and you can see that the Robertson=Walker metric no longer holds water. It's time to throw it out. But instead what do the cosmologists do? They hand-wave it all away, then prune out our own galaxy from their data set so that they can focus on the relatively minor hot spots and cold spots in the bottom picture at my linked URL above. That's laughably ridiculous. That's like patently ignoring the elephant in the room and then speculating upon the existence of peanuts on the floor. So forgive me for thinking that the cosmologists might have dropped the ball on this one. >> I know that equation looks ridiculously simple but it is derived from >> the Schwartzschild metric and as counter intuitive as it sounds, a >> white-hole's density should *increase* as it loses matter and energy and >> its event horizon shrinks. > > Then we can?t be living in a white hole because there is no experimental > evidence the density of the universe is increasing and plenty of evidence > it is decreasing. If I allow dark energy into my equations with positive mass, then the density of a white hole can decrease but if, and only if, its event horizon surface increases to compensate. Hell dark-energy could be the white hole equivalent of time-reversed Hawking radiation. What the Schwarzschild metric is really telling us is that any arbitrary space-like interval has a mass density. As the mass density of that spatial interval increases, it becomes more and more time-like. Gravity is in a sense a measure of how time-like that spatial interval has become. But that interval's linear density cannot increase without limit. At a certain point, that spatial direction becomes saturated with mass-energy and becomes a time interval. What this means is that a given interval of space can only contain only so much mass before it ceases to be space and becomes time. >>> That's just it. It is not possible for both of them to be shrinking. >>> The Friedmann Equations are wrong because they are based on >>> the Robertson-Walker metric. >> Forget the mathematics, in physics as in all science empirical evidence >> always outranks theory, if what a theory predicts and the facts about the >> universe are inconsistent the universe doesn?t care because facts remain >> facts. No, I will not forget the mathematics. In and of itself, math is the only thing in the world guaranteed to be true and for all of time and in every place no less. That's why prime numbers matter and the laws of physics use math instead of say French for example. Maybe you should remind cosmologists to stick with the facts. They are the ones that prune their data to fit an outdated model and then when that isn't enough, they patch and adjust their model to fit their pruned data instead of just throwing it out and upgrading to a better model. Me? I am just naive traveller with a love of truth, knowledge, and the relationship between them. And the simple fact of the matter is that the Hubble radius marks demarcates an event horizon that we cannot see beyond period. And any assertion of what *might* be out there is an extrapolation of one sort or another. What the Robertson-Walker metric does is extrapolate an *observation* i.e. it looks flat, isotropic and homogeneous in here so it must be flat, isotropic, and homogeneous *out there*. That's no different than going back to the casino because you won the last time you were there. At least I am trying to extrapolate math and general relativity out there and not a simple assumption based upon a myopic view of the universe. >> Experiment outranks theory and the facts say both the density and >> the area of our Hubble volume are decreasing, so the product of the two >> can?t be constant. So can you find me some experimental results that don't presuppose the Cosmological Principle? Also for which is there *more* evidence: decreasing density or decreasing surface area? And regardless of what the density and surface area of the Hubble volume are doing over time, the simple fact of the matter is that as of 2018, their product equals 3c^2/(2G) as does the product of the event horizon surface area and density of every black or white hole. > Obviously on a small scale that is true, but if you look at boxes a few > hundred million light years on a side it is pretty homogeneous, and > without > simplifying assumptions none of the fundamental laws of physics would have > ever been discovered because things are just too complicated. Ok, so let me get this straight: on the smallest scales space-time is flat enough that you can do calculus on Lorentzian manifolds. But then as your scale gets bigger, on the scale of stars and galaxies, it is curved. But then, as your scale gets bigger, to scale of dark matter filaments and voids, space-time becomes flat again . . . out to infinity? How do we know that space-time curvature doesn't oscillate like a sine wave as you zoom out on the infinite universe, with the arrow of time spinning around? Because what's *out there* has to be the same as it is *in here* or our heads will explode? You yourself quoted Einstein to me once: "Every thing should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." The Robert-Walker metric is too simple. >> the so-called-universe cannot possibly be homogeneous because there is an >> actual bona-fide event horizon 14 billion light years away from us. > You?re using the same word for both the surface area of a Black Hole and > of > a Hubble volume, and I think that?s a bad idea. Why not? Event horizons are even more general than causal cells. They involve velocities that approach the speed of light rather than anything specific to gravity. They can be of positive or negative time polarity. They can be real or apparent. They can be planar or round. For example, if you are in a spaceship being uniformly accelerated, then as you draw closer to the speed of a light, a big flat event horizon will appear behind you and start following you around. And the closer you get to the speed of light, the closer the event horizon will get to your ship. If this event horizon contacts your ship, then Bell's Spaceship paradox ensues and your spaceship breaks apart. > If I?m anywhere inside a > Black Hole I will come into contact with things at the event horizon when > we both reach the singularity, but I will never come into contact with > things on the surface of my Hubble volume. But your statement is precisely the temporal inverse of "If I'm anywhere inside a white hole, then when I reach the event horizon, I will no longer be in contact with anything that I was in contact with when we both left the singularity." > If you want to preserve CPT symmetry I think you?ll need to switch to the > Kerr?Newman metric because although Reissner?Nordstr?m understands > electrical charge it ignores spin, and a key element of spin is parity. > And parity is the P in CPT. Ah good point. Thanks. :-) Stuart LaForge From giulio at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 16:24:16 2018 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2018 17:24:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] London Futurists: video conference on technological resurrection Message-ID: London Futurists: video conference on technological resurrection Yesterday I participated in an online video conference on Technological Resurrection, organized and moderated by by David Wood, Chair of London Futurists... https://turingchurch.net/london-futurists-video-conference-on-technological-resurrection-53e0b1bdd780 From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 26 16:02:07 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2018 11:02:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock Message-ID: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists just moved its Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes before midnight, that's the closest its been to nuclear annihilation since the first hydrogen bomb was tested in 1952 on Halloween. Oh well, at least we don't have to face the horrors of Hillary's Email server. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/scientists-doomsday-clock-heralds-world-s-darkest-hour ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jan 26 20:46:32 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2018 15:46:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Neural networks score higher than humans in reading and comprehension test In-Reply-To: References: <00dc01d38ef8$3f0b86f0$bd2294d0$@att.net> <004001d38f03$523a9080$f6afb180$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 3:23 PM, Dave Sill wrote: ?>> ? >> Dave I no longer really understand the definition of really understanding. >> >> > ?