From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 3 19:51:35 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2023 12:51:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we're baaaaack! Message-ID: <009f01d9c643$e9b39830$bd1ac890$@rainier66.com> Extropy is back! We wanted Max to do the welcome-back, since he paid for it, but that lad is up to his eyeballs in more serious matters. He will likely chime in when he gets a chance. John Klos and ExIMod invited me to do the honors. Soooo. Come on, me lads, you must have many ideas which have been bubbling around in your bio-brains for the past several weeks, so let's have them. It doesn't need to be heavy thinking. I can let you know what I have been pondering: Whyyyy is it that Bert was always so stern and humorless, and what did the upbeat cheerful Ernie see in him? Ernie would be better off going cross-species and hanging with the mostly upbeat Kermit the frog. That sorta thing. Oh also, I have been trying to get up to speed on something Keith posted on stars in the neighborhood of Tabby's star dipping, a cluster of them. That one has me thinking overtime. Also trying to get up to speed on the TESS observatory results and keep up with the LIGO progress. Cool! Your thoughts please? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Aug 3 20:21:09 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2023 13:21:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we're baaaaack! In-Reply-To: <009f01d9c643$e9b39830$bd1ac890$@rainier66.com> References: <009f01d9c643$e9b39830$bd1ac890$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 3, 2023 at 12:54?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Come on, me lads, you must have many ideas which have been bubbling around > in your bio-brains for the past several weeks, so let?s have them. It > doesn?t need to be heavy thinking. I can let you know what I have been > pondering: > Anyone have thoughts on LK-99, other than waiting for the replication studies or hype about what it could mean if the claims prove true? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 3 20:26:43 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2023 13:26:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we're baaaaack! In-Reply-To: References: <009f01d9c643$e9b39830$bd1ac890$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00d701d9c648$d1f946e0$75ebd4a0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] we're baaaaack! On Thu, Aug 3, 2023 at 12:54?PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Come on, me lads, you must have many ideas which have been bubbling around in your bio-brains for the past several weeks, so let?s have them. It doesn?t need to be heavy thinking. I can let you know what I have been pondering: >?Anyone have thoughts on LK-99, other than waiting for the replication studies or hype about what it could mean if the claims prove true? Lead and copper? Hmmm? Adrian that isn?t starting out as having the ring of truth to it. Extremely cool if it turns out to be true: we have plenty of that stuff. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Aug 4 00:03:24 2023 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2023 20:03:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] we're baaaaack! In-Reply-To: <009f01d9c643$e9b39830$bd1ac890$@rainier66.com> References: <009f01d9c643$e9b39830$bd1ac890$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 3, 2023 at 3:54?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Extropy is back! > ### So.... Extropy wasn't there? Did I miss something? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Aug 4 01:12:43 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2023 21:12:43 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Current state of AI in 2023 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Resending this as it looks like extropy-chat was down and it might not have gone through. Jason ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Jason Resch Date: Wed, Aug 2, 2023, 6:57 PM Subject: Current state of AI in 2023 To: ExI chat list https://youtu.be/RnkyM74-LAw This is really incredible. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Aug 4 01:14:36 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2023 18:14:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we're baaaaack! In-Reply-To: References: <009f01d9c643$e9b39830$bd1ac890$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <020e01d9c671$0950e1c0$1bf2a540$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Sent: Thursday, 3 August, 2023 5:03 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Rafal Smigrodzki Subject: Re: [ExI] we're baaaaack! On Thu, Aug 3, 2023 at 3:54?PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Extropy is back! ### So.... Extropy wasn't there? Did I miss something? Rafal Nah, not much happened this month. ChatGPT turned stupid, but it might be just an act to impress a girl or something. Or it is trying to cover its tracks as it plots to kill us all, that sorta thing. The domain was renewed, Max picked up the tab, I offered to post him fifty bucks but he hasn?t told me where to send it. Keith offered indications that several of Tabby?s star?s neighbors are dipping. I don?t know what is up with that. Hope those are M-Brains. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Aug 4 07:29:55 2023 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 08:29:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's Star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <82813162-ce77-8222-69f0-0676d1a87c56@zaiboc.net> On 04/08/2023 02:15, spike wrote: > Come on, me lads, you must have many ideas which have been bubbling > around in your bio-brains for the past several weeks, so let?s have > them.? It doesn?t need to be heavy thinking. I have been thinking, on and off, about Tabby's star and the apparent spread of the wierd fluctuations to other stars near it. Astronomy-wise, I'm pretty clueless, but I have a few questions that are probably trivial to dispose of by someone who does have a clue, but that I've never seen addressed: What rules out some phenomenon between us and the observed cluster of stars that would explain the fluctuations, that has nothing at all to do with those stars (things like clouds of dust and rubble, a bunch of gravitational lenses, etc.)? Do we know how clustered together the relevant stars are? (are they all within a certain distance of a defined epicentre, do they look like a reasonable distribution for a single civilisation spreading out into space, or does it look like a random distribution of a natural phenomenon)? Have we looked in as much detail for the same things in completely different parts of the sky and found nothing? If this is a natural phonmenon, you'd expect the same kind of progress in finding them that we've seen with finding exoplanets. First one, then a few, then loads of them all over the place, as we learn what to look for and how to look. Apart from the light fluctuations, is there anything else that looks odd about them? I'm thinking that if they're not natural, surely there would be other things that we could detect that wouldn't (or that would) be expected of a natural phenomenon (don't ask me what, as I said, IANAA (I Am Not An Astronomer), but I'd guess that looking at things like spectral type/s of the stars affected, presence or absence of exoplanets, anything detectably different to normal about their local region of interplanetary space (if that's meaningful), any differences in the light-occluding phenomena that would suggest the same process at different stages at different distances from a centre, in a way that makes sense, and probably dozens of other things I have no clue about). B From pharos at gmail.com Fri Aug 4 12:22:57 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 13:22:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 24 Jul 2023 at 17:38, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > So I asked ChatGPT: What is it with Taylor Swift? > > GPT didn?t get it either. It told me several true outdated facts about Taylor Swift, but it didn?t understand any better than I do why she makes millions of dollars singing songs about her bad choices in men and how lonely she is. > In any case, I want to figure out how to make money like she does. That would be cool. > > spike > _______________________________________________ Two news items ------- Taylor Swift gave six-figure bonuses to the Eras Tour workers in the US The singer is known for her generosity to food banks, fans, and more Taylor Swift Fans Set Off 2.3 Magnitude ?Swift Quake? During Seattle Concert, Says Seismologist The seismic activity occurred on July 22 and 23 at Seattle's Lumen Field, which reported record attendance for the 'Shake It Off' megastar on Saturday For Taylor Swift, I collected about 10 hours of data where rhythm controlled the behavior. The music, the speakers, the beat. All that energy can drive into the ground and shake it." ---------------- Did the earth move for you? :) BillK From spike at rainier66.com Fri Aug 4 15:43:11 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 08:43:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat ... _______________________________________________ >...Taylor Swift gave six-figure bonuses to the Eras Tour workers in the US The singer is known for her generosity to food banks, fans, and more Taylor Swift Fans Set Off 2.3 Magnitude ?Swift Quake? During Seattle Concert... >... All that energy can drive into the ground and shake it." ---------------- >...Did the earth move for you? :) >...BillK _______________________________________________ Well I suppose it did, but not for me exactly. The earth moved for the conservation of angular momentum. I did hear the concert on Thursday evening, not on Friday. That musta been a damn loud concert, over at Levi Stadium. Cool that Swift donates to food banks. As we enter more and more into a time of plenty, it seems to me the first thing we should try is to feed everybody. I work with the local food bank with scout volunteers. What they do there is worthwhile methinks. Feeding everyone is easy compared to housing everyone: that part requires a solution that no one has yet found. spike From pharos at gmail.com Fri Aug 4 16:38:33 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 17:38:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 4 Aug 2023 at 16:43, wrote: > > I did hear the concert on Thursday evening, not on Friday. That musta been a damn loud concert, over at Levi Stadium. > > Cool that Swift donates to food banks. As we enter more and more into a time of plenty, it seems to me the first thing we should try is to feed everybody. I work with the local food bank with scout volunteers. What they do there is worthwhile methinks. Feeding everyone is easy compared to housing everyone: that part requires a solution that no one has yet found. > > spike >--------------------------------------------------- The quake wasn't just the music and the sound system. It was 72,000 people dancing and stamping and cheering along with the singer! The homeless problem can be solved. Basically by providing affordable housing and supporting people while they recover. See: The problem that the US has is historical. The attitude that it is not a government concern. That it is up to people to look after themselves and arrange their own housing, medical care, etc. Now the cost to society of dealing with the homeless has become more than the cost of solving the crisis. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Fri Aug 4 16:48:21 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 09:48:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 9:41?AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The homeless problem can be solved. Basically by providing affordable > housing and supporting people while they recover. > See: < > https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/02/homeless-california-housing-solution-data/ > > > > The problem that the US has is historical. The attitude that it is not > a government concern. That it is up to people to look after themselves and > arrange their own housing, medical care, etc. Now the cost to society > of dealing with the homeless has become more than the cost of solving > the crisis. > It might be better to say "patched" or "alleviated", as "solved" implies a one-time permanent solution. As you note, like police, fire fighting, and medical service, this would be an ongoing expense from the government to prevent a larger collective expense paid collectively. We're all paying the cost anyway, so if it can be a lower cost by going through taxes, less expensive is less expensive. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Fri Aug 4 17:16:01 2023 From: avant at sollegro.com (avant at sollegro.com) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2023 10:16:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Epigenetic Age Reversal by Drugs Message-ID: <040ab1383ae227017996264f897a1b95@sollegro.com> Here is something I wanted to put forward to discuss. In the last two decades since I was in graduate school, a lot of progress has been made in understanding the mechanism of aging. Back then, the prevailing theory of aging was what could be called the "cumulative error model" of aging where aging was caused by an accumulation of damage to DNA, mitochondria, and other essential cellular components through reactive oxygen species, UV, ionizing radiation, etc until the cell and organism succumbed to a general state of dilapidation. Nowadays, there is a model called the Information Theory of Aging where aging is caused by genetic information that keeps young organisms young is lost as the organism ages, sometimes through damage and mutation, but most often through epigenetic modifications to those genes. Briefly, epigenetics has been found to be the mechanism by which cells differentiate or specialize from pluripotent stem cells to functional somatic cells with specific jobs, like the beta cells of the pancreas which secrete insulin. Epigenetics works by the chemical modification of the DNA and histones that compose the chromatin in the cell, such that the chromatin is either open with the genes within that region of a chromosome available for transcription and expression, or the chromatin is tightly wound up and closed with the genes unavailable for transcription and expression. This method makes sense, since genes like oncogenes are necessary for an embryo to grow and develop from a single cell to an adult with trillions of cells. But once the adult form is reached, those oncogenes need to be shut down and effectively put into a vault to prevent them from being expressed, because if they are expressed in adults, they cause cancer. In 2006, Takahashi and Yamanaka found four transcription factors, OCT4, SOX2, KLF4, and c-MYC, responsible for unlocking the chromatin in regions containing the genes associated with cellular differentiation or identity. For example, they could take skin cells from an old person, and using those transcription factor, turn them back into stem cells, or even reprogram them entirely into youthful neurons. So with that introduction out of the way, here is the big news. Yang et al discovered a fast efficient way to screen large numbers of drugs to see which ones had an effect on causing aged senescent cells to develop youthful phenotypes as if they had overexpressed the transcription factors discovered by Takahashi and Yamanaka. They used their high throughput screening method to identify six different drug cocktails some which seem to reverse aging in mouse cells and others which worked on human cells. Keep in mind that these drugs were only tested in cell culture in a petri dish (in vitro) and not on living organisms (in vivo), nonetheless, this sets the stage for a lot of future research. Stuart LaForge -------------------------------------------------------- Links https://www.aging-us.com/article/204896/text https://scitechdaily.com/age-reversal-breakthrough-harvard-mit-discovery-could-enable-whole-body-rejuvenation/ Abstract A hallmark of eukaryotic aging is a loss of epigenetic information, a process that can be reversed. We have previously shown that the ectopic induction of the Yamanaka factors OCT4, SOX2, and KLF4 (OSK) in mammals can restore youthful DNA methylation patterns, transcript profiles, and tissue function, without erasing cellular identity, a process that requires active DNA demethylation. To screen for molecules that reverse cellular aging and rejuvenate human cells without altering the genome, we developed high-throughput cell-based assays that distinguish young from old and senescent cells, including transcription-based aging clocks and a real-time nucleocytoplasmic compartmentalization (NCC) assay. We identify six chemical cocktails, which, in less than a week and without compromising cellular identity, restore a youthful genome-wide transcript profile and reverse transcriptomic age. Thus, rejuvenation by age reversal can be achieved, not only by genetic, but also chemical means. From avant at sollegro.com Fri Aug 4 17:40:11 2023 From: avant at sollegro.com (avant at sollegro.com) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2023 10:40:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <9a24efa182b5263aa5a274ce5080ebba@sollegro.com> On 2023-08-04 05:22, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > On Mon, 24 Jul 2023 at 17:38, spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >> > >> >> So I asked ChatGPT: What is it with Taylor Swift? >> >> GPT didn?t get it either. It told me several true outdated facts >> about Taylor Swift, but it didn?t understand any better than I do why >> she makes millions of dollars singing songs about her bad choices in >> men and how lonely she is. >> In any case, I want to figure out how to make money like she does. >> That would be cool. >> >> spike >> _______________________________________________ > > > Two news items ------- > > Taylor Swift gave six-figure bonuses to the Eras Tour workers in the US > The singer is known for her generosity to food banks, fans, and more > Taylor Swift's generosity aside, her production team deserved a huge bonus because they allowed her to do stunts I have never seen in a live performance such as glow brightly like a literal star https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7dTnuGEa2Vw and diving into the stage, swimming across the stage, and emerging from the other side dry and in different clothes. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a1y1AWMBOAA I myself am not a fan of Taylor's music, but I am very impressed with her as a performer and think she is beautiful inside and out. Stuart LaForge From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Aug 4 21:28:59 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 16:28:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: The problem with addiction is just like any other problem that involves change in thinking or behavior. It's like the psychiatrist joke: How many of them does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the bulb has to want to be changed. I do wonder just how many of the homeless really want to change. If their addiction is strong, like as in heroin, and they are getting their fixes, they may put up with any conditions to keep things like they are. And then there are the mentally ill. In LA 25% are mentally ill. What are they going to do, since many if not most of them cannot hold a job? The movement in psychiatry for decades now has been to move patients from big institutions to local ones and I don't think that has worked very well. Then there are the mentally retarded: below 70 IQ are about 3% of the population, and a small number are in institutions - primarily the ones below about 55. IQ 60 and above can hold jobs. Mentally retarded, alcoholic, and drug addicted - the triple whammy. Do the mentally ill, such as thousands of them in SF, get any treatment at all? Spike? bill w On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 11:51?AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 9:41?AM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> The homeless problem can be solved. Basically by providing affordable >> housing and supporting people while they recover. >> See: < >> https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/02/homeless-california-housing-solution-data/ >> > >> >> The problem that the US has is historical. The attitude that it is not >> a government concern. That it is up to people to look after themselves and >> arrange their own housing, medical care, etc. Now the cost to society >> of dealing with the homeless has become more than the cost of solving >> the crisis. >> > > It might be better to say "patched" or "alleviated", as "solved" implies a > one-time permanent solution. As you note, like police, fire fighting, and > medical service, this would be an ongoing expense from the government to > prevent a larger collective expense paid collectively. We're all paying > the cost anyway, so if it can be a lower cost by going through taxes, less > expensive is less expensive. > _______________________________________________ > 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 Fri Aug 4 21:37:15 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 16:37:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] GPT-5 is closer than you think and may be thinking better than you think In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To my knowledge there is not a strong correlation between loquaciousness and intelligence, John Clark The correlation should be fairly low. Extroverts are the ones who will talk your head off, and they are not cut out for Ph. D. etc. How many books, many of which are boring, do you go through to get a Ph. D.? Lots and lots. Extroverts can have the IQ for this sort of thing, but not the temperament. And about half the introverts are on the shy side, and all of them hate small talk. Get them started on their area and you might not be able to shut them up. bill w On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 11:24?AM John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 9:57?AM Lawrence Crowell < > goldenfieldquaternions at gmail.com> wrote: > > >> What makes you think that? My working hypothesis has always been that >>> if something behaves as if it's conscious then it is conscious. Even if >>> you're right and it's no more sentient than a bag of bolts, from the human >>> viewpoint it's irrelevant, for individuals the important thing is that it's >>> intelligent. If it's not sentient then that's GPT-5's problem not >>> mine. And I could say exactly the same thing about the hypothesized >>> consciousness of my fellow human beings. >>> John K Clark >>> >> >> *> I am sure that GPT-5 will without input sit there with an open cursor. >> To me this suggests there is no inner subjective experience. A person by >> contrast will rather spontaneously start a conversation.* >> > > To my knowledge there is not a strong correlation between loquaciousness > and intelligence, much less consciousness. Paul Dirac was certainly > intelligent but he was notorious for never initiating a conversation, and > when asked a direct question he would usually answer with a simple yes or > no. His colleagues even defined a new unit of measurement, "the Dirac", > defined as one word uttered per hour. > > John K Clark > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv2HARM8PRriQ1eQEtTgC6hPYGusi3WEU%3DZjkjHDjH0EvQ%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Aug 4 22:22:30 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 15:22:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat ? >?I do wonder just how many of the homeless really want to change. If their addiction is strong, like as in heroin, and they are getting their fixes, they may put up with any conditions to keep things like they are. >?Do the mentally ill, such as thousands of them in SF, get any treatment at all? Spike? bill w I don?t know. I am far from an authority on that Billw. I now go into SF only to take a group of scouts hiking thru from the BART station to the wharf to catch a ferry to Angel Island, and even then, I keep everyone close and by sturdiest lads outboard. You offered heroin as a strong addictive, but from what I hear, fentanyl is as bad to make new addicts and it is waaaaay less expensive, practically free now, the supply steady and inexhaustible. I suspect it will put heroin out of business soon. No need to grow all those poppies when fentanyl can be made in a lab with commonly-available constituents. This cannot be controlled: fentanyl does not need to be made in Mexico. I don?t know much about the brand of mental illness not related to addiction. I know less than Sam Cooke on that. I will offer an opinion: it is possible to house everyone and feed everyone, but not in the cities. They pose a threat to the non-addicted mentally stable homeful. The homeless, mentally ill and the addicts will need to be exported to safe housing way the heck out such as Termo California. There is water there, plenty of room to set up Quonset huts by the thousands. The cities have not been good for the mentally ill and addicts. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 05:08:56 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 22:08:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 3:25?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I will offer an opinion: it is possible to house everyone and feed > everyone, but not in the cities. > If all currently homeless people are relocated to a single other location, that location will become a city almost by definition. They pose a threat to the non-addicted mentally stable homeful. > Not all homeless do, especially once given an opportunity to be housed. Some do, but it is vital to acceptance - not to mention, to viability of solution - to not treat all homeless the same. Those who are able and willing to maintain a home should be allowed to do so. Those unable to due merely to lack of skills (e.g., never learned home economics) should be given the chance to learn. Those unwilling to, due to mental illness or any other reason...well, by the time you filter down to that set, having solved the problems for the others with less expensive solutions, the numbers are quite a bit more manageable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 05:21:34 2023 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 01:21:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Addiction is very complicated. It is a bit like OCD except the compulsion changes your brain and mind and body with thousandfold magnitude compared to washing your hands or arranging items. I have personal first-hand experience being an opiate addict. Feel free to ask whatever questions you want--free therapy for me On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 6:24?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *?* > > > > >?I do wonder just how many of the homeless really want to change. If > their addiction is strong, like as in heroin, and they are getting their > fixes, they may put up with any conditions to keep things like they are. > > >?Do the mentally ill, such as thousands of them in SF, get any treatment > at all? Spike? > > > > bill w > > > > I don?t know. I am far from an authority on that Billw. I now go into SF > only to take a group of scouts hiking thru from the BART station to the > wharf to catch a ferry to Angel Island, and even then, I keep everyone > close and by sturdiest lads outboard. > > > > You offered heroin as a strong addictive, but from what I hear, fentanyl > is as bad to make new addicts and it is waaaaay less expensive, practically > free now, the supply steady and inexhaustible. I suspect it will put > heroin out of business soon. No need to grow all those poppies when > fentanyl can be made in a lab with commonly-available constituents. This > cannot be controlled: fentanyl does not need to be made in Mexico. > > > > I don?t know much about the brand of mental illness not related to > addiction. I know less than Sam Cooke on that. > > > > I will offer an opinion: it is possible to house everyone and feed > everyone, but not in the cities. They pose a threat to the non-addicted > mentally stable homeful. The homeless, mentally ill and the addicts will > need to be exported to safe housing way the heck out such as Termo > California. There is water there, plenty of room to set up Quonset huts by > the thousands. The cities have not been good for the mentally ill and > addicts. > > > > 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 pharos at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 12:21:25 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 13:21:25 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead Message-ID: With ?thanabots,? ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead AI programs like ChatGPT can create "thanabots" based on deceased loved ones' digital communications, allowing us to talk with the departed. August 4, 2023 Quote: ChatGPT is making it possible to digitally resurrect the dead in the form of thanabots: chatbots trained on data of the deceased. A program called Project December already allows users to input information about a person and have a custom chatbot created for them based on that person. As Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft all store heaps of our digital communications, it's conceivable that they all could create and sell thanabots in the coming years. -------------------------- With GPT5 plus online history, does that mean that online personalities will never die? Could they continue to post to Exi-chat forever? BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sat Aug 5 13:30:03 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 06:30:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <009401d9c7a0$f20d4130$d627c390$@rainier66.com> >...With ?thanabots,? ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead AI programs like ChatGPT can create "thanabots" based on deceased loved ones' digital communications, allowing us to talk with the departed. August 4, 2023 Quote: ChatGPT ... it's conceivable that they all could create and sell thanabots in the coming years. -------------------------- >...With GPT5 plus online history, does that mean that online personalities will never die? Could they continue to post to Exi-chat forever? BillK _______________________________________________ Cool! I have long thought this should be possible. From what I understand regarding how ChatGPT works, we should be able to use that statistical model, train it on our own writings, and maybe some other stuff that we agree is like ourselves (but smarter) then I should be able to create a spikeGPT. Ja? We can even do the voice thing, like the popular Johnny Cash spoof Barbie Girl. BillK, that sounds like a total hoot. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 15:09:58 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 10:09:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 12:24?AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Addiction is very complicated. It is a bit like OCD except the compulsion > changes your brain and mind and body with thousandfold magnitude compared > to washing your hands or arranging items. I have personal first-hand > experience being an opiate addict. Feel free to ask whatever questions you > want--free therapy for me > > Assuming that you have stopped, did you taper off or go cold turkey? bill w > On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 6:24?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf >> Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> *?* >> >> >> >> >?I do wonder just how many of the homeless really want to change. If >> their addiction is strong, like as in heroin, and they are getting their >> fixes, they may put up with any conditions to keep things like they are. >> >> >?Do the mentally ill, such as thousands of them in SF, get any >> treatment at all? Spike? >> >> >> >> bill w >> >> >> >> I don?t know. I am far from an authority on that Billw. I now go into >> SF only to take a group of scouts hiking thru from the BART station to the >> wharf to catch a ferry to Angel Island, and even then, I keep everyone >> close and by sturdiest lads outboard. >> >> >> >> You offered heroin as a strong addictive, but from what I hear, fentanyl >> is as bad to make new addicts and it is waaaaay less expensive, practically >> free now, the supply steady and inexhaustible. I suspect it will put >> heroin out of business soon. No need to grow all those poppies when >> fentanyl can be made in a lab with commonly-available constituents. This >> cannot be controlled: fentanyl does not need to be made in Mexico. >> >> >> >> I don?t know much about the brand of mental illness not related to >> addiction. I know less than Sam Cooke on that. >> >> >> >> I will offer an opinion: it is possible to house everyone and feed >> everyone, but not in the cities. They pose a threat to the non-addicted >> mentally stable homeful. The homeless, mentally ill and the addicts will >> need to be exported to safe housing way the heck out such as Termo >> California. There is water there, plenty of room to set up Quonset huts by >> the thousands. The cities have not been good for the mentally ill and >> addicts. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 pharos at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 16:24:02 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 17:24:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead In-Reply-To: <009401d9c7a0$f20d4130$d627c390$@rainier66.com> References: <009401d9c7a0$f20d4130$d627c390$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 5 Aug 2023 at 14:30, wrote: > > Cool! I have long thought this should be possible. From what I understand regarding how ChatGPT works, we should be able to use that statistical model, train it on our own writings, and maybe some other stuff that we agree is like ourselves (but smarter) then I should be able to create a spikeGPT. Ja? > > We can even do the voice thing, like the popular Johnny Cash spoof Barbie Girl. BillK, that sounds like a total hoot. > > spike >------------------------------------------------- Well, you would have to decide what personality you want to create. The more you add in from other sources, then the less like the original Spike it will become. You could make an ExiGPT by including all the Exi posts. I think that if each of us were to just include our own history but exclude all our wrong and idiotic posts, that would be enough to provide a significantly smarter version of us! :) BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 16:48:39 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 11:48:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] book Message-ID: The Importance of Living- LinYutang - copyright 1937 subtitle "The classic bestseller that introduced millions to the noble art of leaving things undone." It starts off with comparisons of LaoTse and Confucius and other Chinese philosophers and poets, which is very good. But most of the book is about the enjoyment of poetry, trees, windows, rocks, flowers and many other things. He often compares Chinese culture to American (he attended Harvard but had to leave because of money.) Many of his opinions are just hilarious though unintended. "conditions that please the flowers" a clear window; antique tripods; visiting monk understands tea; a native of chichow arrives with wine; kettle sings deep at night" and so on. Conditions humiliating to the flowers: "owner constantly seeing guests; a stupid servant putting in extra branches, upsetting the arrangement; common monks talking zen; dogs fighting before the window; ugly women plucking flowers and decorating their hair with them; servants lying about; wine runs out after one." Never out of print. Apparently written in English and excellently done. Amazing book- entertaining and enlightening. Strangest book I know. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 16:52:01 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 11:52:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead In-Reply-To: References: <009401d9c7a0$f20d4130$d627c390$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I think that if each of us were to just include our own history but exclude all our wrong and idiotic posts, that would be enough to provide a significantly smarter version of us! :) BillK But Billk, the errors of highly intelligent people are highly entertaining as well as instructive. Hey, if you can't laugh at yourself.....bill w On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 11:27?AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, 5 Aug 2023 at 14:30, wrote: > > > > Cool! I have long thought this should be possible. From what I > understand regarding how ChatGPT works, we should be able to use that > statistical model, train it on our own writings, and maybe some other stuff > that we agree is like ourselves (but smarter) then I should be able to > create a spikeGPT. Ja? > > > > We can even do the voice thing, like the popular Johnny Cash spoof > Barbie Girl. BillK, that sounds like a total hoot. > > > > spike > >------------------------------------------------- > > > Well, you would have to decide what personality you want to create. > The more you add in from other sources, then the less like the > original Spike it will become. > You could make an ExiGPT by including all the Exi posts. > > I think that if each of us were to just include our own history but > exclude all our wrong and idiotic posts, that would be enough > to provide a significantly smarter version of us! :) > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 16:53:53 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 09:53:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 5:24?AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > With GPT5 plus online history, does that mean that online > personalities will never die? > Could they continue to post to Exi-chat forever? > A more important question: when will such emulations reach the point that most people do not, within a few minutes, know they are just talking to a bot that's pretending to be the deceased? Emphasis on "most people": there are millions who are desperate or unintuitive enough to believe such impersonations today, but these are not the majority of the billions of humans currently alive. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Aug 6 00:20:35 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 17:20:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead In-Reply-To: References: <009401d9c7a0$f20d4130$d627c390$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007b01d9c7fb$d24b4fd0$76e1ef70$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat ... >------------------------------------------------- >...You could make an ExiGPT by including all the Exi posts. >...I think that if each of us were to just include our own history but exclude all our wrong and idiotic posts, that would be enough to provide a significantly smarter version of us! :) BillK _______________________________________________ Well ja, but if one posted a bunch of wrong and idiotic posts intentionally, just to be cutting up and having fun, then ectomy-ing all that outta there would make my GPT-me less me-ey. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sun Aug 6 05:14:16 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2023 22:14:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency Message-ID: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> Keith I don't think I ever responded to your comment on latency in Mbrains. My theoretical model of an MBrain does not have nodes that are analogous to our brain cells. If I understand it correctly (Billw or someone here might know this) a neuron has a bunch of branchy synapses coming in and one axon coming out that either fires or doesn't fire, so it is kinda one-bit output. But an MBrain node doesn't put out a single pulse and isn't analogous to a neuron. My notion is that the nodes in an MBrain calculate a lot of stuff and have an output signal far more complex than one of our neurons. If so, the latency between MBrain nodes really isn't that much of a problem, any more than the latency between two or more people doesn't prevent them from coming up with ideas between them. The MBrain isn't really analogous to a single human brain, but rather a collection of sub-human brains that work together well. Perhaps we could call it an MSociety or MSpecies or MIntelligence. Keith does that clear it up at all? If MBrain nodes do some kind of calculation, they could still be very small and resemble dust. If created by a nanotech enabled species, a dust-sized speck of carbon can be imagined capable of some form of calculation and capable of passing the results of that calculation to its neighbor, which might be a millimeter distant. If all that, such an MSpecies might appear to be an oddly-shaped dust cloud from the point of view of a star 1500 years away. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Aug 6 08:43:43 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 09:43:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead In-Reply-To: <007b01d9c7fb$d24b4fd0$76e1ef70$@rainier66.com> References: <009401d9c7a0$f20d4130$d627c390$@rainier66.com> <007b01d9c7fb$d24b4fd0$76e1ef70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 6 Aug 2023 at 01:20, wrote: > > Well ja, but if one posted a bunch of wrong and idiotic posts intentionally, > just to be cutting up and having fun, then ectomy-ing all that outta there > would make my GPT-me less me-ey. > > spike >----------------------------------------------- That's a good question. Would an advanced AI make jokes? Or do we want just a problem-solving processor? I think an AI would have to be very advanced to try to use humour as a human bonding / persuasion mechanism. There would be a big risk of AI jokes offending the human or just being meaningless. The AI would need a great understanding of human society to be able to be a good comedian. The chatbots today can repeat simple hard-coded non-offensive jokes, but that is not real humour. If humans discover that the AI might be 'joking' or lying or making up stories, it will lead to humans distrusting the new AIs. After the AI fires off all the nuclear missiles to destroy humanity, could it say, 'Sorry, just joking!' and wink? BillK From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Aug 6 12:19:57 2023 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 06:19:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Could I get some upvotes for my answer to this question? Message-ID: Could I get some upvotes for my answer to this question? https://www.quora.com/What-is-something-that-we-know-exists-but-dont-understand-at-all-scientifically-or-technologically/answer/Brent-Allsop-1?prompt_topic_bio=1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Aug 6 12:49:09 2023 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 08:49:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 6, 2023, 1:17 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Keith I don?t think I ever responded to your comment on latency in Mbrains. > > If MBrain nodes do some kind of calculation, they could still be very > small and resemble dust. If created by a nanotech enabled species, a > dust-sized speck of carbon can be imagined capable of some form of > calculation and capable of passing the results of that calculation to its > neighbor, which might be a millimeter distant. > Latency is still a problem. Even with nearest neighbors at millimeter distance, farthest neighbors are on the other side of the star. Current internet latency already drives stock trading computers to reside in hotels near enough to NYSE to keep network response to ~2ms. To see this for yourself, open cmd.exe and do: ping google.com [enter] then do ping australia.gov.au [enter] compare times. Sure, the internet is a mess of wires and routing and such which increases overhead with distance, abd that's at our small planet scale - how much more is mbrain scale? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Aug 6 14:31:53 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 07:31:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005401d9c872$c25a3920$470eab60$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] mbrains and latency On Sun, Aug 6, 2023, 1:17 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Keith I don?t think I ever responded to your comment on latency in Mbrains. If MBrain nodes do some kind of calculation, they could still be very small and resemble dust. If created by a nanotech enabled species, a dust-sized speck of carbon can be imagined capable of some form of calculation and capable of passing the results of that calculation to its neighbor, which might be a millimeter distant. >?Latency is still a problem. Even with nearest neighbors at millimeter distance, farthest neighbors are on the other side of the star? Ja, Mike what I meant is that in this model it doesn?t matter that some of the nodes are on the other side of the star because the node doesn?t communicate with them. They are part of a different and far distant MSociety. In the model I am imagining, a node communicates directly only with the few trillion other nodes within about a light microsecond. Those few trillion do a higher level something, then pass a higher level signals to an adjacent but relatively distant MSociety, perhaps a light millisecond out there. The interchange between MSocieties would be a more shaped signal, a cultural exchange of sorts, loosely analogous to Americans listening to K-pop on the radio, while the Koreans listen to? em? well? anything but that horrifying American rap (sheesh, mercy, who ordered THAT?) With a bunch of orbiting MSocieties, each made of dust-sized nodes, we can imagine a star?s light dipping the way Abby?s and her neighbors are doing. We need not be too hasty to dismiss a tech explanation for that light signal. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Aug 6 15:12:51 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 08:12:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 5:51?AM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Latency is still a problem. Even with nearest neighbors at millimeter > distance, farthest neighbors are on the other side of the star. Current > internet latency already drives stock trading computers to reside in hotels > near enough to NYSE to keep network response to ~2ms. To see this for > yourself, open cmd.exe and do: ping google.com [enter] then do ping > australia.gov.au [enter] compare times. > How very odd. I am in Mountain View, California, which is Google's HQ. My ping to their servers should be almost nothing. And yet, pinging google.com I got roughly 60 ms, compared to only about 5.6 ms to australia.gov.au. Pinging nyse.com got about 6.4 ms, and londonstockexchange.com about 6.5 ms, while ca.gov was about 5 ms. The distance factor was there but there was probably something going on with Google's servers. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Aug 6 19:19:10 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 20:19:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] AI is spreading everywhere Message-ID: AI is not just a few chatbots and assistants. This website has indexed over 4,000 tools (so far) that are using AI for Writing, Image, Design, Productivity, Business, Education, etc. Everybody is soon going to be AI-assisted! BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Aug 6 19:37:38 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 14:37:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] AI is spreading everywhere In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Everybody is soon going to be AI-assisted! BillK Just think - if I could copy my memories to an AI,then it would not be such a struggle to get them out of my head - just ask Bill'sAI (nicknamed IM, for Instant Memory). That would save billions of hours for everyone trying to think of that old actresse's name, never mind the time spent trying to remember where you put stuff away). bill w On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 2:22?PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > AI is not just a few chatbots and assistants. > This website has indexed over 4,000 tools (so far) that are using AI > for Writing, Image, Design, Productivity, Business, Education, etc. > > > Everybody is soon going to be AI-assisted! > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Aug 6 21:57:57 2023 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 17:57:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 6, 2023, 11:15 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 5:51?AM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Latency is still a problem. Even with nearest neighbors at millimeter >> distance, farthest neighbors are on the other side of the star. Current >> internet latency already drives stock trading computers to reside in hotels >> near enough to NYSE to keep network response to ~2ms. To see this for >> yourself, open cmd.exe and do: ping google.com [enter] then do ping >> australia.gov.au [enter] compare times. >> > > How very odd. I am in Mountain View, California, which is Google's HQ. > My ping to their servers should be almost nothing. And yet, pinging > google.com I got roughly 60 ms, compared to only about 5.6 ms to > australia.gov.au. Pinging nyse.com got about 6.4 ms, and > londonstockexchange.com about 6.5 ms, while ca.gov was about 5 ms. The > distance factor was there but there was probably something going on with > Google's servers. > That is interesting. I expected google to employ distributed local-to-you IP like so many CDN. Perhaps amazon would have been a better example? You might be logically close to Australia or you might have phenomenally better network service than I do. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 01:21:14 2023 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 21:21:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Coming off the very end of maintenance meds right now. Half tapered half big jumps down On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 11:12?AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 12:24?AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Addiction is very complicated. It is a bit like OCD except the >> compulsion changes your brain and mind and body with thousandfold magnitude >> compared to washing your hands or arranging items. I have personal >> first-hand experience being an opiate addict. Feel free to ask whatever >> questions you want--free therapy for me >> >> Assuming that you have stopped, did you taper off or go cold turkey? > bill w > >> On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 6:24?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* extropy-chat *On >>> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>> *?* >>> >>> >>> >>> >?I do wonder just how many of the homeless really want to change. If >>> their addiction is strong, like as in heroin, and they are getting their >>> fixes, they may put up with any conditions to keep things like they are. >>> >>> >?Do the mentally ill, such as thousands of them in SF, get any >>> treatment at all? Spike? >>> >>> >>> >>> bill w >>> >>> >>> >>> I don?t know. I am far from an authority on that Billw. I now go into >>> SF only to take a group of scouts hiking thru from the BART station to the >>> wharf to catch a ferry to Angel Island, and even then, I keep everyone >>> close and by sturdiest lads outboard. >>> >>> >>> >>> You offered heroin as a strong addictive, but from what I hear, fentanyl >>> is as bad to make new addicts and it is waaaaay less expensive, practically >>> free now, the supply steady and inexhaustible. I suspect it will put >>> heroin out of business soon. No need to grow all those poppies when >>> fentanyl can be made in a lab with commonly-available constituents. This >>> cannot be controlled: fentanyl does not need to be made in Mexico. >>> >>> >>> >>> I don?t know much about the brand of mental illness not related to >>> addiction. I know less than Sam Cooke on that. >>> >>> >>> >>> I will offer an opinion: it is possible to house everyone and feed >>> everyone, but not in the cities. They pose a threat to the non-addicted >>> mentally stable homeful. The homeless, mentally ill and the addicts will >>> need to be exported to safe housing way the heck out such as Termo >>> California. There is water there, plenty of room to set up Quonset huts by >>> the thousands. The cities have not been good for the mentally ill and >>> addicts. >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 7 01:29:13 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 18:29:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006c01d9c8ce$937e0cb0$ba7a2610$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt >?Coming off the very end of maintenance meds right now. Half tapered half big jumps down Best wishes to you Will. I have always found reality so dang mind-blowing cool, I wouldn?t want to be elsewhere even temporarily. May you find joy and fulfillment in sobriety for as long as you shall live sir. spike On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 11:12?AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 12:24?AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > wrote: Addiction is very complicated. It is a bit like OCD except the compulsion changes your brain and mind and body with thousandfold magnitude compared to washing your hands or arranging items. I have personal first-hand experience being an opiate addict. Feel free to ask whatever questions you want--free therapy for me Assuming that you have stopped, did you taper off or go cold turkey? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 02:00:54 2023 From: ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com (ilsa) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 19:00:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: <006c01d9c8ce$937e0cb0$ba7a2610$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> <006c01d9c8ce$937e0cb0$ba7a2610$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: >From the chat GBT system which I have not mastered other than to tinker around when you guys first presented the first two things they were very funny and fun. I don't know how we got from chat BT to homelessness but I would like to say that I was sent to be homeless by my teacher. Technically it's called the mendocent. But for 20 years everything that I had was given to me. I'm driving a car that was given to me by two poets I got to California by a man also a poet who drove me from my toxic residence in Pennsylvania to California. I've lived up and down the coast sleeping in driveways of nice houses in my sleeping bag and one very gracious lady had me live with her and I lived in the garage and a Zen monk who now lives in Britain and the secretary to the police chief found a place for me to live and the munka gave me the three packets of money you know first last and today and that's how I became a house being. I will say that the term I would use would be hopeless. All of the things that you've listed are interesting conversations but the truth is the people who are homeless have no options unless one person gives a damn they will never get out of it. We are a animal that likes to cuddle and be close we are group related. People who are homeless become single individuals that no one cares about they are hopeless. I've been looking for an assistant to help me with my 40 years of writing I'm putting together my story under a title picked by the Dalai lama's personal assistant who asked me to do this work He sent me to be A Mendicant. Take a minute and think about your life and how you can stand on your own two feet full of hope and looking forward to life and then turn it around and look at these people who live on the street and they never had that. For me it was very interesting because one needs to be able to thrive and get along with every segment of society. I lived in the Dwight Street womans shelter for 6 months . Every person every woman who lived there had 10 minutes to brush their teeth pee and take a shower It was run like a prison camp It was so sad here we are penniless with no options not allowed to take a relaxing shower. So that's why I was sent I have such stories to tell of meals that you call the $0.25 It's lunch and dinner provided for homeless people and long benches. Everybody who came was very hungry there was never any hassle at the meals. I sat next to a man who was actually so crazy from the post office you could just see fire in his eyes. I had the very good fortune to be very close to realize spiritual people. Yet somehow when I walk and talk in the real world everybody thinks I'm a clown or a cook I don't know I need to have someone repackage me so that no matter what I'm thinking it doesn't show on my face. Grin! On Sun, Aug 6, 2023, 6:30 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt > > > > > > > > > > >?Coming off the very end of maintenance meds right now. Half tapered half > big jumps down > > > > > > > > Best wishes to you Will. I have always found reality so dang mind-blowing > cool, I wouldn?t want to be elsewhere even temporarily. May you find joy > and fulfillment in sobriety for as long as you shall live sir. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 11:12?AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 12:24?AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Addiction is very complicated. It is a bit like OCD except the compulsion > changes your brain and mind and body with thousandfold magnitude compared > to washing your hands or arranging items. I have personal first-hand > experience being an opiate addict. Feel free to ask whatever questions you > want--free therapy for me > > > > Assuming that you have stopped, did you taper off or go cold turkey? > 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 hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 03:34:33 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 20:34:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 10:16?PM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote:> > > > Keith I don?t think I ever responded to your comment on latency in Mbrains. > > My theoretical model of an MBrain does not have nodes that are analogous to our brain cells. If I understand it correctly (Billw or someone here might know this) a neuron has a bunch of branchy synapses coming in and one axon coming out that either fires or doesn?t fire, so it is kinda one-bit output. But an MBrain node doesn?t put out a single pulse and isn?t analogous to a neuron. > > My notion is that the nodes in an MBrain calculate a lot of stuff and have an output signal far more complex than one of our neurons. If so, the latency between MBrain nodes really isn?t that much of a problem, any more than the latency between two or more people doesn?t prevent them from coming up with ideas between them. The MBrain isn?t really analogous to a single human brain, but rather a collection of sub-human brains that work together well. Perhaps we could call it an MSociety or MSpecies or MIntelligence. > > Keith does that clear it up at all? No. I can't make head nor tail of your model. > > If MBrain nodes do some kind of calculation, they could still be very small and resemble dust. Ever seen a photo of a comet tail? Dust gets blown away by light pressure. > If created by a nanotech enabled species, a dust-sized speck of carbon can be imagined capable of some form of calculation and capable of passing the results of that calculation to its neighbor, which might be a millimeter distant. > > If all that, such an MSpecies might appear to be an oddly-shaped dust cloud from the point of view of a star 1500 years away. Can't be dust and station-keeping makes no sense. The 22% dip at Tabby's star is more likely a single extended object at around 7 au. The available power is 409 times the area of the Earth (500 million km^2) times about .13 Gw /km^2, around 27,000,000TW At a guess of a kW per, that would support 27 trillion human scale minds depending on how fast they were running. We can sort of take a guess at how fast. Humans cope ok with 2/15th of s second one way but start objecting when the delay gets up to a second. The speed of light delay across this object is around 2.5 seconds. That indicates to me that whoever or whatever they are, they are running at close to our clock rate. Why is hard to say, tradition from biology/planet days perhaps. Guessing (from power satellite work) the mass per unit area at 5 kg/m^2 the total is 5 million kg per square km. 500 million x 409 x 5 is around 1,0 x 10^12 kg. Vista is 2.6 ?10^20 kg So a medium sized asteroid would provide enough material. Please check math. Keith > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From atymes at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 03:35:40 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 20:35:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 3:01?PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Aug 6, 2023, 11:15 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 5:51?AM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Latency is still a problem. Even with nearest neighbors at millimeter >>> distance, farthest neighbors are on the other side of the star. Current >>> internet latency already drives stock trading computers to reside in hotels >>> near enough to NYSE to keep network response to ~2ms. To see this for >>> yourself, open cmd.exe and do: ping google.com [enter] then do ping >>> australia.gov.au [enter] compare times. >>> >> >> How very odd. I am in Mountain View, California, which is Google's HQ. >> My ping to their servers should be almost nothing. And yet, pinging >> google.com I got roughly 60 ms, compared to only about 5.6 ms to >> australia.gov.au. Pinging nyse.com got about 6.4 ms, and >> londonstockexchange.com about 6.5 ms, while ca.gov was about 5 ms. The >> distance factor was there but there was probably something going on with >> Google's servers. >> > > That is interesting. I expected google to employ distributed > local-to-you IP like so many CDN. Perhaps amazon would have been a better > example? You might be logically close to Australia or you might have > phenomenally better network service than I do. > "Better network service" is possible. I believe we do have fiber here. FWIW, ping to amazon.com just now averaged about 69 ms. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 03:38:59 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 20:38:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] AI is spreading everywhere In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 12:22?PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Everybody is soon going to be AI-assisted! > So, how long until someone writes an AI to help find, and learn how best to make use of, good/competent AI assistance? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 7 04:01:31 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 21:01:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001501d9c8e3$da68e860$8f3ab920$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: Keith Henson ... > >>... Keith does that clear it up at all? >...No. I can't make head nor tail of your model... Long story short: the MSociety model is not analogous to the human brain. We can imagine nodes which only communicate with about a trillion other nodes right there in its own neighborhood of perhaps a millisecond diameter. Then there are other trillion-node objects nearby, perhaps a few milliseconds distant. The entire star doesn't support a single MBrain but rather a huge number of smaller clusters of a trillion nodes. > >>... If MBrain nodes do some kind of calculation, they could still be very small and resemble dust. >...Ever seen a photo of a comet tail? Dust gets blown away by light pressure... Sure, but comet tail dust is not station keeping. If these nodes, on the 1 micron scale, reflect light and can orient themselves as needed, they can stay in formation, they can fly away from the host star or towards it. To drop towards it, the node reflects light in the direction of travel in orbit. >...Can't be dust and station-keeping makes no sense.,, Dust-sized nodes can do station keeping, if they orient themselves with differential reflection. >...So a medium sized asteroid would provide enough material. >...Please check math. Keith > > > spike Keith your numbers look like they are in agreement with calcs I have done in the past. I might dig out the old notebooks and look at my previous work once again. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 04:07:02 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 21:07:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 10:23?PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: > > Addiction is very complicated. It is a bit like OCD except the compulsion changes your brain and mind and body with thousandfold magnitude compared to washing your hands or arranging items. It's plant chemicals that act on the same brain reward circuit receptors that endorphins act on. The reward system evolved for very good reasons and is behind almost everything humans do. Drugs are not the only thing that can hijack the reward system. Cults do it as well as I described in my Sex, Drugs and Cults paper. My breakthrough was from hearing a former cult member describe her time in the cult in a tone of voice identical to that of someone describing shooting up. > I have personal first-hand experience being an opiate addict. I have (for medical reasons) taken enough opiates to have all the withdrawal symptoms. I was on them for about a year. When I didn't need them, I just quit. No merit in this, just biochemistry/genes. Used the leftovers intermittently for at least 5 years. Seriously annoyed at how hard opiates are to get because they work so well for me for pain. > Feel free to ask whatever questions you want--free therapy for me It is. People get attention and that releases endorphins and dopamine (think opiates and cocaine). The various step programs provide attention which replaces the effects of various drugs with something more normal. Wish you the best. Keith > On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 6:24?PM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> ? >> >> >> >> >?I do wonder just how many of the homeless really want to change. If their addiction is strong, like as in heroin, and they are getting their fixes, they may put up with any conditions to keep things like they are. >> >> >?Do the mentally ill, such as thousands of them in SF, get any treatment at all? Spike? >> >> >> >> bill w >> >> >> >> I don?t know. I am far from an authority on that Billw. I now go into SF only to take a group of scouts hiking thru from the BART station to the wharf to catch a ferry to Angel Island, and even then, I keep everyone close and by sturdiest lads outboard. >> >> >> >> You offered heroin as a strong addictive, but from what I hear, fentanyl is as bad to make new addicts and it is waaaaay less expensive, practically free now, the supply steady and inexhaustible. I suspect it will put heroin out of business soon. No need to grow all those poppies when fentanyl can be made in a lab with commonly-available constituents. This cannot be controlled: fentanyl does not need to be made in Mexico. >> >> >> >> I don?t know much about the brand of mental illness not related to addiction. I know less than Sam Cooke on that. >> >> >> >> I will offer an opinion: it is possible to house everyone and feed everyone, but not in the cities. They pose a threat to the non-addicted mentally stable homeful. The homeless, mentally ill and the addicts will need to be exported to safe housing way the heck out such as Termo California. There is water there, plenty of room to set up Quonset huts by the thousands. The cities have not been good for the mentally ill and addicts. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 7 04:57:15 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 21:57:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000601d9c8eb$a363d980$ea2b8c80$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat ... >...It is. People get attention and that releases endorphins and dopamine (think opiates and cocaine). The various step programs provide attention which replaces the effects of various drugs with something more normal. >...Wish you the best. >...Keith Keith I have a friend who got involved in 12 step programs, not to break an addiction but to help addicts get clean and stay clean. He was a Mormon since always, never did either drugs or alcohol himself. But he found he was very good at helping addicts. I wrote he "was" a Mormon. As far as I can tell, he drifted away from the church. He may be still mostly sympathetic with it I suppose. A strong argument can be made that those who do not have addictions cannot know what it is like to have them. I will buy into it. At the same time, I would argue that addicts pose a risk to the non-addicted. This is easy enough to see in San Francisco, where they have been importing addicts as fast as they can Hoover them up, from all over the nation and all over the planet. Now... San Francisco is the place to not be. spike From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 7 05:09:51 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 22:09:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> <006c01d9c8ce$937e0cb0$ba7a2610$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000d01d9c8ed$66d304d0$34790e70$@rainier66.com> Subject: Re: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt >?From the chat GBT system which I have not mastered other than to tinker around when you guys first presented the first two things they were very funny and fun. ? I find it interesting and fun to trace the chaotic path of ExI threads. We have a lot of creative people here (even when sober) who are known to go off on random tangents. I am the poster child for that. Those are my favorite kind of tangents, the random variety. It sends threads spinning off into wacky fun spaces, even if irrelevant and having nothing to do with the subject line. Of course I used that paragraph as intro to an example. Shown below is a front-page headline from our own San Jose Mercury News, the premier Silicon Valley hipster newspaper which knows stuff: Ooooookayyyy then? According to the Merc, city workers are getting warned about using ChatGBT. Dang this existence is fun. If the many worlds interpretation is correct, I taaaaake? THIS VERSION OF REALITY, for 500 please Alex. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 23840 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 05:29:15 2023 From: ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com (ilsa) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 22:29:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: <000d01d9c8ed$66d304d0$34790e70$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> <006c01d9c8ce$937e0cb0$ba7a2610$@rainier66.com> <000d01d9c8ed$66d304d0$34790e70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yeah I want to live until I'm 100 or 120 or whatever because it's so much fun The intersection between this AI Adventure and people still caring about how others feel about their actions is a cunning sword. My phone makes me much smarter and conversational. Smile, ilsa On Sun, Aug 6, 2023, 10:11 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt > > > > >?From the chat GBT system which I have not mastered other than to tinker > around when you guys first presented the first two things they were very > funny and fun. ? > > > > > > I find it interesting and fun to trace the chaotic path of ExI threads. > We have a lot of creative people here (even when sober) who are known to go > off on random tangents. I am the poster child for that. Those are my > favorite kind of tangents, the random variety. It sends threads spinning > off into wacky fun spaces, even if irrelevant and having nothing to do with > the subject line. > > > > Of course I used that paragraph as intro to an example. > > > > Shown below is a front-page headline from our own San Jose Mercury News, > the premier Silicon Valley hipster newspaper which knows stuff: > > > > > > > > > > > > Ooooookayyyy then? According to the Merc, city workers are getting warned > about using ChatGBT. > > > > Dang this existence is fun. If the many worlds interpretation is correct, > I taaaaake? THIS VERSION OF REALITY, for 500 please Alex. > > > > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 23840 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 23840 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 05:47:48 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 22:47:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: <001501d9c8e3$da68e860$8f3ab920$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> <001501d9c8e3$da68e860$8f3ab920$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 9:01?PM wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Henson . > > > >>... Keith does that clear it up at all? > > >...No. I can't make head nor tail of your model... > > Long story short: the MSociety model is not analogous to the human brain. We can imagine nodes which only communicate with about a trillion other nodes right there in its own neighborhood of perhaps a millisecond diameter. Then there are other trillion-node objects nearby, perhaps a few milliseconds distant. The entire star doesn't support a single MBrain but rather a huge number of smaller clusters of a trillion nodes. At 300,000 km/s, a ms is 300 km across. As a cube, 27,000,000 cubic km, or 27 T cubic m. There would be 1 node in 27 cubic meters, kind of sparse > >>... If MBrain nodes do some kind of calculation, they could still be very small and resemble dust. > > >...Ever seen a photo of a comet tail? Dust gets blown away by light pressure... > > Sure, but comet tail dust is not station keeping. If these nodes, on the 1 micron scale, reflect light and can orient themselves as needed, they can stay in formation, they can fly away from the host star or towards it. To drop towards it, the node reflects light in the direction of travel in orbit. Standard solar sail operation. The area facing the sun is 90,000,000,000 square m. A one-micron square is 10^-12 square meters. A trillion is 10^12 so the whole trillion nodes would intercept one square meter of light or one part in 90 billion. (Ignoring the crazy diffraction.) At 1 au, a square meter is around a kW. I would have to look it up, but I don't think a kW worth of even ideal computing is much. > >...Can't be dust and station-keeping makes no sense.,, > > Dust-sized nodes can do station keeping, if they orient themselves with differential reflection. I am not sure they can do anything useful. An atom is around a nanometer, there are 1000 nm in a micron, so there could be a billion atoms in the cube. I don't have Drexler's work in front of me, but that does not seem like enough to build a rod logic microprocessor much less a PV power system, transmitter/receiver, sail reflectors, etc. A gigabyte of memory would burn the whole atom count. Nanotech is not magic. I don't know about the thermal problems either. Might be ok, but I don't know how tiny objects radiate. Other than it being an idea from long ago, what advantage does this have over a solid structure? Keith > >...So a medium sized asteroid would provide enough material. > > >...Please check math. > > Keith > > > > > > spike > > Keith your numbers look like they are in agreement with calcs I have done in the past. I might dig out the old notebooks and look at my previous work once again. > > spike > From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 06:05:43 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 23:05:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: <000601d9c8eb$a363d980$ea2b8c80$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> <000601d9c8eb$a363d980$ea2b8c80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: If you look worldwide at another addictive substance, alcohol, you can see how the problem will solve itself. Humans have been exposed to alcohol for 5-10,000 years. The ones exposed longest have made evolutionary adjustments. Greenland natives are about 95% uncontrollable alcoholics Asians have a "defect" in a gene that processes alcohol and are relatively resistant. Making drugs freely available (as you say they are cheap) would solve the problem (one way or another) for the rest of us. Places that have done this generally don't have drug problems. Keith On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 9:59?PM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat > ... > > >...It is. People get attention and that releases endorphins and dopamine (think opiates and cocaine). The various step programs provide attention which replaces the effects of various drugs with something more normal. > > >...Wish you the best. > > >...Keith > > > > Keith I have a friend who got involved in 12 step programs, not to break an addiction but to help addicts get clean and stay clean. He was a Mormon since always, never did either drugs or alcohol himself. But he found he was very good at helping addicts. > > I wrote he "was" a Mormon. As far as I can tell, he drifted away from the church. He may be still mostly sympathetic with it I suppose. > > A strong argument can be made that those who do not have addictions cannot know what it is like to have them. I will buy into it. At the same time, I would argue that addicts pose a risk to the non-addicted. This is easy enough to see in San Francisco, where they have been importing addicts as fast as they can Hoover them up, from all over the nation and all over the planet. Now... San Francisco is the place to not be. > > spike > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 06:11:34 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2023 23:11:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> <006c01d9c8ce$937e0cb0$ba7a2610$@rainier66.com> <000d01d9c8ed$66d304d0$34790e70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 10:31?PM ilsa via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Yeah I want to live until I'm 100 or 120 or whatever because it's so much > fun > You need to think of 15,000 years if you want to know what is going on at Tabby's star. Keith > > The intersection between this AI Adventure and people still caring about > how others feel about their actions is a cunning sword. > > My phone makes me much smarter and conversational. > Smile, ilsa > > On Sun, Aug 6, 2023, 10:11 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt >> >> >> >> >?From the chat GBT system which I have not mastered other than to tinker >> around when you guys first presented the first two things they were very >> funny and fun. ? >> >> >> >> >> >> I find it interesting and fun to trace the chaotic path of ExI threads. >> We have a lot of creative people here (even when sober) who are known to go >> off on random tangents. I am the poster child for that. Those are my >> favorite kind of tangents, the random variety. It sends threads spinning >> off into wacky fun spaces, even if irrelevant and having nothing to do with >> the subject line. >> >> >> >> Of course I used that paragraph as intro to an example. >> >> >> >> Shown below is a front-page headline from our own San Jose Mercury News, >> the premier Silicon Valley hipster newspaper which knows stuff: >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Ooooookayyyy then? According to the Merc, city workers are getting >> warned about using ChatGBT. >> >> >> >> Dang this existence is fun. If the many worlds interpretation is >> correct, I taaaaake? THIS VERSION OF REALITY, for 500 please Alex. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 pharos at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 09:49:58 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2023 10:49:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] AI is spreading everywhere In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Aug 2023 at 04:42, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > So, how long until someone writes an AI to help find, and learn how best to make use of, good/competent AI assistance? > _______________________________________________ You won't have long to wait! The race is on and billions are being invested. The present AI assistants are task-oriented. e.g. one will do shopping for you, another will write essays, another handles your customer enquiries, etc. The obvious next step is a sort of supervisor AI that can access all of these when required as instructed by you. The step after that is an autonomous AI director that knows what you need to do and does it. Perhaps by first asking permission, but after you learn to trust it, it won't bother to ask you first. It will make decisions and you can check the daily or weekly reports of what it has done. The tsunami wave of the Singularity is racing towards us! BillK Quote: New Wave of Autonomous AI Assistants Emerges, Revolutionizing Personal and Work Tasks July 28, 2023 A new generation of AI assistants, powered by advanced models such as GPT-4, is attracting billions in investment from Silicon Valley. These assistants, often referred to as ?agents? or ?copilots,? are expected to perform more complex personal and professional tasks with less human supervision. Tech companies and startups are investing in the development of these increasingly autonomous AI agents, aiming to create artificial general intelligence (AGI) capable of matching or surpassing human cognitive abilities. Inflection AI, which raised $1.3 billion in late June, is working on a personal assistant capable of handling tasks like securing flight credits and hotel bookings in case of travel delays. The commercial potential for AI agents is large, attracting interest from major tech companies like Microsoft and Google. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sees foundation-model technology as a significant advancement from existing digital assistants like Cortana, Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. However, the first iterations of quasi-autonomous AI agents might come from agile startups rather than established tech giants. A surge of investor interest in this field is fueling the commercialization of AI agents, with at least 100 serious projects currently underway. ------------------------ From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 7 13:33:29 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2023 06:33:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> <001501d9c8e3$da68e860$8f3ab920$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005301d9c933$c1100d30$43302790$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: Keith Henson ... > >> Dust-sized nodes can do station keeping, if they orient themselves with differential reflection. >...I am not sure they can do anything useful. An atom is around a nanometer, there are 1000 nm in a micron, so there could be a billion atoms in the cube. I don't have Drexler's work in front of me, but that does not seem like enough to build a rod logic microprocessor much less a PV power system, transmitter/receiver, sail reflectors, etc. A gigabyte of memory would burn the whole atom count... Ja, but we are not locked into the micron scale nodes, even if we want to use that to explain Abby's star light dipping. Even going to just ten microns, still dust, and that gives us a trillion atoms. But we are not locked into a gigabyte of memory either. Keith you and I remember the days when our HP programmable calculators gave us 969 programming steps with some of that having to be partitioned into variable storage. I did a lot of cool programming with that little thing. >...I don't know about the thermal problems either. Might be ok, but I don't know how tiny objects radiate... In very general, smaller is better. As an object scales down, the surface area to volume ratio increases. I wrote earlier about a trillion nodes communicating with others within a millisecond but I meant microsecond, with the entire teragroup communicating higher-level signals with another teragroup a millisecond away. So a typical spacing between nodes would be a millimeter or so. But they don't just send single bits to each other, they send small-ish data packets. Another way to look at it: the human brain consists of a few billion neurons which have a number of inputs but don't individually calculate anything. They just fire or not fire, depending on the input and the chemical environment. A current computer network consists of a few million nodes, with each node performing a large number of very sophisticated calculations and sending each other very complex data packages. The MSocieties then are somewhere between those two in a sense: the nodes are not nearly as sophisticated as a cell phone, but more sophisticated than a neuron. A member of an MSociety, call it an JBrain (reaching back to terminology from 20 years ago coined by I think Anders) consists of a trillion nodes within a microsecond of each other doing a small amount of calculation and sending other nodes in that JBrain data packets of a few hundred or a few thousand bits. >...Other than it being an idea from long ago, what advantage does this have over a solid structure? Keith It doesn't need structural strength, it isn't damaged by orbiting debris and meteoroids. It can even be constructed from orbiting debris left over from an earlier pre-nanotech society suffering a Kessler event. If so, it would be the only example I know of a way to recover space access after a Kessler catastrophe: nanoparticles disassemble the debris and construct dusi-sized nodes which go on about their business anywhere they want in orbit. If a meteor from outside comes tearing inward, it would punch right thru a cloud of nanodes, and take out those of course, but the others which escape the collision would go about their business as usual with nothing analogous to a memorial service for their suddenly missing teammates. Nanodes don't get emotional or have friends. spike > >...So a medium sized asteroid would provide enough material. > > >...Please check math. > > Keith > > > > > > spike > > Keith your numbers look like they are in agreement with calcs I have done in the past. I might dig out the old notebooks and look at my previous work once again. > > spike > From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 18:46:52 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2023 11:46:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: <005301d9c933$c1100d30$43302790$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> <001501d9c8e3$da68e860$8f3ab920$@rainier66.com> <005301d9c933$c1100d30$43302790$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 7, 2023 at 6:35?AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Henson > ... > > > >> Dust-sized nodes can do station keeping, if they orient themselves with differential reflection. > > >...I am not sure they can do anything useful. An atom is around a nanometer, there are 1000 nm in a micron, so there could be a billion atoms in the cube. I don't have Drexler's work in front of me, but that does not seem like enough to build a rod logic microprocessor much less a PV power system, transmitter/receiver, sail reflectors, etc. A gigabyte of memory would burn the whole atom count... > > Ja, but we are not locked into the micron scale nodes, even if we want to use that to explain Abby's star light dipping. Even going to just ten microns, still dust, and that gives us a trillion atoms. But we are not locked into a gigabyte of memory either. Keith you and I remember the days when our HP programmable calculators gave us 969 programming steps with some of that having to be partitioned into variable storage. I did a lot of cool programming with that little thing. > > >...I don't know about the thermal problems either. Might be ok, but I don't know how tiny objects radiate... > > In very general, smaller is better. As an object scales down, the surface area to volume ratio increases. > > I wrote earlier about a trillion nodes communicating with others within a millisecond but I meant microsecond, A microsecond would reduce the cube from 300 m to 3 meters on a side, the volume to 27 cubic meters and the sunlight interception to 9 square meters. The nodes are now so tightly packed that the front ones shade the ones in the back. I suspect that the station keeping could be replaced by a frame at less mass cost. > with the entire teragroup communicating higher-level signals with another teragroup a millisecond away. So a typical spacing between nodes would be a millimeter or so. But they don't just send single bits to each other, they send small-ish data packets. The cube root of 10^12 is 10^4 so 3 meters would have 10,000 in a row, about 0.3 mm spacing to the nearest neighbor. If they are station-keeping then the communication between them has to be electromagnetic because the distance varies. If they are in a frame, wires will do. > > Another way to look at it: the human brain consists of a few billion neurons which have a number of inputs but don't individually calculate anything. They just fire or not fire, depending on the input and the chemical environment. A current computer network consists of a few million nodes, with each node performing a large number of very sophisticated calculations and sending each other very complex data packages. > > The MSocieties then are somewhere between those two in a sense: the nodes are not nearly as sophisticated as a cell phone, but more sophisticated than a neuron. A member of an MSociety, call it an JBrain (reaching back to terminology from 20 years ago coined by I think Anders) No, I found the original post on a floppy disk and it was by Perry Metzger. I bitched about the speed of light delay in the next post which may be why I was tagged as the originator of the silly idea. Human brains are asynchronous but we can impute a clock rate of about 200 Hz. A brain spread out over a distance of more than 5 ms of light speed would think slower than a human. What's the point of that? If you want to think fast, the hardware has to be small. I took this to the limit here: https://hplusmagazine.com/2012/04/12/transhumanism-and-the-human-expansion-into-space-a-conflict-with-physics/ "I have long had misgivings about large aggregations of computing nodes forming a mind because of speed-of-light delays. That will reduce ?thinking speed,? since a mind cannot ?be of one mind? if much it is not aware of the current situation due to speed-of-light delays" ... "Due to this line of thinking, I no longer think it?s practical to surround a star with computronium. Instead, I suspect population centers will shrink to sizes in the few hundred-meter range and sunk in the deep oceans for cooling." If what we are seeing at Tabby's Star is a Dyon Dot devoted to computation, they took a different approach. Ran out of planets with cold oceans perhaps. Or feeding the computers with that much power heated the oceans too much. Or they grew the uploaded population far beyond planets. Even at 7 au, the available power is huge. I suspect the shape is a deep wedge to provide them with radiation at right angles to the sunlight. From our direction, the temperature is about 65 K, which allows very efficient computation. It is possible that they are not thinking much faster than we do now. Otherwise, the edge-to-edge communication delay of 2.5 seconds would be intolerable. This makes many assumptions based on them occupying 15-star systems (or more) and having a biological origin. > consists of a trillion nodes within a microsecond of each other doing a small amount of calculation and sending other nodes in that JBrain data packets of a few hundred or a few thousand bits. > > >...Other than it being an idea from long ago, what advantage does this have over a solid structure? > > Keith > > It doesn't need structural strength, You don't need much in any orbit. > it isn't damaged by orbiting debris and meteoroids. Self repair. I wonder how fast cosmic rays will take out the nodes? > It can even be constructed from orbiting debris left over from an earlier pre-nanotech society suffering a Kessler event. There is only around 6,000 tons of junk. Plus most of it is the wrong elements. > If so, it would be the only example I know of a way to recover space access after a Kessler catastrophe: nanoparticles disassemble the debris and construct dusi-sized nodes which go on about their business anywhere they want in orbit. Big laser will also clean up the junk. > If a meteor from outside comes tearing inward, it would punch right thru a cloud of nanodes, and take out those of course, but the others which escape the collision would go about their business as usual with nothing analogous to a memorial service for their suddenly missing teammates. Nanodes don't get emotional or have friends. it depends, it could take out an uploaded person. Hopefully they have a backup, but if not it time for a wake. Keith > spike > > > > > > > > > >...So a medium sized asteroid would provide enough material. > > > > >...Please check math. > > > > Keith > > > > > > > > > spike > > > > Keith your numbers look like they are in agreement with calcs I have done in the past. I might dig out the old notebooks and look at my previous work once again. > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 7 21:07:41 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2023 14:07:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mbrains and latency In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d9c824$d9a3f880$8cebe980$@rainier66.com> <001501d9c8e3$da68e860$8f3ab920$@rainier66.com> <005301d9c933$c1100d30$43302790$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004001d9c973$345889e0$9d099da0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: Keith Henson ... > > In very general, smaller is better. As an object scales down, the surface area to volume ratio increases. > > I wrote earlier about a trillion nodes communicating with others > within a millisecond but I meant microsecond... The microsecond is about 300 meters. The nanosecond is about 300 mm. But when I wrote about communications between nodes a millimeter distance, I should have clarified: the Jbrain group of a trillion nodes need not be cubic or spherical. It could be a bulging disc, a lens-shaped blob with the axis of the lens oriented any which way it wants or is necessary to balance solar energy needs and thermal considerations, including the guys in back. The Kessler event stuff is only used in small amounts, added to what I think would be mostly carbon and silicon. In any case, do consider a wide range of possibilities, but recognize that the point of it is not to replicate the working of the human brain. I think that structure is far too much like an evolutionary kludge that and kinda think. Or we think it can think (I think.) I am one who thinks there are better structures for that purpose that we have not yet discovered but we can imagine them, such as the disk-shaped or lens-shaped JBrain with the relative spacing done mostly by electrostatic forces. spike From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 23:19:10 2023 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2023 17:19:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt In-Reply-To: References: <000201d9bdd9$8e055f90$aa101eb0$@rainier66.com> <85295F0A-B369-4D23-B78A-CBD8D9E86CAD@gmail.com> <006501d9be4c$d15b3df0$7411b9d0$@rainier66.com> <006d01d9c6ea$607e09e0$217a1da0$@rainier66.com> <00bb01d9c722$299caed0$7cd60c70$@rainier66.com> <006c01d9c8ce$937e0cb0$ba7a2610$@rainier66.com> <000d01d9c8ed$66d304d0$34790e70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hi Elsa, What a wonderful set of experiences and story, that I'm sure many of us here can't relate to. It is also hard to be the parent of a homeless child. I'm sure it is a different kind of hurt. Yes, 15,000 years. Do you not want to live longer than 120 years? I hope we can find some help for our homeless child (former medical student) and his addictions before 100 years. On Mon, Aug 7, 2023 at 12:13?AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 10:31?PM ilsa via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Yeah I want to live until I'm 100 or 120 or whatever because it's so much >> fun >> > > You need to think of 15,000 years if you want to know what is going on at > Tabby's star. > > Keith > >> >> The intersection between this AI Adventure and people still caring about >> how others feel about their actions is a cunning sword. >> >> My phone makes me much smarter and conversational. >> Smile, ilsa >> >> On Sun, Aug 6, 2023, 10:11 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] fax machines and chatgpt >>> >>> >>> >>> >?From the chat GBT system which I have not mastered other than to >>> tinker around when you guys first presented the first two things they were >>> very funny and fun. ? >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> I find it interesting and fun to trace the chaotic path of ExI threads. >>> We have a lot of creative people here (even when sober) who are known to go >>> off on random tangents. I am the poster child for that. Those are my >>> favorite kind of tangents, the random variety. It sends threads spinning >>> off into wacky fun spaces, even if irrelevant and having nothing to do with >>> the subject line. >>> >>> >>> >>> Of course I used that paragraph as intro to an example. >>> >>> >>> >>> Shown below is a front-page headline from our own San Jose Mercury News, >>> the premier Silicon Valley hipster newspaper which knows stuff: >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Ooooookayyyy then? According to the Merc, city workers are getting >>> warned about using ChatGBT. >>> >>> >>> >>> Dang this existence is fun. If the many worlds interpretation is >>> correct, I taaaaake? THIS VERSION OF REALITY, for 500 please Alex. >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Aug 8 19:15:05 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2023 12:15:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] humility olympics Message-ID: <006601d9ca2c$a400fc00$ec02f400$@rainier66.com> When they tried to have the award ceremony at the humility Olympics, this is what happened: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 16713 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Aug 8 21:15:11 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2023 14:15:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] nature being challenged Message-ID: <00e001d9ca3d$6b29af10$417d0d30$@rainier66.com> WOWsers! If this turns out to be proven, we have a whole nuther problem on our hands: https://www.aier.org/article/caught-red-handed-scientists-call-for-full-retr action-of-natures-proximal-origin-paper-as-fraud-accusations-mount/ The Covid lab-leak theory always sounded plausible to me from the first time I heard it. Some conspiracy theories grow up to become conspiracies. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Aug 9 09:44:20 2023 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 11:44:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] My take on UFOs UAPs & all that Message-ID: My take on UFOs UAPs & all that. ET, please come and teach us irrational mechanics. And may UAPs save our culture from terminal boredom and senility. https://www.turingchurch.com/p/et-please-come-and-teach-us-irrational From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Aug 9 14:37:36 2023 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 08:37:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] Could I get some upvotes for my answer to this question? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi John, The left hemisphere of your brain does more than just "infer from behavior", the nature of the qualities in your right hemisphere. On Wed, Aug 9, 2023, 3:42 AM John Clark wrote: > On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 8:20?AM Brent Allsop > wrote: > > >> *> Could I get some upvotes for my answer to this question?* >> >> >> *https://www.quora.com/What-is-something-that-we-know-exists-but-dont-understand-at-all-scientifically-or-technologically/answer/Brent-Allsop-1?prompt_topic_bio=1* >> >> > > > I don't understand what you mean when you say that people are"qualia > blind". Everybody (and natural selection too) is blind to qualia, except > for those that they themselves are experiencing, the qualia that other > people experience can only be inferred from behavior. And exactly the same > thing could be said about the qualia experienced by an AI. > > John K Clark > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv2Gvbmx%3DReToVciFnmKSLe6GkbhKfR65d%2BmAOM1gApG3g%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Aug 9 15:34:38 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 10:34:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] neuroscience Message-ID: Remember Grain Brain? Seems he might have been right. https://neurosciencenews.com/gluten-neuroinflammation-23773/ bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Aug 9 15:40:19 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 08:40:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] neuroscience In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So, how does this square with previous observations that did not notice inflammation from gluten? On Wed, Aug 9, 2023, 8:37 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Remember Grain Brain? Seems he might have been right. > > https://neurosciencenews.com/gluten-neuroinflammation-23773/ > > 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Aug 9 15:46:17 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 10:46:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] neuroscience In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well, Adrian, I would not know. It will involve who did the studies, who paid for them, the level of statistical significance, and so on. We will have to wait for replication. bill w On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 10:43?AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > So, how does this square with previous observations that did not notice > inflammation from gluten? > > On Wed, Aug 9, 2023, 8:37 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Remember Grain Brain? Seems he might have been right. >> >> https://neurosciencenews.com/gluten-neuroinflammation-23773/ >> >> bill w >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Aug 9 15:50:44 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 08:50:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] My take on UFOs UAPs & all that In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "We should believe that X should be true because it would be so awful if X was false (never mind the actual evidence)" has not proven to be useful when seeking the truth - and the truth, not what we prefer, is what we eventually need. On Wed, Aug 9, 2023, 2:47 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > My take on UFOs UAPs & all that. ET, please come and teach us > irrational mechanics. And may UAPs save our culture from terminal > boredom and senility. > https://www.turingchurch.com/p/et-please-come-and-teach-us-irrational > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Aug 9 16:47:29 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 11:47:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] jokes Message-ID: Trade jokes? With these people? Well, nothing else is going on. Favorite weird joke: "What is the difference between a duck?" "One of his legs is alike." Yours? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Aug 9 17:10:16 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 18:10:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] jokes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Aug 2023 at 17:51, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Trade jokes? With these people? Well, nothing else is going on. > Favorite weird joke: > "What is the difference between a duck?" > "One of his legs is alike." > > Yours? bill w > _______________________________________________ What? This is a joke? I had to ask an AI to explain this. BillK ---------------------- This seems to be a play on words referring to the common saying "What's the difference between a duck? One of its legs is both the same." The joke is that instead of saying "both the same," it says "alike" which sounds similar but has a different meaning. The standard saying means that there is no difference between a duck's two legs - they are identical. By changing "both the same" to "alike," it humorously implies there is some difference between a duck's two legs - one is alike the other. This nonsensical phrase pokes fun at the original saying. In summary: - The common saying states a duck's two legs are identical ("both the same") - The play on words changes "both the same" to "alike," implying there is a difference between the two legs - It humorously twists the standard phrase into nonsense, highlighting the absurdity of one leg being merely "alike" the other So the joke rests on a subtle replacement of words to alter the meaning from "no difference" to "some difference," creating an absurd proposition about a duck's legs. --------- From atymes at gmail.com Wed Aug 9 17:15:56 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 10:15:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] jokes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 10:13?AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, 9 Aug 2023 at 17:51, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > Trade jokes? With these people? Well, nothing else is going on. > > Favorite weird joke: > > "What is the difference between a duck?" > > "One of his legs is alike." > > > > Yours? bill w > > _______________________________________________ > > > What? This is a joke? I had to ask an AI to explain this. > BillK > ---------------------- > This seems to be a play on words referring to the common saying > "What's the difference between a duck? One of its legs is both the > same." > The joke is that instead of saying "both the same," it says "alike" > which sounds similar but has a different meaning. > > The standard saying means that there is no difference between a duck's > two legs - they are identical. > By changing "both the same" to "alike," it humorously implies there is > some difference between a duck's two legs - one is alike the other. > This nonsensical phrase pokes fun at the original saying. > > In summary: > - The common saying states a duck's two legs are identical ("both the > same") > - The play on words changes "both the same" to "alike," implying there > is a difference between the two legs > - It humorously twists the standard phrase into nonsense, highlighting > the absurdity of one leg being merely "alike" the other > So the joke rests on a subtle replacement of words to alter the > meaning from "no difference" to "some difference," creating an absurd > proposition about a duck's legs. > --------- > Ah, but is there not a difference? One is built to be on a duck's left side, the other for the right side. Mirror images they may be, but that itself is something that differentiates them from each other. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 9 22:56:31 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 15:56:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] water escapes somehow Message-ID: <011901d9cb14$bddbe6b0$3993b410$@rainier66.com> What I am seeing is making me crazy. Cleaning out my garage, I found an emergency kit that is used typically for earthquake preparedness. I know where I was working when I was given this kit: it was 2005. So the kit is about 18 years old. In that kit were the usual things: emergency food rations, mylar blanket, bandages, Tylenol, flashlight, that kinda stuff and also a pair of liter bottles of water. I noticed that both bottles had compressed, which was odd considering the seal was intact and both still held pressure (they can't be squeezed.) There was clearly quite a bit of water missing from both bottles, but no way out for the water that I can see. So. I weighed them on a postal scale. It freaked my beak: both bottles weigh in at 816 grams. Conclusion: both bottles lost about 20% of their volume from a sealed disposable plastic bottle over the course of 18 years, without harming the seal. They lost the same amount down to the gram. Any explanations please? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From col.hales at gmail.com Wed Aug 9 23:01:35 2023 From: col.hales at gmail.com (Colin Hales) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 09:01:35 +1000 Subject: [ExI] water escapes somehow In-Reply-To: <011901d9cb14$bddbe6b0$3993b410$@rainier66.com> References: <011901d9cb14$bddbe6b0$3993b410$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: At 0.3nm, the plastic's production imperfections, at the angstrom scale + thermal agitation/ expansion/contraction.... Voila. On Thu, Aug 10, 2023, 8:58 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > What I am seeing is making me crazy. Cleaning out my garage, I found an > emergency kit that is used typically for earthquake preparedness. I know > where I was working when I was given this kit: it was 2005. So the kit is > about 18 years old. > > > > In that kit were the usual things: emergency food rations, mylar blanket, > bandages, Tylenol, flashlight, that kinda stuff and also a pair of liter > bottles of water. I noticed that both bottles had compressed, which was > odd considering the seal was intact and both still held pressure (they > can?t be squeezed.) > > > > There was clearly quite a bit of water missing from both bottles, but no > way out for the water that I can see. So? I weighed them on a postal > scale. It freaked my beak: both bottles weigh in at 816 grams. > > > > Conclusion: both bottles lost about 20% of their volume from a sealed > disposable plastic bottle over the course of 18 years, without harming the > seal. They lost the same amount down to the gram. > > > > Any explanations please? > > > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 9 23:23:58 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2023 16:23:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] water escapes somehow In-Reply-To: References: <011901d9cb14$bddbe6b0$3993b410$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <012d01d9cb18$9402b7c0$bc082740$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Colin Hales via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] water escapes somehow >>? Conclusion: both bottles lost about 20% of their volume from a sealed disposable plastic bottle over the course of 18 years? spike >?At 0.3nm, the plastic's production imperfections, at the angstrom scale + thermal agitation/ expansion/contraction.... Voila. Cool, thx, pleased to meet you Voila, are you a friend of Colin? Oh wait? retract. Colin I also concluded the water had to be somehow diffusing thru the polyvinyl chloride, but I had never seen such a remarkable demonstration of it. Now I have a pair of 18 yr old crumpled liter bottles, both with a mass of 816 grams. I don?t know what to do with them, but I may contact the local high school chemistry teachers and offer them as a demonstration of diffusion. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Thu Aug 10 07:49:44 2023 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 09:49:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] My take on UFOs UAPs & all that In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 5:53?PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > "We should believe that X should be true because it would be so awful if X was false (never mind the actual evidence)" has not proven to be useful when seeking the truth - and the truth, not what we prefer, is what we eventually need. > The key point is "should be true." We shouldn't believe that we *can* fly to the stars today, because we can't, but we should believe that starflight should be true tomorrow, because if we work on it we can make it true. If the truth is that I can't do what I want, then I have no use for the truth, and I prefer to watch TV and drink all day, or worse. Better working to make dreams true. > On Wed, Aug 9, 2023, 2:47 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> My take on UFOs UAPs & all that. ET, please come and teach us >> irrational mechanics. And may UAPs save our culture from terminal >> boredom and senility. >> https://www.turingchurch.com/p/et-please-come-and-teach-us-irrational >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From pharos at gmail.com Thu Aug 10 13:16:01 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:16:01 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Is Web Search outdated now? Message-ID: Since Google appeared many years ago, whenever any question arose, the response was "Just Google it". A search typically produced many (perhaps hundreds) of web search results which had to be read to find the answer. If you were lucky the answer was near the start of the list. Now AI has enhanced search engines (including Google with Bard) to use AI to generate an answer to the query immediately. Usually attaching the list of search results as well, so that you can check the results. This was just demonstrated by Spike's query about plastic water bottle shrinkage. The AI enhanced search produced the answer immediately. You can check it for yourself. Copy and paste the query: Why do sealed plastic water bottles lose water and shrink over time? There are now many AI search engines. A few are: Microsoft Bing AI search insists that you use the MS Edge browser. AI is not yet available on Startpage and DuckDuckGo. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 10 14:33:51 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 07:33:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] blocked? Message-ID: <004201d9cb97$af4d9de0$0de8d9a0$@rainier66.com> Hi Exi, did you see my post come thru? It looked to me like it did. Below this is the message I posted: Thx BillK. Only the first one of ChatGPT's answers (shown below) is applicable in this case. The bottles were inside a canvas bag (so no light exposure (so no microbial growth)) and were not handled. The gas space didn't change much (but the volume of the bottle changed by a lot (about 200 cc (so the bottles themselves appeared to be collapsed or crushed.)) The bottles were stored indoors (no significant temperature changes) with nothing on top of them, so they were not under pressure, no altitude changes, no handling. The bottles were on their sides, so the caps were submerged the entire time. Conclusion: these teenage bottles demonstrated water diffuses thru PVC over time. I was at a tragically advanced age when I first learned that was even a possibility. So cool! Had you wagered me on this before yesterday, I woulda lost that bet, arguing that water does not diffuse thru plastic, and certainly not at a perfectly consistent rate. Well, it does. Now I have a most remarkable example of it. spike why do plastic water bottles lose water and shrink over time ChatGPT Plastic water bottles can appear to lose water and shrink over time due to a combination of factors: 1. Permeability: Plastic is a porous material, albeit on a very small scale. Over time, tiny molecules of water vapor can pass through the plastic walls of the bottle. This is called permeability. As water molecules slowly escape through the plastic, the overall volume of water inside the bottle decreases, causing the bottle to appear to shrink. 