> ? > It's not trivial but: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding > > Is pretty good. > It says one understands something if " one is able to think about it and use concepts to deal adequately with that object". If the object is a book and a computer can answer questions about it better than a human then it has dealt adequately with it and thus understands it, or at least understands it better than a human. John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From csaucier at sovacs.com Mon Jan 29 00:13:23 2018 From: csaucier at sovacs.com (Christian Saucier) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2018 16:13:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0db201d39895$fc25a170$f470e450$@sovacs.com> John, and Extropian friends - I fear the entire horde of mad politicians and power-hungry dynasties: Trump, Clinton, Sanders, Bush. These people are all destroying our world under the pretension of ?serving? some imaginary greater good. I want to discuss alternatives and possible solutions. I believe we live in a time where alternatives and solutions exist in abundance. Unfortunately, the dominant religion of the 20th century (Statism) is still going strong as it struggles (mightily!) to continuously censor public discussion about alternative solutions. The powerful institutions that have dominated the world in the 19th and 20th centuries are falling apart. I no longer have time to waste on petty partisan politics and divisive political discourse. I can only make plans to attempt to free myself from my current state of slavery, while trying to avoid being caged or killed by the legion of inhuman order-followers normally referred to as ?heroes? in the media?s newspeak language. Is my own language divisive? I am only drawing a line against the people who would initiate physical harm to me. I?m defending. The Clintons, the Bushes, the Sauds, the Rockefellers, the Soros, and any other representative of some billionaire dynasty do not represent me. They are my enemy, and they treat me as their *resource* (aka slave). I apparently have an obligation to pay for these bankrupted thugs every time I buy a bottle of water. My life is significantly impacted, every day, by what will happen to me if I decide to NOT CONTRIBUTE to this corrupt gang of thieves that call themselves government. The Mainstream Media outlets have convinced the American population that nothing can ever be done without government. The mainstream media has crafted a careful narrative that has hundreds of millions (billions!?) of people convinced that their individual power resides in their ability to vote, petition, or march. Your power comes from your ability to walk away. Governments don?t protect your rights. Your rights are what *you* claim to be your personal space *against governments* and other collectivists that want to break down your door to kill your dog and steal from you. Freedom is the ability to ignore the state. I will not pick between Clinton and Trump. I do not choose between two evils. I reject both the killer and the rapist. They are both undesirables and neither represents me better than the other. I chose to Walk Away (great novel by Cory Doctorow: http://craphound.com/category/walkaway). It is a difficult choice. It is the only choice I have given the aggressive, violent, and inhuman other options presented to me. I dream of an Extropian future, but this will be a dystopian future if your owner has a back-door key to the blockchain that holds your identity backup. If you are truly afraid of the Doomsday clock; if you are truly outraged by Donald Trump; if you have researched the horrors and corruption perpetrated by the Clinton Foundation; then join me in exploring how we can walk away from the collapsing and bankrupt governments of the 20th century. The first step is to acknowledge that partisan politics are a silly, but very effective, distraction. Politics is a game devised to divide and conquer us. It is time we develop some technology against that. Christian. From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Friday, January 26, 2018 8:02 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists just moved its Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes before midnight, that's the closest its been to nuclear annihilation since the first hydrogen bomb was tested in 1952 on Halloween. Oh well, at least we don't have to face the horrors of Hillary's Email server. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/scientists-doomsday-clock-heralds-world-s-darkest-hour ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 01:29:16 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2018 17:29:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 26, 2018, at 8:02 AM, John Clark wrote: > > The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists just moved its Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes before midnight, that's the closest its been to nuclear annihilation since the first hydrogen bomb was tested in 1952 on Halloween. Oh well, at least we don't have to face the horrors of Hillary's Email server. > > http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/scientists-doomsday-clock-heralds-world-s-darkest-hour Will you at least admit many folks who didn?t vote for Clinton were worried about her record as a warmonger? (In fact, one friend of mine* told me he was afraid she?d start a war with Russia over Syria. I didn?t think she would at the time he told me this, but he believed it. In other words, for him if I accept what he told me, the email server issue was not his dominant concern.) Or are you going to continue believing Clinton had only itty bitty flaws and only fools would vote against her? Regards, Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap * Not that his (or your?) vote mattered. He wasn?t in a projected or actual swing state. And he wasn?t an elector. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 18:22:27 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:22:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 7:13 PM, Christian Saucier wrote: > > Freedom is the ability to ignore the state. Then nobody in the last 6 thousand years has been free because ignoring the state is about as easy as ignoring gravity. Yes I wish the facts were otherwise but that's the way it is, and politics is the art of the possible. > > I will not pick between Clinton and Trump. I do not choose between two > evils. Deciding not to choose because neither candidate is good enough for you is silly because evil is not a all or nothing quality, evil comes in gradations and so does stupidity and ignorance. Like it or not the fact remains that somebody is going to have the power to kill you and everybody you know in the next 30 minutes; last November the American people said Clinton should be the person who has that awesome power but the people aren't the ones that gets to make that decision, that decision is made by the Electoral College not the people and it decided that the power to destroy human civilization should be given to a temperamental 71 year old semi-literate child with Attention Deficit Disorder. I believe they could have made a better decision. > > If you are truly afraid of the Doomsday clock; if you are truly outraged > by Donald Trump; if you have researched the horrors and corruption > perpetrated by the Clinton Foundation; then join me in exploring how we can > walk away from the collapsing and bankrupt governments of the 20th century. It's odd, a few years ago some of my posts sounded very much like yours does now, I was very big on things like Privately Produced Law enforced by Private Protection Agencies, and I'm still a libertarian and I still think if we were starting from scratch it would be much better to take that road rather than the road that leads to nation states, but its far too late for that, we are nowhere near to starting from scratch. I no longer think it's feasible to get rid of nation states, at least not before a singularity occurs caused by AI or Nanotechnology or Quantum Computers or Donald Trump deciding to prove once and for all that he has a bigger penis than Kim Jong-un by making use of a few of his many thousands of H-bombs. It could very well happen because the man is not only crazy he's stupid. > The first step is to acknowledge that partisan politics are a silly, > but very effective, distraction. Partisan politics decides who gets the keys to a Trident-2 nuclear missile submarine, and right now a fool of epic proportions has those keys; compared to that stories of "horrors and corruption perpetrated by the Clinton Foundation" peddled by great minds at citadels of thought like infowars, Breitbart, and Fox news seem pretty trivial even if they were true. And I'm sure all the Clinton Foundation horror stories are just as true as Pizzagate turned out to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 29 18:38:25 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2018 10:38:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <022801d39930$59bc02d0$0d340870$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark >? compared to that stories of "horrors and corruption perpetrated by the Clinton Foundation" peddled by great minds at citadels of thought like infowars, Breitbart, and Fox news seem pretty trivial even if they were true?John K Clark Cool, we have a great test case coming up. Right now the biggest conspiracy theory in my lifetime is bubbling away, the alleged existence of a memo which alleges that the FBI and DOJ were weaponized by partisan politically-motivated insiders in the FBI. The US government has been at war with itself for years, but the key battle comes to a focus right here. Some government officials have urged the DOJ to release that memo. Others say no. We do not know what is in that memo, but I suspect if they choose to not release it, Wikileaks will somehow come into possession of its contents. This caused me to realize we could have a friendly no-currency betting game on what is in that memo and when (if ever) it will be released. We can even make up our own crypt-faux-currency just for trading on this forum for this sort of thing. Honestly I am finding this whole business most amusing. Regardless of what happens, regardless of whether it implicates the FBI or does not implicate the FBI, it can only weaken the executive branch, which is a win-win in my libertarian mind. Who wants to bet? I bet 10 crypt-faux-coins that the memo will be released by candy-hearts day (14 Feb) and that it contains nothing that leads to impeachment of anyone but leads to at least two firings at the FBI. Second bet: if they do not release the memo, one of our own former ExI posters Julian Assange will somehow end up with it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 19:44:02 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:44:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock In-Reply-To: <022801d39930$59bc02d0$0d340870$@att.net> References: <022801d39930$59bc02d0$0d340870$@att.net> Message-ID: Of course, it's only a coincidence, but McCabe just stepped down after Wray was shown the memo earlier today. On Jan 29, 2018 2:01 PM, "spike" wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *John Clark > > >? compared to that stories of "horrors and corruption perpetrated by the > Clinton Foundation" peddled by great minds at citadels of thought > like infowars, Breitbart, and Fox news seem pretty trivial even if they > were true?John K Clark > > > > Cool, we have a great test case coming up. Right now the biggest > conspiracy theory in my lifetime is bubbling away, the alleged existence of > a memo which alleges that the FBI and DOJ were weaponized by partisan > politically-motivated insiders in the FBI. > > The US government has been at war with itself for years, but the key > battle comes to a focus right here. Some government officials have urged > the DOJ to release that memo. Others say no. We do not know what is in > that memo, but I suspect if they choose to not release it, Wikileaks will > somehow come into possession of its contents. > > This caused me to realize we could have a friendly no-currency betting > game on what is in that memo and when (if ever) it will be released. We > can even make up our own crypt-faux-currency just for trading on this forum > for this sort of thing. > > Honestly I am finding this whole business most amusing. Regardless of > what happens, regardless of whether it implicates the FBI or does not > implicate the FBI, it can only weaken the executive branch, which is a > win-win in my libertarian mind. > > Who wants to bet? I bet 10 crypt-faux-coins that the memo will be > released by candy-hearts day (14 Feb) and that it contains nothing that > leads to impeachment of anyone but leads to at least two firings at the FBI. > > Second bet: if they do not release the memo, one of our own former ExI > posters Julian Assange will somehow end up with it. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 29 21:27:31 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:27:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] it's the yoga! was: RE: The Doomsday Clock Message-ID: <000201d39947$f90ad200$eb207600$@att.net> On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock >? Oh well, at least we don't have to face the horrors of Hillary's Email server? ? John K Clark? Amazing! We were so puzzled over the BleachBit to clean up that server, with the reason given that it contained yoga routines. Today we find out? that yoga is more politically damaging than appearing to destroy subpoenaed evidence! There may have been actual literal yoga on there. Check it out: https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/41333/ Who knew? That one took me by surprise when I thought I had seen it all. {8^D spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From csaucier at sovacs.com Tue Jan 30 03:54:03 2018 From: csaucier at sovacs.com (Christian Saucier) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2018 19:54:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4fb901d3997d$faab7a20$f0026e60$@sovacs.com> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Monday, January 29, 2018 10:22 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock > > Deciding not to choose because neither candidate is good enough for you is silly because evil is not a all or nothing quality (?) > What is silly to me is the promotion of the usual partisan politics with a the hope of a different result. If only we voted harder and coronated a different puppet in DC, the world would be safer! I wonder if you believe Barack Obama deserved his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize? When you vote and participate in government rituals, you are giving support to the organizations that have created the evil that threatens our world today. Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton are just the sad figureheads of these institutions. Look at how Bravado Trump did a 180 on all his promises; once in office, he was told what to do, and he did it, regardless of how that aligned with his campaign promises. The mouthpiece media rewarded him with better ratings! Hilarious Clinton would have followed her orders just as much. We need to build, promote, and use alternative systems. The reason why war is on the horizon, regardless of who rules in DC, is because the US dollar is losing its status as the global reserve currency. Russia and China are flexing their geopolitical muscles, oil is sold in non-USD for the first time in decades, and cryptocurrencies will absorb the panicked investors as they exit and crash the corporate equity bubble. The solution to world peace and nuclear annihilation will not come from wall street and nation states. We need alternatives. Nation states as we know them today will not survive the move to peer-to-peer electronic money, exchanges, and consensus systems. I don?t know what?s on the other side, but the era of corruptible money is ending. Nation states, central banks, the military industrial complex, and all the other industries that feed off the tit of the fed, will starve to death. Yes, that includes the organizations that control those nuclear warheads. War and inflation are necessary to our current ?governance? system (I feel dirty calling it that). They will not be able to afford maintaining their arsenal. My judgement is not so much against Clinton or Trump, it is a judgement against the systems they represent. I do not need you or any other authority to validate my judgement. The threat of nuclear annihilation comes specifically from these guilty, unaccountable institutions. The game is rigged. The evidence is abundant. Participation is a distraction. The cake is a lie. We don?t have to agree. However, I have to speak out, because so few people do. Peace! C. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 30 15:45:37 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 07:45:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling Message-ID: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> Some here might recall Julian Assange occasionally posting on ExI twenty or more years ago. A few of us formed an off-list chat group where he posted more frequently but he was always very one-dimensional. He was all about government transparency being the best path to accountability. Julian wasn't even identifiably left or right as far as I could tell, didn't seem to know much about any particular government or ideology. He occasionally posted some detail about Australian government, but in a sense was the classic pure libertarian, way back when many of us were just figuring out what libertarian really is about. Julian's persistent message was that governments will always be corrupt until there is accountability for their secrecy. He was the one who often said that sunlight is the best disinfectant. The US government has been at war with itself now for at least a couple years. With today's comments regarding the FBI by the top guy in the House of Representatives, Julian must be feeling enormous satisfaction as he is holed up in a foreign embassy in Britain: "Let it all out, get it all out there. Cleanse the organization. I think we should disclose all this stuff. It's the best disinfectant. Accountability, transparency -- for the sake of the reputation of our institutions." Paul Ryan What is striking to me is how similar is this sentiment to that spoken by one of ours twenty years ago. Could it be that the US government's path to peace with itself is through. transparency? Whooda thunk? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 17:32:30 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 12:32:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 10:45 AM, spike wrote: > > Julian wasn?t even identifiably left or right as far as I could tell, > didn?t seem to know much about any particular government or ideology. Maybe Assange was apolitical 20 years ago but if so he's certainly changed, I've never heard him say one bad thing about Donald Trump or his boss Vladimir Putin . And he published Clinton's embarrassing E-mails in such a way as to maximize the probability a amoral imbecile becoming the most powerful man in the world. Just 29 minutes after Trump's notorious Access Hollywood pussy grabber tape was released WikiLeaks published 2050 of Clinton's stolen E-mails (that we now know he got from Russia) and said it had 48,000 more. Do you really think that was just a coincidence or do you think Assange was trying (and succeeding) to distract people from the Trump tape? And the bastard eventually did publish the remaining 48,000, but not all at once, that would be too many to digest, he did it gradually because that would produce the greatest impact and give the greatest benefit to Trump, the last E-mail dump was just 2 days before the election. By the way, out of all those 50,000 E-mails there is no mention of criminal activity much less anything about the "Clinton Foundation horrors", just a lot embarrassing office gossip about X saying Y is a jerk. But people love gossip and it has an impact. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 30 17:47:34 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 09:47:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> Message-ID: <00c801d399f2$69dc0a80$3d941f80$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2018 9:33 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 10:45 AM, spike > wrote: >>? Julian wasn?t even identifiably left or right as far as I could tell, didn?t seem to know much about any particular government or ideology. >?Maybe Assange was apolitical 20 years ago but if so he's certainly changed, I've never heard him say one bad thing about Donald Trump or his boss Vladimir Putin . And he published Clinton's embarrassing E-mails? John K Clark Ja, it might be a personal thing rather than any particular ideological preference. Mrs. Clinton was the one who suggested having him killed via drone strike. She was joking of course. He hopes? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 18:12:56 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 13:12:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: <00c801d399f2$69dc0a80$3d941f80$@att.net> References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <00c801d399f2$69dc0a80$3d941f80$@att.net> Message-ID: I would add to this discussion, since it was raised by John, we certainly do NOT know that Assange got his info from Russia. Nothing has been provided to the US public beyond a shell document that lists no actual evidence of Russian hacking. It may be in classified hands, but nothing of substance has been shared with the public. In addition, and more relevant to the allegation that he got them from the Russians, a former NSA official believes there is evidence of an inside job at the DNC which was published in a liberal publication, The Nation. I would strongly suggest reading the entire article before blaming the DNC hack on a Russian bugaboo. The data was transferred too quickly for it to have been remotely. This is a matter of public record: Forensicator?s first decisive findings, made public in the paper dated July 9, concerned the volume of the supposedly hacked material and what is called the transfer rate?the time a remote hack would require. The metadata established several facts in this regard with granular precision: On the evening of July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes of data were downloaded from the DNC?s server. The operation took 87 seconds. This yields a transfer rate of 22.7 megabytes per second. These statistics are matters of record and essential to disproving the hack theory. No Internet service provider, such as a hacker would have had to use in mid-2016, was capable of downloading data at this speed. Compounding this contradiction, Guccifer claimed to have run his hack from Romania, which, for numerous reasons technically called delivery overheads, would slow down the speed of a hack even further from maximum achievable speeds. What is the maximum achievable speed? Forensicator recently ran a test download of a comparable data volume (and using a server speed not available in 2016) 40 miles from his computer via a server 20 miles away and came up with a speed of 11.8 megabytes per second?half what the DNC operation would need were it a hack. Other investigators have built on this finding. Folden and Edward Loomis say a survey published August 3, 2016, by www.speedtest.net/reports is highly reliable and use it as their thumbnail index. It indicated that the highest average ISP speeds of first-half 2016 were achieved by Xfinity and Cox Communications. These speeds averaged 15.6 megabytes per second and 14.7 megabytes per second, respectively. Peak speeds at higher rates were recorded intermittently but still did not reach the required 22.7 megabytes per second. ?A speed of 22.7 megabytes is simply unobtainable, especially if we are talking about a transoceanic data transfer,? Folden said. ?Based on the data we now have, what we?ve been calling a hack is impossible.? Last week Forensicator reported on a speed test he conducted more recently. It tightens the case considerably. ?Transfer rates of 23 MB/s (Mega Bytes per second) are not just highly unlikely, but effectively impossible to accomplish when communicating over the Internet at any significant distance,? he wrote. ?Further, local copy speeds are measured, demonstrating that 23 MB/s is a typical transfer rate when using a USB?2 flash device (thumb drive).? Time stamps in the metadata provide further evidence of what happened on July 5. The stamps recording the download indicate that it occurred in the Eastern Daylight Time Zone at approximately 6:45 pm. This confirms that the person entering the DNC system was working somewhere on the East Coast of the United States. In theory the operation could have been conducted from Bangor or Miami or anywhere in between?but not Russia, Romania, or anywhere else outside the EDT zone. Combined with Forensicator?s findings on the transfer rate, the time stamps constitute more evidence that the download was conducted locally, since delivery overheads?conversion of data into packets, addressing, sequencing times, error checks, and the like?degrade all data transfers conducted via the Internet, more or less according to the distance involved https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/ On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 12:47 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *John Clark > *Sent:* Tuesday, January 30, 2018 9:33 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling > > > > On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 10:45 AM, spike wrote: > > >>? Julian wasn?t even identifiably left or right as far as I could tell, > didn?t seem to know much about any particular government or ideology. > > >?Maybe Assange was apolitical 20 years ago but if so he's certainly > changed, I've never heard him say one bad thing about Donald Trump or his > boss Vladimir Putin . And he published Clinton's embarrassing E-mails? John > K Clark > > > > Ja, it might be a personal thing rather than any particular ideological > preference. Mrs. Clinton was the one who suggested having him killed via > drone strike. > > She was joking of course. > > He hopes? > > spike > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 30 19:10:09 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 11:10:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <00c801d399f2$69dc0a80$3d941f80$@att.net> Message-ID: <014201d399fd$f2e780b0$d8b68210$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio Subject: Re: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling >?I would add to this discussion, since it was raised by John, we certainly do NOT know that Assange got his info from Russia. Nothing has been provided to the US public beyond a shell document that lists no actual evidence of Russian hacking. It may be in classified hands, but nothing of substance has been shared with the public? This yields a transfer rate of 22.7 megabytes per second. Dylan Hi Dylan, Sure but keep in mind that we are talking about two different things here. The information you refer to with the data rate finding and the report that came out afterwards, is the email of the DNC. As I understand it, that email dump has generally been accepted as an insider job, perhaps somehow connected to Amran Awan, James Dolan, Seth Rich and Shawn Lucas according to some crazy conspiracy theorists (heh, those crazy conspiracy theorists (next thing ya know, they will be suggesting the FBI was involved in a conspiracy.)) Awan is scheduled to testify in March, assuming he is still alive by then (well, ya never know, the old geezer is 37 years old after all (which is older than James Dolan when he perished (and older than Seth Rich when he passed away suddenly (and older than Shawn Lucas when he had his accident (note that if you do Google searches on these guys, you will find most of the links go directly to porno sites (spent several days (really enjoyed those searches (but never did find out much about the three subjects who led me to all those wonderful places.))))))) If we are talking about the infamous server, we don?t know for a fact that that one was compromised (last I heard) and all efforts to find out about the yoga have never been successful. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From csaucier at sovacs.com Tue Jan 30 22:33:05 2018 From: csaucier at sovacs.com (Christian Saucier) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 14:33:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> Message-ID: <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike > Some here might recall Julian Assange occasionally posting on ExI twenty or more years ago. A few of us formed an off-list chat group where he posted more frequently but he was always very one- > dimensional. He was all about government transparency being the best path to accountability. Wikileaks is necessary because governments are necessarily unaccountable. Unfortunately, Wikileaks is (still?) a centralized organization (I hope someone there is working on that). So opponents do what they do: attack the head. Julian is paying an unfair price for our sunlight. Transparency is necessary, but it is clearly not sufficient. We need what Nick Szabo calls: social scalability. With the right technology, we could improve our ability to engage with one another more easily, across broader networks, and for a growing number of applications, *while minimizing the need for trust*. We need to decentralize the Wikileaks vision of transparency, hopefully before Julian dies of old age in illegal detention by secretive governments that have too much to lose, and too much to hide. This decentralization is happening now, using secure, transparent, and open source systems. Bitcoin was just a test. Electronic money works. The case is made. Now we can decentralize everything. Including funding for defense and the roads! We can decentralize financial markets, supply chains, entertainment, virus defense and electronic surveillance. We can decentralize health and medicine. And maybe, if we do it before an idiot (male OR female, any skin color, including orange, I don't discriminate) in Washington DC hits the wrong button, just maybe, we'll be able to decentralize the singularity before the secretive "amazon-alibaba-facebook nation state" version of it enslaves or kills us all. Maybe I'm being a little melodramatic for a Tuesday afternoon, but this is happening now. PaX Americana (sic!) is falling apart. The Pharaohs that rule our world are playing chess again. That's not good for any of us. We need smart people to help build, adopt, and promote transparent alternative solutions to our broken opaque centralized systems. Peace! C. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 22:45:05 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 17:45:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Doomsday Clock In-Reply-To: <4fb901d3997d$faab7a20$f0026e60$@sovacs.com> References: <4fb901d3997d$faab7a20$f0026e60$@sovacs.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 10:54 PM, Christian Saucier wrote: ?> ? > What is silly to me is the promotion of the usual partisan politics with a > the hope of a different result. > > ?If somebody, almost anybody other than Trump was commander in chief today the world would be a safer and saner place. ?You may not like Clinton, I'm not a huge fan either, but unlike the creature who has his finger on the nuclear button today she is not stupid and she is not emotionally unstable. > ?> ? > I wonder if you believe Barack Obama deserved his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize? > > Bill Gates ? would have been a much better choice, ?estimates of the number of people alive today who would be dead without him range from 6 to 122 million; but ? Barack Obama deserved ? the Nobel ?Peace Prize more than Henry Kissinger or Le Duc Tho ? or Yasser Arafat ? did. ? > > ?> ? > The solution to world peace and nuclear annihilation will not come from > wall street and nation states. We need alternatives. ?Wall Street? I knew you didn't like nation states but I didn't know you don't like capitalism either. ?What do you like? > ?> ? > Nation states as we know them today will not survive the move to > peer-to-peer electronic money, exchanges, > > Christian ?, I joined this list a quarter century ago long before bitcoin, and from day one I heard about the Crypto ?revolution that was about to happen. And even before that way back in 1988 Timothy C May wrote his " Crypto Anarchist Manifesto ?" ?and I was very impressed by it's opening line: "*A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy*." We were all sure it was just about to happen any day now, b ?ut? here we are in 2018 and nation states are stronger than ever. Like it or not nation states ? aren't going ? away anytime soon, we're just going to have to deal with it. ? ?> ? > Peace! ?With Trump I wouldn't count on it. John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 22:53:01 2018 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 17:53:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> Message-ID: I certainly love your enthusiasm, and hope your predictions are right! I doubt the current powerbrokers are going to go gently into that good night though... On Jan 30, 2018 5:36 PM, "Christian Saucier" wrote: > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *spike > > Some here might recall Julian Assange occasionally posting on ExI twenty > or more years ago. A few of us formed an off-list chat group where he > posted more frequently but he was always very one- > > dimensional. He was all about government transparency being the best > path to accountability. > > > > Wikileaks is necessary because governments are *necessarily *unaccountable. > Unfortunately, Wikileaks is (still?) a centralized organization (I hope > someone there is working on that). So opponents do what they do: attack > the head. Julian is paying an unfair price for our sunlight. > > > > Transparency is necessary, but it is clearly not sufficient. We need what > Nick Szabo calls: social scalability. With the right technology, we could > improve our ability to engage with one another more easily, across broader > networks, and for a growing number of applications, **while minimizing > the need for trust**. > > > > We need to decentralize the Wikileaks vision of transparency, hopefully > before Julian dies of old age in illegal detention by secretive governments > that have too much to lose, and too much to hide. > > > > This decentralization is happening now, using secure, transparent, and > open source systems. Bitcoin was just a test. Electronic money works. > The case is made. Now we can decentralize everything. Including funding > for defense and the roads! We can decentralize financial markets, supply > chains, entertainment, virus defense and electronic surveillance. We can > decentralize health and medicine. And maybe, if we do it before an idiot > (male OR female, any skin color, including orange, I don?t discriminate) in > Washington DC hits the wrong button, just maybe, we?ll be able to > decentralize the singularity before the secretive ?amazon-alibaba-facebook > nation state? version of it enslaves or kills us all. > > > > Maybe I?m being a little melodramatic for a Tuesday afternoon, but this is > happening now. PaX Americana (sic!) is falling apart. The Pharaohs that > rule our world are playing chess again. That?s not good for any of us. We > need smart people to help build, adopt, and promote transparent alternative > solutions to our broken opaque centralized systems. > > > > Peace! > > > > C. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 23:17:01 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 17:17:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> Message-ID: , Dylan Distasio wrote: > I certainly love your enthusiasm, and hope your predictions are right! I > doubt the current powerbrokers are going to go gently into that good night > though... > ?Solve this problem. Build a big cage. Fill it with geese. Put a fox in there. Limitation: the only thing you can do is to take the fox out and put another one in. bill w? > > On Jan 30, 2018 5:36 PM, "Christian Saucier" wrote: > >> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On >> Behalf Of *spike >> > Some here might recall Julian Assange occasionally posting on ExI >> twenty or more years ago. A few of us formed an off-list chat group where >> he posted more frequently but he was always very one- >> > dimensional. He was all about government transparency being the best >> path to accountability. >> >> >> >> Wikileaks is necessary because governments are *necessarily *unaccountable. >> Unfortunately, Wikileaks is (still?) a centralized organization (I hope >> someone there is working on that). So opponents do what they do: attack >> the head. Julian is paying an unfair price for our sunlight. >> >> >> >> Transparency is necessary, but it is clearly not sufficient. We need >> what Nick Szabo calls: social scalability. With the right technology, we >> could improve our ability to engage with one another more easily, across >> broader networks, and for a growing number of applications, **while >> minimizing the need for trust**. >> >> >> >> We need to decentralize the Wikileaks vision of transparency, hopefully >> before Julian dies of old age in illegal detention by secretive governments >> that have too much to lose, and too much to hide. >> >> >> >> This decentralization is happening now, using secure, transparent, and >> open source systems. Bitcoin was just a test. Electronic money works. >> The case is made. Now we can decentralize everything. Including funding >> for defense and the roads! We can decentralize financial markets, supply >> chains, entertainment, virus defense and electronic surveillance. We can >> decentralize health and medicine. And maybe, if we do it before an idiot >> (male OR female, any skin color, including orange, I don?t discriminate) in >> Washington DC hits the wrong button, just maybe, we?ll be able to >> decentralize the singularity before the secretive ?amazon-alibaba-facebook >> nation state? version of it enslaves or kills us all. >> >> >> >> Maybe I?m being a little melodramatic for a Tuesday afternoon, but this >> is happening now. PaX Americana (sic!) is falling apart. The Pharaohs >> that rule our world are playing chess again. That?s not good for any of >> us. We need smart people to help build, adopt, and promote transparent >> alternative solutions to our broken opaque centralized systems. >> >> >> >> Peace! >> >> >> >> C. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 31 00:15:09 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 16:15:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> Message-ID: <005f01d39a28$8e729680$ab57c380$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio Subject: Re: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling >?I certainly love your enthusiasm, and hope your predictions are right! I doubt the current powerbrokers are going to go gently into that good night though... Dylan Ja, but I am seeing developments I find promising. When I posted earlier that the US government is at war with itself, I can be more specific: the struggle today is whether or not top government officials get to maintain their privacy while exposing the privacy of their political rivals. Think about it: the entire current struggle can be framed in that structure: control of privacy. Like Orwell?s inner circle, privacy is power. Note that we now see the office of the presidency struggling against the FBI, which is part of the Department of Justice, which is part of the executive branch, all of it over privacy. This looks to me like a battle within the executive branch, which weakens that branch. The final outcome will likely be some form of accountability with privacy. As technology improves in the current legal framework, it looks like transparency has the upper hand. Good deal! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 31 00:07:19 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 16:07:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> Message-ID: <005201d39a27$7665a010$6330e030$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Christian Saucier >.We need to decentralize the Wikileaks vision of transparency, hopefully before Julian dies of old age in illegal detention by secretive governments that have too much to lose, and too much to hide.C What worries me more is that Julian dies of young age in illegal detention by secretive governments. Can you imagine if he perished of something kinda mysterious? That alone could launch a million conspiracy theories, but people do sometimes just expire mysteriously at a young age. I understand FBI biggie Strzok was interested in an insurance policy in the event that such an untimely end were to occur. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 31 00:31:22 2018 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 16:31:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> Message-ID: <008d01d39a2a$d294d6f0$77be84d0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling , Dylan Distasio wrote: I certainly love your enthusiasm, and hope your predictions are right! I doubt the current powerbrokers are going to go gently into that good night though... >?Build a big cage. Fill it with geese. Put a fox in there. Limitation: the only thing you can do is to take the fox out and put another one in. bill w? BillW, you have hit upon the solution: selectively breed the foxes such that the largest of the litter is about the size of a teacup Chihuahua. Now the geese have a whole new attitude toward the little bastard. Geese can be mean sons a bitches. A gaggle of them could perhaps quack something that translates to ??heeeeeere foxy foxy foxy?.? Libertarianism is about breeding smaller foxes and bigger geese. If the current foxes lose complete control over privacy, they are much smaller, well-behaved, honest foxes. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From csaucier at sovacs.com Wed Jan 31 00:53:35 2018 From: csaucier at sovacs.com (Christian Saucier) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 16:53:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> Message-ID: <528401d39a2d$eef202c0$ccd60840$@sovacs.com> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio > I certainly love your enthusiasm, and hope your predictions are right! I doubt the current powerbrokers are going to go gently into that good night though... The powerbrokers have been asleep at the wheel, drunk from the Fed?s last quantitative easing (yuk!), but they are definitely awake now. They are facing multiple assaults though, amongst themselves, out in the physical world, and now with this online peer-to-peer phenomenon. ICOs going mainstream in 2017 is what woke them up. Half a trillion dollars of value was generated since Satoshi without them seeing it coming. The taxman cometh for sure, but he?s still fumbling down the hall some ways. Facebook is banning all ICO advertisement. That?s ok, the same people are transferring their private hidden funds to an ICO in Zug. It?s a dirty world where many are tempted, corrupted, decimated, and resurrected. It is a very new frontier, loaded with too much money. But it is also where the future is being decided. The projects are launched. The testnets are running. The technologies that can enable social scalability exist. What is needed in 2018 are visionaries, futurists, engineers, and inventors to embrace decentralization. This is not 1988, although we share the same genesis block. This mailing list plays an important role in this story. The story is still just beginning. Extropians will find friends at every crypto/blockchain/bitcoin conference; there?s one every week on every continent these days. The protocols of our future are being gambled around in these wild ICOs and in decentralized, peer-to-peer, 100% unregulated, cryptocurrency exchanges. You have to try selling $1000 for BTC on LocalBitcoins.com, then transferring your BTC to ETH using a decentralized exchange like BitShares or using a peer-to-peer service like shapeshift.io. What you can do with ETH is almost impossible to overestimate. You can invest in ICOs for one. The only way we can change the world is by making the changes we wish to see in our own lives. I am an Extropian. I am almost by definition enthusiastic, if not at least optimistic about the future. I am tremendously worried about powerful archaic institutions ran by idiots, but my influence over that is negligible. I can make a difference with the technology I know. P2P systems extend my social scalability in ways that I never though possible. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From csaucier at sovacs.com Wed Jan 31 00:59:00 2018 From: csaucier at sovacs.com (Christian Saucier) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 16:59:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: <005201d39a27$7665a010$6330e030$@att.net> References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <510501d39a1a$4e301ec0$ea905c40$@sovacs.com> <005201d39a27$7665a010$6330e030$@att.net> Message-ID: <529901d39a2e$b05f6010$111e2030$@sovacs.com> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike > I understand FBI biggie Strzok was interested in an insurance policy in the event that such an untimely end were to occur. > >spike I am impressed by how many of these disappearances come up when we discuss politics. I wonder if there's a correlation. It can't be this mysterious if even the mainstream media talks about it: http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2016/08/10/the-list-of-clinton-associates-whove -died-mysteriously-check-it-out/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ilia.stambler at gmail.com Wed Jan 31 15:01:59 2018 From: ilia.stambler at gmail.com (Ilia Stambler) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 17:01:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Aging is now included into the WHO work program. Thanks! Message-ID: Dear friends, Following the previous extensive correspondence and the recent WHO Executive Board Meeting that was completed on January 27, I felt it was necessary to provide an update on the campaign that many longevity activists were conducting for the inclusion of aging health into the WHO work program. *Briefly: Congratulations, the longevity activists have won!* Thanks to the international advocacy campaign, WHO now has included a strong focus on ?healthy aging? into the new WHO draft work program. See the latest work program draft in English and all the 6 UN official languages (as of January 2018) http://www.who.int/about/what-we-do/gpw-thirteen-consultation/en/ http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB142/B142_3-en.pdf?ua=1 See especially paragraphs 15, 16, 17, 37, including the *WHO commitment to advance the Global Strategy and Action Plan (GSAP) on Ageing and Health* (until 2020, including the strategic objective 5 for ?improving measurement, monitoring and understanding of healthy ageing?) and to *prepare for the Decade of Healthy Aging* (2020-2030). Perhaps the most significant for advocacy is that Paragraph 17 of the work program declares that ?*Ensuring healthy ageing is an urgent challenge in all countries*? and Paragraph 15 declares the major public health goal ?*to live not just long but also healthy lives*? and suggests *the use of ?healthy life expectancy? as the main measure of health care success*. Such goals and measures for healthy longevity can be advocated and quoted also at the national and local level. So thanks again to everybody who participated in the campaign to include aging health into the WHO work program for your contribution! Here the head of the WHO Ageing and Life Course division acknowledges the importance of this campaign for the change of the program, and quotes the article ?Aging health and R&D for healthy longevity must be included into the WHO work program? as an example of the successful joint advocacy effort. https://twitter.com/DrJohnBeard/status/938418218473082881 http://www.aginganddisease.org/article/0000/2152-5250/147696 *Hopefully, this advocacy will continue, to ensure healthy longevity is not just planned, but actively advanced and implemented.* If you organize or are involved in further longevity advocacy campaigns ? either for specific topics (like the one for the WHO) or specific dates and occasions, as was practiced in the past ? e.g. the Jeanne Calment day on February 21 (commemorating the longest-lived human), the Future Day on March 1 (particularly to celebrate emerging health technologies), The World Health Day on April 7, the Elie Metchnikoff Day on May 15 (commemorating the founder of gerontology), or the Longevity Day/Month in October ? please share your plans and actions, so we could perhaps coordinate together and create a stronger impact! Thankfully, Ilia Stambler, PhD Chief Science Officer. Vetek (Seniority) Association ? the Senior Citizens Movement (Israel) http://www.longevityisrael.org/ Outreach coordinator. International Society on Aging and Disease (ISOAD) http://www.isoad.org/ Coordinator. Longevity for All http://www.longevityforall.org/ On Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 9:39 PM, Ilia Stambler wrote: > Dear friends, > > > > I wanted to bring to your attention an important and urgent issue for > aging care and research. > > > > It turns out that in the forthcoming work program of the World Health > Organization (WHO) for the next 5 years ? 