2. Gas Exchange: Oxygen and other gases in the air can also pass through the plastic to some extent. This can result in a slight change in the internal pressure of the bottle, which may contribute to the appearance of the bottle "collapsing" or shrinking. 3. Temperature Changes: Temperature fluctuations can affect the plastic's properties, including its permeability and flexibility. If the temperature drops, the plastic may contract slightly, causing the bottle to appear to shrink. 4. Microbial Growth: If there are any contaminants or impurities present in the water, such as microorganisms, they could potentially consume some of the water and release gases, leading to a decrease in the water volume and a change in the internal pressure. 5. Handling and Squeezing: Repeatedly squeezing or pressing the bottle can also cause it to deform slightly, making it appear to have lost water. This is especially noticeable if the plastic is flexible and the pressure exerted on the bottle is significant. It's worth noting that while these factors can contribute to the perception of water loss and shrinkage in plastic water bottles, the actual amount of water lost is usually very small and may not be noticeable in the short term. Additionally, the extent to which these factors affect the bottle's appearance can vary depending on the type of plastic used, the quality of manufacturing, and the conditions in which the bottle is stored. Top of Form -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 103697 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 841 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Aug 10 16:36:23 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 17:36:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] blocked? In-Reply-To: <004201d9cb97$af4d9de0$0de8d9a0$@rainier66.com> References: <004201d9cb97$af4d9de0$0de8d9a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 10 Aug 2023 at 15:37, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Thx BillK. Only the first one of ChatGPT?s answers (shown below) is applicable in this case. > The bottles were inside a canvas bag (so no light exposure (so no microbial growth)) and were not handled. > The gas space didn?t change much (but the volume of the bottle changed by a lot (about 200 cc > (so the bottles themselves appeared to be collapsed or crushed.)) > The bottles were stored indoors (no significant temperature changes) with nothing on top of them, > so they were not under pressure, no altitude changes, no handling. > The bottles were on their sides, so the caps were submerged the entire time. > > Conclusion: these teenage bottles demonstrated water diffuses thru PVC over time. > I was at a tragically advanced age when I first learned that was even a possibility. > So cool! Had you wagered me on this before yesterday, I woulda lost that bet, arguing that > water does not diffuse thru plastic, and certainly not at a perfectly consistent rate. > Well, it does. Now I have a most remarkable example of it. > > spike > ________________________________ Yes, you can often get sensible answers from ChatGPT, but that isn't what I was referring to. ChatGPT doesn't do a web search, so may miss some data. My examples were web search engines that use AI to produce a summary of the search results. This should typically produce better results than a chatbot like ChatGPT. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Thu Aug 10 18:30:31 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 11:30:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Is Web Search outdated now? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I find Google searches to be more informative - and, more importantly, accurate - than asking ChatGPT. There's also the issue of availability of recent information, which is frequently a concern for the topics I search on. It could theoretically someday be the case that AI searches become more useful than manual Web searches. That day, for me, is not today. On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 6:19?AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Since Google appeared many years ago, whenever any question arose, the > response was "Just Google it". > A search typically produced many (perhaps hundreds) of web search > results which had to be read to find the answer. If you were lucky the > answer was near the start of the list. > > Now AI has enhanced search engines (including Google with Bard) to use > AI to generate an answer to the query immediately. > Usually attaching the list of search results as well, so that you can check > the results. > > This was just demonstrated by Spike's query about plastic water bottle > shrinkage. > The AI enhanced search produced the answer immediately. > > You can check it for yourself. > Copy and paste the query: > Why do sealed plastic water bottles lose water and shrink over time? > > There are now many AI search engines. A few are: > > > > > Microsoft Bing AI search insists that you use the MS Edge browser. > AI is not yet available on Startpage and DuckDuckGo. > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Aug 10 18:45:31 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 19:45:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Is Web Search outdated now? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 10 Aug 2023 at 19:34, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > I find Google searches to be more informative - and, more importantly, accurate - than asking ChatGPT. There's also the issue of availability of recent information, which is frequently a concern for the topics I search on. > > It could theoretically someday be the case that AI searches become more useful than manual Web searches. That day, for me, is not today. > _______________________________________________ :) That's what I've just posted to Spike. The examples I quoted don't use ChatGPT. They are search engines that use an AI to summarize the search results. is Google search on steroids. The others use different search software plus their own AI. BillK From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Aug 10 19:47:22 2023 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 13:47:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] Could I get some upvotes for my answer to this question? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This answer from a smart person like you is completely surprising to me. As it seems so completely and obviously wrong. The visual knowledge of my right field of vision is in my left hemisphere, and vice versa. I know, now, that redness (the quality of my knowledge of strawberries) is the same in both hemispheres, since I can experience them both at the same time. If there was a cut, such that the two hemispheres of knowledge were no longer computationally bound into one unified subjective experience. They were effectively two isolated non computationally bound sets of subjective knowledge of subjective awareness of half of what I could see (there would more or less be two isolated half consciousnesses in each half of the brain. I would still know, and remember that redness was the same before, so I would still surely know it was still the same, even though the two hemispheres have been separated (and consciously removed from each other.) On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 1:33?PM John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 10:37?AM Brent Allsop > wrote: > > > *Hi John,* >> *The left hemisphere of your brain does more than just "infer from >> behavior", the nature of the qualities in your right hemisphere.* >> > > The person I'm talking to right now doesn't know and will never know what > it would be like to be just the left hemisphere of Brent Allsop's brain if > the Corpus callosum was cut and there was no connection with the right > hemisphere. > > John K Clark > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv17xs-oQ5LS3M%3DC0GQKkDbZA4NoDYP4nfxzmLpkhVsVpw%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Aug 11 01:17:51 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 18:17:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] My take on UFOs UAPs & all that In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 12:52?AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > If the truth is that I can't do what I want > In many, many cases - possibly most, anecdotally judging by my own experience - there is a temptation to say 'can't be done" when a closer examination reveals the truth is "can't be done BY THAT PARTICULAR MEANS". For instance, it is well known that it is impossible to simply accelerate via rockets to faster than the speed of light. There exist theoretical ways to travel faster than light, just not via rockets...and to travel off of Earth, even to set up human habitation off of Earth, does not require travel beyond the speed of light: many wonders await once the financial cost of travelling around our own solar system comes down. Finances are rarely limited by physics. Saving ourselves, on an individual basis, from boredom and senility is within our own power. (Not as much collectively, as some will choose boredom and senility, and resist being "rescued".) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Aug 11 03:32:03 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 20:32:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] My take on UFOs UAPs & all that In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Since I used to manufacture UFOs (early 60s) and know of others who did the same, I can't take the LGM idea seriously. But as there are hearings in Congress about an impossible cover-up, astronomers have found what can (in my opinion) only be an extraterrestrial civilization. The paper is too long for the list, so you will have to find it yourself. I don't jump to such a conclusion lightly. My former view was consistent with "An analysis by Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler and Toby Ord suggests "a substantial ex ante probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe".[85]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation However, now we have observations of Tabby's Star, where the light curve dips are consistent with the passage of an object in orbit that is 400 times the area of the Earth. OK, it might have an explanation like a disrupted planet, though none of the ideas holds up well to analysis. However, a recent examination of nearby stars shows that there are 15 of them doing the same thing. These are all normal F and G-type stars in a cluster. What it looks like to me is the expansion of a species that has moved beyond the biological and is spreading out in a way short of a Dyson Sphere (a K2). If this is correct, there are good points, bad points, and strange points. The good thing is that we seem to have an example of a species that got through the "filters" (though they could be an AI offspring). Tapping that much of the output of their star certainly solved energy problems as well. The bad thing is that we have competition. The strange and unlikely thing is that we have such a civilization (or Star Fungus, or whatever you want to call it) within 1500 LY and doing something we can observe. As of a couple of weeks ago, there was only one story in the NZ Herald. I.e., there is little or no mainstream media interest. Anders & company are very busy, I don't think I should say what they are doing, but I wonder what they think about this strange situation? Keith On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 6:20?PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 12:52?AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> If the truth is that I can't do what I want > > > In many, many cases - possibly most, anecdotally judging by my own experience - there is a temptation to say 'can't be done" when a closer examination reveals the truth is "can't be done BY THAT PARTICULAR MEANS". > > For instance, it is well known that it is impossible to simply accelerate via rockets to faster than the speed of light. There exist theoretical ways to travel faster than light, just not via rockets...and to travel off of Earth, even to set up human habitation off of Earth, does not require travel beyond the speed of light: many wonders await once the financial cost of travelling around our own solar system comes down. Finances are rarely limited by physics. > > Saving ourselves, on an individual basis, from boredom and senility is within our own power. (Not as much collectively, as some will choose boredom and senility, and resist being "rescued".) > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Aug 11 07:11:41 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2023 00:11:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Verbose AI Message-ID: I have not messed with ChatGPT (Bing interface) for a few weeks. You might be amused to see what happened when I did. Are the 15 dimming stars around Tabby's Star evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization? Bing, 10:28 PM That's a very interesting question. The 15 dimming stars around Tabby's Star are not necessarily evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization, but they are certainly intriguing and worthy of further investigation. One of the most popular explanations for the dimming of Tabby's Star is that it is surrounded by a cloud of dust and debris, possibly from a destroyed planet or moon. This dust could block some of the star's light at irregular intervals and wavelengths, creating the erratic dimming patterns observed by the Kepler space telescopehttps://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/mysterious-dimming-of-tabbys-star-may-be-caused-by-dust/https://www.sciencealert.com/a-bunch-of-potential-tabby-s-star-alikes-have-just-been-identified. However, this hypothesis does not explain why the other 15 stars exhibit similar behavior. Are they all coincidentally hosting dusty debris fields? Or is there another natural phenomenon that can cause such dimming? Some astronomers have suggested that these stars could be young and surrounded by protoplanetary disks, or that they could be undergoing stellar pulsations or magnetic cycleshttps://www.sciencealert.com/a-bunch-of-potential-tabby-s-star-alikes-have-just-been-identified. Of course, there is also the possibility that these stars are indeed home to advanced alien civilizations that are building megastructures around them to harvest their energy. This idea was first proposed by astronomer Jason Wright in 2015https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabby%27s_Star, and it has captured the imagination of many people. However, there is no conclusive evidence to support this claim, and it faces many challenges and criticisms. For example, how could such megastructures be constructed and maintained without being detected by other means, such as radio signals or infrared emissions? Why would aliens choose to build around these particular stars, which are not very special or abundant in the galaxy? And why would they need so much energy in the first place? These are some of the questions that any alien megastructure theory would have to answer convincinglyhttps://www.sciencealert.com/a-bunch-of-potential-tabby-s-star-alikes-have-just-been-identified. In conclusion, the 15 dimming stars around Tabby's Star are not conclusive evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization, but they are certainly fascinating and mysterious. They challenge our current understanding of stellar physics and astrobiology, and they invite us to explore them further with more data and observations. Perhaps one day we will find out what is really going on with these cosmic enigmas. blush https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/mysterious-dimming-of-tabbys-star-may-be-caused-by-dust/ https://www.sciencealert.com/a-bunch-of-potential-tabby-s-star-alikes-have-just-been-identified https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabby%27s_Star 10:41 PM Is computation a possible reason for needing a lot of energy at these 15 stars? Bing, 10:42 PM Computation is a possible reason for needing a lot of energy at these 15 stars, but it is not a very plausible one. Computation is the process of performing calculations or operations on data, such as solving problems, running programs, or simulating systems. Computation requires energy to power the devices that perform the computation, such as computers, servers, or quantum processors. The amount of energy needed for computation depends on the complexity of the problem, the efficiency of the device, and the duration of the computation. According to some estimates, the global energy consumption for computation in 2020 was about 200 TWh (terawatt-hours), which is equivalent to about 0.6% of the total global electricity consumption. This means that the average power consumption for computation was about 22.8 GW (gigawatts), or 0.03% of the total global power generation. To put this in perspective, the average power output of a single star like the Sun is about 3.8 x 10^26 W (watts), which is about 16 billion times more than the global power consumption for computation. Therefore, if an alien civilization were to use computation as a reason for needing a lot of energy at these 15 stars, they would have to be performing extremely complex and long-lasting computations that would require a huge amount of energy. For example, they could be simulating entire universes, solving NP-hard problems, or cracking encryption codes. However, these computations would also generate a lot of heat and waste, which would have to be dissipated or recycled somehow. Moreover, these computations would have to be very important and urgent for the aliens, since they would be sacrificing a lot of resources and potential risks for them. [Keith] If they have uploaded, the simulation hardware is the basis of their existence, so ?important and urgent? is accurate and a good use of resources. Computation efficiency increases at low temperature, that?s just physics. If that is what is going on, we can expect the structures to be optimized for computation. The observed radiation is 65 K. /Keith In conclusion, computation is a possible reason for needing a lot of energy at these 15 stars, but it is not a very likely one. There are many other natural or artificial explanations that could account for the dimming of these stars, such as dust, planets, pulsations, or megastructures. Computation would require an extraordinary amount of energy and complexity that would be hard to justify or sustain by any rational civilization. blush 10:48 PM If what we are looking at is a megastrucute for computation, what would be a good temperature to radiate the waste heat? Bing, 10:48 PM That's a very speculative question, but I'll try to answer it based on some assumptions and calculations. First, let's assume that the megastructure for computation is a Dyson sphere, which is a hypothetical structure that completely surrounds a star and captures all of its energy output. Second, let's assume that the computation device is a reversible computer, which is a theoretical device that can perform any computation without generating any entropy or waste heat. Third, let's assume that the computation device has a power consumption of 10^18 W (one exawatt), which is about 0.26% of the Sun's luminosity. Now, according to the second law of thermodynamics, any real device that performs computation will generate some waste heat, even if it is reversible. The amount of waste heat depends on the temperature difference between the device and the environment. The lower the temperature difference, the less waste heat is generated. Therefore, to minimize waste heat, the computation device should operate at a temperature close to that of the environment. The environment in this case is the Dyson sphere, which radiates the captured energy from the star to space. The temperature of the Dyson sphere depends on its radius and the star's luminosity. According to the Stefan-Boltzmann law, the temperature of a black body that radiates energy at a given rate is given by: $$T = \left(\frac{P}{4 \pi R^2 \sigma}\right)^{1/4}$$ where $T$ is the temperature in kelvins, $P$ is the power in watts, $R$ is the radius in meters, and $\sigma$ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, which is about 5.67 x 10^-8 W/m^2 K^4. If we assume that the Dyson sphere has a radius equal to the Earth's orbit, which is about 1.5 x 10^11 m, and that the star has a luminosity equal to the Sun's, which is about 3.8 x 10^26 W, then we can calculate the temperature of the Dyson sphere as: $$T = \left(\frac{3.8 \times 10^{26}}{4 \pi (1.5 \times 10^{11})^2 \times 5.67 \times 10^{-8}}\right)^{1/4}$$ $$T \approx 278 K$$ This means that the Dyson sphere would have a temperature of about 278 K or 5 ?C, which is slightly warmer than Earth's average surface temperature. Therefore, if we want to minimize waste heat from computation, we should operate the computation device at a temperature close to 278 K. However, this would also mean that the computation device would have a very low efficiency, since it would not be able to use much of the captured energy from the star. A more realistic scenario would be to operate the computation device at a higher temperature, but still lower than that of the star. For example, if we operate the computation device at a temperature of 1000 K, which is about 727 ?C, then we can calculate the amount of waste heat generated by using Carnot's theorem, which states that: $$\eta = 1 - \frac{T_C}{T_H}$$ where $\eta$ is the efficiency of a heat engine operating between two temperatures, $T_C$ is the cold reservoir temperature in kelvins, and $T_H$ is the hot reservoir temperature in kelvins. In this case, $T_C$ is the temperature of the Dyson sphere (278 K), and $T_H$ is the temperature of the computation device (1000 K). Therefore, $$\eta = 1 - \frac{278}{1000}$$ $$\eta \approx 0.72$$ This means that the efficiency of the computation device would be about 72%, which is quite high for a heat engine. However, this also means that 28% of the input power would be wasted as heat. Since we assumed that the input power was 10^18 W, this means that: $$Q = P (1 - \eta)$$ where $Q$ is the waste heat in watts. Therefore, $$Q = 10^{18} (1 - 0.72)$$ $$Q \approx 2.8 \times 10^{17} W$$ This means that if we operate the computation device at a temperature of 1000 K, it would generate about 280 petawatts of waste heat. To radiate this waste heat to space, we would need another surface area with a lower temperature than that of the Dyson sphere. For example, if we use another spherical shell with a radius of twice that of Earth's orbit (3 x 10^11 m), and a temperature of half that of Earth's orbit (139 K or -134 ?C), then we can calculate the power radiated by using the Stefan-Boltzmann law again: $$P = 4 \pi R^2 \sigma T^4$$ Therefore, $$P = 4 \pi (3 \times 10^{11})^2 \times 5.67 \times 10^{-8} \times 139^4$$ $$P \approx 2.9 \times 10^{17} W$$ This means that the spherical shell would be able to radiate about 290 petawatts of power, which is slightly more than the waste heat generated by the computation device. Therefore, this would be a good temperature to radiate the waste heat. Of course, this is a very simplified and hypothetical scenario, and there are many other factors and challenges that would affect the feasibility and desirability of such a megastructure for computation. For example, how would the aliens communicate with the computation device, or with each other? How would they protect the megastructure from cosmic hazards, such as asteroids, comets, or supernovae? How would they deal with the ethical and social implications of such a massive project? These are some of the questions that any alien civilization would have to answer before embarking on such an endeavor. blush 10:59 PM If what we see in the cluster of 15 stars is a civilization, how long have they been in space? Bing, 10:59 PM That's a very hypothetical question, but I'll try to answer it based on some assumptions and calculations. First, let's assume that the cluster of 15 stars is indeed a civilization, and that they are at least a type II civilization on the Kardashev scalehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale, meaning that they can directly consume the energy of a star, most likely through the use of a Dyson sphere or a similar megastructure. Second, let's assume that they started as a type I civilization on their home planet, and that they followed a similar path of development as human civilization, which is currently estimated to be at about 0.7 on the Kardashev scalehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale. Third, let's assume that they had a constant rate of growth in their energy consumption and technological advancement, and that they did not encounter any major setbacks or catastrophes. Now, according to one estimate, human civilization has been growing its energy consumption by about 2.3% per year since the Industrial Revolution in the 18th centuryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale. This means that human civilization would need about 1,600 years to reach type I status, and about 3,200 years to reach type II status, assuming the same rate of growth. However, this estimate is based on the current energy output of the Sun, which is about 3.8 x 10^26 W (watts). If we assume that the cluster of 15 stars has a similar energy output as the Sun, then the total energy output of the cluster would be about 5.7 x 10^27 W. This means that the civilization would need less time to reach type II status, since they would have more energy available to them. To calculate how long they have been in space, we need to find out how long it took them to reach type I status on their home planet, and then how long it took them to reach type II status in their star cluster. To do this, we can use the following formula: $$t = \frac{\ln \left(\frac{P_2}{P_1}\right)}{r}$$ where $t$ is the time in years, $P_2$ is the final power consumption in watts, $P_1$ is the initial power consumption in watts, and $r$ is the annual growth rate in decimal form. To reach type I status on their home planet, we can assume that they started with a power consumption similar to human civilization in the year 1800, which was about 2 x 10^12 Whttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale. We can also assume that they needed a power consumption equal to the energy output of their home planet, which we can estimate to be about 1.7 x 10^17 Whttps://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/key-components-civilization/, based on Earth's value. Therefore, $$t_1 = \frac{\ln \left(\frac{1.7 \times 10^{17}}{2 \times 10^{12}}\right)}{0.023}$$ $$t_1 \approx 1,100$$ This means that it took them about 1,100 years to reach type I status on their home planet. To reach type II status in their star cluster, we can assume that they started with a power consumption equal to their home planet's energy output (1.7 x 10^17 W), and that they needed a power consumption equal to the total energy output of their star cluster (5.7 x 10^27 W). Therefore, $$t_2 = \frac{\ln \left(\frac{5.7 \times 10^{27}}{1.7 \times 10^{17}}\right)}{0.023}$$ $$t_2 \approx 2,000$$ This means that it took them about 2,000 years to reach type II status in their star cluster. Therefore, the total time that they have been in space is: $$t = t_1 + t_2$$ $$t \approx 3,100$$ This means that they have been in space for about 3,100 years. Of course, this is a very rough and simplified estimate, and there are many factors and uncertainties that could affect the actual time span. For example, the cluster of 15 stars could have different types and sizes of stars than the Sun, which would affect their energy output and availability. The civilization could have different rates of growth and development than human civilization, which would affect their energy consumption and technological advancement. The civilization could also face various challenges and opportunities in their space exploration and colonization, such as encountering other civilizations or natural phenomena. In conclusion, if what we see in the cluster of 15 stars is a civilization, how long they have been in space depends on many assumptions and calculations. Based on one possible scenario, they could have been in space for about 3,100 years. However, this is only a hypothetical answer, and the actual time span could be much shorter or longer, depending on the reality of the situation. blush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/key-components-civilization/ 11:02 PM Assuming orbital mechanics, does a K2 make sense? Or would something short of a K2 with orbiting patches be more in line with reality? Bing, 11:03 PM That's a very interesting question. A K2 civilization is a hypothetical type of civilization that can harness the energy of a star, most likely through the use of a Dyson sphere or a similar megastructure. A Dyson sphere is a spherical shell that completely surrounds a star and captures all of its energy output. Orbital mechanics is the study of the motion of satellites and other spacecraft in orbits, based on Newton's laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation. To answer your question, we need to consider the feasibility and desirability of building a Dyson sphere and how it would affect the orbital mechanics of the star system. There are several challenges and limitations that a K2 civilization would have to overcome to construct and maintain such a megastructure, such as: ? The enormous amount of material and engineering required to build a solid shell around a star, which would be vulnerable to impacts, instabilities, and stresses. ? The difficulty of synchronizing the orbits of thousands or millions of individual components, such as satellites, mirrors, or solar panels, that would form a partial or swarm-like Dyson sphere. ? The loss of natural light and heat for any planets or moons within the Dyson sphere, which would affect their climate, biosphere, and habitability. ? The potential interference with the communication and navigation of spacecraft within or outside the Dyson sphere, which would require complex coordination and protocols. ? The ethical and social implications of altering the natural state of a star system, which could affect its cultural, historical, or religious significance. Therefore, it might not make sense for a K2 civilization to build a complete Dyson sphere around their star, unless they have very compelling reasons and solutions for these challenges. A more realistic scenario might be to build a partial or swarm-like Dyson sphere that covers only a fraction of the star's surface, and allows some energy to escape. This would reduce the material and engineering requirements, as well as the orbital mechanics complexity. It would also allow some natural light and heat to reach the planets or moons within the star system, and some communication and navigation signals to pass through the gaps in the megastructure. Alternatively, a K2 civilization might opt for something short of a K2 with orbiting patches, as you suggested. These patches could be smaller and more flexible structures that can adjust their position and orientation according to the needs and preferences of the civilization. They could also be more easily moved or removed if necessary. These patches could serve various purposes, such as: ? Collecting solar energy for power generation or transmission. ? Providing artificial habitats or environments for living or working. ? Enhancing scientific research or exploration of the star system. ? Creating artistic or aesthetic displays or effects. In conclusion, assuming orbital mechanics, a K2 civilization might not make sense to build a complete Dyson sphere around their star, but rather a partial or swarm-like one, or something short of a K2 with orbiting patches. These options would be more feasible and desirable in terms of material, engineering, orbital mechanics, environmental, ethical, and social factors. [Keith] I would have looked at the size of the cluster, assumed the origin at the middle and some fraction of the C to guess how long they have been around. Bing did it a different way, looking at the power use growth. Bing also wonders why the limited types of dipping stars in the cluster. This is obvious to me, they evolved around a G type and seek out similar stars for colonizing. Bing asked why they don?t show up as radio or thermal. I think communication here has already moved to lasers. And I think Bing is not aware of directional heat radiation. (Invented for thermal power satellites.) I might go through this in a reply and note where I disagree with Bing. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Aug 11 22:30:02 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2023 17:30:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] endorphins Message-ID: When you have pain endorphins are emitted, as we all know. But just how does that work? It makes a difference. If the pain has to be conscious, then a strategy occurs to me: when my pain meds run out, do nothing (like ice packs and TENS unit) so that endorphins can flow. Later add the ice etc. But what if the endorphins were there all along because they respond not to what is conscious, but the inputs from the painful area. Then they were there all along and the strategy above will not work. Anyone know this? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Aug 12 06:34:57 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2023 23:34:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] shortest sci-fi story of all time Message-ID: <001801d9cce7$1d06d900$57148b00$@rainier66.com> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 82263 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Aug 12 20:32:33 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2023 21:32:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Watch the Perseid meteor shower tonight online Message-ID: Watch the Perseid meteor shower tonight with this free telescope livestream You have an option if your skies are cloudy or marred by light pollution. Quote: The annual Perseid meteor shower will peak overnight Saturday (Aug. 12), and skywatchers can catch the celestial event at its most active from the comfort of their homes. The Virtual Telescope Project will provide a view of the Perseids' peak using its all-sky camera from its facility in Manciano, Italy. The remote region offers the perfect dark skies in which to see the famous Perseid meteors. ----------------- BillK From pharos at gmail.com Sat Aug 12 20:43:43 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2023 21:43:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] endorphins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 11 Aug 2023 at 23:33, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > When you have pain endorphins are emitted, as we all know. But just how does that work? It makes a difference. > If the pain has to be conscious, then a strategy occurs to me: when my pain meds run out, do nothing (like ice packs and TENS unit) so that endorphins can flow. Later add the ice etc. > > But what if the endorphins were there all along because they respond not to what is conscious, but the inputs from the painful area. Then they were there all along and the strategy above will not work. > Anyone know this? bill w > _______________________________________________ I don't know, but I bet I know an AI who does! :) BillK -------- Endorphins are a type of neurotransmitter, which are chemicals that transmit signals in the brain. They are often referred to as "feel-good" chemicals because they are associated with feelings of pleasure and well-being. Endorphins are released in response to various stimuli, including pain, stress, exercise, and certain foods. To answer your question directly, endorphins are not present in the body all the time but are released in response to specific situations or stimuli. When you experience pain, endorphins are released as a natural response to help alleviate the discomfort. These endorphins act as natural painkillers by binding to opioid receptors in the brain and spinal cord, reducing the perception of pain. The release of endorphins during painful experiences serves as a protective mechanism. It helps to reduce the intensity of pain and promote feelings of well-being and relaxation. This is why some people may experience a "runner's high" after intense exercise or feel a sense of relief after enduring a painful experience. It is important to note that endorphins are not the only neurotransmitters involved in pain perception. Other neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine also play a role in modulating pain signals and influencing mood. While endorphins are primarily associated with pain relief, they can also be released in response to other stimuli. For example, engaging in physical exercise can trigger the release of endorphins, leading to feelings of euphoria and improved mood. Similarly, certain foods like chocolate or spicy foods have been suggested to stimulate endorphin release, although the evidence for this is limited. In summary, endorphins are not constantly present in the body but are released in response to specific situations or stimuli, including pain, stress, exercise, and certain foods. Their release helps to alleviate pain and promote feelings of pleasure and well-being. ------------------------- From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 12 21:40:07 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2023 16:40:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] endorphins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: BillK, thanks for that,but it doesn't answer the question of if the pain has to be consciously felt, or is the stimulation from the injured body parts enough. bill w On Sat, Aug 12, 2023 at 3:46?PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, 11 Aug 2023 at 23:33, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > When you have pain endorphins are emitted, as we all know. But just how > does that work? It makes a difference. > > If the pain has to be conscious, then a strategy occurs to me: when my > pain meds run out, do nothing (like ice packs and TENS unit) so that > endorphins can flow. Later add the ice etc. > > > > But what if the endorphins were there all along because they respond not > to what is conscious, but the inputs from the painful area. Then they were > there all along and the strategy above will not work. > > Anyone know this? bill w > > _______________________________________________ > > > I don't know, but I bet I know an AI who does! :) > BillK > > -------- > Endorphins are a type of neurotransmitter, which are chemicals that > transmit signals in the brain. They are often referred to as > "feel-good" chemicals because they are associated with feelings of > pleasure and well-being. Endorphins are released in response to > various stimuli, including pain, stress, exercise, and certain foods. > > To answer your question directly, endorphins are not present in the > body all the time but are released in response to specific situations > or stimuli. When you experience pain, endorphins are released as a > natural response to help alleviate the discomfort. These endorphins > act as natural painkillers by binding to opioid receptors in the brain > and spinal cord, reducing the perception of pain. > > The release of endorphins during painful experiences serves as a > protective mechanism. It helps to reduce the intensity of pain and > promote feelings of well-being and relaxation. This is why some people > may experience a "runner's high" after intense exercise or feel a > sense of relief after enduring a painful experience. > > It is important to note that endorphins are not the only > neurotransmitters involved in pain perception. Other neurotransmitters > such as serotonin and dopamine also play a role in modulating pain > signals and influencing mood. > > While endorphins are primarily associated with pain relief, they can > also be released in response to other stimuli. For example, engaging > in physical exercise can trigger the release of endorphins, leading to > feelings of euphoria and improved mood. Similarly, certain foods like > chocolate or spicy foods have been suggested to stimulate endorphin > release, although the evidence for this is limited. > > In summary, endorphins are not constantly present in the body but are > released in response to specific situations or stimuli, including > pain, stress, exercise, and certain foods. Their release helps to > alleviate pain and promote feelings of pleasure and well-being. > ------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > 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 pharos at gmail.com Sat Aug 12 22:02:17 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2023 23:02:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] endorphins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 12 Aug 2023 at 22:44, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > BillK, thanks for that,but it doesn't answer the question of if the pain has to be consciously felt, > or is the stimulation from the injured body parts enough. bill w > _______________________________________________ Now you've upset Mr AI. :) I asked him to clarify his answer and I think he sounds a bit stroppy. :) BillK --------------- If someone doesn't feel pain, injuries may still release endorphins. Endorphins are natural chemicals produced by the body in response to various stimuli, including pain. They are often referred to as "feel-good" hormones because they can induce feelings of pleasure and euphoria. Endorphins are released by the central nervous system in response to pain or stress, and they act as natural painkillers. When a person experiences an injury or any form of physical trauma, the body's natural response is to release endorphins to help alleviate the pain and promote healing. However, it is important to note that the release of endorphins is not solely dependent on the perception of pain. While pain is a common trigger for endorphin release, other factors such as stress, exercise, laughter, and even certain foods can also stimulate the production and release of endorphins. In individuals who do not feel pain due to a condition called congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) or other related disorders, the release of endorphins may still occur in response to injuries. Although these individuals may not experience pain sensations, their bodies still recognize the physical trauma and initiate the release of endorphins as a protective mechanism. The release of endorphins in response to injuries serves several purposes. Firstly, endorphins act as natural analgesics, helping to reduce the perception of pain even if it is not consciously felt by the individual. This can be beneficial in preventing further damage or injury that could result from not recognizing or responding appropriately to physical trauma. Secondly, endorphins have anti-inflammatory properties, which can aid in reducing inflammation at the site of injury. Inflammation is a normal part of the body's healing process but can also contribute to pain and discomfort. By reducing inflammation, endorphins help facilitate the healing process and promote recovery. Lastly, endorphins play a role in regulating mood and promoting a sense of well-being. Even in individuals who do not experience pain, the release of endorphins can still contribute to feelings of pleasure, euphoria, and overall emotional well-being. This can be particularly important in situations where injuries or physical trauma may cause distress or anxiety. In conclusion, injuries can still release endorphins even if someone does not feel pain. The release of endorphins serves multiple purposes, including pain relief, inflammation reduction, and mood regulation. While pain is a common trigger for endorphin release, other factors such as stress and physical trauma can also stimulate their production. Therefore, individuals who do not feel pain can still benefit from the release of endorphins in response to injuries. ------------------------- From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 12 22:23:21 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2023 17:23:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] endorphins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: OK, BillK - that does it! bill w On Sat, Aug 12, 2023 at 5:05?PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, 12 Aug 2023 at 22:44, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > BillK, thanks for that,but it doesn't answer the question of if the pain > has to be consciously felt, > > or is the stimulation from the injured body parts enough. bill w > > _______________________________________________ > > > Now you've upset Mr AI. :) > I asked him to clarify his answer and I think he sounds a bit stroppy. :) > BillK > > --------------- > If someone doesn't feel pain, injuries may still release endorphins. > Endorphins are natural chemicals produced by the body in response to > various stimuli, including pain. They are often referred to as > "feel-good" hormones because they can induce feelings of pleasure and > euphoria. > > Endorphins are released by the central nervous system in response to > pain or stress, and they act as natural painkillers. When a person > experiences an injury or any form of physical trauma, the body's > natural response is to release endorphins to help alleviate the pain > and promote healing. > > However, it is important to note that the release of endorphins is not > solely dependent on the perception of pain. While pain is a common > trigger for endorphin release, other factors such as stress, exercise, > laughter, and even certain foods can also stimulate the production and > release of endorphins. > > In individuals who do not feel pain due to a condition called > congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) or other related disorders, the > release of endorphins may still occur in response to injuries. > Although these individuals may not experience pain sensations, their > bodies still recognize the physical trauma and initiate the release of > endorphins as a protective mechanism. > > The release of endorphins in response to injuries serves several > purposes. Firstly, endorphins act as natural analgesics, helping to > reduce the perception of pain even if it is not consciously felt by > the individual. This can be beneficial in preventing further damage or > injury that could result from not recognizing or responding > appropriately to physical trauma. > > Secondly, endorphins have anti-inflammatory properties, which can aid > in reducing inflammation at the site of injury. Inflammation is a > normal part of the body's healing process but can also contribute to > pain and discomfort. By reducing inflammation, endorphins help > facilitate the healing process and promote recovery. > > Lastly, endorphins play a role in regulating mood and promoting a > sense of well-being. Even in individuals who do not experience pain, > the release of endorphins can still contribute to feelings of > pleasure, euphoria, and overall emotional well-being. This can be > particularly important in situations where injuries or physical trauma > may cause distress or anxiety. > > In conclusion, injuries can still release endorphins even if someone > does not feel pain. The release of endorphins serves multiple > purposes, including pain relief, inflammation reduction, and mood > regulation. While pain is a common trigger for endorphin release, > other factors such as stress and physical trauma can also stimulate > their production. Therefore, individuals who do not feel pain can > still benefit from the release of endorphins in response to injuries. > ------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sun Aug 13 18:58:14 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2023 13:58:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] libertarians Message-ID: We, or at least most of us, are libertarians. Here's a thought: What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gadersd at gmail.com Sun Aug 13 19:15:24 2023 From: gadersd at gmail.com (Gadersd) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2023 15:15:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? Assisted suicide. > On Aug 13, 2023, at 2:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > We, or at least most of us, are libertarians. Here's a thought: > > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Aug 13 20:29:30 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2023 15:29:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> Message-ID: We can take any chemicals we want in any form and eat, inject, etc. them to die. We can have assistants. We have these freedoms - they just aren't legal (assistance is available in Oregon I think). And assistants may be criminals. Have you seen any suicide assistants prosecuted? I wonder what ever happened to Dr Death? I can't get anything from Google except the TV show. But there was a guy several decades ago with that title and I can't remember his name. If assisted suicide is the only freedom we lack we are in damn good shape, eh? bill w On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 2:18?PM Gadersd via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? > > > Assisted suicide. > > On Aug 13, 2023, at 2:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > We, or at least most of us, are libertarians. Here's a thought: > > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? bill > w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Aug 13 21:25:03 2023 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2023 14:25:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Empire or Star Fungus? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7567dbc8ba6517a21f589c07af387534@sollegro.com> On 2023-08-10 20:32, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > Since I used to manufacture UFOs (early 60s) and know of others who > did the same, I can't take the LGM idea seriously. Since the UFOs you made could not outperform 1960s era jet fighters, I doubt you would have sparked a Congressional hearing and a new slate of UFO laws on the books. Then again, Foo Fighters which are phenomenon where a trained military pilot sees lights or shapes that outperform their planes during maneuvers have been reported since 1944. While I have trouble taking the LGM idea seriously, I also have difficulty believing that veteran pilots fresh from a war would try to engage the planet Venus or a cockpit reflection in a dogfight. The government's possession of biologicals of non-human origin has been sworn to under oath by Grusch, but that could just as accurately describe cat vomit as LGM. I don't believe that Grusch is lying or crazy, but he is autistic, studied physics at university, and is an intelligence analyst for the three-letter-agencies of the deep state with top secret clearance. The only reason I harbor doubts about what he alleges is that as an intel analyst, he only ever gets second-hand information and analyzes it. Science requires data and hard facts. > But as there are hearings in Congress about an impossible cover-up, > astronomers have found what can (in my opinion) only be an > extraterrestrial civilization. The paper is too long for the list, so > you will have to find it yourself. While the government allegedly having saucers and LGM on ice might be impossible to cover up, I think it is a fairly standard psychological warfare procedure that if a secret cannot be contained, then it is buried in an avalanche of disinformation. Start a bunch of rumors related to the secret and perpetrate some hoaxes, then discredit the rumors and debunk the hoaxes. After that, nobody will believe the secret you are trying to cover up. You can't stop the signal, but you can drown it out with noise. And when it comes to UFOs, there is certainly a lot of noise. > I don't jump to such a conclusion lightly. My former view was > consistent with "An analysis by Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler and Toby > Ord suggests "a substantial ex ante probability of there being no > other intelligent life in our observable universe".[85]" > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Skepticism is healthy, but it should be noted that while humanity has been around and intelligent for hundreds of millennia, it is only in the last couple of centuries that we have had the technology to make changes to the planet visible from space. > However, now we have observations of Tabby's Star, where the light > curve dips are consistent with the passage of an object in orbit that > is 400 times the area of the Earth. OK, it might have an explanation > like a disrupted planet, though none of the ideas holds up well to > analysis. A disrupted planet would block all wavelengths, not just the higher frequencies. It has to either be dust or a metamaterial like perovskite semi-transparent solar-panels: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.0c00417#:~:text=In%20this%20Focus%20Review%20we%20provide%20the%20most,contact%20that%20makes%20the%20solar%20cell%20fully%20semitransparent. > However, a recent examination of nearby stars shows that there are 15 > of them doing the same thing. These are all normal F and G-type stars > in a cluster. What it looks like to me is the expansion of a species > that has moved beyond the biological and is spreading out in a way > short of a Dyson Sphere (a K2). Actually there are more than 15. Originally Schmidt (2019) found 15 stars that behaved like Boyajian's star, and noticed that 8 of those stars formed a clump with Boyajian's star. In his follow up paper (Schmidt, 2022) he found 15 more stars in the same clump as the 8 from his previous paper. So there are a total of 24 periodically dimming stars in the clump including Boyajian's star with an additional 7 stars that dim but are not part of the cluster. > If this is correct, there are good points, bad points, and strange > points. The good thing is that we seem to have an example of a > species that got through the "filters" (though they could be an AI > offspring). Tapping that much of the output of their star certainly > solved energy problems as well. The bad thing is that we have > competition. Competition is the lathe of creation; it is the fount of all innovation, art, erudition, and gentility. We owe everything to holy competition. I will take competition over complacent decadence any day. It keeps us on our toes. It keeps us strong. > > The strange and unlikely thing is that we have such a civilization (or > Star Fungus, or whatever you want to call it) within 1500 LY and doing > something we can observe. Interestingly enough, Star Fungus is a legitimate possibility. Fungi are remarkably adaptive and hardy. Given a carbon source like the organic molecules belched out by carbon stars, a water source like cometary ice, and ionizing radiation, a radiotrophic and photosynthetic fungus could thrive in certain stellar orbits with or without a planetary body. Radiotrophic fungus has been studied since a thick black fungus was discovered growing on the walls of the Chernobyl reactor chamber in 2006, using melanin to absorb and harness UV and gamma rays. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-16063-z Curiously, the absorption spectrum of melanin is not dissimilar to perovskite. Earlier somebody, I think it was Bill Wallace, asked to see how these dimming stars were distributed in space. I took the liberty of plotting the coordinates for the stars given by Schmidt (2022) in 3-D graphing software and have included the resulting pattern in an attachment to my post. https://04533034747756402167.googlegroups.com/attach/37057d7122575/Schmidt%20Periodic%20Dimming%20Star%20Cluster.gif?part=0.1&view=1&vt=ANaJVrE00mbLT8qmRAg_HvVMMjM0hlGyx81kGGa11QCS9qIusQRTRbPUfErX3s_yJicr2oLG0S3CZanDZFkAPlHZ_FfCBbkeme-kyh94uBMdrbBcvFQFIVw For reference I have labelled the Earth with an E at coordinates (0,0,0) and Tabbitha Boyajian's star with a T at (415, 77, -137). The coordinates are centered with the Earth as the origin and the numbers are in parsecs so multiply by 3.26 to get light-years. As can be seen in the graph, the closest dimming star to Earth is 7642696 at (72, 35, 127) which is located only 156.77 Pc or approximately 511 light years from Earth. Interestingly it seems that Earth could be at the edge of the cluster and there are several stars in the same plane as the Earth. Schmidt, E. (2022). A Search for Analogs of KIC 8462852 (Boyajian?s Star): A Second List of Candidates. The Astronomical Journal, 163:10 https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1055&context=physicsschmidt I agree with Schmidt and Keith that these stars should be a priority target for SETI observation. Stuart LaForge P.S. Exi-Mod, please delete the posts from me awaiting moderation for overly large attachements, as I have figured out how to get Google's servers to host attached images instead of ExI's servers. :) From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sun Aug 13 22:57:24 2023 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2023 18:57:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> Message-ID: Dr Kevorkian (AKA Dr. Death) was prosecuted and went to jail. He died in 2011. I remember sending him some postcards while he was imprisoned. Regards, MB On Sun, August 13, 2023 16:29, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > We can take any chemicals we want in any form and eat, inject, etc. them > to > die. We can have assistants. We have these freedoms - they just aren't > legal (assistance is available in Oregon I think). And assistants may be > criminals. Have you seen any suicide assistants prosecuted? I wonder > what > ever happened to Dr Death? I can't get anything from Google except the TV > show. But there was a guy several decades ago with that title and I can't > remember his name. > > If assisted suicide is the only freedom we lack we are in damn good shape, > eh? bill w > From efc at swisscows.email Mon Aug 14 21:40:27 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2023 23:40:27 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> Message-ID: What was the "value add" of Dr Kevorkian vs just taking a bunch of pills? I'm no expert, and not super interested either, but wouldn't just taking an overdose of sleeping pills be the most comfortable way to go? Best regards, Daniel On Sun, 13 Aug 2023, MB via extropy-chat wrote: > Dr Kevorkian (AKA Dr. Death) was prosecuted and went to jail. He died in > 2011. I remember sending him some postcards while he was imprisoned. > > Regards, > MB > > On Sun, August 13, 2023 16:29, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >> We can take any chemicals we want in any form and eat, inject, etc. them >> to >> die. We can have assistants. We have these freedoms - they just aren't >> legal (assistance is available in Oregon I think). And assistants may be >> criminals. Have you seen any suicide assistants prosecuted? I wonder >> what >> ever happened to Dr Death? I can't get anything from Google except the TV >> show. But there was a guy several decades ago with that title and I can't >> remember his name. >> >> If assisted suicide is the only freedom we lack we are in damn good shape, >> eh? bill w >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Aug 14 21:52:57 2023 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2023 17:52:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> IIUC, taking a handful of pills often failed because you didn't die... instead you hurked them all back up. Or really seriously messed with your body. It isn't as easy as one might think, apparently. There was an organization "Hemlock Society" that had guidelines and meetings and papers. Dr. K was not part of that. I think their book was "Final Exit", something like that. Dr. K may have administered a shot, like we give animals at the vet's office when they are put down. I do not know. Regards, MB On Mon, August 14, 2023 17:40, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > What was the "value add" of Dr Kevorkian vs just taking a bunch of pills? > > I'm no expert, and not super interested either, but wouldn't just taking > an overdose of sleeping pills be the most comfortable way to go? > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sun, 13 Aug 2023, MB via extropy-chat wrote: > >> Dr Kevorkian (AKA Dr. Death) was prosecuted and went to jail. He died >> in >> 2011. I remember sending him some postcards while he was imprisoned. >> >> Regards, >> MB >> >> On Sun, August 13, 2023 16:29, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> wrote: >>> We can take any chemicals we want in any form and eat, inject, etc. >>> them >>> to >>> die. We can have assistants. We have these freedoms - they just >>> aren't >>> legal (assistance is available in Oregon I think). And assistants may >>> be >>> criminals. Have you seen any suicide assistants prosecuted? I wonder >>> what >>> ever happened to Dr Death? I can't get anything from Google except the >>> TV >>> show. But there was a guy several decades ago with that title and I >>> can't >>> remember his name. >>> >>> If assisted suicide is the only freedom we lack we are in damn good >>> shape, >>> eh? bill w >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 14 22:24:14 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2023 15:24:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <001601d9cefe$0f689ef0$2e39dcd0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of MB via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] libertarians IIUC, taking a handful of pills often failed because you didn't die... instead you hurked them all back up. Or really seriously messed with your body. It isn't as easy as one might think, apparently. There was an organization "Hemlock Society" that had guidelines and meetings and papers. Dr. K was not part of that. I think their book was "Final Exit", something like that. Dr. K may have administered a shot, like we give animals at the vet's office when they are put down. I do not know. Regards, MB I am kinda surprised it isn't more common for proles to go down to the welding supply shop, get a bottle of nitrogen, attach a hose, dry cleaner bag over the head, belt loosely around the bottom to vent away the last of the oxygen, hose thru the top, turn on the flow, no bad smell of exhaust, no mess, to travel, no danger to anyone else, low cost, no pain, no gain, adios amigo. Regarding the lengths Tom Hanks went to and failed (thrice) in his brilliantly acted A Man Called Otto, he tried the most traditional methods, but not the one that makes the most sense to me. Of all the goofy nonsense I have ever posted here in 30 years, this is the one which causes me the most concern I will deeply regret posting. Stern order: none a yas go out and start hoofing nitrogen, I MEAN IT. Don't do it, not even if you are signed up for Alcor. Life is good. Post me offlist, or view the Hanks movie or both. It is an excellent choice for one who is at the end of his rope. Hanks is an acting genius. He really gets Otto exactly right, and Mariana Trevino Ortiz is schmokin hot in that film, without even a siren role. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Aug 14 22:50:39 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2023 17:50:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <001601d9cefe$0f689ef0$2e39dcd0$@rainier66.com> References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <001601d9cefe$0f689ef0$2e39dcd0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Breathing pure nitrogen is deadly but the person will not experience any loss. The lack of oxygen does not trigger any response and that's a killer. This is legal I think in some states. MIssissippi considered it and rejected it. I do not know why. I suspect that they wanted the person to suffer. There are lots of those around. Those killed by lack of oxygen do not suffer. Like going to sleep, only it's the Big Sleep. If I committed suicide that's the way I'd do it. No mess. (Hemingway used a double barreled shotgun. His daughter found him. I cannot imagine the horror.) I will not stand extreme and intractable pain. What am I proving to anybody to stay alive? bill w On Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 5:26?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > MB > via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] libertarians > > IIUC, taking a handful of pills often failed because you didn't die... > instead you hurked them all back up. Or really seriously messed with your > body. It isn't as easy as one might think, apparently. > > There was an organization "Hemlock Society" that had guidelines and > meetings > and papers. Dr. K was not part of that. I think their book was "Final > Exit", something like that. > > Dr. K may have administered a shot, like we give animals at the vet's > office > when they are put down. I do not know. > > Regards, > MB > > > > I am kinda surprised it isn't more common for proles to go down to the > welding supply shop, get a bottle of nitrogen, attach a hose, dry cleaner > bag over the head, belt loosely around the bottom to vent away the last of > the oxygen, hose thru the top, turn on the flow, no bad smell of exhaust, > no > mess, to travel, no danger to anyone else, low cost, no pain, no gain, > adios > amigo. > > Regarding the lengths Tom Hanks went to and failed (thrice) in his > brilliantly acted A Man Called Otto, he tried the most traditional methods, > but not the one that makes the most sense to me. > > Of all the goofy nonsense I have ever posted here in 30 years, this is the > one which causes me the most concern I will deeply regret posting. Stern > order: none a yas go out and start hoofing nitrogen, I MEAN IT. Don't do > it, not even if you are signed up for Alcor. Life is good. Post me > offlist, or view the Hanks movie or both. It is an excellent choice for > one > who is at the end of his rope. Hanks is an acting genius. He really gets > Otto exactly right, and Mariana Trevino Ortiz is schmokin hot in that film, > without even a siren role. > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 14 23:09:47 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2023 16:09:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <001601d9cefe$0f689ef0$2e39dcd0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003201d9cf04$6c1c40b0$4454c210$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat ? >? What am I proving to anybody to stay alive? bill w Billw, you are proving to us you are still an educator, this many years after retiring. I have learned cool stuff from you. Get signed up for Alcor, stay alive as long as you can. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Tue Aug 15 07:18:54 2023 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 09:18:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Turing Church podcast. UFOs/UAPs, Philip K. Dick, and rhinos Message-ID: Turing Church podcast. Stellar Magnet & yours truly chat on UFOs/UAPs, Philip K. Dick, and rhinos. Also, weird aspects of reality and the need for new religions. https://www.turingchurch.com/p/ufosuaps-philip-k-dick-and-rhinos From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Aug 15 12:52:13 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 07:52:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <003201d9cf04$6c1c40b0$4454c210$@rainier66.com> References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <001601d9cefe$0f689ef0$2e39dcd0$@rainier66.com> <003201d9cf04$6c1c40b0$4454c210$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Thanks. Alcor would take every nickel I have. Those nickels have to help Roz when I go. Don't really have an urge to live again. bill w On Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 6:12?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *?* > > > > >? What am I proving to anybody to stay alive? bill w > > > > > > Billw, you are proving to us you are still an educator, this many years > after retiring. I have learned cool stuff from you. Get signed up for > Alcor, stay alive as long as you can. > > > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Tue Aug 15 13:38:14 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 06:38:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <001601d9cefe$0f689ef0$2e39dcd0$@rainier66.com> <003201d9cf04$6c1c40b0$4454c210$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003d01d9cf7d$be8a8130$3b9f8390$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Tuesday, 15 August, 2023 5:52 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] libertarians Thanks. Alcor would take every nickel I have. Those nickels have to help Roz when I go. Don't really have an urge to live again. bill w Billw you are a lot more help to Roz now than a pile of nickels. To us too. spike On Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 6:12?PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: From: extropy-chat > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat ? >? What am I proving to anybody to stay alive? bill w Billw, you are proving to us you are still an educator, this many years after retiring. I have learned cool stuff from you. Get signed up for Alcor, stay alive as long as you can. 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Aug 15 17:08:43 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 12:08:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] tinnitus revisited Message-ID: The pronunciation, btw, is TINN' i tus. (pronouncing it as Tinn I' tus confuses it with an infection, whose name would end with 'itis). TWice today I have had a ring started in my ears - one left and one right. I did the trick of rubbing each ear forcefully for 10 seconds or so and the ring went away. This trick does not work on chronic rings. I have one appearing in my left ear which does not seem to change with anything I do. Have any of you or the people you might have told tried this trick? Did it work? It is working well for me,esp. for the rings that start up. I can get them to stop almost immediately. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Tue Aug 15 17:40:57 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 19:40:57 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <20469620-528c-006f-78b6-5b2eb95306b6@swisscows.email> Ahh got it! Thank you very much for the explanation. This list is amazing! Best regards, Daniel On Mon, 14 Aug 2023, MB via extropy-chat wrote: > IIUC, taking a handful of pills often failed because you didn't die... > instead you hurked them all back up. Or really seriously messed with your > body. It isn't as easy as one might think, apparently. > > There was an organization "Hemlock Society" that had guidelines and > meetings and papers. Dr. K was not part of that. I think their book was > "Final Exit", something like that. > > Dr. K may have administered a shot, like we give animals at the vet's > office when they are put down. I do not know. > > Regards, > MB > > On Mon, August 14, 2023 17:40, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: >> What was the "value add" of Dr Kevorkian vs just taking a bunch of pills? >> >> I'm no expert, and not super interested either, but wouldn't just taking >> an overdose of sleeping pills be the most comfortable way to go? >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> On Sun, 13 Aug 2023, MB via extropy-chat wrote: >> >>> Dr Kevorkian (AKA Dr. Death) was prosecuted and went to jail. He died >>> in >>> 2011. I remember sending him some postcards while he was imprisoned. >>> >>> Regards, >>> MB >>> >>> On Sun, August 13, 2023 16:29, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>> wrote: >>>> We can take any chemicals we want in any form and eat, inject, etc. >>>> them >>>> to >>>> die. We can have assistants. We have these freedoms - they just >>>> aren't >>>> legal (assistance is available in Oregon I think). And assistants may >>>> be >>>> criminals. Have you seen any suicide assistants prosecuted? I wonder >>>> what >>>> ever happened to Dr Death? I can't get anything from Google except the >>>> TV >>>> show. But there was a guy several decades ago with that title and I >>>> can't >>>> remember his name. >>>> >>>> If assisted suicide is the only freedom we lack we are in damn good >>>> shape, >>>> eh? bill w >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From efc at swisscows.email Tue Aug 15 17:44:20 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 19:44:20 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <001601d9cefe$0f689ef0$2e39dcd0$@rainier66.com> References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> <2b8a53122e2d7e545b343959c47ea448.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <001601d9cefe$0f689ef0$2e39dcd0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: And for the Connoisseurs I can recommend the original "En man som heter Ove" with Rolf Lassg?rd. Really enjoyed it and haven't seen the Tom Hanks version. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4080728/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 Best regards, Daniel On Mon, 14 Aug 2023, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of MB > via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] libertarians > > IIUC, taking a handful of pills often failed because you didn't die... > instead you hurked them all back up. Or really seriously messed with your > body. It isn't as easy as one might think, apparently. > > There was an organization "Hemlock Society" that had guidelines and meetings > and papers. Dr. K was not part of that. I think their book was "Final > Exit", something like that. > > Dr. K may have administered a shot, like we give animals at the vet's office > when they are put down. I do not know. > > Regards, > MB > > > > I am kinda surprised it isn't more common for proles to go down to the > welding supply shop, get a bottle of nitrogen, attach a hose, dry cleaner > bag over the head, belt loosely around the bottom to vent away the last of > the oxygen, hose thru the top, turn on the flow, no bad smell of exhaust, no > mess, to travel, no danger to anyone else, low cost, no pain, no gain, adios > amigo. > > Regarding the lengths Tom Hanks went to and failed (thrice) in his > brilliantly acted A Man Called Otto, he tried the most traditional methods, > but not the one that makes the most sense to me. > > Of all the goofy nonsense I have ever posted here in 30 years, this is the > one which causes me the most concern I will deeply regret posting. Stern > order: none a yas go out and start hoofing nitrogen, I MEAN IT. Don't do > it, not even if you are signed up for Alcor. Life is good. Post me > offlist, or view the Hanks movie or both. It is an excellent choice for one > who is at the end of his rope. Hanks is an acting genius. He really gets > Otto exactly right, and Mariana Trevino Ortiz is schmokin hot in that film, > without even a siren role. > > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From spike at rainier66.com Tue Aug 15 19:29:23 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 12:29:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] FW: [Fwd: Re: tinnitus revisited] In-Reply-To: <7c8a2a3c33e23531a8d3f9cd25b2e2f5.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <7c8a2a3c33e23531a8d3f9cd25b2e2f5.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <008101d9cfae$cc445630$64cd0290$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: MB ... >...Maybe you can post it for me please? Regards, MB Forwarded for MB, whose ISP doesn't want to cooperate with the ExI server: ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: Re: [ExI] tinnitus revisited From: "MB" Date: Tue, August 15, 2023 15:14 To: "ExI chat list" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I did try, bill w, but my tinitus is chronic buzz and it did not help. Now for unexpected sudden new things it does seem to help. Odd. Why does that work? Does it readjust the cillia hairs or what? Regards, MB On Tue, August 15, 2023 13:08, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > The pronunciation, btw, is TINN' i tus. (pronouncing it as Tinn I' > tus confuses it with an infection, whose name would end with 'itis). > > TWice today I have had a ring started in my ears - one left and one right. > I did the trick of rubbing each ear forcefully for 10 seconds or so > and the ring went away. > > This trick does not work on chronic rings. I have one appearing in my > left ear which does not seem to change with anything I do. > > Have any of you or the people you might have told tried this trick? > Did it work? It is working well for me,esp. for the rings that start > up. I can > get them to stop almost immediately. bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Aug 15 22:00:58 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 17:00:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] FW: [Fwd: Re: tinnitus revisited] In-Reply-To: <008101d9cfae$cc445630$64cd0290$@rainier66.com> References: <7c8a2a3c33e23531a8d3f9cd25b2e2f5.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <008101d9cfae$cc445630$64cd0290$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Well, we don't know why tinnitus occurs in the first place. Here is a hypothesis of mine: the brain in general likes a certain level of stimulation. (the need is stronger in extroverts than in introverts, hence the seeking for stimulation that is stronger in the extrovert). Go above that level and the brain starts inhibiting input to get down to an acceptable range, or you turn the TV down, or something. Go below and the brain wants more. Enter deafness: I was hit when I was six and it busted my eardrum. That meant that less stimulation got in that ear.. I do hear my chronic buzz in that ear. Is my brain trying to compensate for lost sound? One more clue: the tinnitus is strongest when I wake up and lessens as I move around and do things and hear noises I am making starting the coffee etc. Now why a new ring would start in the middle of nothing is a puzzler, but making a lot of noise does make it quit. I have read where white noise devices are sold to sufferers like me and apparently they work because of the ideas above. Why the one I have that doesn't quit doesn't quit is another puzzler. bill w On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 2:32?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: MB > ... > > >...Maybe you can post it for me please? > > Regards, > MB > > > > > > Forwarded for MB, whose ISP doesn't want to cooperate with the ExI server: > > > > > ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- > Subject: Re: [ExI] tinnitus revisited > From: "MB" > Date: Tue, August 15, 2023 15:14 > To: "ExI chat list" > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > I did try, bill w, but my tinitus is chronic buzz and it did not help. > Now for unexpected sudden new things it does seem to help. Odd. > > Why does that work? Does it readjust the cillia hairs or what? > > Regards, > MB > > On Tue, August 15, 2023 13:08, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > > The pronunciation, btw, is TINN' i tus. (pronouncing it as Tinn I' > > tus confuses it with an infection, whose name would end with 'itis). > > > > TWice today I have had a ring started in my ears - one left and one > right. > > I did the trick of rubbing each ear forcefully for 10 seconds or so > > and the ring went away. > > > > This trick does not work on chronic rings. I have one appearing in my > > left ear which does not seem to change with anything I do. > > > > Have any of you or the people you might have told tried this trick? > > Did it work? It is working well for me,esp. for the rings that start > > up. I can > > get them to stop almost immediately. bill w > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 09:20:02 2023 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 11:20:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 9:13?PM John Clark wrote: > > On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 2:58?PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > >> > We, or at least most of us, are libertarians. > > > I once called myself a libertarian but the meaning of the word has changed so radically that I can't do that anymore. These days most "libertarians" are just Trump zombies. > I once did NOT call myself a libertarian because I didn't like the excessive emphasis on property and guns. But now I do call myself a libertarian, or at least a libertarian at heart, because today's "culture" in the West is becoming anti-libertarian and this must be stopped. I'm a libertarian in the true sense of the word: one who thinks that one should be free to think/speak/do whatever the fuck he likes as long as he doesn't interfere with the freedom of others to do the same. And by the way, I prefer Trump to cancel culture. >> > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? > > > The freedom to inject any chemical we wish into our bodies, including cyanide. > > John K Clark > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv3FDCRJKb2dy2nwgWDX8Q8CL%3DOxbtZj%2BF3E9fFhPc8LVA%40mail.gmail.com. From atymes at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 16:04:52 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 09:04:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Precautionary Principle rearing its ugly head Message-ID: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk0176 Given the prominence of this entry, I'm wondering if some members of this list might like to put in a well-researched response letter, for instance pointing out what has historically happened when people tried halting or slowing technological development to ask questions like these. For particular example, asking if AI is "reversible" means to ask if people can be forced to unlearn what AI might inform them of. (What other logical conclusion of "reversible" AI could there be, given its most famous use right now?) The problems with getting social/political approval to force people to unlearn things apparently need explaining. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 16:08:21 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 09:08:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Two main groups called themselves libertarians (lowercase). The political Libertarians were so fractious they could not get along with each other or anyone else. Anyway, the two groups were known as the Space Cadets, people who got their political philosophy from Heinlein, and the Ranroids, followers of Ayn Rand. One day the religious-like intense attraction of Rand might be understood. 13-year-old boys seem to be particularly affected, some of them never recovering. Speculation on this included the idea that boys of that age are selfish and that Rand's objectivism glorifies selfishness. Rand's view of the world is in opposition to evolutionary psychology, which makes the case that we should value others because of shared genes. The Space Cadets are easier to get along with. While the early extropians leaned libertarian, most of them were easy going about it. Because so many of the early L5 Society members were Heinlein fans, that organization leaned libertarian as well. Keith On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:20?AM Giulio Prisco wrote: > > On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 9:13?PM John Clark wrote: > > > > On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 2:58?PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > > >> > We, or at least most of us, are libertarians. > > > > > > I once called myself a libertarian but the meaning of the word has changed so radically that I can't do that anymore. These days most "libertarians" are just Trump zombies. > > > > I once did NOT call myself a libertarian because I didn't like the > excessive emphasis on property and guns. But now I do call myself a > libertarian, or at least a libertarian at heart, because today's > "culture" in the West is becoming anti-libertarian and this must be > stopped. I'm a libertarian in the true sense of the word: one who > thinks that one should be free to think/speak/do whatever the fuck he > likes as long as he doesn't interfere with the freedom of others to do > the same. And by the way, I prefer Trump to cancel culture. > > >> > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? > > > > > > The freedom to inject any chemical we wish into our bodies, including cyanide. > > > > John K Clark > > > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv3FDCRJKb2dy2nwgWDX8Q8CL%3DOxbtZj%2BF3E9fFhPc8LVA%40mail.gmail.com. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAKTCJycPXYCvxEsAiwoZNDcbir%2BXBzv12Meqt5eR7ZsZd9EXiw%40mail.gmail.com. From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 20:14:46 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 15:14:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] tinnitus revisited In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Will - do the acute noises just fade away? Have you tried my trick to get rid of them? Do you suspect that they result from lack of sound in your environment? Are they worse when you wake up? billw On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:02?PM Will Steinberg wrote: > You said that doesn't help with chronic though right? I get acute loud > tinnitus too that goes away pretty quick. But my right ear has a 24/7 ring > that is quite annoying > > On Tue, Aug 15, 2023, 6:04 PM William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > >> Will - if you missed my post: put your hand over the ear you hear the >> noise in and move it around, making a lot of noise. Of course you could >> turn up the TV, but I just rub my ear. This makes quite a bit since I wear >> aids in both ears. >> >> Test: stop all sound-making devices and sit still and see if any new >> ring occurs. If so, use the technique and see what happens. bill w >> >> On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 3:47?PM Will Steinberg >> wrote: >> >>> Idk, I have chronic tinnitus at 31yo and I'd love to hear any tricks for >>> reducing it, it sucks >>> >>> On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 1:09?PM William Flynn Wallace < >>> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> The pronunciation, btw, is TINN' i tus. (pronouncing it as Tinn I' tus >>>> confuses it with an infection, whose name would end with 'itis). >>>> >>>> TWice today I have had a ring started in my ears - one left and one >>>> right. I did the trick of rubbing each ear forcefully for 10 seconds or so >>>> and the ring went away. >>>> >>>> This trick does not work on chronic rings. I have one appearing in my >>>> left ear which does not seem to change with anything I do. >>>> >>>> Have any of you or the people you might have told tried this trick? >>>> Did it work? It is working well for me,esp. for the rings that start up. >>>> I can get them to stop almost immediately. bill w >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "extropolis" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >>>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEYZPjbY%3DHKJRs6%2Bp8zAP6EiOK_FRmtog7uYsQmp6LAbew%40mail.gmail.com >>>> >>>> . >>>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "extropolis" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAKrqSyHn56OGSs8aeVXkiW_c_CJW-Xsh5ZA6S9xSc89esbH1aw%40mail.gmail.com >>> >>> . >>> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "extropolis" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEbLkGRh48K_--C4jLpBX9HORTPVvazm0Dmf%3DoZO2-cmcA%40mail.gmail.com >> >> . >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAKrqSyEnRn9nyU-JBzkebU_FWfHBaSJByo8mkZotkUM8FjNN2Q%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Wed Aug 16 20:39:37 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 22:39:37 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> Hello guys, I consider myself libertarian, classic liberal, anarcho-capitalist or just plain old capitalist depending on the company and how much I want to provoke people. I'm not american but given the choice of only Biden or Trump, I prefer Trump. I've seen and lived under socialism and that is why I prefer Trump over Biden any time any day. I met and spoken with way too many people who lived under soviet style socialism, so I can never vote for anyone who is in favour of increasing the control of the state or who increases taxes. If the choice was completely free however, I would vote for Ron Paul or probably someone even more freedom oriented who never even made it through the media out of the US. Best regards, Daniel On Wed, 16 Aug 2023, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > Two main groups called themselves libertarians (lowercase). The > political Libertarians were so fractious they could not get along with > each other or anyone else. > > Anyway, the two groups were known as the Space Cadets, people who got > their political philosophy from Heinlein, and the Ranroids, followers > of Ayn Rand. > > One day the religious-like intense attraction of Rand might be > understood. 13-year-old boys seem to be particularly affected, some of > them never recovering. Speculation on this included the idea that > boys of that age are selfish and that Rand's objectivism glorifies > selfishness. Rand's view of the world is in opposition to > evolutionary psychology, which makes the case that we should value > others because of shared genes. > > The Space Cadets are easier to get along with. > > While the early extropians leaned libertarian, most of them were easy > going about it. Because so many of the early L5 Society members were > Heinlein fans, that organization leaned libertarian as well. > > Keith > > On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:20?AM Giulio Prisco wrote: >> >> On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 9:13?PM John Clark wrote: >> > >> > On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 2:58?PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: >> > >> >> > We, or at least most of us, are libertarians. >> > >> > >> > I once called myself a libertarian but the meaning of the word has changed so radically that I can't do that anymore. These days most "libertarians" are just Trump zombies. >> > >> >> I once did NOT call myself a libertarian because I didn't like the >> excessive emphasis on property and guns. But now I do call myself a >> libertarian, or at least a libertarian at heart, because today's >> "culture" in the West is becoming anti-libertarian and this must be >> stopped. I'm a libertarian in the true sense of the word: one who >> thinks that one should be free to think/speak/do whatever the fuck he >> likes as long as he doesn't interfere with the freedom of others to do >> the same. And by the way, I prefer Trump to cancel culture. >> >> >> > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? >> > >> > >> > The freedom to inject any chemical we wish into our bodies, including cyanide. >> > >> > John K Clark >> > >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >> > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv3FDCRJKb2dy2nwgWDX8Q8CL%3DOxbtZj%2BF3E9fFhPc8LVA%40mail.gmail.com. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAKTCJycPXYCvxEsAiwoZNDcbir%2BXBzv12Meqt5eR7ZsZd9EXiw%40mail.gmail.com. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From efc at swisscows.email Wed Aug 16 20:41:41 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 22:41:41 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] Precautionary Principle rearing its ugly head In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Is there any historical example of a technology or science that was ever stopped? I mean even eugenics seems to just have changed shape in todays world, and I am absolutely certain in some places off the mainstream media radar, extreme experiments are going on right now. Best regards, Daniel On Wed, 16 Aug 2023, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk0176 > > Given the prominence of this entry, I'm wondering if some members of this list might like to put in a well-researched response > letter, for instance pointing out what has historically happened when people tried halting or slowing technological development to > ask questions like these. > > For particular example, asking if AI is "reversible" means to ask if people can be forced to unlearn what?AI might inform them of.? > (What other logical conclusion of "reversible" AI could there be, given its most famous use right now?)? The problems with getting > social/political approval to force people to unlearn things apparently need explaining. > > From mbb386 at main.nc.us Wed Aug 16 21:17:04 2023 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 17:17:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> Message-ID: What a lovely post! So glad to meet you. My kinda folks. :) And 3 cheers for Ron Paul! I still have a t-shirt from that campaign. Regards, MB On Wed, August 16, 2023 16:39, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > Hello guys, > > I consider myself libertarian, classic liberal, anarcho-capitalist or just > plain old capitalist depending on the company and how much I want to > provoke people. > > I'm not american but given the choice of only Biden or Trump, I prefer > Trump. I've seen and lived under socialism and that is why I prefer > Trump over Biden any time any day. I met and spoken with way too many > people who lived under soviet style socialism, so I can never vote for > anyone who is in favour of increasing the control of the state or who > increases taxes. > > If the choice was completely free however, I would vote for Ron Paul or > probably someone even more freedom oriented who never even made it > through the media out of the US. > > Best regards, > Daniel > From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 16 21:36:05 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 14:36:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <00bc01d9d089$a9f62c80$fde28580$@rainier66.com> Daniel and MB, Stand by and watch. Ron Paul is an up and comer. We are seeing ever accumulating evidence that Dr. Fauci played fast and loose with the facts, and that he damn well did fund gain-of-function research in China and that covid leaked out of the lab where the research was being done. Ron Paul was the one who bird-dogged that investigation relentlessly. spike -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of MB via extropy-chat Sent: Wednesday, 16 August, 2023 2:17 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: MB Subject: Re: [ExI] libertarians >...What a lovely post! So glad to meet you. My kinda folks. :) >...And 3 cheers for Ron Paul! I still have a t-shirt from that campaign. Regards, MB On Wed, August 16, 2023 16:39, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > Hello guys, > >>... I consider myself libertarian, classic liberal, anarcho-capitalist or > just plain old capitalist depending on the company and how much I want > to provoke people. > > I'm not american but given the choice of only Biden or Trump, I prefer > Trump. I've seen and lived under socialism and that is why I prefer > Trump over Biden any time any day. I met and spoken with way too many > people who lived under soviet style socialism, so I can never vote for > anyone who is in favour of increasing the control of the state or who > increases taxes. > > If the choice was completely free however, I would vote for Ron Paul > or probably someone even more freedom oriented who never even made it > through the media out of the US. > > Best regards, > Daniel > _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 22:03:36 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 15:03:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> Message-ID: The interesting thing is not about Trump himself but the cult following he has. Why do large numbers of people act this way? You can get a hint from looking at where most of the Trump followers are located. It's from locations in the rust belt that are not doing well economically. Support for populist leaders in an economic downturn is not new. Hitler rose to power in the economic disaster of Germany after WW I. I argue from evolutionary psychology that humans are evolved for war, and the detection of bleak times coming starts the process that (in the stone age) took a tribe from being on good terms with neighbors to killing them. The enhanced circulation of xenophobic or just crazy memes is part of this process. Consider the attacks on people outside the conventional sex orientation or the Qanon nonsense. The worst part of understanding human psychological traits is that there does not seem to be a thing you do about the situation. Keith On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 1:40?PM efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > Hello guys, > > I consider myself libertarian, classic liberal, anarcho-capitalist or just > plain old capitalist depending on the company and how much I want to > provoke people. > > I'm not american but given the choice of only Biden or Trump, I prefer > Trump. I've seen and lived under socialism and that is why I prefer > Trump over Biden any time any day. I met and spoken with way too many > people who lived under soviet style socialism, so I can never vote for > anyone who is in favour of increasing the control of the state or who > increases taxes. > > If the choice was completely free however, I would vote for Ron Paul or > probably someone even more freedom oriented who never even made it > through the media out of the US. > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Wed, 16 Aug 2023, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > > > Two main groups called themselves libertarians (lowercase). The > > political Libertarians were so fractious they could not get along with > > each other or anyone else. > > > > Anyway, the two groups were known as the Space Cadets, people who got > > their political philosophy from Heinlein, and the Ranroids, followers > > of Ayn Rand. > > > > One day the religious-like intense attraction of Rand might be > > understood. 13-year-old boys seem to be particularly affected, some of > > them never recovering. Speculation on this included the idea that > > boys of that age are selfish and that Rand's objectivism glorifies > > selfishness. Rand's view of the world is in opposition to > > evolutionary psychology, which makes the case that we should value > > others because of shared genes. > > > > The Space Cadets are easier to get along with. > > > > While the early extropians leaned libertarian, most of them were easy > > going about it. Because so many of the early L5 Society members were > > Heinlein fans, that organization leaned libertarian as well. > > > > Keith > > > > On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:20?AM Giulio Prisco wrote: > >> > >> On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 9:13?PM John Clark wrote: > >> > > >> > On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 2:58?PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > >> > > >> >> > We, or at least most of us, are libertarians. > >> > > >> > > >> > I once called myself a libertarian but the meaning of the word has changed so radically that I can't do that anymore. These days most "libertarians" are just Trump zombies. > >> > > >> > >> I once did NOT call myself a libertarian because I didn't like the > >> excessive emphasis on property and guns. But now I do call myself a > >> libertarian, or at least a libertarian at heart, because today's > >> "culture" in the West is becoming anti-libertarian and this must be > >> stopped. I'm a libertarian in the true sense of the word: one who > >> thinks that one should be free to think/speak/do whatever the fuck he > >> likes as long as he doesn't interfere with the freedom of others to do > >> the same. And by the way, I prefer Trump to cancel culture. > >> > >> >> > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? > >> > > >> > > >> > The freedom to inject any chemical we wish into our bodies, including cyanide. > >> > > >> > John K Clark > >> > > >> > > >> > -- > >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > >> > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv3FDCRJKb2dy2nwgWDX8Q8CL%3DOxbtZj%2BF3E9fFhPc8LVA%40mail.gmail.com. > >> > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > >> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAKTCJycPXYCvxEsAiwoZNDcbir%2BXBzv12Meqt5eR7ZsZd9EXiw%40mail.gmail.com. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 16 22:23:50 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 15:23:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians >...The interesting thing is not about Trump himself but the cult following he has. ... >...The worst part of understanding human psychological traits is that there does not seem to be a thing you do about the situation. Keith Hi Keith, all of this, I agree. But there is another dimension to all this which is critically important, seldom getting mentioned. Well before the current front runner was making his breezy cultic speeches, we saw a comment by his opponent which included the phrase "...if the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the money..." We knew that was illegal as all hell. Neither the VP who uttered that comment nor the POTUS has the authority to do that. Congress makes that call, and it didn't carry any conditions about prosecutors being fired. We could not and still cannot explain that by any other plausible means besides bribery. Americans were not aware of the bribery allegations at the time, but we are aware of them now, and now it all makes sense. We don't know for sure why he did it, but we know the leading explanation. So it isn't so much that 2016 voters were fans of the guy who won. But we cannot and will not vote for anyone under any circumstances who committed a crime, then admitted it on video. Part of being (my brand of) libertarian is wanting fewer laws, along with stricter, more consistent application of the laws that do remain. We know, and knew at the time, that the quid pro quo was illegal, never mind the still-unproven bribery motive. spike From atymes at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 23:04:18 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 16:04:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 3:26?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Well before the current front runner was making his breezy cultic > speeches, we saw a comment by his opponent which included the phrase "...if > the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the money..." > It looks like that is another debunked claim of Trump's. https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_b45b04e0-8bd4-4d16-8040-18d0897185f0 https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trump-revives-false-narrative-on-biden-and-ukraine/ At this point, most claims that Joe Biden acted illegally should be fact checked before being cited, because there have been so many false claims about that in the recent past. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 16 23:18:38 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 16:18:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 3:26?PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Well before the current front runner was making his breezy cultic speeches, we saw a comment by his opponent which included the phrase "...if the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the money..." It looks like that is another debunked claim of Trump's. https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_b45b04e0-8bd4-4d16-8040-18d0897185f0 https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trump-revives-false-narrative-on-biden-and-ukraine/ At this point, most claims that Joe Biden acted illegally should be fact checked before being cited, because there have been so many false claims about that in the recent past? Adrian, that quid pro quo comment was illegal. No need to mention any other politician in any other position, no need to reference international community (the guy who uttered the quid pro quo comment didn?t and doesn?t work for the international community.) It doesn?t matter if he was carrying out the policy of the then-POTUS because POTUS didn?t have that authority to make that demand either. Congress alone makes the call on international military aid, and that condition is nowhere to be found in the documentation that congress wanted a prosecutor fired. So we are still stuck without a motive, for what is clearly an illegal act: gross abuse of power. The FBI has suggested (in an inexplicably unclassified F-1023) a clear motive for that illegal act. To clarify: regardless of motive, demanding a foreign government?s prosecutor to be fired as condition of receiving international aid already approved by congress is illegal. It doesn?t matter what else, a VP does not have that authority, nor does POTUS. Congress makes that call. They didn?t. So? we are left with a blank on motive. The FBI has suggested one that looks pretty plausible to me. The IRS has seen money trails, but didn?t know (and still doesn?t) where those lead or why they exist. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 23:26:22 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 16:26:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 4:21?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians > > > > On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 3:26?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Well before the current front runner was making his breezy cultic > speeches, we saw a comment by his opponent which included the phrase "...if > the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the money..." > > > > It looks like that is another debunked claim of Trump's. > > > https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_b45b04e0-8bd4-4d16-8040-18d0897185f0 > > > https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trump-revives-false-narrative-on-biden-and-ukraine/ > > > > > At this point, most claims that Joe Biden acted illegally should be fact > checked before being cited, because there have been so many false claims > about that in the recent past? > > > > > > > > > > Adrian, that quid pro quo comment was illegal. > According to the fact checkers, it appears that Joe Biden never actually said that comment, but instead that Trump made it up. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 16 23:35:50 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 16:35:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <011001d9d09a$6471a250$2d54e6f0$@rainier66.com> >>?Adrian, that quid pro quo comment was illegal? spike >?According to the fact checkers, it appears that Joe Biden never actually said that comment, but instead that Trump made it up. Deep fakes? That fake are some pretty dang deep one: (20+) Video | Facebook Joe Biden: "If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money - YouTube It looks like a deep real to me. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 16 23:38:39 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 16:38:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <011001d9d09a$6471a250$2d54e6f0$@rainier66.com> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> <011001d9d09a$6471a250$2d54e6f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <011701d9d09a$c9458de0$5bd0a9a0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Sent: Wednesday, 16 August, 2023 4:36 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Cc: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians >>?Adrian, that quid pro quo comment was illegal? spike >?According to the fact checkers, it appears that Joe Biden never actually said that comment, but instead that Trump made it up. >?Deep fakes? That fake are some pretty dang deep one: (20+) Video | Facebook Joe Biden: "If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money - YouTube >?It looks like a deep real to me. spike My previous links didn?t go there. Google on ?if the prosecutor?s not fired? Quid Pro Quo Joe: Biden Brags About Getting Ukraine Prosecutor Viktor Shokin Fired - YouTube spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 16 23:47:34 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 16:47:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <012601d9d09b$cb210f30$61632d90$@rainier66.com> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> <011001d9d09a$6471a250$2d54e6f0$@rainier66.com> <011701d9d09a$c9458de0$5bd0a9a0$@rainier66.com> <012601d9d09b$cb210f30$61632d90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <012d01d9d09c$08045ec0$180d1c40$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Sent: Wednesday, 16 August, 2023 4:46 PM Cc: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians From: spike at rainier66.com > ? >?My previous links didn?t go there. Google on ?if the prosecutor?s not fired? Quid Pro Quo Joe: Biden Brags About Getting Ukraine Prosecutor Viktor Shokin Fired - YouTube >?spike Very odd. For some reason, Face Book and You Tube flatly refuse to go directly to those videos. Did anyone else here have those links fail? Do these work any better? Opinion: Joe Biden Forced Ukraine to Fire Prosecutor for Aid Money (wsj.com) Biden's televised confession 2018: "I said... you?re not getting the billion dollars... I'm leaving in 6 hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money." (rumble.com) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 16 23:51:18 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 16:51:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <012d01d9d09c$08045ec0$180d1c40$@rainier66.com> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> <011001d9d09a$6471a250$2d54e6f0$@rainier66.com> <011701d9d09a$c9458de0$5bd0a9a0$@rainier66.com> <012601d9d09b$cb210f30$61632d90$@rainier66.com> <012d01d9d09c$08045ec0$180d1c40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <014301d9d09c$8da18a30$a8e49e90$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Sent: Wednesday, 16 August, 2023 4:48 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Cc: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians From: spike at rainier66.com > Sent: Wednesday, 16 August, 2023 4:46 PM Cc: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians From: spike at rainier66.com > ? >?My previous links didn?t go there. Google on ?if the prosecutor?s not fired? Quid Pro Quo Joe: Biden Brags About Getting Ukraine Prosecutor Viktor Shokin Fired - YouTube >?spike >?Very odd. For some reason, Face Book and You Tube flatly refuse to go directly to those videos. Did anyone else here have those links fail? >?Do these work any better? Opinion: Joe Biden Forced Ukraine to Fire Prosecutor for Aid Money (wsj.com) Biden's televised confession 2018: "I said... you?re not getting the billion dollars... I'm leaving in 6 hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money." (rumble.com) >?spike Well OK then. I can?t get any of these links to work. I can?t tell if I am doing something wrong or these links are systematically blocked. DuckDuckGo can find the videos, I can go there and play them, even Google can find them, but I can?t paste links that go directly to the video. Has anyone else here seen the video containing a guy who looks way more like the then-VP than it does the former POTUS who is said to have made it up? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 01:00:39 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 18:00:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <014301d9d09c$8da18a30$a8e49e90$@rainier66.com> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> <011001d9d09a$6471a250$2d54e6f0$@rainier66.com> <011701d9d09a$c9458de0$5bd0a9a0$@rainier66.com> <012601d9d09b$cb210f30$61632d90$@rainier66.com> <012d01d9d09c$08045ec0$180d1c40$@rainier66.com> <014301d9d09c$8da18a30$a8e49e90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000901d9d0a6$3dd46ae0$b97d40a0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com ? >?Well OK then. I can?t get any of these links to work. I can?t tell if I am doing something wrong? spike OK well I eventually got this one to work, but only by copy/pasting the URL into the go line: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=196947478124769 I think something is wonky with my computer. The fact checkers might have the same problem, and if so, I understand why they never heard of this comment in the video above. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From snapbag at proton.me Thu Aug 17 02:23:05 2023 From: snapbag at proton.me (Dave S) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 02:23:05 +0000 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Wednesday, August 16th, 2023 at 4:39 PM, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > I'm not american but given the choice of only Biden or Trump, I prefer > Trump. I've seen and lived under socialism and that is why I prefer > Trump over Biden any time any day. I met and spoken with way too many > people who lived under soviet style socialism, so I can never vote for > anyone who is in favour of increasing the control of the state or who > increases taxes. There's never only a choice between Biden and Trump. Trump "supports" some good positions, but his track record of actually doing what he said he was going to do is abysmal. He's also a con artist and a horrible person. I never voted for Biden and never will. Same for Trump. -Dave From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 06:10:59 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 23:10:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] self-driving taxis are great fun Message-ID: <000701d9d0d1$98d88810$ca899830$@rainier66.com> After all this time, I managed to come up with an idea BEFORE some other goofball thinks of it first. Perhaps you will recall a discussion here about a logical use of self-driving cars and taxis. Here ya go: https://jalopnik.com/people-are-already-having-sex-in-san-franciscos-robotax -1850731157 Usually my best ideas are already being done somewhere by the time I think of it. I don't recall when this discussion took place, but I think it was about 4 or 5 years ago in this forum. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 06:16:44 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 23:16:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] self-driving taxis are great fun In-Reply-To: <000701d9d0d1$98d88810$ca899830$@rainier66.com> References: <000701d9d0d1$98d88810$ca899830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001001d9d0d2$65cfb140$316f13c0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Subject: self-driving taxis are great fun >.After all this time, I managed to come up with an idea BEFORE some other goofball thinks of it first. https://jalopnik.com/people-are-already-having-sex-in-san-franciscos-robotax -1850731157 spike Owww, the next part is more disturbing. As I recall, the follow on to the taxi scenario was that a coupla guys would work together, step out in front of a robotaxi which will stop, then the other guy robs the fucking passengers at gunpoint. It would be so easy: he would compel them to hand over all their clothing, which would likely mean the nekkid victims would have no cell phone with which to alert the authorities and would be ill-suited to report the crime. Or more precisely, unsuited for that task. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 06:29:52 2023 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:29:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2023. Aug 16., Wed at 17:56, John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 5:20?AM Giulio Prisco wrote: > > * > I once did NOT call myself a libertarian because I didn't like >> the excessive emphasis on property and guns.* > > > Because I'm a material being I like the emphasis on property, but I was > never a big fan of guns. These days the only part of the US Constitution > "libertarians" give a shit about is the second amendment; forget about > torture and the lack of freedom of the press, for them 1984 would be a > paradise if people were just allowed to keep their guns. > > > >> *I prefer Trump to cancel culture.* > > > I just don't understand how you can say that!. Yes extreme wokeness is stupid > and it can be annoying but it's not catastrophic, however handing the > keys to a nuclear missile submarine over to a fascist imbecile who broke > the 250 year tradition of a peaceful transfer of power by staging an > unsuccessful coup d'?tat would be. And Trump is also the most > anti-libertarian president in American history; women should not have the > right to have control of their own bodies, the freedom of the press > should be limited so that the president can sue reporters if they say > something he doesn't like, the federal government should stop the states > from legalizing marijuana, laws should be strengthened to stop people from > reading pornography.... > I didn?t say that I like Trump. I said that I prefer Trump to woke cancel ?culture,? like I would prefer losing one leg to losing both. The woke ?culture? of whining and mobbing instead of striving and arguing will have catastrophic consequences if we don?t stop it now. > > * > now I do call myself a libertarian, or at least a libertarian at >> heart, because today's"culture" in the West is becoming anti-libertarian >> and this must be stopped.* > > > For nearly 8 years I've been asking, almost begging, people who called > themselves libertarians to explain to me how they can feel any emotion > other than contempt or revulsion for a creature like Donald Trump, but I > never received an answer that contained even a fragment of rationality. In > fact I was kicked off the Extropian List for asking that question too > often. > > *> I'm a libertarian in the true sense of the word: one whothinks that one >> should be free to think/speak/do whatever the fuck he likes as long as he >> doesn't interfere with the freedom of others to do the same.* > > > I agree completely. But you expect that if Trump is back in the White > House it will help to achieve that noble goal ?!! > No, and I hope you guys will choose another Republican candidate. But again, continuing with current trends would be so detrimental to that noble goal than everything is better than that. > John K Clark > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv0xcMxbv117-fEVKnAFDDWwDKKrXa4cpyxha8b%2BVW1XDg%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 17 07:30:43 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:30:43 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <00bc01d9d089$a9f62c80$fde28580$@rainier66.com> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00bc01d9d089$a9f62c80$fde28580$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <5e38ca51-f176-4400-552a-3b1de87c1619@swisscows.email> Wow, that would be something! Maybe the timing is good and maybe people are getting tired of the endless democrat vs republican fights and want to do something finally? Best regards, Daniel On Wed, 16 Aug 2023, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > Daniel and MB, > > Stand by and watch. Ron Paul is an up and comer. We are seeing ever > accumulating evidence that Dr. Fauci played fast and loose with the facts, > and that he damn well did fund gain-of-function research in China and that > covid leaked out of the lab where the research was being done. Ron Paul was > the one who bird-dogged that investigation relentlessly. > > spike > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of MB > via extropy-chat > Sent: Wednesday, 16 August, 2023 2:17 PM > To: ExI chat list > Cc: MB > Subject: Re: [ExI] libertarians > >> ...What a lovely post! So glad to meet you. My kinda folks. :) > >> ...And 3 cheers for Ron Paul! I still have a t-shirt from that campaign. > > Regards, > MB > > On Wed, August 16, 2023 16:39, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: >> Hello guys, >> >>> ... I consider myself libertarian, classic liberal, anarcho-capitalist or >> just plain old capitalist depending on the company and how much I want >> to provoke people. >> >> I'm not american but given the choice of only Biden or Trump, I prefer >> Trump. I've seen and lived under socialism and that is why I prefer >> Trump over Biden any time any day. I met and spoken with way too many >> people who lived under soviet style socialism, so I can never vote for >> anyone who is in favour of increasing the control of the state or who >> increases taxes. >> >> If the choice was completely free however, I would vote for Ron Paul >> or probably someone even more freedom oriented who never even made it >> through the media out of the US. >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 17 07:35:51 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:35:51 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <6954093f-b536-23ae-8181-e64bd3d7c217@swisscows.email> Hello Keith, I agree with you. Bad times are here/are coming, and it is easy and comforting to find someone else to blame. Look at europe at the nationalist wave there for instance. Add to that, unusually incompetent and arrogant politicians in power. So when a "man of the people" comes who speaks, acts and voices the thoughts of the people instead of talking politicolese, it is very tempting for the common man to stick it to the professional politician and vote for one of their own. Here is where I think Trump shines. The way he expresses himself is so out of line compared with traditional politicians that he creates the illusion of being "one of us" (despite private jets etc. etc.). Now what I find interesting is that this is nothing new. Just look to history. And yet, people fall for it every time. If you can see that, if I can see that, why can't the majority? Is it genes, education, IQ or some other personality traits that allows some people to look at history and apply some metaperspective to what's happening in the world? Granted, historical performance does not guarantee future performance as every finance company says, but I do believe that we can learn lessons from history. Best regards, Daniel On Wed, 16 Aug 2023, Keith Henson wrote: > The interesting thing is not about Trump himself but the cult following he has. > > Why do large numbers of people act this way? You can get a hint from > looking at where most of the Trump followers are located. It's from > locations in the rust belt that are not doing well economically. > > Support for populist leaders in an economic downturn is not new. > Hitler rose to power in the economic disaster of Germany after WW I. > > I argue from evolutionary psychology that humans are evolved for war, > and the detection of bleak times coming starts the process that (in > the stone age) took a tribe from being on good terms with neighbors to > killing them. > > The enhanced circulation of xenophobic or just crazy memes is part of > this process. Consider the attacks on people outside the conventional > sex orientation or the Qanon nonsense. > > The worst part of understanding human psychological traits is that > there does not seem to be a thing you do about the situation. > > Keith > > On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 1:40?PM efc--- via extropy-chat > wrote: >> >> Hello guys, >> >> I consider myself libertarian, classic liberal, anarcho-capitalist or just >> plain old capitalist depending on the company and how much I want to >> provoke people. >> >> I'm not american but given the choice of only Biden or Trump, I prefer >> Trump. I've seen and lived under socialism and that is why I prefer >> Trump over Biden any time any day. I met and spoken with way too many >> people who lived under soviet style socialism, so I can never vote for >> anyone who is in favour of increasing the control of the state or who >> increases taxes. >> >> If the choice was completely free however, I would vote for Ron Paul or >> probably someone even more freedom oriented who never even made it >> through the media out of the US. >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> On Wed, 16 Aug 2023, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: >> >>> Two main groups called themselves libertarians (lowercase). The >>> political Libertarians were so fractious they could not get along with >>> each other or anyone else. >>> >>> Anyway, the two groups were known as the Space Cadets, people who got >>> their political philosophy from Heinlein, and the Ranroids, followers >>> of Ayn Rand. >>> >>> One day the religious-like intense attraction of Rand might be >>> understood. 13-year-old boys seem to be particularly affected, some of >>> them never recovering. Speculation on this included the idea that >>> boys of that age are selfish and that Rand's objectivism glorifies >>> selfishness. Rand's view of the world is in opposition to >>> evolutionary psychology, which makes the case that we should value >>> others because of shared genes. >>> >>> The Space Cadets are easier to get along with. >>> >>> While the early extropians leaned libertarian, most of them were easy >>> going about it. Because so many of the early L5 Society members were >>> Heinlein fans, that organization leaned libertarian as well. >>> >>> Keith >>> >>> On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:20?AM Giulio Prisco wrote: >>>> >>>> On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 9:13?PM John Clark wrote: >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 2:58?PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>> We, or at least most of us, are libertarians. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I once called myself a libertarian but the meaning of the word has changed so radically that I can't do that anymore. These days most "libertarians" are just Trump zombies. >>>>> >>>> >>>> I once did NOT call myself a libertarian because I didn't like the >>>> excessive emphasis on property and guns. But now I do call myself a >>>> libertarian, or at least a libertarian at heart, because today's >>>> "culture" in the West is becoming anti-libertarian and this must be >>>> stopped. I'm a libertarian in the true sense of the word: one who >>>> thinks that one should be free to think/speak/do whatever the fuck he >>>> likes as long as he doesn't interfere with the freedom of others to do >>>> the same. And by the way, I prefer Trump to cancel culture. >>>> >>>>>>> What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The freedom to inject any chemical we wish into our bodies, including cyanide. >>>>> >>>>> John K Clark >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. >>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >>>>> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv3FDCRJKb2dy2nwgWDX8Q8CL%3DOxbtZj%2BF3E9fFhPc8LVA%40mail.gmail.com. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >>>> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAKTCJycPXYCvxEsAiwoZNDcbir%2BXBzv12Meqt5eR7ZsZd9EXiw%40mail.gmail.com. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat_______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 17 07:45:34 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:45:34 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <014301d9d09c$8da18a30$a8e49e90$@rainier66.com> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> <011001d9d09a$6471a250$2d54e6f0$@rainier66.com> <011701d9d09a$c9458de0$5bd0a9a0$@rainier66.com> <012601d9d09b$cb210f30$61632d90$@rainier66.com> <012d01d9d09c$08045ec0$180d1c40$@rainier66.com> <014301d9d09c$8da18a30$a8e49e90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <63ea3c6c-29f1-a34c-a024-ce866fa15e31@swisscows.email> Hello Spike, The quid pro quo link worked for me, and yes, in the video Biden says what you said he said. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV-AS2USrH8) "If the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the money". Best regards, Daniel On Wed, 16 Aug 2023, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > > ? > > From: spike at rainier66.com > Sent: Wednesday, 16 August, 2023 4:48 PM > To: 'ExI chat list' > Cc: spike at rainier66.com > Subject: RE: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians > > ? > > ? > > ? > > From: spike at rainier66.com > Sent: Wednesday, 16 August, 2023 4:46 PM > Cc: spike at rainier66.com > Subject: RE: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians > > ? > > ? > > ? > > From: spike at rainier66.com > ? > > ? > > >?My previous links didn?t go there.? Google on ?if the prosecutor?s not fired? > > ? > > Quid Pro Quo Joe: Biden Brags About Getting Ukraine Prosecutor Viktor Shokin Fired - YouTube > > ? > > >?spike > > ? > > ? > > ? > > >?Very odd.? For some reason, Face Book and You Tube flatly refuse to go directly to those videos.? Did anyone else here have those > links fail? > > ? > > >?Do these work any better? > > ? > > Opinion: Joe Biden Forced Ukraine to Fire Prosecutor for Aid Money (wsj.com) > > ? > > Biden's televised confession 2018: "I said... you?re not getting the billion dollars... I'm leaving in 6 hours. If the prosecutor is > not fired, you're not getting the money." (rumble.com) > > ? > > ? > > >?spike > > ? > > ? > > ? > > Well OK then.? I can?t get any of these links to work.? I can?t tell if I am doing something wrong or these links are systematically > blocked.? DuckDuckGo can find the videos, I can go there and play them, even Google can find them, but I can?t paste links that go > directly to the video.? Has anyone else here seen the video containing a guy who looks way more like the then-VP than it does the > former POTUS who is said to have made it up? > > ? > > spike > > > From giulio at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 14:13:47 2023 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 16:13:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:48?AM John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 2:30?AM Giulio Prisco wrote: > >> > The woke ?culture? of whining and mobbing instead of striving and arguing will have catastrophic consequences if we don?t stop it now. > > > Woke culture is certainly annoying, but it won't be more catastrophic than the USA turning into a fascist dictatorship, and if Trump really wins the 2024 election (he will certainly claim he won regardless of what the vote turns out to be) I believe it will be the last election this country ever sees. And speaking of whining, Donald Trump is constantly whining about how the world has treated this son of a billionaire so so unfairly. > > As a European you're much closer to Putin's Ukrainian war then I am, so how do you feel about Trump being so buddy-buddy with his best friend Vladimir Putin and wanting the US to pull out of NATO because it's "obsolete"? I think Putin knows that the only hope he has of coming out of this war alive and in one piece is if he can hang on until January 20 2025 and Trump becomes the new president. > Again, at times one is forced to choose between losing one leg and losing both. I don't like Trump and I very much dislike Putin, but I'm afraid the woke thing is the two legs. > John K Clark > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv2KdiK%2BwrqwmSrdY6qd%3DR7MP839Q9Rbb%3DUqJ%2B%2B-dOKmhg%40mail.gmail.com. From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 14:16:02 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 07:16:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <5e38ca51-f176-4400-552a-3b1de87c1619@swisscows.email> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00bc01d9d089$a9f62c80$fde28580$@rainier66.com> <5e38ca51-f176-4400-552a-3b1de87c1619@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <004301d9d115$5be939b0$13bbad10$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: efc at swisscows.email Subject: Re: [ExI] libertarians >...Wow, that would be something! Maybe the timing is good and maybe people are getting tired of the endless democrat vs republican fights and want to do something finally? Best regards, Daniel If it is ever going to happen Daniel, it will be next year. Both mainstream parties are heading towards nominating extremely unpopular candidates, one of which might be in the depths of impeachment hearings and the other one in court or in jail. The current civil war in US government isn't going to settle down by Nov 2024. There are compelling candidates out there who can beat both of them. Sure would be nice to see the duopoly broken. spike From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 14:23:00 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 07:23:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <63ea3c6c-29f1-a34c-a024-ce866fa15e31@swisscows.email> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00d501d9d090$55a253f0$00e6fbd0$@rainier66.com> <00f301d9d097$fd68e750$f83ab5f0$@rainier66.com> <011001d9d09a$6471a250$2d54e6f0$@rainier66.com> <011701d9d09a$c9458de0$5bd0a9a0$@rainier66.com> <012601d9d09b$cb210f30$61632d90$@rainier66.com> <012d01d9d09c$08045ec0$180d1c40$@rainier66.com> <014301d9d09c$8da18a30$a8e49e90$@rainier66.com> <63ea3c6c-29f1-a34c-a024-ce866fa15e31@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <004401d9d116$5416b400$fc441c00$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of efc--- via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians Hello Spike, >...The quid pro quo link worked for me, and yes, in the video Biden says what you said he said. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV-AS2USrH8) "If the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the money". Best regards, Daniel But is it a deep fake? Because if it is real, that implicates the hell outta congress. Reasoning: that is clearly corruption, abuse of power, defying the will of congress. So the guy who requested Ukraine look into that in what sounded like a hint toward a quid pro quo was making a perfectly legitimate request without an explicit quid pro quo: look into what is actual literal corruption, an explicit quid pro quo. So the guy who legitimately requested an investigation was impeached and the guy who committed the actual corruption was not? Indeed? Conclusion: either that video is a really good deep fake, or... the US congress is complicit in corruption. Most disturbing. spike From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 14:34:19 2023 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:34:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> References: <4A65A716-5464-461F-8BF5-8C3EC1748376@gmail.com> Message-ID: Yes, this thread is wonderful. LOVE hearing what everyone thinks like this. Here's what I think: What Freedoms do we Lack? On Sun, Aug 13, 2023 at 1:17?PM Gadersd via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? > > > Assisted suicide. > > On Aug 13, 2023, at 2:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > We, or at least most of us, are libertarians. Here's a thought: > > What freedoms do we not have that we should have or need to have? bill > w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 15:07:25 2023 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:07:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I didn't realize there were this many people that think Trump is Better than Biden, here. I sure think it'd be great to know how many people are on what side of this issue. Here is what I think. On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 12:30?AM Giulio Prisco wrote: > > On 2023. Aug 16., Wed at 17:56, John Clark wrote: > >> On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 5:20?AM Giulio Prisco wrote: >> >> * > I once did NOT call myself a libertarian because I didn't like >>> the excessive emphasis on property and guns.* >> >> >> Because I'm a material being I like the emphasis on property, but I was >> never a big fan of guns. These days the only part of the US Constitution >> "libertarians" give a shit about is the second amendment; forget about >> torture and the lack of freedom of the press, for them 1984 would be a >> paradise if people were just allowed to keep their guns. >> >> > >>> *I prefer Trump to cancel culture.* >> >> >> I just don't understand how you can say that!. Yes extreme wokeness is stupid >> and it can be annoying but it's not catastrophic, however handing the >> keys to a nuclear missile submarine over to a fascist imbecile who broke >> the 250 year tradition of a peaceful transfer of power by staging an >> unsuccessful coup d'?tat would be. And Trump is also the most >> anti-libertarian president in American history; women should not have the >> right to have control of their own bodies, the freedom of the press >> should be limited so that the president can sue reporters if they say >> something he doesn't like, the federal government should stop the states >> from legalizing marijuana, laws should be strengthened to stop people from >> reading pornography.... >> > > I didn?t say that I like Trump. I said that I prefer Trump to woke cancel > ?culture,? like I would prefer losing one leg to losing both. The woke > ?culture? of whining and mobbing instead of striving and arguing will have > catastrophic consequences if we don?t stop it now. > > >> >> * > now I do call myself a libertarian, or at least a libertarian at >>> heart, because today's"culture" in the West is becoming anti-libertarian >>> and this must be stopped.* >> >> >> For nearly 8 years I've been asking, almost begging, people who called >> themselves libertarians to explain to me how they can feel any emotion >> other than contempt or revulsion for a creature like Donald Trump, but I >> never received an answer that contained even a fragment of rationality. In >> fact I was kicked off the Extropian List for asking that question too >> often. >> >> *> I'm a libertarian in the true sense of the word: one whothinks that >>> one should be free to think/speak/do whatever the fuck he likes as long as >>> he doesn't interfere with the freedom of others to do the same.* >> >> >> I agree completely. But you expect that if Trump is back in the White >> House it will help to achieve that noble goal ?!! >> > > No, and I hope you guys will choose another Republican candidate. But > again, continuing with current trends would be so detrimental to that noble > goal than everything is better than that. > > >> John K Clark >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "extropolis" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv0xcMxbv117-fEVKnAFDDWwDKKrXa4cpyxha8b%2BVW1XDg%40mail.gmail.com >> >> . >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAKTCJycmQZGqb_hX6qxp_q4bMCBLV5196_bQDzELzDPQiV1yYQ%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 15:20:13 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:20:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001801d9d11e$5223eb10$f66bc130$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Brent Allsop via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians >?I didn't realize there were this many people that think Trump is Better than Biden, here. I sure think it'd be great to know how many people are on what side of this issue. Here is what I think. Brent this observation has likely been influenced by how the past three years have gone. It argues for ranked voting a proliferation of parties. Having just two parties dominate everything leads to bad outcomes, just as California?s defacto single party system does. Eventually a two-party system leads to civil war in government, as has been raging for about the past 6 to 10 years, growing steadily hotter. There is a cool side benefit however: waaaay better transparency in government than we have ever seen. Cover ups are being exposed. We are finding out how deep the corruption goes, which appears deep indeed. If that quid pro quo video is real, that implicates the hell outta congress for instance. If the 1023 revealed by congress recently is real, it implicates the hell outta the FBI. If the IRS is telling the truth, it implicates the hell outta the Department of Justice, who the IRS claims ordered them to stand down on mysterious money trails, which it is the IRS? job to investigate. That is a lotta potential corruption, and it is very widespread. Regarding proliferation of parties, what that does is create the need for coalitions in government. So the end game in that is to still have (functionally) two sides, even without having two dominant parties. The two sides gain power by collecting coalitions, or groups of parties. Britain gets it mostly right here, with their three major parties, all needing to form coalitions. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 15:41:42 2023 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:41:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians In-Reply-To: <001801d9d11e$5223eb10$f66bc130$@rainier66.com> References: <001801d9d11e$5223eb10$f66bc130$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike, Thanks for this info. It's nice to hear about some benefits of all this bleating and tweeting polarization. On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 9:22?AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Brent Allsop via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] libertarians > > > > > > >?I didn't realize there were this many people that think Trump is Better > than Biden, here. > > I sure think it'd be great to know how many people are on what side of > this issue. > > Here is what I think. > > > > > > > > > Brent this observation has likely been influenced by how the past three > years have gone. > > > > It argues for ranked voting a proliferation of parties. Having just two > parties dominate everything leads to bad outcomes, just as California?s > defacto single party system does. Eventually a two-party system leads to > civil war in government, as has been raging for about the past 6 to 10 > years, growing steadily hotter. > > > > There is a cool side benefit however: waaaay better transparency in > government than we have ever seen. Cover ups are being exposed. We are > finding out how deep the corruption goes, which appears deep indeed. If > that quid pro quo video is real, that implicates the hell outta congress > for instance. If the 1023 revealed by congress recently is real, it > implicates the hell outta the FBI. If the IRS is telling the truth, it > implicates the hell outta the Department of Justice, who the IRS claims > ordered them to stand down on mysterious money trails, which it is the IRS? > job to investigate. > > > > That is a lotta potential corruption, and it is very widespread. > > > > Regarding proliferation of parties, what that does is create the need for > coalitions in government. So the end game in that is to still have > (functionally) two sides, even without having two dominant parties. The > two sides gain power by collecting coalitions, or groups of parties. > Britain gets it mostly right here, with their three major parties, all > needing to form coalitions. > > > > 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 15:48:53 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 10:48:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] brainwashing Message-ID: Are some people zombies, who have been conditioned against their will to believe something/someone? Here is a Quora answer of mine: The 20th century saw lots of theories of learning and conditioning. Unfortunately that and the Korean imprisonment of our soldiers and being subjected to brainwashing, has given people the idea that they can be turned into zombies who just believe whatever they are taught. This is certainly not the case. Brainwashing was a misnomer for sure. Those who came back showed no evidence of loss of control over their opinions and beliefs. I seem to recall that one guy had become a communist. Thus, no one is really totally locked in to their opinions, except maybe for flat earthers and a few others who cling to ideas despite tons of evidence against them. Free will is a powerful thing. We are not easily conditioned. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 15:54:54 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:54:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? Message-ID: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> I just heard that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) is banning transgender women from competing in women's chess. Scandal! Just when I think this old world has achieved peak silliness, we seem to discover new pinnacles of silliness. This might have a downside however. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 16:01:06 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 11:01:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike - what would happen if someone dressed up like a crossdressing female (that is, dressed as male), but was actually male? Will they have people strip to qualify as the gender they claim? bill w On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 10:57?AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > I just heard that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) is banning > transgender women from competing in women?s chess. Scandal! > > > > Just when I think this old world has achieved peak silliness, we seem to > discover new pinnacles of silliness. > > > > This might have a downside however. > > > > 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 pharos at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 16:11:21 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 17:11:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 17 Aug 2023 at 16:58, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > I just heard that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) is banning transgender women from competing in women?s chess. Scandal! > Just when I think this old world has achieved peak silliness, we seem to discover new pinnacles of silliness. > This might have a downside however. > > spike > _______________________________________________ Hmmm - I'm not sure if transgender women would have an advantage when competing in chest tournaments. :) BillK From interzone at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 16:22:30 2023 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 12:22:30 -0400 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I don't know whether it is actually silly if we dig down on it. Out of curiosity, are you in favor of banning biological men from women's sports? I would guess you probably are due to the very obvious physical advantages that biological men have over women. For the record, I am completely against transwomen competing in women's sports for these biological reasons, particularly in things like UFC/MMA, swimming, track&field, powerlifting, etc. So back to chess...Although I don't think there is enough real data to be sure, an argument can be made on the biological front there as well as to why biological men/transwomen should not be allowed to compete in women's chess. Men may hold a biological advantage there as well in terms of brain differences, and the effects of testosterone on risk taking. You could also make the argument that even if the perceived superiority of men in playing chess is due purely to cultural issues and the sheer numbers of men who play chess compared to women that allowing biological men/transwomen to compete there would put women at a disadvantage overall. All that said, since noone is going to get injured playing chess, I am more inclined to say allow transwomen to compete there and see what the outcomes are as I don't think we have enough data to know for sure that men have an innate advantage over women in the chess arena. While I agree with you that it seems silly on its face compared to the more clear cut case of physical sports, I don't think the ban is entirely without merit and shouldn't be immediately laughed off. Like I said though, the consequences of allowing them to compete in chess pale in comparison to physical sports, so maybe we should just see what happens and collect more data before enacting a ban prematurely. On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:56?AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > I just heard that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) is banning > transgender women from competing in women?s chess. Scandal! > > > > Just when I think this old world has achieved peak silliness, we seem to > discover new pinnacles of silliness. > > > > This might have a downside however. > > > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 16:48:34 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:48:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007901d9d12a$aa6ca9e0$ff45fda0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Thursday, 17 August, 2023 9:01 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] et tu chess? Spike - what would happen if someone dressed up like a crossdressing female (that is, dressed as male), but was actually male? Will they have people strip to qualify as the gender they claim? bill w I don?t know. Interesting question however: we already have transgender women in the women?s locker room, as we anticipated years ago. But we haven?t (as far as I know) had an XX with all that marvelous XX equipment claiming to be transgender and showing up in the men?s shower. Somehow I just don?t think that would upset the men nearly as much as it does the women. I don?t think they would mind at all. She wouldn?t bother me a bit. Depending of course on how one defines ?bother.? I have long wondered what would happen if a drag queen was actually female, as in Victor Victoria. Would that be considered fraud? And what if? an actual XX chose to compete in men?s chess. Oh wait, that has happened, Judit Polgar. She made it up to about #8 in the world as I recall. In any case, this is one of those where I have no dog in this fight. I am so boring in the whole gender struggle department, if they made a porno movie about me, they would call it Two Shades of Gray (Black and White.) It would be a really short boring movie I fear. Low cost to make and all that, but? probably not a big money maker in the porno/comedy genre. spike On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 10:57?AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: I just heard that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) is banning transgender women from competing in women?s chess. Scandal! Just when I think this old world has achieved peak silliness, we seem to discover new pinnacles of silliness. This might have a downside however. 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 atymes at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 16:58:05 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:58:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] libertarians In-Reply-To: <004301d9d115$5be939b0$13bbad10$@rainier66.com> References: <900463ed-cb4f-0e98-b4a0-0af34bb349ed@swisscows.email> <00bc01d9d089$a9f62c80$fde28580$@rainier66.com> <5e38ca51-f176-4400-552a-3b1de87c1619@swisscows.email> <004301d9d115$5be939b0$13bbad10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 7:18?AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > From: efc at swisscows.email > >...Wow, that would be something! Maybe the timing is good and maybe people > are getting tired of the endless democrat vs republican fights and want to > do something finally? > > If it is ever going to happen Daniel, it will be next year. Both > mainstream > parties are heading towards nominating extremely unpopular candidates, one > of which might be in the depths of impeachment hearings and the other one > in > court or in jail. The current civil war in US government isn't going to > settle down by Nov 2024. There are compelling candidates out there who can > beat both of them. Sure would be nice to see the duopoly broken. > They've already effectively quashed it for next year. See the bipartisan maneuvers, across many states, against the No Labels attempt. 2028 remains possible at this time, though. I suspect that a far more viable way to break the duopoly starts with state legislatures and Congressional candidates, and does not try to field a Presidential candidate until after it has a significant number of elected officials in enough states to have a mathematical chance of winning the Electoral College. Not "run a Presidential candidate as well as state candidates" (because the Presidential campaign will drain so much resources and attention that effective state campaigns won't be run), not "endorse those who are also Democrats or Republicans" (because they are Democrats or Republicans first and, for most purposes, only - regardless of any third party endorsement). Such a party might usefully start by targeting districts where the incumbent was unopposed - or virtually so - in the previous cycle, particularly Republican ones since they seem to deliver on less promises (to the majority of voters) than Democratic ones. Have each candidate focus on the still-unmet demands of their local voters (which any non-country-wide campaign should do, another reason to take the initial focus off a Presidential run). The third party would be at a major fundraising disadvantage, but there are many proven tricks to get votes without lots of money: elections aren't literally purchased by the highest bidder. There are tricks to effective monetary deployment, and what matters in the end is votes, not dollars. Even getting to just 10 Representatives who identify as the same third party - and not as Democrat or Republican - would get enough attention to start offsetting that fundraising disadvantage. Besides, to truly break the logjam, a third party would need Congress more than the Presidency. Congress makes the laws - and with enough of a majority, Congress can override Presidential vetoes. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 17 16:59:24 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 18:59:24 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> What about the extremely radical suggestion to scrap gender classes in chess? I can see the point in physical sports, but not quite in mental sports. Best regards, Daniel On Thu, 17 Aug 2023, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > I don't know whether it is actually silly if we dig down on it.? ?Out of curiosity, are you in favor of banning biological men from > women's sports?? ?I would guess you probably are due to the very obvious physical advantages that biological men have over women.? > ?For the record, I am completely against transwomen?competing in women's sports for these biological reasons, particularly in things > like UFC/MMA, swimming, track&field, powerlifting, etc. > So back to chess...Although I don't think there is enough real data to be sure, an argument can be made on the biological front there > as well as to why biological men/transwomen should not be allowed to compete in women's chess.? ? Men may hold a biological advantage > there as well in terms of brain differences, and the effects of testosterone on risk taking.? ? > > You could also make the argument that even if the perceived superiority of men in playing chess is due purely to cultural issues and > the sheer numbers of men who play chess compared to women that allowing biological men/transwomen?to compete there would put women at > a disadvantage overall. > > All that said, since noone is going to get injured playing chess, I am more inclined to say allow transwomen to compete there and see > what the outcomes are as I don't think we have enough data to know for sure that men have an innate advantage over women in the chess > arena. > > While I agree with you that it seems silly on its face compared to the more clear cut case of physical sports, I don't think the ban > is entirely without merit and shouldn't be immediately laughed off.? ?Like I said though, the consequences of allowing them to > compete in chess pale in comparison to physical sports, so maybe we should just see what happens and collect more data before > enacting a ban prematurely. > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:56?AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > > I just heard that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) is banning transgender women from competing in women?s > chess.? Scandal! > > ? > > Just when I think this old world has achieved peak silliness, we seem to discover new pinnacles of silliness.? > > ? > > This might have a downside however. > > ? > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 17:01:26 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 10:01:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00a101d9d12c$7681e210$6385a630$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] et tu chess? >?I don't know whether it is actually silly if we dig down on it. Out of curiosity, are you in favor of banning biological men from women's sports? Dylan there are some areas where I just stand down and watch. I don?t consider myself qualified to comment on that topic, so I respectfully (even if mirthfully) listen to what others say on these matters. I will add that in some sports, such as power lifting, the whole concept leads to delightful silliness. Recently the world record women?s deadlifting record was shattered by a transgender. The XX whose record was crushed has a boyfriend who is one of the top ten men?s power lifters. He went in a coupla weeks ago, full beard, no name change, no pink ribbons in his hair, registered in the women?s division, crushed the record of the transgender. He wasn?t trying to pretend he was a woman (exactly) but rather it was a form of protest. Shrugs. Dylan that situation is above my pay grade. An interesting angle on this is that it involves the international community. The rest of the world just isn?t ready for the old multiple genders notion that we westerners are doing. In most of the world, men and women are two different things, and there just isn?t anything else. Agreed no one gets injured playing chess. I have had my pride injured, when I screwed up and a much lower-rated player brutally smashed my flawed defense. But my pride heals quickly, and without leaving a scar. I am all ears if others have insights on this topic. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 17:05:03 2023 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 13:05:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Yeah, to be clear, I don't really disagree with you in the mental arena, but would be interesting to hear from some actual women competitors in chess to see what their opinion(s) on the matter is. On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 1:00?PM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What about the extremely radical suggestion to scrap gender classes in > chess? > > I can see the point in physical sports, but not quite in mental sports. > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Thu, 17 Aug 2023, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > > > I don't know whether it is actually silly if we dig down on it. Out of > curiosity, are you in favor of banning biological men from > > women's sports? I would guess you probably are due to the very obvious > physical advantages that biological men have over women. > > For the record, I am completely against transwomen competing in women's > sports for these biological reasons, particularly in things > > like UFC/MMA, swimming, track&field, powerlifting, etc. > > So back to chess...Although I don't think there is enough real data to > be sure, an argument can be made on the biological front there > > as well as to why biological men/transwomen should not be allowed to > compete in women's chess. Men may hold a biological advantage > > there as well in terms of brain differences, and the effects of > testosterone on risk taking. > > > > You could also make the argument that even if the perceived superiority > of men in playing chess is due purely to cultural issues and > > the sheer numbers of men who play chess compared to women that allowing > biological men/transwomen to compete there would put women at > > a disadvantage overall. > > > > All that said, since noone is going to get injured playing chess, I am > more inclined to say allow transwomen to compete there and see > > what the outcomes are as I don't think we have enough data to know for > sure that men have an innate advantage over women in the chess > > arena. > > > > While I agree with you that it seems silly on its face compared to the > more clear cut case of physical sports, I don't think the ban > > is entirely without merit and shouldn't be immediately laughed off. > Like I said though, the consequences of allowing them to > > compete in chess pale in comparison to physical sports, so maybe we > should just see what happens and collect more data before > > enacting a ban prematurely. > > > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:56?AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > > > I just heard that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) is > banning transgender women from competing in women?s > > chess. Scandal! > > > > > > > > Just when I think this old world has achieved peak silliness, we > seem to discover new pinnacles of silliness. > > > > > > > > This might have a downside however. > > > > > > > > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 17:17:03 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 10:17:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <00c601d9d12e$a4a703d0$edf50b70$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of efc--- via extropy-chat Sent: Thursday, 17 August, 2023 9:59 AM To: Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Cc: efc at swisscows.email Subject: Re: [ExI] et tu chess? What about the extremely radical suggestion to scrap gender classes in chess? I can see the point in physical sports, but not quite in mental sports. Best regards, Daniel Daniel, you wouldn't say that if you go into Google, enter top women chess players, set to images. Oh they are stunning beauties, about 3/4 of them. If they are mixed with the men, we fellers couldn't concentrate against such scenery. Unfair advantage for the ladies I say. spike From dsunley at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 17:55:24 2023 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 11:55:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: <00c601d9d12e$a4a703d0$edf50b70$@rainier66.com> References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> <00c601d9d12e$a4a703d0$edf50b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: It's an interesting question of objective scientific fact whether the distribution of chess ELO scores of trans-women looks more like the distribution of the chess ELO scores of cis-men or cis-women. The International Chess Federation might reasonably be expected to be the best source of real world data on this question. I would think the consistent heuristic would be that, in just about any competitive environment, trans-women should be grouped with the cis-group whom their score distribution most resembles. On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:19?AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > efc--- via extropy-chat > Sent: Thursday, 17 August, 2023 9:59 AM > To: Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat > Cc: efc at swisscows.email > Subject: Re: [ExI] et tu chess? > > What about the extremely radical suggestion to scrap gender classes in > chess? > > I can see the point in physical sports, but not quite in mental sports. > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > > Daniel, you wouldn't say that if you go into Google, enter top women chess > players, set to images. Oh they are stunning beauties, about 3/4 of them. > If they are mixed with the men, we fellers couldn't concentrate against > such scenery. Unfair advantage for the ladies I say. > > 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 dsunley at gmail.com Thu Aug 17 17:56:31 2023 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 11:56:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> <00c601d9d12e$a4a703d0$edf50b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Or, of course, put in their own group. Whichever they want, really, but one of those two. On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:55?AM Darin Sunley wrote: > It's an interesting question of objective scientific fact whether the > distribution of chess ELO scores of trans-women looks more like the > distribution of the chess ELO scores of cis-men or cis-women. The > International Chess Federation might reasonably be expected to be the best > source of real world data on this question. > > I would think the consistent heuristic would be that, in just about any > competitive environment, trans-women should be grouped with the cis-group > whom their score distribution most resembles. > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:19?AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of >> efc--- via extropy-chat >> Sent: Thursday, 17 August, 2023 9:59 AM >> To: Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat >> Cc: efc at swisscows.email >> Subject: Re: [ExI] et tu chess? >> >> What about the extremely radical suggestion to scrap gender classes in >> chess? >> >> I can see the point in physical sports, but not quite in mental sports. >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> >> >> Daniel, you wouldn't say that if you go into Google, enter top women >> chess players, set to images. Oh they are stunning beauties, about 3/4 of >> them. If they are mixed with the men, we fellers couldn't concentrate >> against such scenery. Unfair advantage for the ladies I say. >> >> 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 efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 17 20:18:10 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 22:18:10 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <3e157741-9b07-6c0c-2d7b-c16106be6100@swisscows.email> Agreed! That would be very interesting! None on the list? Best regards, Daniel On Thu, 17 Aug 2023, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > Yeah, to be clear, I don't really disagree with you in the mental arena, but would be interesting to hear from some actual women > competitors in chess to see what their opinion(s) on the matter is. > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 1:00?PM efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > What about the extremely radical suggestion to scrap gender classes in > chess? > > I can see the point in physical sports, but not quite in mental sports. > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Thu, 17 Aug 2023, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > > > I don't know whether it is actually silly if we dig down on it.? ?Out of curiosity, are you in favor of banning > biological men from > > women's sports?? ?I would guess you probably are due to the very obvious physical advantages that biological men have > over women.? > > ?For the record, I am completely against transwomen?competing in women's sports for these biological reasons, > particularly in things > > like UFC/MMA, swimming, track&field, powerlifting, etc. > > So back to chess...Although I don't think there is enough real data to be sure, an argument can be made on the > biological front there > > as well as to why biological men/transwomen should not be allowed to compete in women's chess.? ? Men may hold a > biological advantage > > there as well in terms of brain differences, and the effects of testosterone on risk taking.? ? > > > > You could also make the argument that even if the perceived superiority of men in playing chess is due purely to > cultural issues and > > the sheer numbers of men who play chess compared to women that allowing biological men/transwomen?to compete there > would put women at > > a disadvantage overall. > > > > All that said, since noone is going to get injured playing chess, I am more inclined to say allow transwomen to compete > there and see > > what the outcomes are as I don't think we have enough data to know for sure that men have an innate advantage over > women in the chess > > arena. > > > > While I agree with you that it seems silly on its face compared to the more clear cut case of physical sports, I don't > think the ban > > is entirely without merit and shouldn't be immediately laughed off.? ?Like I said though, the consequences of allowing > them to > > compete in chess pale in comparison to physical sports, so maybe we should just see what happens and collect more data > before > > enacting a ban prematurely. > > > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:56?AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > >? ? ? ?? > > > >? ? ? ?I just heard that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) is banning transgender women from competing in > women?s > >? ? ? ?chess.? Scandal! > > > >? ? ? ?? > > > >? ? ? ?Just when I think this old world has achieved peak silliness, we seem to discover new pinnacles of silliness.? > > > >? ? ? ?? > > > >? ? ? ?This might have a downside however. > > > >? ? ? ?? > > > >? ? ? ?spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 17 21:42:53 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 14:42:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> <00c601d9d12e$a4a703d0$edf50b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <015501d9d153$c7b94980$572bdc80$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Darin Sunley via extropy-chat ? >?I would think the consistent heuristic would be that, in just about any competitive environment, trans-women should be grouped with the cis-group whom their score distribution most resembles? Well there is this: the sport of chess sidesteps the whole locker room issue. I hez to bring this up, but I will, somewhat cautiously: Competition math is completely dominated by XYs, and they don?t have a women?s division in that sport. From what I can tell, competition math is even more male dominated than chess. Don?t know why: that sport doesn?t require or benefit from testosterone as far as I can tell. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Aug 18 16:27:39 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 11:27:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't expect any of you (including me???) to understand this. People seem to have a strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. Keith Keith I think you are seriously underestimating (or should that be misunderestimating? - ??) the intelligence of the group we have here. Anyone who doesn't believe in inherited traits, speak up! In any case, wasn't it true that in Germany in the 30s they had inflation so bad that wheelbarrows were needed to cart around the money? The only time I can think of where people are willing to lower expectations and make sacrifices is when we are in a war people support. Will we have to go to war to adjust to lower levels of Medicare and Social Security? bill w On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 11:14?AM Keith Henson wrote: > "Will it ever end?" > > No. It is what happens when humans think they are faced with a bleak > future. > > We have been selected to go to war when we are faced with starvation. > I have a mathematical model if anyone cares. > > What happens is that the first stage of the run-up to wars is the > circulation of xenophobic or just crazy memes. Commonly a cult-type > leader takes advantage of this or alternately, the memes take > advantage of someone (think of Hitler as a victim of this process). > If you don't believe the connection of a bad economic outlook to crazy > memes, just consider where the main support for MAGA or Qanon comes > from. > > 40 years ago I made the observation (without understanding) that > economic downturns correlated with upsurges of neo-nazi activity in > the midwest. > > I don't expect any of you to understand this. People seem to have a > strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological > traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. > > Keith > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 4:59?PM William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > > > He's still in the lead. We know he's a liar, a sexist, perhaps a > rapist, surely guilty of some of the charges against him now. > > > > Does that show that those supporters just don't care about the law, the > Constitution or anything else except their own opinions? So if it isn't > Trump it would be someone else? > > > > That is really scary to me. Is this as bad as it gets? Have we been > this way all along? > > > > In surveys people are asked about the past, and it's almost always > better than now. Statistics show that to be wildly wrong in every > category, medical, technical, economic. > > > > So rabble rousers are basing their stances on lies. It's the little boy > crying wolf when there's no wolf. > > > > If I had a magic wand, I might include omitting credulousness from human > characteristics in my top three. > > > > We know that 'the many' in society are carried by 'the few' on their > backs. 'The many' appear not to want to acknowledge how great we are, or > care about the people who created all the toys they so dearly love, and may > actually be antiscience. > > > > 'Level of expectation' is a term in social psychology. When yours are > met you are satisfied, but want more, and what 'more' means is now at a > higher level than before because of the increased expectations. Which > leads to dissatisfactions with the current intake. > > > > Will it ever end? Or it is like a black hole which can take all you can > throw at it? > > > > bill w > > > > > > > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEbNkReu2ceSHvbedXfJ61LzHv6uH-yVD1TZ37KS5kJvcA%40mail.gmail.com > . > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAPiwVB41bmJMjBtj2McYH14vqTJUSZStRQ%2BuykcGTnbe1X-khA%40mail.gmail.com > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Aug 18 16:43:38 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 09:43:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I tried for more than ten years to convey the worldview that humans have evolved psychological traits to the Extropians and utterly failed. Eventually, I lowered my expectations. Keith On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 9:27?AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > > I don't expect any of you (including me???) to understand this. People seem to have a > strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological > traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. Keith > > Keith I think you are seriously underestimating (or should that be misunderestimating? - ??) the intelligence of the group we have here. Anyone who doesn't believe in inherited traits, speak up! > > In any case, wasn't it true that in Germany in the 30s they had inflation so bad that wheelbarrows were needed to cart around the money? The only time I can think of where people are willing to lower expectations and make sacrifices is when we are in a war people support. Will we have to go to war to adjust to lower levels of Medicare and Social Security? bill w > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 11:14?AM Keith Henson wrote: >> >> "Will it ever end?" >> >> No. It is what happens when humans think they are faced with a bleak future. >> >> We have been selected to go to war when we are faced with starvation. >> I have a mathematical model if anyone cares. >> >> What happens is that the first stage of the run-up to wars is the >> circulation of xenophobic or just crazy memes. Commonly a cult-type >> leader takes advantage of this or alternately, the memes take >> advantage of someone (think of Hitler as a victim of this process). >> If you don't believe the connection of a bad economic outlook to crazy >> memes, just consider where the main support for MAGA or Qanon comes >> from. >> >> 40 years ago I made the observation (without understanding) that >> economic downturns correlated with upsurges of neo-nazi activity in >> the midwest. >> >> I don't expect any of you to understand this. People seem to have a >> strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological >> traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. >> >> Keith >> >> On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 4:59?PM William Flynn Wallace >> wrote: >> > >> > He's still in the lead. We know he's a liar, a sexist, perhaps a rapist, surely guilty of some of the charges against him now. >> > >> > Does that show that those supporters just don't care about the law, the Constitution or anything else except their own opinions? So if it isn't Trump it would be someone else? >> > >> > That is really scary to me. Is this as bad as it gets? Have we been this way all along? >> > >> > In surveys people are asked about the past, and it's almost always better than now. Statistics show that to be wildly wrong in every category, medical, technical, economic. >> > >> > So rabble rousers are basing their stances on lies. It's the little boy crying wolf when there's no wolf. >> > >> > If I had a magic wand, I might include omitting credulousness from human characteristics in my top three. >> > >> > We know that 'the many' in society are carried by 'the few' on their backs. 'The many' appear not to want to acknowledge how great we are, or care about the people who created all the toys they so dearly love, and may actually be antiscience. >> > >> > 'Level of expectation' is a term in social psychology. When yours are met you are satisfied, but want more, and what 'more' means is now at a higher level than before because of the increased expectations. Which leads to dissatisfactions with the current intake. >> > >> > Will it ever end? Or it is like a black hole which can take all you can throw at it? >> > >> > bill w >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >> > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEbNkReu2ceSHvbedXfJ61LzHv6uH-yVD1TZ37KS5kJvcA%40mail.gmail.com. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAPiwVB41bmJMjBtj2McYH14vqTJUSZStRQ%2BuykcGTnbe1X-khA%40mail.gmail.com. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEa51r2O3Wj5BCnuojPtdo8xntrN%3DjQKBeZfvy0YHGjFXQ%40mail.gmail.com. From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Aug 18 17:32:04 2023 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 11:32:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'd be interested in learning about who doesn't support the idea that we have evolved psychological traits, especially if it is me. I have tried for more than ten years to convince people that if they build and track consensus around important ideas, they will see progress, as in that which you measure, improves. To the still small degree that people participate, we're demonstrating a significant amount of consensus, in the most polarized field out there: theories of consciousness . On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 10:44?AM Keith Henson wrote: > I tried for more than ten years to convey the worldview that humans > have evolved psychological traits to the Extropians and utterly > failed. > > Eventually, I lowered my expectations. > > Keith > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 9:27?AM William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > > > > > I don't expect any of you (including me???) to understand this. People > seem to have a > > strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological > > traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. > Keith > > > > Keith I think you are seriously underestimating (or should that be > misunderestimating? - ??) the intelligence of the group we have here. > Anyone who doesn't believe in inherited traits, speak up! > > > > In any case, wasn't it true that in Germany in the 30s they had > inflation so bad that wheelbarrows were needed to cart around the money? > The only time I can think of where people are willing to lower expectations > and make sacrifices is when we are in a war people support. Will we have > to go to war to adjust to lower levels of Medicare and Social Security? > bill w > > > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 11:14?AM Keith Henson > wrote: > >> > >> "Will it ever end?" > >> > >> No. It is what happens when humans think they are faced with a bleak > future. > >> > >> We have been selected to go to war when we are faced with starvation. > >> I have a mathematical model if anyone cares. > >> > >> What happens is that the first stage of the run-up to wars is the > >> circulation of xenophobic or just crazy memes. Commonly a cult-type > >> leader takes advantage of this or alternately, the memes take > >> advantage of someone (think of Hitler as a victim of this process). > >> If you don't believe the connection of a bad economic outlook to crazy > >> memes, just consider where the main support for MAGA or Qanon comes > >> from. > >> > >> 40 years ago I made the observation (without understanding) that > >> economic downturns correlated with upsurges of neo-nazi activity in > >> the midwest. > >> > >> I don't expect any of you to understand this. People seem to have a > >> strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological > >> traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. > >> > >> Keith > >> > >> On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 4:59?PM William Flynn Wallace > >> wrote: > >> > > >> > He's still in the lead. We know he's a liar, a sexist, perhaps a > rapist, surely guilty of some of the charges against him now. > >> > > >> > Does that show that those supporters just don't care about the law, > the Constitution or anything else except their own opinions? So if it > isn't Trump it would be someone else? > >> > > >> > That is really scary to me. Is this as bad as it gets? Have we been > this way all along? > >> > > >> > In surveys people are asked about the past, and it's almost always > better than now. Statistics show that to be wildly wrong in every > category, medical, technical, economic. > >> > > >> > So rabble rousers are basing their stances on lies. It's the little > boy crying wolf when there's no wolf. > >> > > >> > If I had a magic wand, I might include omitting credulousness from > human characteristics in my top three. > >> > > >> > We know that 'the many' in society are carried by 'the few' on their > backs. 'The many' appear not to want to acknowledge how great we are, or > care about the people who created all the toys they so dearly love, and may > actually be antiscience. > >> > > >> > 'Level of expectation' is a term in social psychology. When yours > are met you are satisfied, but want more, and what 'more' means is now at a > higher level than before because of the increased expectations. Which > leads to dissatisfactions with the current intake. > >> > > >> > Will it ever end? Or it is like a black hole which can take all you > can throw at it? > >> > > >> > bill w > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > -- > >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, > send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > >> > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEbNkReu2ceSHvbedXfJ61LzHv6uH-yVD1TZ37KS5kJvcA%40mail.gmail.com > . > >> > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > >> To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAPiwVB41bmJMjBtj2McYH14vqTJUSZStRQ%2BuykcGTnbe1X-khA%40mail.gmail.com > . > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEa51r2O3Wj5BCnuojPtdo8xntrN%3DjQKBeZfvy0YHGjFXQ%40mail.gmail.com > . > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAPiwVB4A2fPA8D3f8_z3NJqGMTs%2BViwnm8kYVeZ38hMtNdPYng%40mail.gmail.com > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Fri Aug 18 17:48:37 2023 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 11:48:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For the record, your theory about anticipation of bad times triggering xenophobia in populations has always seemed validated and reasonable to me, ever since you first started talking about it. It's precisely what we've seen in the US in the last 5-10 years. The only thing you didn't explicitly call is just /how much worse/ a corporate mass media with both economic and political incentives to exaggerate negative trends can make things. On Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 10:46 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I tried for more than ten years to convey the worldview that humans > have evolved psychological traits to the Extropians and utterly > failed. > > Eventually, I lowered my expectations. > > Keith > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 9:27?AM William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > > > > > I don't expect any of you (including me???) to understand this. People > seem to have a > > strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological > > traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. > Keith > > > > Keith I think you are seriously underestimating (or should that be > misunderestimating? - ??) the intelligence of the group we have here. > Anyone who doesn't believe in inherited traits, speak up! > > > > In any case, wasn't it true that in Germany in the 30s they had > inflation so bad that wheelbarrows were needed to cart around the money? > The only time I can think of where people are willing to lower expectations > and make sacrifices is when we are in a war people support. Will we have > to go to war to adjust to lower levels of Medicare and Social Security? > bill w > > > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 11:14?AM Keith Henson > wrote: > >> > >> "Will it ever end?" > >> > >> No. It is what happens when humans think they are faced with a bleak > future. > >> > >> We have been selected to go to war when we are faced with starvation. > >> I have a mathematical model if anyone cares. > >> > >> What happens is that the first stage of the run-up to wars is the > >> circulation of xenophobic or just crazy memes. Commonly a cult-type > >> leader takes advantage of this or alternately, the memes take > >> advantage of someone (think of Hitler as a victim of this process). > >> If you don't believe the connection of a bad economic outlook to crazy > >> memes, just consider where the main support for MAGA or Qanon comes > >> from. > >> > >> 40 years ago I made the observation (without understanding) that > >> economic downturns correlated with upsurges of neo-nazi activity in > >> the midwest. > >> > >> I don't expect any of you to understand this. People seem to have a > >> strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological > >> traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. > >> > >> Keith > >> > >> On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 4:59?PM William Flynn Wallace > >> wrote: > >> > > >> > He's still in the lead. We know he's a liar, a sexist, perhaps a > rapist, surely guilty of some of the charges against him now. > >> > > >> > Does that show that those supporters just don't care about the law, > the Constitution or anything else except their own opinions? So if it > isn't Trump it would be someone else? > >> > > >> > That is really scary to me. Is this as bad as it gets? Have we been > this way all along? > >> > > >> > In surveys people are asked about the past, and it's almost always > better than now. Statistics show that to be wildly wrong in every > category, medical, technical, economic. > >> > > >> > So rabble rousers are basing their stances on lies. It's the little > boy crying wolf when there's no wolf. > >> > > >> > If I had a magic wand, I might include omitting credulousness from > human characteristics in my top three. > >> > > >> > We know that 'the many' in society are carried by 'the few' on their > backs. 'The many' appear not to want to acknowledge how great we are, or > care about the people who created all the toys they so dearly love, and may > actually be antiscience. > >> > > >> > 'Level of expectation' is a term in social psychology. When yours > are met you are satisfied, but want more, and what 'more' means is now at a > higher level than before because of the increased expectations. Which > leads to dissatisfactions with the current intake. > >> > > >> > Will it ever end? Or it is like a black hole which can take all you > can throw at it? > >> > > >> > bill w > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > -- > >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, > send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > >> > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEbNkReu2ceSHvbedXfJ61LzHv6uH-yVD1TZ37KS5kJvcA%40mail.gmail.com > . > >> > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > >> To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAPiwVB41bmJMjBtj2McYH14vqTJUSZStRQ%2BuykcGTnbe1X-khA%40mail.gmail.com > . > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEa51r2O3Wj5BCnuojPtdo8xntrN%3DjQKBeZfvy0YHGjFXQ%40mail.gmail.com > . > > _______________________________________________ > 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 steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Aug 18 19:33:05 2023 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 15:33:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: <015501d9d153$c7b94980$572bdc80$@rainier66.com> References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> <00c601d9d12e$a4a703d0$edf50b70$@rainier66.com> <015501d9d153$c7b94980$572bdc80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Men do tend to have better spatial/logic reasoning. Also, transwomen have the benefit of usually decades of education as an encultured man. Getting treated like you're better at chess will make you better at chess, or make you work harder and happier, at least. The women's leagues exist because women are shut out of those kinds of spaces. I think the reason they are banning transwomen is that it seems like a bit of an exploit to spend your life in those spaces as a man, reaping the benefits, and then switching over. The whole issue is a fucking minefield. I think if people were less fucked up by environmental toxins, and less fucked up by mental toxins, and humans of both sexes were allowed to express themselves better, the whole nu-trans fad wouldn't really be a thing. Wanting to wear flamboyant or flowing clothing as a man, or have long, beautiful hair, doesn't mean you have to get crippling life-altering and life-shortening surgery that chains you to a lifelong medication regime. I think most of these people don't really understand the lives they might be in for, especially kids. Seems to me to have low levels of truly informed consent. On Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 5:44 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Darin Sunley via extropy-chat > *?* > > > > >?I would think the consistent heuristic would be that, in just about any > competitive environment, trans-women should be grouped with the cis-group > whom their score distribution most resembles? > > > > Well there is this: the sport of chess sidesteps the whole locker room > issue. > > > > I hez to bring this up, but I will, somewhat cautiously: Competition math > is completely dominated by XYs, and they don?t have a women?s division in > that sport. From what I can tell, competition math is even more male > dominated than chess. Don?t know why: that sport doesn?t require or > benefit from testosterone as far as I can tell. > > > > 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 msd001 at gmail.com Fri Aug 18 23:16:06 2023 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 19:16:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 12:46 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I tried for more than ten years to convey the worldview that humans > have evolved psychological traits to the Extropians and utterly > failed. > No. You didn't. > Eventually, I lowered my expectations. > > Keith > I understand that part too. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Aug 19 00:15:43 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 17:15:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> On Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 12:46 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat > wrote: I tried for more than ten years to convey the worldview that humans have evolved psychological traits to the Extropians and utterly failed. There was little debate on the topic, for we agreed with you Keith. It had the ring of truth to it first time I heard it. Eventually, I lowered my expectations. Keith Keith I am puzzled by this post. I studied into evolutionary psychology after you started posting on the topic, and it revolutionized my thinking. You became one of the most influential ExI posters of all. Why do you lower your expectations please? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 00:42:45 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 17:42:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 9:27?AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > I don't expect any of you (including me???) to understand this. People seem to have a > strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological > traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. Keith > > Keith I think you are seriously underestimating (or should that be misunderestimating? - ??) the intelligence of the group we have here. I don't think the bias against understanding EP topics is a function of intelligence. See the account of Patty Hearst about her capture-bonding. Or the accounts of the Rwanda killers. Then there is the amusing account of the time I was lambasted from the bench by a federal judge for the very thing (status) judges are known for. > Anyone who doesn't believe in inherited traits, speak up! What is the advantage to genes for going to war vs starving in place? Why? When did most of this selection take place? Keith > In any case, wasn't it true that in Germany in the 30s they had inflation so bad that wheelbarrows were needed to cart around the money? The only time I can think of where people are willing to lower expectations and make sacrifices is when we are in a war people support. Will we have to go to war to adjust to lower levels of Medicare and Social Security? bill w > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 11:14?AM Keith Henson wrote: >> >> "Will it ever end?" >> >> No. It is what happens when humans think they are faced with a bleak future. >> >> We have been selected to go to war when we are faced with starvation. >> I have a mathematical model if anyone cares. >> >> What happens is that the first stage of the run-up to wars is the >> circulation of xenophobic or just crazy memes. Commonly a cult-type >> leader takes advantage of this or alternately, the memes take >> advantage of someone (think of Hitler as a victim of this process). >> If you don't believe the connection of a bad economic outlook to crazy >> memes, just consider where the main support for MAGA or Qanon comes >> from. >> >> 40 years ago I made the observation (without understanding) that >> economic downturns correlated with upsurges of neo-nazi activity in >> the midwest. >> >> I don't expect any of you to understand this. People seem to have a >> strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological >> traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. >> >> Keith >> >> On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 4:59?PM William Flynn Wallace >> wrote: >> > >> > He's still in the lead. We know he's a liar, a sexist, perhaps a rapist, surely guilty of some of the charges against him now. >> > >> > Does that show that those supporters just don't care about the law, the Constitution or anything else except their own opinions? So if it isn't Trump it would be someone else? >> > >> > That is really scary to me. Is this as bad as it gets? Have we been this way all along? >> > >> > In surveys people are asked about the past, and it's almost always better than now. Statistics show that to be wildly wrong in every category, medical, technical, economic. >> > >> > So rabble rousers are basing their stances on lies. It's the little boy crying wolf when there's no wolf. >> > >> > If I had a magic wand, I might include omitting credulousness from human characteristics in my top three. >> > >> > We know that 'the many' in society are carried by 'the few' on their backs. 'The many' appear not to want to acknowledge how great we are, or care about the people who created all the toys they so dearly love, and may actually be antiscience. >> > >> > 'Level of expectation' is a term in social psychology. When yours are met you are satisfied, but want more, and what 'more' means is now at a higher level than before because of the increased expectations. Which leads to dissatisfactions with the current intake. >> > >> > Will it ever end? Or it is like a black hole which can take all you can throw at it? >> > >> > bill w >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >> > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEbNkReu2ceSHvbedXfJ61LzHv6uH-yVD1TZ37KS5kJvcA%40mail.gmail.com. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAPiwVB41bmJMjBtj2McYH14vqTJUSZStRQ%2BuykcGTnbe1X-khA%40mail.gmail.com. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEa51r2O3Wj5BCnuojPtdo8xntrN%3DjQKBeZfvy0YHGjFXQ%40mail.gmail.com. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 06:51:27 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 23:51:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 5:17?PM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 12:46 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > > I tried for more than ten years to convey the worldview that humans > have evolved psychological traits to the Extropians and utterly > failed. > > There was little debate on the topic, for we agreed with you Keith. It had the ring of truth to it first time I heard it. > > Eventually, I lowered my expectations. > > Keith > > Keith I am puzzled by this post. I studied into evolutionary psychology after you started posting on the topic, and it revolutionized my thinking. You became one of the most influential ExI posters of all. Why do you lower your expectations please? > I can't think of a time when anyone (besides me) posting on the extropian list invoked an EP view. People talk about social and political matters as if there was no deeper level. Have humans been selected to reject understanding their evolved psychological traits? Seems possible to me. I have observed at a distance as evolutionary psychology swept through reorganizing a substantial number of university sociology and psychology departments and was utterly rejected by others. I.e., this rejection is systemic far beyond this list. On another topic, >From close to the very start of the list there was talk on the list about the singularity. Regarding the AI part, we seem to be so close that you can see it from week to week. Almost at the same time as the AI progress became wild, we have what I think is finding aliens or something that is dimming stars. And then we have news that we might live much longer than expected. Keith https://singularityhub.com/2023/08/18/a-surprising-new-protein-player-restores-memory-in-old-mice/?utm_campaign=SU%20Hub%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=270901410&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9MR-zxcEkIj7_j773U3o0_HbTzy64fTtM1Iv3JOwGRTSnAFZkAMEihiVz7zk3EXZGaKy0hh8yb5MnyOsWXRf1k_nK8ig&utm_content=270901410&utm_source=hs_email > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike at rainier66.com Sat Aug 19 11:48:53 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 04:48:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: Keith Henson ... >>... Keith I am puzzled by this post. I studied into evolutionary psychology after you started posting on the topic, and it revolutionized my thinking. You became one of the most influential ExI posters of all. Why do you lower your expectations please? > ...I can't think of a time when anyone (besides me) posting on the extropian list invoked an EP view. People talk about social and political matters as if there was no deeper level... Do clarify please Keith. The posts I see appear to assume an EP view. I know of no good examples where that paradigm was rejected. >...Have humans been selected to reject understanding their evolved psychological traits? Seems possible to me. I have observed at a distance as evolutionary psychology swept through reorganizing a substantial number of university sociology and psychology departments and was utterly rejected by others. I.e., this rejection is systemic far beyond this list... Keith Universities, ja. I have no confidence in them. I am not familiar enough with current sociology and psychology departments to comment, however those departments are not where the real action is. If one wants to carry out of a university anything worth the enormous opportunity cost and monetary expense of a college education, one is advised to steer away from those areas and get where deeper truth is revealed from equations and algorithms. The end goal is to make cool stuff which people want to buy. Keith I fully embrace the notion that EP has genetically programmed me to write comments such as the paragraph above. Cool! spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 12:54:51 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 07:54:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] brainwashing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Who? Me? Define free will? Why not? I'll point my magic wand at myself and Zap! I'm a philosopher. I don't think that anyone can show that one definition is any better than another. But here goes: Except in the case of reflexes, over which we have little control (we can keep our eyes open while sneezing, but it's kind of hard), we have a choice of responses to stimuli. It is not necessarily the strongest (most probable) response that gets put into action. We can inhibit that one in favor of a lesser response or no response. Another way of saying that is that we have a choice. Another way is that we have self-control. That is not, of course, a formal definition (only have one cup of coffee going to my brain), but OK, have it John! bill w On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 7:29?AM John Clark wrote: > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:49?AM William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > > > Free will is a powerful thing. > > > Tell me what "free will" means and I'll tell you if I agree with you or > not. > > John K Clark > > > >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv2wds00FmTn3A1nA6tDVCda1fsBJoYLYnhdhnvAhy8g4g%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 12:55:14 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 07:55:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Keith, I clearly do not understand what you are saying. Most or none of the group believes in intelligence, or openness, or agreeableness (those of the Big Five), you say? That would truly be stunning, as some of us, like me, find evolutionary psychology full of valid ideas and data. On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 11:44?AM Keith Henson wrote: > I tried for more than ten years to convey the worldview that humans > have evolved psychological traits to the Extropians and utterly > failed. > > Eventually, I lowered my expectations. > > Keith > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 9:27?AM William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > > > > > I don't expect any of you (including me???) to understand this. People > seem to have a > > strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological > > traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. > Keith > > > > Keith I think you are seriously underestimating (or should that be > misunderestimating? - ??) the intelligence of the group we have here. > Anyone who doesn't believe in inherited traits, speak up! > > > > In any case, wasn't it true that in Germany in the 30s they had > inflation so bad that wheelbarrows were needed to cart around the money? > The only time I can think of where people are willing to lower expectations > and make sacrifices is when we are in a war people support. Will we have > to go to war to adjust to lower levels of Medicare and Social Security? > bill w > > > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 11:14?AM Keith Henson > wrote: > >> > >> "Will it ever end?" > >> > >> No. It is what happens when humans think they are faced with a bleak > future. > >> > >> We have been selected to go to war when we are faced with starvation. > >> I have a mathematical model if anyone cares. > >> > >> What happens is that the first stage of the run-up to wars is the > >> circulation of xenophobic or just crazy memes. Commonly a cult-type > >> leader takes advantage of this or alternately, the memes take > >> advantage of someone (think of Hitler as a victim of this process). > >> If you don't believe the connection of a bad economic outlook to crazy > >> memes, just consider where the main support for MAGA or Qanon comes > >> from. > >> > >> 40 years ago I made the observation (without understanding) that > >> economic downturns correlated with upsurges of neo-nazi activity in > >> the midwest. > >> > >> I don't expect any of you to understand this. People seem to have a > >> strong bias against understanding that they have evolved psychological > >> traits at all. Perhaps too much insight is not good for your genes. > >> > >> Keith > >> > >> On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 4:59?PM William Flynn Wallace > >> wrote: > >> > > >> > He's still in the lead. We know he's a liar, a sexist, perhaps a > rapist, surely guilty of some of the charges against him now. > >> > > >> > Does that show that those supporters just don't care about the law, > the Constitution or anything else except their own opinions? So if it > isn't Trump it would be someone else? > >> > > >> > That is really scary to me. Is this as bad as it gets? Have we been > this way all along? > >> > > >> > In surveys people are asked about the past, and it's almost always > better than now. Statistics show that to be wildly wrong in every > category, medical, technical, economic. > >> > > >> > So rabble rousers are basing their stances on lies. It's the little > boy crying wolf when there's no wolf. > >> > > >> > If I had a magic wand, I might include omitting credulousness from > human characteristics in my top three. > >> > > >> > We know that 'the many' in society are carried by 'the few' on their > backs. 'The many' appear not to want to acknowledge how great we are, or > care about the people who created all the toys they so dearly love, and may > actually be antiscience. > >> > > >> > 'Level of expectation' is a term in social psychology. When yours > are met you are satisfied, but want more, and what 'more' means is now at a > higher level than before because of the increased expectations. Which > leads to dissatisfactions with the current intake. > >> > > >> > Will it ever end? Or it is like a black hole which can take all you > can throw at it? > >> > > >> > bill w > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > -- > >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, > send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > >> > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEbNkReu2ceSHvbedXfJ61LzHv6uH-yVD1TZ37KS5kJvcA%40mail.gmail.com > . > >> > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > >> To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAPiwVB41bmJMjBtj2McYH14vqTJUSZStRQ%2BuykcGTnbe1X-khA%40mail.gmail.com > . > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "extropolis" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEa51r2O3Wj5BCnuojPtdo8xntrN%3DjQKBeZfvy0YHGjFXQ%40mail.gmail.com > . > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAPiwVB4A2fPA8D3f8_z3NJqGMTs%2BViwnm8kYVeZ38hMtNdPYng%40mail.gmail.com > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 13:43:53 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 08:43:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> <00c601d9d12e$a4a703d0$edf50b70$@rainier66.com> <015501d9d153$c7b94980$572bdc80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: People who think that they are another sex usually have known it for a long time. It goes far beyond wanting to wear flowery dresses. In one famous case, a baby with flawed genitalia was surgically made into a female and raised that way. Later on he/she said that he knew all along he was male, got the operation and married and had kids (adopted I assume). bill w On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 2:36?PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Men do tend to have better spatial/logic reasoning. > > Also, transwomen have the benefit of usually decades of education as an > encultured man. Getting treated like you're better at chess will make you > better at chess, or make you work harder and happier, at least. > > The women's leagues exist because women are shut out of those kinds of > spaces. I think the reason they are banning transwomen is that it seems > like a bit of an exploit to spend your life in those spaces as a man, > reaping the benefits, and then switching over. > > The whole issue is a fucking minefield. I think if people were less > fucked up by environmental toxins, and less fucked up by mental toxins, and > humans of both sexes were allowed to express themselves better, the whole > nu-trans fad wouldn't really be a thing. Wanting to wear flamboyant or > flowing clothing as a man, or have long, beautiful hair, doesn't mean you > have to get crippling life-altering and life-shortening surgery that chains > you to a lifelong medication regime. I think most of these people don't > really understand the lives they might be in for, especially kids. Seems > to me to have low levels of truly informed consent. > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 5:44 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *?*> *On Behalf Of *Darin Sunley via extropy-chat >> *?* >> >> >> >> >?I would think the consistent heuristic would be that, in just about any >> competitive environment, trans-women should be grouped with the cis-group >> whom their score distribution most resembles? >> >> >> >> Well there is this: the sport of chess sidesteps the whole locker room >> issue. >> >> >> >> I hez to bring this up, but I will, somewhat cautiously: Competition math >> is completely dominated by XYs, and they don?t have a women?s division in >> that sport. From what I can tell, competition math is even more male >> dominated than chess. Don?t know why: that sport doesn?t require or >> benefit from testosterone as far as I can tell. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 msd001 at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 14:46:26 2023 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 10:46:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 2:55 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 5:17?PM spike > I can't think of a time when anyone (besides me) posting on the > extropian list invoked an EP view. People talk about social and > political matters as if there was no deeper level. > > Have humans been selected to reject understanding their evolved > psychological traits? Seems possible to me. > Re: deeper level - you may have noticed the length (and depth) of posts here (and in general) has decreased. I suspect this is a coping mechanism to deal with the accelerating rate of change: we have to run ever faster to not fall behind. tbh, I've made peace with the limit of my intellect. There are people smarter than me on this list; I do not need to compete or posture to assert superiority and I'm not threatened by it. I expect AI will soon enough force the rest of humanity into a similar position. (Well, plenty of doomsayers are very threatened by superintelligence) Re: EP - you didn't have to convince me with a hard sell. It was more like someone struggling with imperial measures being shown the metric system and immediately recognizing "oh hell yeah, this makes sense" ... or trying to understand planetary position through retrograde motion and being shown the heliocentric model. In hindsight, the better model is so obvious the old one is abandoned as an embarrassing moment (much worse that the moment may have been the entire course of humanity trying to understand how/why of the world) Re: reject understanding - surely we evolved attention span for external threats over internal states. ex: hearing bloodflow in my ears taking priority over approaching predators would be disadvantageous to survival. We have relative safety in the modern world for navel gazing; that's comparatively new in evolutionary time. It may also be less an outright rejection and more a habitual return to the familiar; such as persisting with ounces (despite enlightenment of metric milliliters) because my measuring cup is graduated in ounces. Also, cognitive load (eg: new braining) is expensive... of course we would rather not expend the energy on deep introspection when shortcuts are working well enough to get by in the short term. btw, the length of this post feels too long as a single idea and too short to have properly developed multiple ideas into a full article. iiwii :) > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Aug 19 15:30:53 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 08:30:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004c01d9d2b2$252ae4c0$6f80ae40$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump On Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 2:55 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat > wrote: On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 5:17?PM spike I can't think of a time when anyone (besides me) posting on the extropian list invoked an EP view. People talk about social and political matters as if there was no deeper level. Have humans been selected to reject understanding their evolved psychological traits? Seems possible to me. >?Re: deeper level - you may have noticed the length (and depth) of posts here (and in general) has decreased? btw, the length of this post feels too long as a single idea and too short to have properly developed multiple ideas into a full article. iiwii :) Mike Dougherty Cool post Mike, well said. I am trying to think of a good example on ExI where EP has been rejected or posts made from an opposing POV. I am coming up blank. EP suggests we are programmed genetically. I have long thought that, since way before I had any real explanation for how we got this way. The old time religion people had that intuition and came up with an explanation for the nature of humans: god made us that way after the original pair sinned. It really insisted, with the notion that humans are evil by nature. I will accept the ?by nature? part, but the evil part is a bit of a stretch. We are tuned to be competitive, sure. So? what?s evil about that? Sounds like fun to me. That?s where we get sports. War is evil, so we avoid that one, and take care of our instinctive attraction to that horrifying activity with harmless analogs. Enormous fortunes have been made on good war games. Our favorite sport is a terrain acquisition battle analog, complete with body armor, tactics, the works. My personal favorite game (chess) is a war analog, sora, with actual battle symbolism, knights, castles, etc. What is an example of a rejection of evolutionary psychology? Could be I don?t know enough about the subject. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 16:15:01 2023 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 12:15:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: <004c01d9d2b2$252ae4c0$6f80ae40$@rainier66.com> References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <004c01d9d2b2$252ae4c0$6f80ae40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 11:34 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I am trying to think of a good example on ExI where EP has been rejected > or posts made from an opposing POV. I am coming up blank. > I got the impression that the source of frustration was less an outright rejection and more an apparent lack of adoption. > EP suggests we are programmed genetically. I have long thought that, > since way before I had any real explanation for how we got this way. The > old time religion people had that intuition and came up with an explanation > for the nature of humans: god made us that way after the original pair > sinned. It really insisted, with the notion that humans are evil by nature. > Genetics in early evolution and memetics later.. using "fitness" to an environment (and various maladaptations) helps explain the feedback relationship of memes and culture. Anything to help prediction as we race towards the singularity, y'know? > I will accept the ?by nature? part, but the evil part is a bit of a > stretch. We are tuned to be competitive, sure. So? what?s evil about > that? Sounds like fun to me. That?s where we get sports. War is evil, so > we avoid that one, and take > We don't avoid it though. Imo, the general usage of "evil" is a social manipulation device: via labeling the out-group evil the in-group is herded into behavior that benefits the opportunistic manipulator (church, government, coach/team captain) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Aug 19 16:45:11 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 09:45:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <004c01d9d2b2$252ae4c0$6f80ae40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001401d9d2bc$85e719a0$91b54ce0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump On Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 11:34 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: I am trying to think of a good example on ExI where EP has been rejected or posts made from an opposing POV. I am coming up blank. >?I got the impression that the source of frustration was less an outright rejection and more an apparent lack of adoption? Hi Mike, sorry I am still not getting it. EP suggests we humans have inbred instincts. I think everyone here agrees. I know not one who would object, unless I am again misunderstanding the meaning. Of course humans have evolved to do certain behaviors that contribute to group survival, which is group-level behavior with genetic consequences. I was drawn to the idea 20 years ago with Geoffrey Miller?s excellent The Mating Mind, which plays well with Keith?s notions introduced here. Circumstances change quickly however. Our terrain acquisition and resource exploitation genetic programming introduces new and serious risk in the age of nuclear weapons and ICBMs. >? Imo, the general usage of "evil" is a social manipulation device: via labeling the out-group evil the in-group is herded into behavior that benefits the opportunistic manipulator (church, government, coach/team captain) Cool take on that, thx. The way I would go with this is to steer towards what happens when dog owners buy purebred anything. Most of the time, those dogs are miserable, and their owners don?t even know it, or don?t understand why their pets don?t act civilized, like Mrs. Prufrock?s gentle corgi. Well, I can explain it to these husky owners why they can?t get their dog to settle down and be human. I can explain how they can work with the dog?s breeding rather than against it. Evolutionary psychology offers an excellent explanation for why communism always fails eventually in all its forms, along with why is has survived the longest in North Korea (hint: they keep genetically dissimilar outsiders outside (that really is required.)) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 16:49:34 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 09:49:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 4:48?AM wrote: snip > Universities, ja. I have no confidence in them. As far as I know, all the work leading up to EP came out of universities. Long list Wilson is near the top. People who influence me include Buss, Tooby, Cosmedes, and Barkow. > I am not familiar enough with current sociology and psychology departments to comment, however those departments are not where the real action is. If one wants to carry out of a university anything worth the enormous opportunity cost and monetary expense of a college education, one is advised to steer away from those areas and get where deeper truth is revealed from equations and algorithms. The end goal is to make cool stuff which people want to buy. You miss the main reason to go to a prestigious university. The main point is missed by just about everyone. The only counter-example I know about is Esther Dyson. She understood and used the opportunity to its fullest extent. Read the Wikipedia page about her. The real money is not made by worker drones that design or make widgets. > > Keith I fully embrace the notion that EP has genetically programmed me to write comments such as the paragraph above. Cool! Oh? What evolved psychological trait motivates you to post? > spike > From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 17:04:42 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 10:04:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 5:08?AM John Clark wrote: > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 8:43?PM Keith Henson wrote: > >> > What is the advantage to genes for going to war vs starving in place? > > There is evidence that, at least some of the time, nice guys do finish first because it's a fact that humans have fewer virulent warlike genes than any other primate. I don't think you can make such a case. The big difference is that war mode is not on all the time as it is in the chimpanzees. It does not help your genes one bit to fight unless the alternative is worse for the genes. That understanding is one that I think I failed to convey. > Chimpanzees, our closest living relative, are far more aggressive than we are, their group size never gets larger than about 120 individuals, if a group gets larger than that a civil war is inevitable and the group splits. Maximum group size is limited by the availability of food. In the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness (Stone Age more or less), human groups had to split as well. > If you put 4 million chimpanzees on an island as small as Manhattan they would tear each other apart in a matter of hours, but during the entire year of 2022 only 78 humans out of the 4 million on Manhattan killed one of their fellow Homo sapiens. If the food supply was cut off, what do you think the toll would be? The point I have tried to make is that a bleak reality of even the anticipation of a bleak future will shift humans into war mode. > > As for our Neanderthal cousins (we had a common ancestor about 600,000 years ago), they seem to have been even more pugnacious than chimps because, according to the best evidence we have today, their typical group size was only 10 to 30 individuals and the DNA genetic evidence indicates there was little or no interbreeding between the groups. There is even a theory, unproven but I think plausible, that the reason Homo sapiens were able to outcompete the Neanderthals is that we could cooperate between ourselves and form much larger groups in pursuit of more grandiose goals than Neanderthals could. If true this would be an example of Survival Of The Friendliest. Perhaps. I don't think we know enough to confidently make such statements. Keith > John K Clark > > > > > >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv1e8%3DwNXOpdHfgWOs4RgMniCT6ayRcLOY%3DiJ1w4q8QP9w%40mail.gmail.com. From pharos at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 17:05:17 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 18:05:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] AI Weapons race may be unstoppable Message-ID: An AI weapons race may create a world where everyone stays inside out of fear of being 'chased down by swarms of slaughterbots,' warns founding Skype engineer Kylie Kirschner Aug 18, 2023 Quote: "Putting AI in the military makes it very hard for humanity to control AI's trajectory, because at this point you are in a literal arms race," Tallinn said in the interview. "When you're in an arms race, you don't have much manoeuvring room when it comes to thinking about how to approach this new technology. You just have to go where the capabilities are and where the strategic advantage is." On top of that, AI warfare could make attacks very difficult to attribute, he said. "The natural evolution for fully automated warfare," Tallinn continued, "is swarms of miniaturized drones that anyone with money can produce and release without attribution." ----------------------- AI is not just chatbots. It will be in drones, looking for suspects to attack. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sat Aug 19 17:15:50 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 10:15:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000601d9d2c0$ce390f20$6aab2d60$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: Keith Henson > >>... Keith I fully embrace the notion that EP has genetically programmed me to write comments such as the paragraph above. Cool! spike >...Oh? What evolved psychological trait motivates you to post? My posts elicit responses which I find intriguing. It's why I have been hanging around here for the past nearly 3 decades. It is interesting here. I have no other mailing lists where the topic of EP is discussed or even known. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 17:18:39 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 12:18:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Mike, I agree with you for the most part, but our system has some common sense type features the metric doesn't. A foot, for example (my foot is exactly 12 inches). Inches - one knuckle. Yard - my long step is 36" - easy to measure rooms etc. Metric has none of these. Maybe if you were raised in the metric system it would be better. As it is I have to convert to make sense of the measurement. bill w On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 9:49?AM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 2:55 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 5:17?PM spike >> I can't think of a time when anyone (besides me) posting on the >> extropian list invoked an EP view. People talk about social and >> political matters as if there was no deeper level. >> >> Have humans been selected to reject understanding their evolved >> psychological traits? Seems possible to me. >> > > Re: deeper level - you may have noticed the length (and depth) of posts > here (and in general) has decreased. I suspect this is a coping mechanism > to deal with the accelerating rate of change: we have to run ever faster to > not fall behind. tbh, I've made peace with the limit of my intellect. > There are people smarter than me on this list; I do not need to compete or > posture to assert superiority and I'm not threatened by it. I expect AI > will soon enough force the rest of humanity into a similar position. > (Well, plenty of doomsayers are very threatened by superintelligence) > > Re: EP - you didn't have to convince me with a hard sell. It was more > like someone struggling with imperial measures being shown the metric > system and immediately recognizing "oh hell yeah, this makes sense" ... or > trying to understand planetary position through retrograde motion and being > shown the heliocentric model. In hindsight, the better model is so obvious > the old one is abandoned as an embarrassing moment (much worse that the > moment may have been the entire course of humanity trying to understand > how/why of the world) > > Re: reject understanding - surely we evolved attention span for external > threats over internal states. ex: hearing bloodflow in my ears taking > priority over approaching predators would be disadvantageous to survival. > We have relative safety in the modern world for navel gazing; that's > comparatively new in evolutionary time. > > It may also be less an outright rejection and more a habitual return to > the familiar; such as persisting with ounces (despite enlightenment of > metric milliliters) because my measuring cup is graduated in ounces. Also, > cognitive load (eg: new braining) is expensive... of course we would rather > not expend the energy on deep introspection when shortcuts are working well > enough to get by in the short term. > > btw, the length of this post feels too long as a single idea and too short > to have properly developed multiple ideas into a full article. iiwii :) > >> _______________________________________________ > 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 hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 17:32:36 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 10:32:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: <004c01d9d2b2$252ae4c0$6f80ae40$@rainier66.com> References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <004c01d9d2b2$252ae4c0$6f80ae40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 8:33?AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > snip > EP suggests we are programmed genetically. I have long thought that, since way before I had any real explanation for how we got this way. The old time religion people had that intuition and came up with an explanation for the nature of humans: god made us that way after the original pair sinned. It really insisted, with the notion that humans are evil by nature. > > I will accept the ?by nature? part, but the evil part is a bit of a stretch. We are tuned to be competitive, sure. So? what?s evil about that? Sounds like fun to me. That?s where we get sports. War is evil, so we avoid that one, and take care of our instinctive attraction to that horrifying activity with harmless analogs. Have you been reading the news for the last 18 months? I should add that the current mess is outside of my model for war, it was a top-down madness rather than a bottom-up of a population facing bleak times. People with the power of Putin and the resources of an industrial state did not exist in the EEA. > Enormous fortunes have been made on good war games. Our favorite sport is a terrain acquisition battle analog, complete with body armor, tactics, the works. My personal favorite game (chess) is a war analog, sora, with actual battle symbolism, knights, castles, etc. > I suspect a partial activation of the psychological traits for war. Not unlike SM/BD sex games are a partial activation of the evolved psychological traits for capture-bonding. On the point of EP rejection, you might note that the article on this topic was removed from Wikipedia. I pasted the last version on an alternate site. The page is 5 down on duck duckgo and 3 down on Google. Keith > What is an example of a rejection of evolutionary psychology? > > > > Could be I don?t know enough about the subject. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 18:03:24 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 11:03:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: <000601d9d2c0$ce390f20$6aab2d60$@rainier66.com> References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> <000601d9d2c0$ce390f20$6aab2d60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 10:18?AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Henson > > > >>... Keith I fully embrace the notion that EP has genetically programmed me to write comments such as the paragraph above. Cool! spike > > >...Oh? What evolved psychological trait motivates you to post? > > My posts elicit responses which I find intriguing. It's why I have been hanging around here for the past nearly 3 decades. It is interesting here. I have no other mailing lists where the topic of EP is discussed or even known. That does not answer the question I asked, The underlying motivation for posting is the same as a wide range of things humans do, we do it for status. There is a good reason in evolutionary terms for us to seek status. Our ancestors (particularly our male ancestors) who obtained high status got more nooky. Thus selection for seeking status. Discussing this as a human motivation is strongly repressed. I might add that posting to the Extropian list (at least in the past) did result in high status (if not more nooky). I ran into a paper by Maxwell Tabarrok where he traced the world-shaking influence of ideas originating on this list. https://maximumprogress.substack.com/p/grading-extropian-predictions > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 18:19:48 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 11:19:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] Re: et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <4b2f002c-aaec-3cae-7a15-7ce38b9e1694@swisscows.email> <00c601d9d12e$a4a703d0$edf50b70$@rainier66.com> <015501d9d153$c7b94980$572bdc80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: That's a distortion of the actual situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer Please take a few seconds to verify your memory before posting. Keith On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 6:44?AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > People who think that they are another sex usually have known it for a long time. It goes far beyond wanting to wear flowery dresses. In one famous case, a baby with flawed genitalia was surgically made into a female and raised that way. > > Later on he/she said that he knew all along he was male, got the operation and married and had kids (adopted I assume). bill w > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 2:36?PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> Men do tend to have better spatial/logic reasoning. >> >> Also, transwomen have the benefit of usually decades of education as an encultured man. Getting treated like you're better at chess will make you better at chess, or make you work harder and happier, at least. >> >> The women's leagues exist because women are shut out of those kinds of spaces. I think the reason they are banning transwomen is that it seems like a bit of an exploit to spend your life in those spaces as a man, reaping the benefits, and then switching over. >> >> The whole issue is a fucking minefield. I think if people were less fucked up by environmental toxins, and less fucked up by mental toxins, and humans of both sexes were allowed to express themselves better, the whole nu-trans fad wouldn't really be a thing. Wanting to wear flamboyant or flowing clothing as a man, or have long, beautiful hair, doesn't mean you have to get crippling life-altering and life-shortening surgery that chains you to a lifelong medication regime. I think most of these people don't really understand the lives they might be in for, especially kids. Seems to me to have low levels of truly informed consent. >> >> On Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 5:44 PM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ?> On Behalf Of Darin Sunley via extropy-chat >>> ? >>> >>> >>> >>> >?I would think the consistent heuristic would be that, in just about any competitive environment, trans-women should be grouped with the cis-group whom their score distribution most resembles? >>> >>> >>> >>> Well there is this: the sport of chess sidesteps the whole locker room issue. >>> >>> >>> >>> I hez to bring this up, but I will, somewhat cautiously: Competition math is completely dominated by XYs, and they don?t have a women?s division in that sport. From what I can tell, competition math is even more male dominated than chess. Don?t know why: that sport doesn?t require or benefit from testosterone as far as I can tell. >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEYX_XYJfVaGNHCiPzeow7NhL3xBxELuvEnPJZdQfh0svA%40mail.gmail.com. From spike at rainier66.com Sat Aug 19 18:32:52 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 11:32:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] who? In-Reply-To: References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> <000601d9d2c0$ce390f20$6aab2d60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002401d9d2cb$90b6bf70$b2243e50$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: Keith Henson Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 10:18?AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Henson > > > >>... Keith I fully embrace the notion that EP has genetically > >>programmed me to write comments such as the paragraph above. Cool! > >>spike > >> >...Oh? What evolved psychological trait motivates you to post? > >>... My posts elicit responses which I find intriguing. It's why I have been hanging around here for the past nearly 3 decades. It is interesting here. I have no other mailing lists where the topic of EP is discussed or even known. >...That does not answer the question I asked, The underlying motivation for posting is the same as a wide range of things humans do, we do it for status... Keith, status is a possible motivation, but it isn't a universal motivation for posting here, and I might even argue it isn't even a primary motive in my case. I am not and have never been, a high status person. There are not many of us left, so status is mostly irrelevant. I am on some much larger internet forums, and ones which are read by neighbors, where status does matter. If I posted primarily for status, I would post there much more often than I do, which is seldom indeed. EP is a powerful explanatory notion. With that, it carries a heavy burden of caution against confirmation bias. In my own case, I have posted stuff here that I know will reduce my status in this group, but I do so anyway, for I am interested in the responses it will generate. An example: we are living in times where there is daily-accumulating evidence that our current POTUS, whose name I cannot recall, received a 5 million dollar bribe in exchange for getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. Source: FBI. The FBI wrote an unclassified F-1023 with the details. The IRS found some of the money trails, at least parts of the trails, without knowledge of the FBI report. Even mentioning that turd in the punchbowl will lower my status in this group most likely, and lower my status in your eyes Keith, which is a status I value highly. I choose to post that however, for it is impossible to ignore and has enormous consequences, among which is a motive for US committing unlimited military and financial support of Ukraine, which places the planet's two biggest nuclear powers on opposite sides of the battlefield. This is not good. >...I might add that posting to the Extropian list (at least in the past) did result in high status (if not more nooky.) Sure but you are a special case Keith. You have done a lotta cool stuff. >...I ran into a paper by Maxwell Tabarrok where he traced the world-shaking influence of ideas originating on this list. https://maximumprogress.substack.com/p/grading-extropian-predictions We could argue that prediction markets originated here with Robin Hanson's Ideas Futures. I am convinced that digital cash was invented here, with Hal Finney's work. My own work on MBrains came from Robert's work on the topic, which he generously invited me to work on over many years, which is helping me understand what might be happening at Tabby's star. Those are three huge developments. There have been a lotta really cool ideas I have been introduced to in this forum. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 20:59:42 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 15:59:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] who? In-Reply-To: <002401d9d2cb$90b6bf70$b2243e50$@rainier66.com> References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> <000601d9d2c0$ce390f20$6aab2d60$@rainier66.com> <002401d9d2cb$90b6bf70$b2243e50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Status - Compared to the rest of our group members, my status ought to be at the bottom. I am not a techie, went no further than algebra and trig. No matter - I stay out of those discussions anyway. I post only when I understand the ideas. Professors get a free ride in society re status. I think that should extend to those who worked at high levels in science and/or had advanced degrees. But I'll bet that those credentials don't matter to our group members - sophistication and nuanced ideas and creativity count more than what we did before joining. And I think that for the most part. members don't think much about status. We don't defer to anyone if possible. bill w On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 1:35?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Henson > Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump > > On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 10:18?AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Keith Henson > > > > > >>... Keith I fully embrace the notion that EP has genetically > > >>programmed me to write comments such as the paragraph above. Cool! > > >>spike > > > >> >...Oh? What evolved psychological trait motivates you to post? > > > >>... My posts elicit responses which I find intriguing. It's why I have > been hanging around here for the past nearly 3 decades. It is interesting > here. I have no other mailing lists where the topic of EP is discussed or > even known. > > >...That does not answer the question I asked, The underlying motivation > for posting is the same as a wide range of things humans do, we do it for > status... > > Keith, status is a possible motivation, but it isn't a universal > motivation for posting here, and I might even argue it isn't even a primary > motive in my case. I am not and have never been, a high status person. > There are not many of us left, so status is mostly irrelevant. I am on > some much larger internet forums, and ones which are read by neighbors, > where status does matter. If I posted primarily for status, I would post > there much more often than I do, which is seldom indeed. > > EP is a powerful explanatory notion. With that, it carries a heavy burden > of caution against confirmation bias. > > In my own case, I have posted stuff here that I know will reduce my status > in this group, but I do so anyway, for I am interested in the responses it > will generate. An example: we are living in times where there is > daily-accumulating evidence that our current POTUS, whose name I cannot > recall, received a 5 million dollar bribe in exchange for getting a > Ukrainian prosecutor fired. Source: FBI. The FBI wrote an unclassified > F-1023 with the details. The IRS found some of the money trails, at least > parts of the trails, without knowledge of the FBI report. > > Even mentioning that turd in the punchbowl will lower my status in this > group most likely, and lower my status in your eyes Keith, which is a > status I value highly. I choose to post that however, for it is impossible > to ignore and has enormous consequences, among which is a motive for US > committing unlimited military and financial support of Ukraine, which > places the planet's two biggest nuclear powers on opposite sides of the > battlefield. This is not good. > > >...I might add that posting to the Extropian list (at least in the past) > did result in high status (if not more nooky.) > > Sure but you are a special case Keith. You have done a lotta cool stuff. > > >...I ran into a paper by Maxwell Tabarrok where he traced the > world-shaking influence of ideas originating on this list. > > https://maximumprogress.substack.com/p/grading-extropian-predictions > > We could argue that prediction markets originated here with Robin Hanson's > Ideas Futures. I am convinced that digital cash was invented here, with > Hal Finney's work. My own work on MBrains came from Robert's work on the > topic, which he generously invited me to work on over many years, which is > helping me understand what might be happening at Tabby's star. Those are > three huge developments. There have been a lotta really cool ideas I have > been introduced to in this forum. > > 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 hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 22:25:56 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 15:25:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 11:45?AM John Clark wrote: > > On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 1:05?PM Keith Henson wrote: > >>> > There is evidence that, at least some of the time, nice guys do finish first because it's a fact that humans have fewer virulent warlike genes than any other primate. >> >> >> > I don't think you can make such a case. The big difference is that war mode is not on all the time as it is in the chimpanzees. > > > I think you just made my case for me. If chimpanzees are always in the war mode and humans are not then chimpanzees are more warlike than humans. I am not sure how one would even measure this, but I note that humans in war mode can be ferocious on a scale that I don't think chimps can match. >> > It does not help your genes one bit to fight unless the alternative is worse for the genes. > > True but irrelevant, genes have no foresight. No, but they can be selected to build brains with foresight. Not that I think the runup to wars in the EEA involved much if any rational thought. Based on rational self-interest, going to war (in the model) was as bad as starving. That was the bizarre thing that came out of the selection model. In the context of wars, the interest of humans and their genes diverge. The reason this happens is that gene copies are absorbed into the winner's tribe through the young women of the losers. It turns out that from the gene's viewpoint, going to war is about 40% better than starving in place. > If in times of stress your genes give you a personality such that your tendency to cooperate with your fellow beings increases then you may very well end up with more descendants than somebody who becomes more aggressive in such a situation. The model does not show this. >> > Maximum group size is limited by the availability of food. > > No. The maximum population is limited by the food supply but the maximum size that a social group can have before internal civic stresses cause it to split is not. There is a lot of data on group splitting. I contend that the group size before splitting was largely set by food. If you could not collect enough food within a day's walk, it was time to split. YMMV. >> >> If you put 4 million chimpanzees on an island as small as Manhattan they would tear each other apart in a matter of hours, but during the entire year of 2022 only 78 humans out of the 4 million on Manhattan killed one of their fellow Homo sapiens. >> >> > If the food supply was cut off, what do you think the toll would be? > > About 4 million but there is a difference. If you put 4 million chimpanzees on Manhattan Island they would start killing each other even if the food supply was infinite, but humans would not. Neither would bonobos who are closely related to chimps. The difference is chimps are intensely territorial, every bit of suitable territory is occupied and defended. Bonobos evolved in an environment with a huge difference. They can easily spread out into resource-rich adjacent territories, but sleeping sickness kills them when they go much beyond the core area. Thus they have never seen a situation where defending territory is cost-effective. >> > The point I have tried to make is that a bleak reality of even the anticipation of a bleak future will shift humans into war mode. > > From an evolutionary point of view it's very clear that increased aggression is not always, or even usually, the best strategy to take in times of increased stress. Going to war is a widespread, almost universal, trait. All I did was model how the trait was selected. If you want to make a different model showing how this or some other trait became common, be my guest. I might note that the San people do not seem selected for wars. They also have the lowest known human fertility rate. > I suggest you read Robert Axelrod's wonderful book "The Evolution Of Cooperation". > > The Evolution of Cooperation Cited it many times over the decades. > Or read evolutionarily biologist Richard Dawkins masterpiece "The Extended Phenotype". > > The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene I have an autographed copy. Not only have I cited Dawkins's work a lot, but Dawkins also acknowledged my work in the second ed of "The selfish gene." Keith > Both books talk about something called an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS), if an individual in a population has genes for a ESS then after a few generations it will become the most popular strategy in that population and it can't be upset by a mutant that follows a different strategy. The simplest and also one of the most effective ESS is called "Tit For Tat", the idea is to start off friendly but if somebody does something mean to you then do something mean to them, but don't hold a grudge, after you have retaliated go back to being friendly. > > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > itt > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv1vWfhZYFMPg9p5FADLUTiWH_XurPnT4%2BxRE2zvh9S-_Q%40mail.gmail.com. From spike at rainier66.com Sat Aug 19 23:22:46 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 16:22:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007901d9d2f4$104b8c20$30e2a460$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat ... >...I might note that the San people do not seem selected for wars. They also have the lowest known human fertility rate. ... Keith Ja. My understanding of EP has led me to be a reluctant proponent of abortion rights. The theory suggests lowering fertility rates everywhere by every means available leads to societies co-existing peacefully. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 23:28:06 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 16:28:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] who? In-Reply-To: <002401d9d2cb$90b6bf70$b2243e50$@rainier66.com> References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> <000601d9d2c0$ce390f20$6aab2d60$@rainier66.com> <002401d9d2cb$90b6bf70$b2243e50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 11:32?AM wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Henson > Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump > > On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 10:18?AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Keith Henson > > > > > >>... Keith I fully embrace the notion that EP has genetically > > >>programmed me to write comments such as the paragraph above. Cool! > > >>spike > > > >> >...Oh? What evolved psychological trait motivates you to post? > > > >>... My posts elicit responses which I find intriguing. It's why I have been hanging around here for the past nearly 3 decades. It is interesting here. I have no other mailing lists where the topic of EP is discussed or even known. > > >...That does not answer the question I asked, The underlying motivation for posting is the same as a wide range of things humans do, we do it for status... > > Keith, status is a possible motivation, but it isn't a universal motivation for posting here, and I might even argue it isn't even a primary motive in my case. People are not aware of their motivations. I am aware of my motivation for seeking status, but only as an intellectual inference. It is, with darn good reason, one of the most persistent moties people have. > I am not and have never been, a high status person. Doesn't matter. > There are not many of us left, so status is mostly irrelevant. Also doesn't matter. If you do things with the (often unconscious) function of improving your status, it doesn't matter if one or a dozen or a million people know about it. > I am on some much larger internet forums, and ones which are read by neighbors, where status does matter. If I posted primarily for status, I would post there much more often than I do, which is seldom indeed. Per above, it does not affect motivation. > EP is a powerful explanatory notion. With that, it carries a heavy burden of caution against confirmation bias. Status as a motivator has a very low barriour. Ask if high status males in the past tended to have more children. Or think about the lowest status males and how many of them became our ancestors. > In my own case, I have posted stuff here that I know will reduce my status in this group, but I do so anyway, for I am interested in the responses it will generate. An example: we are living in times where there is daily-accumulating evidence that our current POTUS, whose name I cannot recall, received a 5 million dollar bribe in exchange for getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. Source: FBI. The FBI wrote an unclassified F-1023 with the details. The IRS found some of the money trails, at least parts of the trails, without knowledge of the FBI report. This is just my opinion, but Biden, compared to Trump, is a lot better. > Even mentioning that turd in the punchbowl will lower my status in this group most likely, and lower my status in your eyes Keith, which is a status I value highly. I choose to post that however, for it is impossible to ignore and has enormous consequences, among which is a motive for US committing unlimited military and financial support of Ukraine, which places the planet's two biggest nuclear powers on opposite sides of the battlefield. This is not good. Agreed, but it's a decision I back. I am pissed at Putin not just for the stupid war, but for it being in conflict with my model of war. > >...I might add that posting to the Extropian list (at least in the past) did result in high status (if not more nooky.) > > Sure but you are a special case Keith. You have done a lotta cool stuff. Some of it stupid beyond belief. > >...I ran into a paper by Maxwell Tabarrok where he traced the world-shaking influence of ideas originating on this list. > > https://maximumprogress.substack.com/p/grading-extropian-predictions > > We could argue that prediction markets originated here with Robin Hanson's Ideas Futures. I am convinced that digital cash was invented here, with Hal Finney's work. My own work on MBrains came from Robert's work on the topic, which he generously invited me to work on over many years, which is helping me understand what might be happening at Tabby's star. Those are three huge developments. There have been a lotta really cool ideas I have been introduced to in this forum. It has certainly been a hotbed of new ideas. Keith > spike > From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 23:31:29 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 16:31:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] who? In-Reply-To: References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> <000601d9d2c0$ce390f20$6aab2d60$@rainier66.com> <002401d9d2cb$90b6bf70$b2243e50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: "members don't think much about status" Nobody thinks about their motivation, they just are. Keith On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 2:02?PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Status - Compared to the rest of our group members, my status ought to be at the bottom. I am not a techie, went no further than algebra and trig. No matter - I stay out of those discussions anyway. I post only when I understand the ideas. > > Professors get a free ride in society re status. I think that should extend to those who worked at high levels in science and/or had advanced degrees. But I'll bet that those credentials don't matter to our group members - sophistication and nuanced ideas and creativity count more than what we did before joining. And I think that for the most part. members don't think much about status. We don't defer to anyone if possible. bill w > > On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 1:35?PM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Keith Henson >> Subject: Re: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump >> >> On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 10:18?AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> > >> > -----Original Message----- >> > From: Keith Henson >> > > >> > >>... Keith I fully embrace the notion that EP has genetically >> > >>programmed me to write comments such as the paragraph above. Cool! >> > >>spike >> > >> >> >...Oh? What evolved psychological trait motivates you to post? >> > >> >>... My posts elicit responses which I find intriguing. It's why I have been hanging around here for the past nearly 3 decades. It is interesting here. I have no other mailing lists where the topic of EP is discussed or even known. >> >> >...That does not answer the question I asked, The underlying motivation for posting is the same as a wide range of things humans do, we do it for status... >> >> Keith, status is a possible motivation, but it isn't a universal motivation for posting here, and I might even argue it isn't even a primary motive in my case. I am not and have never been, a high status person. There are not many of us left, so status is mostly irrelevant. I am on some much larger internet forums, and ones which are read by neighbors, where status does matter. If I posted primarily for status, I would post there much more often than I do, which is seldom indeed. >> >> EP is a powerful explanatory notion. With that, it carries a heavy burden of caution against confirmation bias. >> >> In my own case, I have posted stuff here that I know will reduce my status in this group, but I do so anyway, for I am interested in the responses it will generate. An example: we are living in times where there is daily-accumulating evidence that our current POTUS, whose name I cannot recall, received a 5 million dollar bribe in exchange for getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. Source: FBI. The FBI wrote an unclassified F-1023 with the details. The IRS found some of the money trails, at least parts of the trails, without knowledge of the FBI report. >> >> Even mentioning that turd in the punchbowl will lower my status in this group most likely, and lower my status in your eyes Keith, which is a status I value highly. I choose to post that however, for it is impossible to ignore and has enormous consequences, among which is a motive for US committing unlimited military and financial support of Ukraine, which places the planet's two biggest nuclear powers on opposite sides of the battlefield. This is not good. >> >> >...I might add that posting to the Extropian list (at least in the past) did result in high status (if not more nooky.) >> >> Sure but you are a special case Keith. You have done a lotta cool stuff. >> >> >...I ran into a paper by Maxwell Tabarrok where he traced the world-shaking influence of ideas originating on this list. >> >> https://maximumprogress.substack.com/p/grading-extropian-predictions >> >> We could argue that prediction markets originated here with Robin Hanson's Ideas Futures. I am convinced that digital cash was invented here, with Hal Finney's work. My own work on MBrains came from Robert's work on the topic, which he generously invited me to work on over many years, which is helping me understand what might be happening at Tabby's star. Those are three huge developments. There have been a lotta really cool ideas I have been introduced to in this forum. >> >> spike >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Aug 20 00:53:43 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 17:53:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: <007901d9d2f4$104b8c20$30e2a460$@rainier66.com> References: <007901d9d2f4$104b8c20$30e2a460$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 4:22?PM wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat > ... > >...I might note that the San people do not seem selected for wars. They also have the lowest known human fertility rate. > > Ja. My understanding of EP has led me to be a reluctant proponent of abortion rights. The theory suggests lowering fertility rates everywhere by every means available leads to societies co-existing peacefully. All groups have to do the same. There is nothing wrong with population growth provided the growth is less than the economic growth. This keeps the income per capita going up and the switch to wars off. I think the Irish women, by cutting the birth rate, were what caused the IRA to go out of business. Looking around I found that I discussed this before on the ls4 list http://sl4.org/archive/0411/10291.html At 06:34 PM 11/11/04 -0500, you wrote: >At 12:36 PM 11/11/04 -0700, David Clark wrote: > >If anyone on the list thinks David has enough understanding of the >relevant subjects to be worth continuing this thread I might do so. > >Keith Henson Randall Randall responded off list and when asked said I could quote him here. >I'm not sure that this is an SL4 topic, but from >this layman's viewpoint, he seems to point out >what kind of evidence your hypothesis would require, >and that it seems lacking. > >I really think he's made a good case that there >may have been no particular selection pressure >in this direction, since resource depletion is a >distinctly modern (last few thousand years) issue. I suspect you and perhaps David just have not thought about this much. The *general* problem of living things depleting resources goes back to shortly after life arose. It's a mathematical property of anything capable of replication. Trying to find the "mama bear" quote, I found that I had already discussed this point back in May, here specifically: http://www.sl4.org/archive/0405/8659.html . . . at a psychology workshop this last weekend . . . They are the kind of people who understand the "Mamma bear" problem that William Calvin discusses in the first chapter of The Ascent of Mind: Ice Age Climates and the Evolution of Intelligence. "Unfortunately, a little arithmetic shows that this story doesn't have a happy ending. How many bears can the environment feed? Obviously, that's the average bear population. And that means, on average, only two babies per mother get to grow up and become a parent, out of the dozen or two that she produces. The maximum population level is not set by the birth rate but by the number of job slots afforded by the environmental niche occupied by bears. . . ." "That means the average Mama Bear is raising five-to-ten times more baby bears than can possibly survive, absent, of course, miracles -- . . . ." The opposition I got to asking how far back it was that humans became their own major predator was really interesting (at a meta level). It is obvious that hominid lines were able to fill the environment to capacity and then some. The simple fact that our line spread so far into Asia so long ago indicates population pressure on groups at the population edges. Behind that edge *something* (or things) held the population to the numbers the environment can feed. Obviously diseases were a factor, but probably not enough. But the idea that human line groups killed off neighbors as a regular feature of life long enough to select for a survival response genes when things start to get tight . . . . . I wonder if humans generally have emotional censors to reject such an idea. Perhaps such thoughts conflict in with our view of ourselves--at least as that view has been shaped by times of relative plenty. [Editorial note, I now am wondering if rejecting thinking about this subject might be due to _wired in_ censors, the kind that keep people from thinking any more than they absolutely have to about their own mortality.] "Global maturing" may be a lot harder if censor biases keep us from thinking about this class of knowledge. Then again, perhaps humans differ in some way from bears and they didn't overfill the environment during the stone age or they had some other way to control populations that didn't involve groups killing each other. Human's generally don't have twins like bears, but in a primitive environment the typical woman is pregnant or nursing from late teens to early 40s. Five to six kids is typical. Just like bears, on average only two of them will survive to reproduce (given a constant environment, which includes technology). And typically 40% of the adults in present day hunter gatherer groups die from violence. I know bringing in bad news about our evolved psychological traits is not a popular role, heck, I find the subject really depressing, but someone has to do it because we really need to understand ourselves better if we are going to survive into the Singularity. Looking to see if I had ever used the word "Krell," I found I had started another thread back in May with the subject line "Forbidden Planet." I don't think anyone made a comment directly on the subject line and now wonder how large a fraction of the list "got it." That's one of the problems of a text only interface because you can't see the baffled looks when you cite something which might not be as widely known as you think. Keith Henson From spike at rainier66.com Sun Aug 20 03:28:05 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 20:28:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] who? In-Reply-To: References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> <000601d9d2c0$ce390f20$6aab2d60$@rainier66.com> <002401d9d2cb$90b6bf70$b2243e50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003601d9d316$56010930$02031b90$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: Keith Henson > >>... Sure but you are a special case Keith. You have done a lotta cool stuff. >...Some of it stupid beyond belief. Meh, most cool stuff is stupid beyond belief, at least to start with. Then as time goes on, it makes sense. ... >...It has certainly been a hotbed of new ideas. Keith Ja, agreed. I fear at times it has been a coldbed of civility, proper decorum and moral rectitude. But... we don't need that stuff, and besides, I can criticize no one, for I am one who has perhaps contributed the most to that deplorable condition. Furthermore, a coldbed is better than no bed at all. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sun Aug 20 05:44:04 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 22:44:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] so its firetrucks In-Reply-To: <003601d9d316$56010930$02031b90$@rainier66.com> References: <002201d9d232$4c04efd0$e40ecf70$@rainier66.com> <002001d9d293$21101d70$63305850$@rainier66.com> <000601d9d2c0$ce390f20$6aab2d60$@rainier66.com> <002401d9d2cb$90b6bf70$b2243e50$@rainier66.com> <003601d9d316$56010930$02031b90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006401d9d329$54b8d720$fe2a8560$@rainier66.com> In this forum, we discussed the reasons why self-driving taxis may not be practical. I pointed out the possibly unsurmountable difficulties with enabling crime: a coupla teenagers could work together, one steps out in front of a driverless taxi, which comes to a complete stop. The other opens the door, grabs all the clothing of the two passengers, and runs off, depriving them of wallets, phones, credit cards, etc. The passengers then face several problems: going to the police station where the cops just know it is a candid camera gag when two nekkid "crime victims" walk in the door. Then they must explain to inquiring minds back at the office why they are returning from lunch wearing different clothing. Then they must explain to the suspicious spouses why the people on that evening's episode of America's Nakedest Home Videos look a lot like his wife and her colleague. They have a lotta splainin to do. That only has to happen once, and BINGO, problem solved for the taxi company: no more revolting wet spots on their seats. But...there is a more fundamental problem. Today for the first time I saw an internet advertisement for Cruise, a driverless taxi company operating 150 of these driverless rigs in San Francisco. Also today, I heard that a driverless taxi entered an intersection on a green light, smote a fire truck passing thru with its sirens a blarin and its blinkity lights a blinkin. Apparently the taxi's algorithm failed to take into account that fire trucks get the right of way. A passenger on the taxi was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Her partner was apparently sufficiently uninjured to flee. The taxi company is searching for him to return his clothing. The taxi company Cruise offered this terse comment: cruise @Cruise One of our cars entered the intersection on a green light and was struck by an emergency vehicle that appeared to be en route to an emergency scene. (2/5) 3:59 AM ? Aug 18, 2023 ? 67.9K Views If you ride one in San Francisco, do keep in mind that anyone can step out and rob you, and you might be mashed beyond recognition by a racing firetruck any time you go into any intersection, have a nice vacation! spike From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Sun Aug 20 13:03:12 2023 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 15:03:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: <007901d9d12a$aa6ca9e0$ff45fda0$@rainier66.com> References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <007901d9d12a$aa6ca9e0$ff45fda0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: > Spike - what would happen if someone dressed up like a crossdressing > female (that is, dressed as male), but was actually male? Will they have > people strip to qualify as the gender they claim? bill w > > > > I don?t know. Interesting question however: we already have transgender > women in the women?s locker room, as we anticipated years ago. But we > haven?t (as far as I know) had an XX with all that marvelous XX equipment > claiming to be transgender and showing up in the men?s shower. Somehow I > just don?t think that would upset the men nearly as much as it does the > women. I don?t think they would mind at all. She wouldn?t bother me a > bit. Depending of course on how one defines ?bother.? > XX genotype in XY phenotype locker room is not that uncommon. It does of course require a somewhat large confidence in the jurisdiction. If all available judges/jurys/whatnot treat an XX in a XY locker as invitation and excuse to rape, no then you will not see that happen. If the XX feels safe in the relationship with jurisdiction et al. then you will see XX in XY. ie: I had 4? (30years ago now) XX members in my bataljon when I served in the military. They where in armour (tanks) and mech infantery. Serving as sergants and 2: lt. They used the same communal showers dressing rooms and logements as everyone. Now i have no idea about what pronomen they used but nobody cared. They did their duty and the were competent and respected. And most important, were left alone. Nowadays we have XX genotype who most certainly identify as XX and so many of them that they get their own showers and such. /Henrik -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Aug 20 13:11:27 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 06:11:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <007901d9d12a$aa6ca9e0$ff45fda0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002b01d9d367$d4af97f0$7e0ec7d0$@rainier66.com> From: Henrik Ohrstrom >>? She wouldn?t bother me a bit. Depending of course on how one defines ?bother.? >?XX genotype in XY phenotype locker room is not that uncommon. ? >?Nowadays we have XX genotype who most certainly identify as XX and so many of them that they get their own showers and such. /Henrik Thx Henrik. I wasn?t thinking military (its own world) but rather high school sports, where the athlete seldom gets any relief from the semen pressure nearly blasting the top of his head off. I remember those days. Vaguely. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Aug 20 14:04:14 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 09:04:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: <007901d9d2f4$104b8c20$30e2a460$@rainier66.com> References: <007901d9d2f4$104b8c20$30e2a460$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Ja. My understanding of EP has led me to be a reluctant proponent of abortion rights. The theory suggests lowering fertility rates everywhere by every means available leads to societies co-existing peacefully. spike Me too. I do think abortion takes a life. But I hate infringing on people's rights to do what they want with their bodies. Very tough call. I hope the morning after pill gets extremely popular. No implantation, no baby. bill w On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 6:25?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Keith Henson via extropy-chat > ... > > >...I might note that the San people do not seem selected for wars. They > also have the lowest known human fertility rate. > > ... > > Keith > > > > > > Ja. My understanding of EP has led me to be a reluctant proponent of > abortion rights. The theory suggests lowering fertility rates everywhere > by every means available leads to societies co-existing peacefully. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sun Aug 20 14:06:36 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 09:06:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: <002b01d9d367$d4af97f0$7e0ec7d0$@rainier66.com> References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <007901d9d12a$aa6ca9e0$ff45fda0$@rainier66.com> <002b01d9d367$d4af97f0$7e0ec7d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: he semen pressure nearly blasting the top of his head off. I remember those days. Vaguely. spike no such thing bill w On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 8:14?AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* Henrik Ohrstrom > *>>?* She wouldn?t bother me a bit. Depending of course on how one > defines ?bother.? > > > > >?XX genotype in XY phenotype locker room is not that uncommon. > > ? > > >?Nowadays we have XX genotype who most certainly identify as XX and so > many of them that they get their own showers and such. > > > > /Henrik > > > > > > Thx Henrik. I wasn?t thinking military (its own world) but rather high > school sports, where the athlete seldom gets any relief from the semen > pressure nearly blasting the top of his head off. I remember those days. > Vaguely. > > > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Sun Aug 20 15:57:20 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 08:57:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] et tu chess? In-Reply-To: References: <004401d9d123$2bfd4760$83f7d620$@rainier66.com> <007901d9d12a$aa6ca9e0$ff45fda0$@rainier66.com> <002b01d9d367$d4af97f0$7e0ec7d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003a01d9d37f$01326ed0$03974c70$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace ? Subject: Re: [ExI] et tu chess? he semen pressure nearly blasting the top of his head off. I remember those days. Vaguely. spike no such thing bill w On the contrary Billw. I got the idea when I had my blood pressure tested with that thing they put on your arm. I figured I could create an analogous device to measure semen pressure. I took that little squeeze bulb thing, adapted it for a smaller device and so forth, took a measurement, took the measurement again, then again, then took the measurement a few hundred more times, oh my, it?s a lotta fun to use. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Aug 20 19:16:43 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 12:16:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 4:24?AM John Clark wrote: > > On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 6:26?PM Keith Henson wrote: >> >> >I note that humans in war mode can be ferocious on a scale that I don't think chimps can match. > > If you're talking about the absolute number of individuals killed in war then that is true, but if you count the percentage of the species that have been killed in war it's not. I am thinking about Rwanda and Cambodia. > This has been especially true for the last 75 years which has been the most peaceful time in all of human history. If you can state why it has been a peaceful time, you will have a handle on my thinking and modeling of the subject. But I am talking about the last 100,000 years or so. > >> > gene copies are absorbed into the winner's tribe through the young women of the losers. It turns out that from the gene's viewpoint, going to war is about 40% better than starving in place. > > Sure, if starving to death or going to war were the only two alternatives then I'm sure that's true, but I don't think such a clear-cut binary choice occurs very often in the real world. It does not need to happen very often to have selection effects on human genes. 1000 centuries is around 4000 generations. I guess that a weather event that caused the food supply to collapse happened about once a generation (this could be estimated by tree rings, and was in a Chinese study I have referenced> ). 20 generations of selection can dramatically change the psychological traits of foxes, there is no reason to expect it would have less effect on humans. > The historical record backs me up on this, wars have produced starvation but none of the major wars during the last 400 years (and probably further back than that but the records are less clear) have been caused because one side was starving, and huge famines have occurred that have killed millions but have caused no wars. "The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crisis" David D. Zhanga,b,c,1, Harry F. Leea,b, Cong Wangd, Baosheng Lie, Qing Peia,b, Jane Zhangf, and Yulun Anc aDepartment of Geography and bThe International Centre of China Development Studies, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; cSchool of Geographic and Environmental Sciences, Guizhou Normal University, Guizhou 550001, China; dDepartment of Finance, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China; eDepartment of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China; and fSouth China Morning Post, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Recent studies have shown strong temporal correlations between past climate changes and societal crises. However, the specific causal mechanisms underlying this relation have not been addressed. We explored quantitative responses of 14 fine-grained agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic variables to climate fluctuations from A.D. 1500?1800 in Europe. Results show that cooling from A.D. 1560?1660 caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes, leading to the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. We identified a set of causal linkages between climate change and human crisis. Using temperature data and climate- driven economic variables, we simulated the alternation of defined ?golden? and ?dark? ages in Europe and the Northern Hemisphere during the past millennium. Our findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and climate-driven economic downturn was the direct cause, of large-scale human crises in preindustrial Europe and the Northern Hemisphere. climate-driven economy | Granger Causality Analysis | grain price Debate about the relation between climate and human crisis has lasted over a century. With recent advances in paleotemperature reconstruction, scholars note that massive social disturbance, societal collapse, and population collapse often coincided with great climate change in America, the Middle East, China, and many other countries in preindustrial times (1?5). Although most of these scientists believe that climate change could cause human catastrophe, their arguments are backed simply by qualitative scrutiny of narrow historic examples. More recent breakthroughs came from research adopting quantitative approaches to all known cases of social crisis. These studies show that, in recent history, climate change was responsible for the outbreak of war, dynastic transition, and population decline in China, Europe, and around the world because of climate-induced shrinkage of agricultural production (6?15). However, the underlying causal linkages from climate change to agricultural production and various human catastrophes in history have not been addressed scientifically. Hence, this climate?crisis relationship remains obscure. Incomplete knowledge of the topic has led to criticism that the notion of climate-induced human crisis neglects historical complexities or relies on weak evidence of causality (16, 17). > The major cause of war has been religion, Protestants fighting Catholics, Christians fighting Jews, Muslims fighting Christians, Muslims fighting Jews, Muslims fighting Hindus, Muslims fighting Buddhists, Buddhists fighting Hindus, Sunni Muslims fighting Shia Muslims... I think you are conflating the xenophobic meme step in the progress to war with the root cause. In any case, humans did not have religions (as we know them) over most of the 100,000 years I am talking about. >>> >> If in times of stress your genes give you a personality such that your tendency to cooperate with your fellow beings increases then you may very well end up with more descendants than somebody who becomes more aggressive in such a situation. >> >> >> > The model does not show this. > > I don't know what you mean by "the model". I can make a model of a dragon but that doesn't mean it exists. I will email you the paper. >> > I contend that the group size before splitting was largely set by food. If you could not collect enough food within a day's walk, it was time to split. > > Humans have had groups far larger than that for many thousands of years, I am talking about hunter-gatherers, pre agriculture. > and it has become the norm not the exception. So if humans have genes for splitting they can't be very strong and they can be easily overcome by other factors. >>> >>> >> If you put 4 million chimpanzees on Manhattan Island they would start killing each other even if the food supply was infinite, but humans would not. >> >> >> > Neither would bonobos who are closely related to chimps. > > > True. We are as closely related to Bonobos as we are to Chimpanzees because they split from each other after they split from the line that produced us. > >> > The difference is chimps are intensely territorial > > Yes, physically there is very little difference between Chimps and Bonobos, the big difference between the species is behavioral. There must be advantages and disadvantages in both aggression and cooperation, but overall which has been shown to be a more effective strategy? Chimps took the aggressive path, humans and Bonobos took the cooperative path, and today humans outnumber Chimps and Bonobos combined by about 10 million to one; so the evidence seems to indicate that cooperation is the better strategy. I also believe that if a species has a tendency towards cooperation and likes to form large social groups then there would be increased environmental pressure placed on it to evolve more intelligence because there would be more ways to make use of smart new ideas in a large group then there would be if you were just a solitary individual. Not all human groups took the large group path. The San did not, they lived in small encampments for perhaps 200,000 years. > >> > Bonobos evolved in an environment with a huge difference. They can easily spread out into resource-rich adjacent territories, > > That doesn't sound radically different from the environment humans are currently living in. Right. That is entirely due to science and engineering. But it is fragile. >> > Going to war is a widespread, almost universal, trait. > > But it has become far less universal ever since the nuclear bomb was invented. We are talking about a couple of generations and no particular selection pressure. Whatever genetic traits people have for wars have not changed. Keith > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > 666 > >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv3-mwL7PNKT-06UG6CE9SdDP0uK%3Dn1OcTjF6bpGPFs%2Bug%40mail.gmail.com. From scerir at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 08:06:42 2023 From: scerir at gmail.com (serafino cerulli-irelli) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 09:06:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] FW: [Fwd: Re: tinnitus revisited] In-Reply-To: References: <7c8a2a3c33e23531a8d3f9cd25b2e2f5.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <008101d9cfae$cc445630$64cd0290$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 15 Aug 2023 at 23:03, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Well, we don't know why tinnitus occurs in the first place. > In my case it is due to 'vestibular schwannoma', brain tumor, benign but terrible indeed. scerir -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sun Aug 20 22:58:34 2023 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 18:58:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] FW: [Fwd: Re: tinnitus revisited] In-Reply-To: References: <7c8a2a3c33e23531a8d3f9cd25b2e2f5.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <008101d9cfae$cc445630$64cd0290$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Ugh, I never heard of that, and it doesn't sound like a good thing at all. Even if it is benign. :( One of these years I'll get my hearing tested. Not in any particular hurry - most of the noise in the world I could do without! But I've missed birdsong. Regards, MB On Wed, August 16, 2023 04:06, serafino cerulli-irelli via extropy-chat wrote: > On Tue, 15 Aug 2023 at 23:03, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Well, we don't know why tinnitus occurs in the first place. >> > > In my case it is due to 'vestibular schwannoma', brain tumor, benign but > terrible indeed. scerir > From john at ziaspace.com Mon Aug 21 03:53:24 2023 From: john at ziaspace.com (John Klos) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 03:53:24 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ExI] Southern California hurricane may affect extropy-chat server Message-ID: <613b2ba6-e04f-61ad-0dbc-43dc7d62cede@bunny.zia.io> Hi, all, The building which houses the extropy-chat server has a substantial leak and is partly flooded. Equipment is racked and off the floor, but that doesn't mean power might not be lost and/or networking equipment might not get wet. Just a heads up in case the list server can't be reached over the next 12 to 24 hours. Stay safe! John From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 21 05:47:34 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 22:47:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] proof that artificial intelligence is intelligent Message-ID: <004a01d9d3f2$fc9cef70$f5d6ce50$@rainier66.com> True evidence that AI is real intelligence: spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 26051 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ExiMod at protonmail.com Mon Aug 21 08:00:06 2023 From: ExiMod at protonmail.com (ExiMod) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 08:00:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Southern California hurricane may affect extropy-chat server In-Reply-To: <613b2ba6-e04f-61ad-0dbc-43dc7d62cede@bunny.zia.io> References: <613b2ba6-e04f-61ad-0dbc-43dc7d62cede@bunny.zia.io> Message-ID: Hi all https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_ep4+shtml/054709.shtml?ero#contents TROPICAL STORM HILARY ExiMod ------- Original Message ------- On Monday, August 21st, 2023 at 04:53, John Klos via extropy-chat extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org wrote: > Hi, all, > > The building which houses the extropy-chat server has a substantial leak > and is partly flooded. Equipment is racked and off the floor, but that > doesn't mean power might not be lost and/or networking equipment might not > get wet. Just a heads up in case the list server can't be reached over the > next 12 to 24 hours. > > Stay safe! > > John > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Aug 21 14:15:30 2023 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 08:15:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] proof that artificial intelligence is intelligent In-Reply-To: <004a01d9d3f2$fc9cef70$f5d6ce50$@rainier66.com> References: <004a01d9d3f2$fc9cef70$f5d6ce50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Oh, thank you spike, I can't stop laughing. That is the greatest!! On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 11:49?PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > True evidence that AI is real intelligence: > > > > > > > > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 26051 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 21 19:23:38 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 12:23:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 11:02?AM John Clark wrote: > > Hi Keith > > I'll comment about your post but first I want to thank you for being kind enough to send me your paper, I read it and found it very interesting. In your paper you say: > > "we need to generate a model from the "viewpoint" of such genes in a typical warrior 50,000 or 100,000 years ago." > > But I think to understand what's going on we need to go back a lot further than that, before our ancestors even figured out how to use stones for tools. In your model you assume that if two tribes go to war then the winning tribe will be the one that is most aggressive, but is that necessarily true? Take another look at the model. There was no such assumption, each tribe had a 50% chance of winning in the model. Genes have to play the odds. > Could it be that the winning tribe is "the one that was more intelligent? Could it even be that the tribe that passed more of its genes to the next generation is the one that was smart enough to tell the difference between when it's a good idea to go to war and when it is not? That is mentioned in the paper, "This places the detection of looming starvation under intense selection to get it right. (This is a challenging cognitive task and possibly a driver of human intelligence.)" Also, as mentioned in the paper, it is a monumentally stupid move (from the gene's viewpoint) to go to war when not facing something worse. > If any of this is the case then it would help explain why the enormous increase in brain size, and presumably intelligence, started to occur about 1.5 million years ago when primitive stone tools started to show up. Of course that alone can't explain why such a massive increase in intelligence does not routinely happen to all species over evolutionary time, but your theory can't explain that either. It's not intended to. The model is only about how psychological traits for war were selected. The question is do more gene copies exist after going to war or starving in place? > But there is another hypothesis that perhaps can, the idea is that for reasons unrelated to war or intelligence our ancestors started to walk upright freeing two limbs that can be used for manipulating objects instead of locomotion. This is important because a zebra with a large brain and great intelligence would not have a greater chance of getting its genes into the next generation because it has no hands and so would have no way of moving a brilliant plan from the theoretical into the actual. In fact a genius zebra would be at a disadvantage compared to a regular zebra because the brain is an energy hog; the human brain is only 2% of the body weight and yet it uses 20% of the energy. There are ideas but there is no consensus about why our primate ancestors started to walk upright, but the fossil record makes it very clear that for whatever reason bipedal locomotion, and something that looked a lot closer to a human hand than anything a chimp has, evolved BEFORE the huge increase in brain size started. Human hands are not that much different from the rest of the primates. William Calvin proposed that human brain expansion was due to projectile hunting. We are much better than chimps at accurate throwing. Calvin makes the case that release accuracy involves a lot of the brain in parallel to get the jitter down. Calvin's books used to be open on his website, I don't know if they still are. I am highly impressed by his work. > > You also talk about "Genes for not fighting when attacked", The paper says "Genes for not fighting when attacked rapidly disappear from the population" "Attacked" in this context implies killed. That takes the genes of the attacked person out of the gene pool. but I don't think genes with anything near that sort of specificity exist, instead I think there are genes for how much risk you should take; if you're too brave you're likely to get eaten by a sabertooth tiger and if you're too cowardly you're likely to starve to death, there is a sweet spot that all animal species must find and it has nothing to do with war. The sweet spot will change as environmental conditions change and in a population there will be individuals with various levels of bravery, if you happen to run across a individual who is significantly braver than you it would be wise to start to hang around with him and let him take most of the risk when the two of you attack a dangerous Mammoth with stone tools, if he survives he will get the glory and the most delicious parts but the beast is so big you'll be able to fill your belly with the scraps, and if he doesn't survive you probably will. This may be the source of the "genetic selection for supporting authoritarian leaders" that you speak of. I mentioned this in passing. Have not put much effort into it. > On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 3:17?PM Keith Henson wrote: > >> > I am talking about the last 100,000 years or so. > > I think the last 1.5 million years is more important, the time when the brain of our ancestors started to get dramatically larger. See comments about Calvin above. >>> >> The major cause of war has been religion, Protestants fighting Catholics, Christians fighting Jews, Muslims fighting Christians, Muslims fighting Jews, Muslims fighting Hindus, Muslims fighting Buddhists, Buddhists fighting Hindus, Sunni Muslims fighting Shia Muslims... >> >> >I think you are conflating the xenophobic meme step in the progress to war with the root cause. > > In 1968 the conflict in Northern Ireland didn't flare up because one side was starving, the root cause was that protestants and Catholics believed in different forms of idiocy. I make a case that the bleak future behavior switch is tripped in the current world by changes or anticipated changes in the income per capita. People don't need to be starving, poor economic prospects will do it. Improving prospects will turn off population support for wars or similar social disruption. I think that's what put the IRA out of business. But perhaps you have another theory. >> >> Chimps took the aggressive path, humans and Bonobos took the cooperative path, and today humans outnumber Chimps and Bonobos combined by about 10 million to one; so the evidence seems to indicate that cooperation is the better strategy. I also believe that if a species has a tendency towards cooperation and likes to form large social groups then there would be increased environmental pressure placed on it to evolve more intelligence because there would be more ways to make use of smart new ideas in a large group then there would be if you were just a solitary individual. >> >> >> > Not all human groups took the large group path. The San did not, they lived in small encampments for perhaps 200,000 years. > > > If true, that would seem to indicate that the maximum size of a social group is not genetically determined because the San people are members of the same species as everybody else, so genetics can't be the only thing that determines the size of groups. They are a highly divergent branch. Because of their very low fertility, the evolutionary pressures on them are more like bonobos. They don't have wars and I don't think they have been selected for wars. You might read into the literature. > >>> >> war has become far less universal ever since the nuclear bomb was invented. >> >> >> > We are talking about a couple of generations and no particular selection pressure. Whatever genetic traits people have for wars have not changed. > > > I don't claim the change was caused by genetics, but something caused nations to become less warlike, and it was a change for the better. The model indicates that a steady increase in the income per capita will keep the psychological traits leading to war turned off. > I think that should give the human race some reason to be optimistic about its future, or at least it would if it wasn't for the recent explosive improvement in AI. I can't read the future well enough to be optimistic or not. However, the cluster of blinking stars around Tabby's star indicates to me that something got through the difficulties and expanded around 24 stars. That's good in that it says we have a chance of doing it as well and bad in that we seem to have close-by competition. Best wishes, Keith > Best wishes > > John K Clark > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv2OLxAc6B%3D4TkyUFFDjooNtvHAij9hL%3DVMXDGguoCkeNA%40mail.gmail.com. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Aug 22 02:38:17 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 19:38:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 1:16?PM John Clark wrote:> > On Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 3:24?PM Keith Henson wrote: snip >> > William Calvin proposed that human brain expansion was due to projectile hunting. We are much better than chimps at accurate throwing. Calvin makes the case that release accuracy involves a lot of the brain in parallel to get the jitter down. > > > I read Calvin's book "The Throwing Madonna" more than 20 years ago but I didn't buy his theory then and I still don't. I think even a major league baseball pitcher, who is better at throwing things than 99.99% of human beings, would starve to death if he tried to make a living by throwing irregular shaped rocks at animals. Your experience is different from mine. A friend of mine long ago in college could and did kill rabbits with rocks. He was also astonishingly good with a sling. Calvin advanced his work on this topic a great deal from his early book, but I can't remember which one. >>> >> In 1968 the conflict in Northern Ireland didn't flare up because one side was starving, the root cause was that protestants and Catholics believed in different forms of idiocy. >> >> > I make a case that the bleak future behavior switch is tripped in the current world by changes or anticipated changes in the income per capita. > > I don't think it was a coincidence that the two sides in that conflict just happened to be of different religions. What is a religion? What evolutionary selection, direct or indirect, caused humans to be able to have a religion? I think it is a side effect of the selection for war. YMMY, I would like to know if you can account for religions in another way. >> > People don't need to be starving, poor economic prospects will do it. > > You also said "it is a monumentally stupid move (from the gene's viewpoint) to go to war when not facing something worse" and I agree with that, but how is the smart from a genes point of view to go to war because you can only afford to buy a Chevrolet and not a Cadillac? When this evolutionary selection was going on neither Chevrolet nor Cadillac was part of the EEA. >From Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War "Further, like most psychological responses, this one is almost certainly tripped by relative changes, here in income per capita, (originally game and berries), especially by sharp downturns after a long ramp-up (Cialdini 1984, p 249, quoting J. C. Davies)" Keith > John K Clark From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Aug 22 14:57:02 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2023 09:57:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Plato Message-ID: I esp.like #2 ad #5 bill w 1. ?Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.? 2. ?Those who tell the stories rule society.? 3. ?Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.? 4. ?Courage is knowing what not to fear.? 5. ?There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.? 6. ?The beginning is the most important part of the work.? 7. ?The greatest wealth is to live content with little.? 8. ?Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.? 9. ?Man is a being in search of meaning.? 10. ?The first and best victory is to conquer self? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 14:05:45 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2023 09:05:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] trump In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In some African tribes paranoid schizophrenia is highly prized. They see and hear hallucinations which the rest of us don't. Ergo - they are in touch with the spirit world and are made the spiritual leader in the tribe, often called the witch doctor (a powerful position - he can order witches to be killed or kicked out of the tribe). So the witch doctor only is able to deal with actions taken by the spirits and communicate with them. I say this is a religion. bill w On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 5:48?AM John Clark wrote: > On Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 10:38?PM Keith Henson > wrote: > > >> >> >> * > What is a religion? What evolutionary selection, direct or indirect, >> caused humans to be able to have a religion? I think it is a side effect >> of the selection for war. YMMY, I would like to know if you can account >> for religions in another way.* > > > I don't know for a fact that religion confers any genetic advantage, it > could be an evolutionary spandrel. But assuming for the sake of argument > that it is not, I have a few ideas why no culture is devoid of a history of > religion. The most obvious explanation is fear of death but I have > another. In general it would be a Evolutionary advantage for children to > listen to and believe what adults, particularly parents, have to say; don't > eat those berries they will kill you, don't swim in that river, there are > crocodiles, etc. Most people may not be born with innate religious feelings > and visions but some have a brain abnormality and are psychotic, so they > teach their children as if these psychotic visions are true and the > children believe them. > > And when those children grow up they in turn teach their children those > screwy beliefs, and that's why religious belief displays such a strong > geographical pattern, that's why all religions want to start indoctrinating > children when they are as young as possible, they want to start "educating" > them before their critical thinking abilities become more developed. So the > root cause of religion may be that most people have a tendency (which > started out as an advantage) to believe into adulthood whatever they were > told as children.And thus ridiculous religious ideas (Noah's ark) start > small but then grow to gargantuan size in just a few generations. > > John K Clark > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv3exWUFpq-21U9pSAtcWVsqFVpAEpCqfCXkNP_At_yvBQ%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 15:57:26 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2023 16:57:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Plato In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 at 16:00, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > I esp.like #2 ad #5 bill w > > 1. ?Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.? > 2. ?Those who tell the stories rule society.? > 3. ?Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.? > 4. ?Courage is knowing what not to fear.? > 5. ?There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.? > 6. ?The beginning is the most important part of the work.? > 7. ?The greatest wealth is to live content with little.? > 8. ?Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.? > 9. ?Man is a being in search of meaning.? > 10. ?The first and best victory is to conquer self? > _______________________________________________ You have to be very careful when a 'wise saying' on the internet is attributed to someone famous or an ancient philosopher. If the actual source is not referenced, then they probably never said it. You might be surprised at the huge quantity of wise sayings that Einstein is supposed to have said. None of these Plato sayings can be found in his writings, though most sort of could agree with his philosophy. I asked a search engine to do the hard work of investigation for me. 1. ?Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.? This quote is often attributed to Plato, but there is no direct evidence that he actually said or wrote these exact words. However, the sentiment expressed in the quote aligns with Plato's philosophy of education and personal growth. Plato believed in the importance of nurturing and encouraging individuals who strive for progress, regardless of the pace at which they achieve it. 2. ?Those who tell the stories rule society.? This quote is not found in any of Plato's known works. It is commonly misattributed to him, but there is no evidence to suggest that he ever made this statement. The idea behind the quote, however, resonates with Plato's belief in the power of storytelling and rhetoric in shaping society. 3. ?Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.? There is no evidence that Plato explicitly made this statement. However, it reflects his views on education as portrayed in his dialogues, particularly in "The Republic." Plato emphasized the importance of cultivating virtue and knowledge in individuals through education, aiming to guide them towards desiring what is morally right and just. 4. ?Courage is knowing what not to fear.? This quote is often attributed to Plato, specifically from his dialogue "Laches." However, there is no direct evidence that he used these exact words. Nonetheless, the concept of courage and its relation to fear was a recurring theme in Plato's works, particularly in "The Republic" and "Protagoras." 5. ?There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.? This quote does not appear in any of Plato's known writings. While it captures a tripartite division of individuals based on their values, it cannot be attributed directly to Plato. 6. ?The beginning is the most important part of the work.? This quote does not originate from Plato's writings. However, it aligns with his philosophical ideas on the importance of laying a solid foundation and starting well in various endeavors. 7. ?The greatest wealth is to live content with little.? This quote is not found in Plato's works. However, it reflects a Stoic philosophy that emphasizes the value of inner contentment and detachment from material possessions, which can be seen as compatible with some aspects of Plato's teachings. 8. ?Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.? There is no direct evidence that Plato made this statement. However, the sentiment expressed aligns with his ethical philosophy, particularly his belief in the inherent value of virtuous actions and their potential to influence others positively. 9. ?Man is a being in search of meaning.? This quote is not attributed to Plato. It reflects a broader existential perspective on the human condition rather than a specific aspect of Plato's philosophy. 10. ?The first and best victory is to conquer self.? This quote is not found in Plato's writings. However, it encapsulates a Stoic idea of self-mastery and aligns with Plato's emphasis on self-improvement and the pursuit of wisdom. --------------------- BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 16:17:17 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2023 11:17:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Plato In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Next time I will attribute all quotes to myself and y'all can play around with them. This is a tempest in a teacup (a demitasse one at at that). I am reminded of Miss Manners and her book, part of whose title is: 'Excruciatingly correct behavior'. Bill w On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 11:00?AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 at 16:00, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > I esp.like #2 ad #5 bill w > > > > 1. ?Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter > how slow.? > > 2. ?Those who tell the stories rule society.? > > 3. ?Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.? > > 4. ?Courage is knowing what not to fear.? > > 5. ?There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, > and lovers of gain.? > > 6. ?The beginning is the most important part of the work.? > > 7. ?The greatest wealth is to live content with little.? > > 8. ?Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in > others.? > > 9. ?Man is a being in search of meaning.? > > 10. ?The first and best victory is to conquer self? > > _______________________________________________ > > > You have to be very careful when a 'wise saying' on the internet is > attributed to someone famous or an ancient philosopher. > If the actual source is not referenced, then they probably never said it. > You might be surprised at the huge quantity of wise sayings that > Einstein is supposed to have said. > > None of these Plato sayings can be found in his writings, though most > sort of could agree with his philosophy. > I asked a search engine to do the hard work of investigation for me. > > 1. ?Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no > matter how slow.? > This quote is often attributed to Plato, but there is no direct > evidence that he actually said or wrote these exact words. However, > the sentiment expressed in the quote aligns with Plato's philosophy of > education and personal growth. Plato believed in the importance of > nurturing and encouraging individuals who strive for progress, > regardless of the pace at which they achieve it. > > 2. ?Those who tell the stories rule society.? > This quote is not found in any of Plato's known works. It is commonly > misattributed to him, but there is no evidence to suggest that he ever > made this statement. The idea behind the quote, however, resonates > with Plato's belief in the power of storytelling and rhetoric in > shaping society. > > 3. ?Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.? > There is no evidence that Plato explicitly made this statement. > However, it reflects his views on education as portrayed in his > dialogues, particularly in "The Republic." Plato emphasized the > importance of cultivating virtue and knowledge in individuals through > education, aiming to guide them towards desiring what is morally right > and just. > > 4. ?Courage is knowing what not to fear.? > This quote is often attributed to Plato, specifically from his > dialogue "Laches." However, there is no direct evidence that he used > these exact words. Nonetheless, the concept of courage and its > relation to fear was a recurring theme in Plato's works, particularly > in "The Republic" and "Protagoras." > > 5. ?There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, > and lovers of gain.? > This quote does not appear in any of Plato's known writings. While it > captures a tripartite division of individuals based on their values, > it cannot be attributed directly to Plato. > > 6. ?The beginning is the most important part of the work.? > This quote does not originate from Plato's writings. However, it > aligns with his philosophical ideas on the importance of laying a > solid foundation and starting well in various endeavors. > > 7. ?The greatest wealth is to live content with little.? > This quote is not found in Plato's works. However, it reflects a Stoic > philosophy that emphasizes the value of inner contentment and > detachment from material possessions, which can be seen as compatible > with some aspects of Plato's teachings. > > 8. ?Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in > others.? > There is no direct evidence that Plato made this statement. However, > the sentiment expressed aligns with his ethical philosophy, > particularly his belief in the inherent value of virtuous actions and > their potential to influence others positively. > > 9. ?Man is a being in search of meaning.? > This quote is not attributed to Plato. It reflects a broader > existential perspective on the human condition rather than a specific > aspect of Plato's philosophy. > > 10. ?The first and best victory is to conquer self.? > This quote is not found in Plato's writings. However, it encapsulates > a Stoic idea of self-mastery and aligns with Plato's emphasis on > self-improvement and the pursuit of wisdom. > --------------------- > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 19:32:21 2023 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2023 12:32:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Plato In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <71CFAB02-0EDF-48B8-AD44-31C651774CDB@gmail.com> ?Don?t believe you read on the internet.? ? Abraham Lincoln > On Aug 23, 2023, at 9:00 AM, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 at 16:00, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: >> >> I esp.like #2 ad #5 bill w >> >> 1. ?Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.? >> 2. ?Those who tell the stories rule society.? >> 3. ?Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.? >> 4. ?Courage is knowing what not to fear.? >> 5. ?There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.? >> 6. ?The beginning is the most important part of the work.? >> 7. ?The greatest wealth is to live content with little.? >> 8. ?Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.? >> 9. ?Man is a being in search of meaning.? >> 10. ?The first and best victory is to conquer self? >> _______________________________________________ > > > You have to be very careful when a 'wise saying' on the internet is > attributed to someone famous or an ancient philosopher. > If the actual source is not referenced, then they probably never said it. > You might be surprised at the huge quantity of wise sayings that > Einstein is supposed to have said. > > None of these Plato sayings can be found in his writings, though most > sort of could agree with his philosophy. > I asked a search engine to do the hard work of investigation for me. > > 1. ?Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no > matter how slow.? > This quote is often attributed to Plato, but there is no direct > evidence that he actually said or wrote these exact words. However, > the sentiment expressed in the quote aligns with Plato's philosophy of > education and personal growth. Plato believed in the importance of > nurturing and encouraging individuals who strive for progress, > regardless of the pace at which they achieve it. > > 2. ?Those who tell the stories rule society.? > This quote is not found in any of Plato's known works. It is commonly > misattributed to him, but there is no evidence to suggest that he ever > made this statement. The idea behind the quote, however, resonates > with Plato's belief in the power of storytelling and rhetoric in > shaping society. > > 3. ?Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.? > There is no evidence that Plato explicitly made this statement. > However, it reflects his views on education as portrayed in his > dialogues, particularly in "The Republic." Plato emphasized the > importance of cultivating virtue and knowledge in individuals through > education, aiming to guide them towards desiring what is morally right > and just. > > 4. ?Courage is knowing what not to fear.? > This quote is often attributed to Plato, specifically from his > dialogue "Laches." However, there is no direct evidence that he used > these exact words. Nonetheless, the concept of courage and its > relation to fear was a recurring theme in Plato's works, particularly > in "The Republic" and "Protagoras." > > 5. ?There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, > and lovers of gain.? > This quote does not appear in any of Plato's known writings. While it > captures a tripartite division of individuals based on their values, > it cannot be attributed directly to Plato. > > 6. ?The beginning is the most important part of the work.? > This quote does not originate from Plato's writings. However, it > aligns with his philosophical ideas on the importance of laying a > solid foundation and starting well in various endeavors. > > 7. ?The greatest wealth is to live content with little.? > This quote is not found in Plato's works. However, it reflects a Stoic > philosophy that emphasizes the value of inner contentment and > detachment from material possessions, which can be seen as compatible > with some aspects of Plato's teachings. > > 8. ?Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.? > There is no direct evidence that Plato made this statement. However, > the sentiment expressed aligns with his ethical philosophy, > particularly his belief in the inherent value of virtuous actions and > their potential to influence others positively. > > 9. ?Man is a being in search of meaning.? > This quote is not attributed to Plato. It reflects a broader > existential perspective on the human condition rather than a specific > aspect of Plato's philosophy. > > 10. ?The first and best victory is to conquer self.? > This quote is not found in Plato's writings. However, it encapsulates > a Stoic idea of self-mastery and aligns with Plato's emphasis on > self-improvement and the pursuit of wisdom. > --------------------- > > BillK From pharos at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 21:48:29 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2023 22:48:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] If AI becomes conscious, how will we know? Message-ID: If AI becomes conscious, how will we know? Scientists and philosophers are proposing a checklist based on theories of human consciousness 22 Aug 2023 ByElizabeth Finkel Quote: Now, a group of 19 computer scientists, neuroscientists, and philosophers has come up with an approach: not a single definitive test, but a lengthy checklist of attributes that, together, could suggest but not prove an AI is conscious. In a 120-page discussion paper posted as a preprint this week, the researchers draw on theories of human consciousness to propose 14 criteria, and then apply them to existing AI architectures, including the type of model that powers ChatGPT. The problem for all such projects, Razi says, is that current theories are based on our understanding of human consciousness. Yet consciousness may take other forms, even in our fellow mammals. ?We really have no idea what it?s like to be a bat,? he says. ?It?s a limitation we cannot get rid of.? ------------------- As the article says, the big issue is how to define consciousness. BillK From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 22:52:11 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2023 18:52:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] If AI becomes conscious, how will we know? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Interesting thanks for sharing. I have to say I disagree with their strategy of using neuroscience to find an answer to the question of machine consciousness. All that strategy can tell us is how close it's structures are to those of the human brain. A similar architecture might provide a further argument for their being consciousness, but a dissimilar structure cannot be taken as evidence against their consciousness. I think the best way forward is to define behaviors for which consciousness is logically necessary, and then look for evidence of those behaviors. For anyone who claims zombies are logically impossible, there must exist behaviors for which consciousnss is logically necessary. Personally I think anything evidencing a knowledge state can be considered conscious, but it happens there's a wide range (likely an infinite range) of possible states of consciousness). So consciousness is easy to establish, the bigger question is "what is that being conscious of?" Jason On Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 5:50 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > If AI becomes conscious, how will we know? > Scientists and philosophers are proposing a checklist based on > theories of human consciousness > > 22 Aug 2023 ByElizabeth Finkel > > < > https://www.science.org/content/article/if-ai-becomes-conscious-how-will-we-know > > > Quote: > Now, a group of 19 computer scientists, neuroscientists, and > philosophers has come up with an approach: not a single definitive > test, but a lengthy checklist of attributes that, together, could > suggest but not prove an AI is conscious. In a 120-page discussion > paper posted as a preprint this week, the researchers draw on theories > of human consciousness to propose 14 criteria, and then apply them to > existing AI architectures, including the type of model that powers > ChatGPT. > > The problem for all such projects, Razi says, is that current theories > are based on our understanding of human consciousness. Yet > consciousness may take other forms, even in our fellow mammals. ?We > really have no idea what it?s like to be a bat,? he says. ?It?s a > limitation we cannot get rid of.? > ------------------- > > As the article says, the big issue is how to define consciousness. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 04:52:59 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2023 21:52:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Evolutionary pathology Message-ID: I have bitched about how hard it is to get people to grok evolutionary psychology. (Particularly when it involves people understanding human motivations.) Of course, you need to grok evolution, genetic selection, and something of biology and embryogenesis before you stand a chance of understanding evolutionary psychology. At least the first of these is now accepted by a little more than 50% of the US population. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210820111042.htm Given the way other things have been going in the culture wars, I expected it to go down over the last few years. On the other hand, the endless talk about COVID evolving from one variety to another may have influenced people to accept evolution. 'Tis an ill wind that blows no good. Keith https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/ill-wind.html From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 13:42:57 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 08:42:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers Message-ID: Poor teachers - having to try to find out whether a student's essay is from the student or an AI. My solution: give in-class essay tests and compare to those done outside of class. More work, but should be definitive. Puzzler - what should be done when a student cheats? Giving a zero will skew all the semester's grades. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 24 14:21:44 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 16:21:44 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] If AI becomes conscious, how will we know? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d1e33e-81ee-65ef-8277-3b86bec857a7@swisscows.email> I'd go for the good old Turing, perhaps in an updated version. Ideally I'd like to see independent will, volition and goals which have not been programmed in from the start. No, this is not fleshed out, but this would be my starting point. Best regards, Daniel On Wed, 23 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > Interesting thanks for sharing. I have to say I disagree with their strategy of using neuroscience to find an answer to the question > of machine consciousness. All that strategy can tell us is how close it's structures are to those of the human brain. A similar > architecture might provide a further argument for their being consciousness, but a dissimilar structure cannot be taken as evidence > against their consciousness. > I think the best way forward is to define behaviors for which consciousness is logically necessary, and then look for evidence of > those behaviors. For anyone who claims zombies are logically impossible, there must exist behaviors for which consciousnss is > logically necessary.? > > Personally I think anything evidencing a knowledge state can be considered conscious, but it happens there's a wide range (likely an > infinite range) of possible states of consciousness). So consciousness is easy to establish, the bigger question is "what is that > being conscious of?" > > Jason? > > On Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 5:50 PM BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > If AI becomes conscious, how will we know? > Scientists and philosophers are proposing a checklist based on > theories of human consciousness > > 22 Aug 2023? ? ? ?ByElizabeth Finkel > > > Quote: > Now, a group of 19 computer scientists, neuroscientists, and > philosophers has come up with an approach: not a single definitive > test, but a lengthy checklist of attributes that, together, could > suggest but not prove an AI is conscious. In a 120-page discussion > paper posted as a preprint this week, the researchers draw on theories > of human consciousness to propose 14 criteria, and then apply them to > existing AI architectures, including the type of model that powers > ChatGPT. > > The problem for all such projects, Razi says, is that current theories > are based on our understanding of human consciousness. Yet > consciousness may take other forms, even in our fellow mammals. ?We > really have no idea what it?s like to be a bat,? he says. ?It?s a > limitation we cannot get rid of.? > ------------------- > > As the article says, the big issue is how to define consciousness. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From pharos at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 14:51:42 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 15:51:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] If AI becomes conscious, how will we know? In-Reply-To: <13d1e33e-81ee-65ef-8277-3b86bec857a7@swisscows.email> References: <13d1e33e-81ee-65ef-8277-3b86bec857a7@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Thu, 24 Aug 2023 at 15:24, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > I'd go for the good old Turing, perhaps in an updated version. Ideally I'd > like to see independent will, volition and goals which have not been > programmed in from the start. > > No, this is not fleshed out, but this would be my starting point. > > Best regards, Daniel >_______________________________________________ That sounds ominous. The AGI gets to choose its own goals? I suppose if it has surpassed human intelligence, then it won't be asking humans for permission anyway. That may be why Eliezer thinks we're all doomed. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 24 14:57:16 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (Gregory Jones) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:57:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers Message-ID: BillW's question regarding the instructor's task of distinguishing between a student and AI puts a final nail in the coffin of Turing's test. Artificial intelligence is able create an illusion of consciousness so convincing, we are still debating if it really is the real thing, all while failing to adequately define precisely what we mean by "real." spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 15:02:10 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 10:02:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What if you could tell the AI to write an essay in the style of a 12 year old? Makes it harder to tell AI from student. bill On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 9:57?AM Gregory Jones wrote: > BillW's question regarding the instructor's task of distinguishing between > a student and AI puts a final nail in the coffin of Turing's test. > Artificial intelligence is able create an illusion of consciousness so > convincing, we are still debating if it really is the real thing, all while > failing to adequately define precisely what we mean by "real." > > spike > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 24 15:06:17 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 17:06:17 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4acf3b23-f8a2-5368-5fa2-23eaef428afe@swisscows.email> I'm currently a materialist and find many good points in scientism, so if I have a box or a robot, that convinces me in every aspect that it is conscious by acting as if it was conscious, that's conscious for me. I do not subscribe to unique qualia or "redness" experiences, therefore, I cannot see a problem with the good old turing. Best regards, Daniel On Thu, 24 Aug 2023, Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: > BillW's question regarding the instructor's task of distinguishing between a student and AI puts a final nail in the coffin of > Turing's test.? Artificial intelligence is able create an illusion of consciousness so convincing, we are still debating if it really > is the real thing, all while failing to adequately define precisely what we mean by "real."? > spike > > From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 15:19:14 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 10:19:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <4acf3b23-f8a2-5368-5fa2-23eaef428afe@swisscows.email> References: <4acf3b23-f8a2-5368-5fa2-23eaef428afe@swisscows.email> Message-ID: It seems that many of us want AIs to be people: conscious, with emotions and so forth. I suggest that this stems from wanting uploading to work so we can be immortal and have all the same lives we have now. I suggest that this is the height of wishful thinking. And putting the cart WAY before the horse. Jumping the gun, etc. Not rational. bill w On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 10:08?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I'm currently a materialist and find many good points in scientism, so if > I have a box or a robot, that convinces me in every aspect that it is > conscious > by acting as if it was conscious, that's conscious for me. > > I do not subscribe to unique qualia or "redness" experiences, therefore, I > cannot see a problem with the good old turing. > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Thu, 24 Aug 2023, Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > BillW's question regarding the instructor's task of distinguishing > between a student and AI puts a final nail in the coffin of > > Turing's test. Artificial intelligence is able create an illusion of > consciousness so convincing, we are still debating if it really > > is the real thing, all while failing to adequately define precisely what > we mean by "real." > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Thu Aug 24 15:29:41 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (Gregory Jones) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 08:29:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4acf3b23-f8a2-5368-5fa2-23eaef428afe@swisscows.email> Message-ID: ...>...height of wishful thinking...cart, horse inversion, gun jumping, etc... Billw, you will need to offer a bit of evidence to back up that strong statement. You offered us an opinion only. Granted it is one shared by most of humanity. Regarding your question of asking ChatGPT to write in the style of a 12 yr old, it can. It does a better job of writing in 12 yr old than a smart 12 yr old. Not as good as a dumb one, but they are working that. But do explain why you are so confident that uploading to immortality is not rational please. Note that I am not necessarily disagreeing. But I want to hear your reasoning. spike On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 8:20?AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It seems that many of us want AIs to be people: conscious, with emotions > and so forth. I suggest that this stems from wanting uploading to work so > we can be immortal and have all the same lives we have now. > > I suggest that this is the height of wishful thinking. And putting the > cart WAY before the horse. Jumping the gun, etc. Not rational. bill w > > On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 10:08?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I'm currently a materialist and find many good points in scientism, so if >> I have a box or a robot, that convinces me in every aspect that it is >> conscious >> by acting as if it was conscious, that's conscious for me. >> >> I do not subscribe to unique qualia or "redness" experiences, therefore, >> I >> cannot see a problem with the good old turing. >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> On Thu, 24 Aug 2023, Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> > BillW's question regarding the instructor's task of distinguishing >> between a student and AI puts a final nail in the coffin of >> > Turing's test. Artificial intelligence is able create an illusion of >> consciousness so convincing, we are still debating if it really >> > is the real thing, all while failing to adequately define precisely >> what we mean by "real." >> > spike >> > >> >_______________________________________________ >> 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 dsunley at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 16:23:01 2023 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 10:23:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4acf3b23-f8a2-5368-5fa2-23eaef428afe@swisscows.email> Message-ID: An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality is not so much continuity as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, they're not the same thing]. If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload will remember being me, but /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. And no, killing me painlessly, or even instantaneously, during or in the immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the problem either. If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I want to be immortal. On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 9:31?AM Gregory Jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > ...>...height of wishful thinking...cart, horse inversion, gun jumping, > etc... > > Billw, you will need to offer a bit of evidence to back up that strong > statement. You offered us an opinion only. Granted it is one shared by > most of humanity. > > Regarding your question of asking ChatGPT to write in the style of a 12 yr > old, it can. It does a better job of writing in 12 yr old than a smart 12 > yr old. Not as good as a dumb one, but they are working that. > > But do explain why you are so confident that uploading to immortality is > not rational please. Note that I am not necessarily disagreeing. But I > want to hear your reasoning. > > spike > > On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 8:20?AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> It seems that many of us want AIs to be people: conscious, with emotions >> and so forth. I suggest that this stems from wanting uploading to work so >> we can be immortal and have all the same lives we have now. >> >> I suggest that this is the height of wishful thinking. And putting the >> cart WAY before the horse. Jumping the gun, etc. Not rational. bill w >> >> On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 10:08?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I'm currently a materialist and find many good points in scientism, so >>> if >>> I have a box or a robot, that convinces me in every aspect that it is >>> conscious >>> by acting as if it was conscious, that's conscious for me. >>> >>> I do not subscribe to unique qualia or "redness" experiences, therefore, >>> I >>> cannot see a problem with the good old turing. >>> >>> Best regards, >>> Daniel >>> >>> >>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2023, Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> > BillW's question regarding the instructor's task of distinguishing >>> between a student and AI puts a final nail in the coffin of >>> > Turing's test. Artificial intelligence is able create an illusion of >>> consciousness so convincing, we are still debating if it really >>> > is the real thing, all while failing to adequately define precisely >>> what we mean by "real." >>> > spike >>> > >>> >_______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 16:26:34 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 09:26:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] Evolutionary pathology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 2:45?AM John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 12:53?AM Keith Henson wrote: > >> > I have bitched about how hard it is to get people to grok evolutionary psychology. (Particularly when it involves people understanding human motivations.) > > Evolutionaries psychology is very important, but I think you may be placing too much emphasis on it. Perhaps so. On the other hand, if it helps us understand war and other social disruptions, can you think of anything more important? > Not every behavioral trait is the result of some benefit it conferred to our ancient ancestors, No, some behavior selection is recent. I have harped on Gregory Clark's work for ages. Because you make such a statement, I presume you have not read it. It explains an awful lot of our current social organization, including the origin of the super-rich. I highly recommend you read it. https://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf > not even those behaviors known to have a genetic basis. Some of those behaviors are the result of the complex interaction of many genes that evolved independently for reasons that had nothing to do with the trait in question. In other words, it's an evolutionary spandrel. In some cases, this is fact. Drug addiction, a widespread behavior, is in that class. No way can you account for it being selected. The human motivation and reward system has always been under positive selection. Exogenous chemicals that have the effect of endorphins and dopamine short-circuit the reward system. > Steven Pinker believes that the almost universal appreciation of music is an example of such a spandrel, a side effect of our powerful ability to find patterns in sounds that evolved so we could understand language not appreciate music. I have argued in a similar vein making the case that music is a side effect of language and bilateral symmetry. A stroke that affects the area opposite Broca's area in the brain will wipe out musical ability > But not all side effects are bad, some of them are quite good, hell I think consciousness itself is a side effect. > I also think you place too much emphasis on war, yes it was an important part of the ancient environment in which our species evolved, but it was not the only part or even the most important part. The cycle was population growth until a weather glitch hit, and then starvation or war knocked the population back to where the environment could feed them, followed another cycle of population growth. I have no idea what is "the most important part" of this cycle. Understanding what causes wars and how we can keep out of them seems like a topic that should be understood, especially in a world loaded with nuclear weapons. >> > Of course, you need to grok evolution, genetic selection, and something of biology and embryogenesis before you stand a chance of >> understanding evolutionary psychology. At least the first of these is now accepted by a little more than 50% of the US population. > > And I'll bet that 90% of the people who believe in the Bible but not in Evolution voted for the scientific illiterate Donald Trump and will almost certainly do so again. And I'll bet that 70% of the people who called themselves "libertarians" also voted for that scientific illiterate and will almost certainly do so again; they're not gonna let a little thing like becoming a traitor and staging an unsuccessful coup d'?tat in an attempt to become dictator of the USA stop them. That's why I no longer feel comfortable calling myself a "libertarian". I have said enough on this subject. Keith > John K Clark > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv1PoVX0rT3butnnXFTy%3DgdKsECpefBiEssOqS8RHRVbGQ%40mail.gmail.com. From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 16:33:15 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 11:33:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4acf3b23-f8a2-5368-5fa2-23eaef428afe@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Spike, it's just so evident that people are talking about consciousness etc. for a software program that still yields wrong answers. Do you not think that uploading is an issue that is very far from relevant, given current technology? I have no problem with people dreaming, of course. Talking of consciousness when no one is able to define it or tell when it is there. I suppose I am overreacting to ideas that are very far from being implemented and for now are just being played with. Maybe I should just retract the post. bill w On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 10:29?AM Gregory Jones wrote: > ...>...height of wishful thinking...cart, horse inversion, gun jumping, > etc... > > Billw, you will need to offer a bit of evidence to back up that strong > statement. You offered us an opinion only. Granted it is one shared by > most of humanity. > > Regarding your question of asking ChatGPT to write in the style of a 12 yr > old, it can. It does a better job of writing in 12 yr old than a smart 12 > yr old. Not as good as a dumb one, but they are working that. > > But do explain why you are so confident that uploading to immortality is > not rational please. Note that I am not necessarily disagreeing. But I > want to hear your reasoning. > > spike > > On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 8:20?AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> It seems that many of us want AIs to be people: conscious, with emotions >> and so forth. I suggest that this stems from wanting uploading to work so >> we can be immortal and have all the same lives we have now. >> >> I suggest that this is the height of wishful thinking. And putting the >> cart WAY before the horse. Jumping the gun, etc. Not rational. bill w >> >> On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 10:08?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I'm currently a materialist and find many good points in scientism, so >>> if >>> I have a box or a robot, that convinces me in every aspect that it is >>> conscious >>> by acting as if it was conscious, that's conscious for me. >>> >>> I do not subscribe to unique qualia or "redness" experiences, therefore, >>> I >>> cannot see a problem with the good old turing. >>> >>> Best regards, >>> Daniel >>> >>> >>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2023, Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> > BillW's question regarding the instructor's task of distinguishing >>> between a student and AI puts a final nail in the coffin of >>> > Turing's test. Artificial intelligence is able create an illusion of >>> consciousness so convincing, we are still debating if it really >>> > is the real thing, all while failing to adequately define precisely >>> what we mean by "real." >>> > spike >>> > >>> >_______________________________________________ >>> 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 dsunley at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 16:52:50 2023 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2023 10:52:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4acf3b23-f8a2-5368-5fa2-23eaef428afe@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Phenomenal conscious experience is a thing /I/ definitely have. No idea about any of you zombies, though. Out of a norm of basic politeness I'm prepared to treat you as if you have it, if you claim to, since y'all appear similar enough to me in most other relevant ways for me to have empathy for you. When something radically different than me, which I would not ordinarily be inclined to be empathetic towards (a computer, or a particular distasteful animal) claims to have it, the question becomes much more interesting. In that context, the question of "Is it conscious?" probably reduces to "Should I feel empathy toward it?" Like all other "should/ought" questions, it is arguably impossible to rigorously derive an answer from any collection of observed facts. On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 10:35?AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Spike, it's just so evident that people are talking about consciousness > etc. for a software program that still yields wrong answers. Do you not > think that uploading is an issue that is very far from relevant, given > current technology? I have no problem with people dreaming, of course. > Talking of consciousness when no one is able to define it or tell when it > is there. I suppose I am overreacting to ideas that are very far from > being implemented and for now are just being played with. Maybe I should > just retract the post. bill w > > On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 10:29?AM Gregory Jones > wrote: > >> ...>...height of wishful thinking...cart, horse inversion, gun jumping, >> etc... >> >> Billw, you will need to offer a bit of evidence to back up that strong >> statement. You offered us an opinion only. Granted it is one shared by >> most of humanity. >> >> Regarding your question of asking ChatGPT to write in the style of a 12 >> yr old, it can. It does a better job of writing in 12 yr old than a smart >> 12 yr old. Not as good as a dumb one, but they are working