2018-2023 ? the issue of aging > and aging-related ill health is excluded completely! This means that, > within the next 5 years, according to this document, the World Health > Organization is not obliged to do anything to care for the health of older > persons or to improve their health, not to mention conduct any research and > development to create new therapies and technologies for improving the > health of the aged, or any kind of longevity research. The issues of aged > health are not in the WHO work program! This is the essence of ageism in > health care and health research! > > > > http://www.who.int/about/gpw-thirteen-consultation/en/ > > > > Currently, the WHO conducts a public consultation about the draft Work > Program. Please use the link below to participate in the consultation! > Please explain to the World Health Organization that the issue of Aging is > important, and the care and improvement of health of the aged, also through > increasing biomedical R&D of aging, are important! The consultation fields > are easy to fill in, and even a couple of sentences, with your affiliation, > could help break the ageist wall! *The consultation takes place until > November 15*. Please also spread the word in your circles. Thank you for > your action! > > > > http://www.who.int/about/gpw-thirteen-consultation/en/ > > > > In the words of Jane Barratt, Secretary General of the International > Federation on Ageing (IFA) that brings this issue to the highlight of > global public discussion: ?We urge the WHO to rectify the glaring omission > of population ageing and older people in the draft 13th General Programme > of Work. It is a striking oversight that will diminish its credibility > among all of us. Make your voice heard bit.? > > > > Sincerely, > > > > Ilia Stambler, PhD > > On behalf of Vetek (Seniority) Association ? the Senior Citizens Movement ( > Israel) > > http://www.longevityisrael.org/ > > Longevity for All > > www.longevityforall.org/ > > > -- > > Ilia Stambler, PhD > > > Outreach Coordinator. International Society on Aging and Disease - ISOAD > http://isoad.org > > Chair. Israeli Longevity Alliance / CSO. Vetek (Seniority) Association ? > The Senior Citizens Movement (Israel) *http://www.longevityisrael.org/ > * > > Coordinator. Longevity for All http://www.longevityforall.org > > Author. Longevity History. *A History of Life-Extensionism in the > Twentieth Century *; *Longevity Promotion: Multidisciplinary > Perspectives *http://longevityhistory.com > > > > Email: ilia.stambler at gmail.com > > Tel: 972-3-961-4296 / 0522-283-578 > > Skype: iliastam > > Rishon Lezion. Israel > -- Ilia Stambler, PhD Outreach Coordinator. International Society on Aging and Disease - ISOAD http://isoad.org Chair. Israeli Longevity Alliance / CSO. Vetek (Seniority) Association ? The Senior Citizens Movement (Israel) *http://www.longevityisrael.org/ * Coordinator. Longevity for All http://www.longevityforall.org Author. Longevity History. *A History of Life-Extensionism in the Twentieth Century *; *Longevity Promotion: Multidisciplinary Perspectives * http://longevityhistory.com Email: ilia.stambler at gmail.com Tel: 972-3-961-4296 / 0522-283-578 Skype: iliastam Rishon Lezion. Israel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 31 16:39:41 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 11:39:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > On Sun, Jan 21, 2018 at 7:30 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > the fact that there is such a thing as CMB rest frame that our galaxy > can be moving with respect to violates the Cosmological Principle and > invalidates it. There is no violation, the Cosmological Principle says that on large enough scales the universe is uniform, and if you look at a cube about 200 million light years on a side it is, and the laws of physics are the same in any reference frame. Movement can only be defined in reference to something else and the CMB rest frame is just the frame that is moving with the average velocity of all the matter in the universe. If movement is allowed to exist in the universe then obviously not everything in it is going to be moving at the exact same velocity, so the fact that the Earth is moving at a velocity slightly different from the average is not at all surprising. It should also be remembered that in all the colorful pictures of the CMB the contrast has been cranked way way up, in actuality the difference between the hot spots and the cold spots is only about one part in a hundred thousand. > Couple that with the fact that the cosmic microwave background is > spatially the largest dipole we have ever measured, I'm not sure what you mean by that but it would be astounding if we didn't see a dipole in the CMB because if there were none that would mean if you plotted the velocity of everything in the universe the Earth would be in the exact center of that movement plot, and I would consider that a pretty wild coincidence. > > > No, I will not forget the mathematics. In and of itself, math is the > only thing in the world guaranteed to be true and for all of time and in > every place no less. Mathematics alone can?t explain everything because although physics uses mathematics physics is not mathematics. It?s easy to come up with a physical theory that is mathematically consistent but its far far harder to come up with one that also fits the facts. Mathematics is the language of physics but like any language it can say things that are untrue. I can't prove it but I have a hunch physics is more fundamental than mathematics. > That's why prime numbers matter and the laws of physics use math instead of say French for example. Physics and mathematics can sometimes give conflicting answers. I know that Euclid proved mathematically that there are a infinite number of primes but if that was really true then whatever prime number you mention it will always be possible to find a larger one, but Seth Lloyd proved physically that is not the case: http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/862.16/notes/computation/Lloyd-2002.pdf Lloyd showed that since the Big Bang the entire universe was only capable of performing 10^120 operations on 10^90 bits. So there must be a largest prime number in the sense that it is impossible even for the universe itself to find a larger one. And physics can come up with things that mathematics can't handle. Consider the Busy Beaver sequence: 1, 6, 21, 107,.. . What's the next term? Nobody knows for sure, all we know is that it's at least 47,176,870 . The Busy Beaver involves a physical object that could actually be built, a Turing Machine. Starting with a blank tape and a Turing Machine that can be in N states (that is to say have N rules) then BB(N) is the largest FINITE number of operations the machine will undergo before it halts; that is to say sometimes the machine will continue forever but ignore them, of those machines that eventually stop BB(N) is the maximum number of operations performed before halting. The Busy Beaver function starts out modestly enough: BB(1)=1 BB(2)=6 BB(3)=21 BB(4)=107 But then things go nuts. BB(5) is at least 47,176,870 , that is to say one 5 state Turing Machine has been found that halts after 47,176,870 operations, but another 5 state Turing Machine is still going strong well past that point, if it eventually stops then that larger number of operations is BB(5) if not then it?s 47,176,870 ; but if so we'll never be able to prove it?s 47,176,870 because we'll never be able to prove that other 5 state machine will never stop. Turing showed that in general you can?t determine if one of his machines will eventually stop, all you can do is observe it and wait to see if it stops, and you might be waiting forever. So some (perhaps all) BB numbers greater than 4 are not computable. It?s a little like having a perfect watch that will never stop, you can?t make money betting somebody that it will never stop because there is no point where enough evidence is in to allow you to claim you won and get the money. As for BB(6) its at least 7.4* 10^36,534 and probably much larger. BB(7) is greater than or equal to 10^10^10^10^7. Its been proven that BB(7,918) isn't just huge the number is not computable, even a Jupiter Brain will never know what BB(7,918) is, even the universe itself does not have sufficient resources to produce it so I'm not sure it make sense to say it exists. It's unknown what the smallest non-computable BB number is, all we know is its larger than BB(4) and less than or equal to BB(7,918). > And any assertion of what *might* be out there is an extrapolation of one > ? ? > sort or another. What the Robertson-Walker metric does is extrapolate an > ? ? > *observation* i.e. it looks flat, isotropic and homogeneous in here so it > ? ? > must be flat, isotropic, and homogeneous *out there*. They are just using induction and induction is even more important than deduction in science and in life. And besides, what is the alternative, there are a infinite number of ways things could be "out there" so how do you even start to think about it? The obvious way is to assume things out there are pretty much like things in hear and then see where that leads. > That's no different than going back to the casino because you won the > last time you were there. Induction is a very useful rule of thumb, but it doesn't always work. Induction just says that in our universe things usually continue. If things always continued then induction would always work and things wouldn't be very interesting, all the atoms in the universe would be arranged in a unchanging perfect crystal lattice that is infinite in all directions. A world where things never continue and induction never worked would also be dull, it would be nothing but white noise. Our universe with all its complexity and richness is between these two extremes, here induction is a great rule of thumb because it USUALLY works. > Ok, so let me get this straight: on the smallest scales space-time is flat > ? ? > enough that you can do calculus on Lorentzian manifolds. But then as your > ? ? > scale gets bigger, on the scale of stars and galaxies, it is curved. But > ? ? > then, as your scale gets bigger, to scale of dark matter filaments and > ? ? > voids, space-time becomes flat again . Yep, that's about it, that's what observation shows. > > out to infinity? Unknown. At the largest scales the universe is pretty flat but it could have a tiny ? ? curvature ? ? that is too small for us to measure. > You yourself quoted Einstein to me once: "Every thing should be made as > simple as possible, but no simpler." The Robert-Walker metric is too > simple. Everybody knows the universe isn't perfectly homogeneous and isotropic , but you can get some pretty good approximations by assuming that it is on the scale of a few hundred million light years, and doing so greatly simplifies the equations of General relativity although they're still horrendously complex. > if you are in a spaceship being uniformly accelerated, then as you draw > closer to the speed of a light, a big flat event horizon will appear > behind you and start following you around. And the closer you get to the > speed of light, the closer the event horizon will get to your ship. If > this event horizon contacts your ship, then Bell's Spaceship paradox > ensues and your spaceship breaks apart. Bell's Spaceship Paradox is not really a paradox. If I tacked a delicate string inside the cockpit of my accelerating spaceship from the front wall to the back wall the string would NOT break because the atoms and electromagnetic fields inside the string would shrink by Lorentz contraction at the same rate as the atoms in the cockpit 's side walls. However if I tied a string from the front of my spaceship to the back of another spaceship 10 feet ahead of mine and we both accelerated at the same rate the string would break because the atoms in the string would shrink just as they did before but now there is nothing else between the two spaceships to counterbalance that effect, there is only empty space . John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jan 31 22:11:15 2018 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 17:11:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] former exi poster is smiling In-Reply-To: References: <002301d399e1$6051a0d0$20f4e270$@att.net> <00c801d399f2$69dc0a80$3d941f80$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 1:12 PM, Dylan Distasio wrote: ?> ? > we certainly do NOT know that Assange got his info from Russia. > ?The NSA the FBI the CIA and all other intelligence agencies in the USA say it was Russia, Trump says a mysterious 400 pound man sitting on a bed is the one who stole the E-mails. So who should we believe? Well let's see, in his first 10 months in office Trump told 6 times as many lies as Obama did in 8 years. Trump told 2,140 lies in his first year, that?s 5.9 lies a day or or one lie every 3 waking hours. And these are just the lies told in public, the number of lies he told in private is probably 10 times that number: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/14/opinion/sunday/trump-lies- obama-who-is-worse.html ?> ? > former NSA official believes there is evidence of an inside job at the > DNC which was published in a liberal publication, The Nation. I would > strongly suggest reading the entire article before blaming the DNC hack on > a Russian bugaboo. > ? And just a week after that article was published ?in ? The Nation ?the magazine ? started ?having? second ?thoughts? about the accuracy of ?what it said? and ?so ordered a "post-publication editorial review". This is what they concluded: ?As part of the editing process we should have made certain that several of the article?s conclusions were presented as possibilities, not as certainties. And given the technical complexity of the material, we would have benefited from bringing on an independent expert to conduct a rigorous review of the VIPS technical claims. ? ?After the fact they did hired just such a independent technical expert and he said if the publication didn't want to be embarrassed again with another bad article they ?"? must exercise much greater care in separating out statements backed by available digital metadata from thoughtful insights and educated guesses. Walking nontechnical readers down any narrative path that cannot be directly supported by evidence must be avoided. At this point, given the limited available data, certainty about only a very small number of things can be achieved. ?"? https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/ 09/01/the-nation-issues-editors-note-on-story-questioning-whether-the-dnc- was-hacked/?utm_term=.db1e62ea8153 > ?> ? > The data was transferred too quickly for it to have been remotely. This > is a matter of public record: > ? ? > Forensicator?s first decisive findings, made public in the paper dated > July 9, concerned the volume of the supposedly hacked material and what is > called the transfer rate?the time a remote hack would require. The metadata > established several facts in this regard with granular precision: On the > evening of July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes of data were downloaded from the > DNC?s server. The operation took 87 seconds. This yields a transfer rate of > 22.7 megabytes per second.These statistics are matters of record and > essential to disproving the hack theory. No Internet service provider, such > as a hacker would have had to use in mid-2016, was capable of downloading > data at this speed. ? That's pretty fast, faster than what most home users would be willing to pay for but not out of reach of large national organizations ? like the DNC or Russian intelligence services. Xfinity ? offers a ? 100 Mbps ? connection for ? $90 per month and ? a 2-Gbps connection for $225 per month ? . I think Hillary Clinton ? could afford that when she was running for president of the richest country in the world. I think Vladimir Putin ? could afford it too. . > ?A speed of 22.7 megabytes is simply unobtainable, especially if we are > talking about a transoceanic data transfer,? > Why are we talking about ? ? transoceanic data transfer ?? If the Russian intelligence agencies had any brains, and they do, they'd want to get in and out as quickly as possible to avoid detection, so they'd download it to some local server and encrypt it, then they could transfer it to Trump's buddy Vladimir ? ?in the Kremlin ? at their leisure, ?an old fashioned dial up modem ? would be good enough for that. ? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 31 22:38:37 2018 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 16:38:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] book libertarianism and communitarianism Message-ID: American Character, by Colin Woodard. OK, so I have always hated history classes, and never made above a C in it (exception: ancient history, a B). Still hate it, but I am afraid that some of what I read in this book changed by beliefs about libertarianism and communitarianism. Many examples throughout show that what results from either one of these alone results in tyranny. You have to have a balance of both. Free markets associated with libertarianism in the late 1800s strangled the marketplace, made prices wildly out of whack with supply and demand, and many more. Result - the free market was not free. Railroad boardrooms ran the country. Truly an eye-opener. Some of you may know all this, but if so, how could you remain a strict libertarianism? By being a Social Darwinist? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 31 23:35:39 2018 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 15:35:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] book libertarianism and communitarianism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 31, 2018, at 2:38 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > American Character, by Colin Woodard. > > OK, so I have always hated history classes, and never made above a C in it (exception: ancient history, a B). Still hate it, but I am afraid that some of what I read in this book changed by beliefs about libertarianism and communitarianism. > > Many examples throughout show that what results from either one of these alone results in tyranny. You have to have a balance of both. > > Free markets associated with libertarianism in the late 1800s strangled the marketplace, made prices wildly out of whack with supply and demand, and many more. Result - the free market was not free. Railroad boardrooms ran the country. > > Truly an eye-opener. Some of you may know all this, but if so, how could you remain a strict libertarianism? By being a Social Darwinist? Have you read the work of Gabriel Kolko on how railroad companies in the 19th century generally lobbied for regulations and subsidies ? and were often successful? This was not because free markets failed so much as because price drops cut into railroad company profits. When folks who own businesses are complaining about price fluctuations they are almost always merely trying to defend their businesses from competition. Regards, Dan Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap": http://mybook.to/SandTrap -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: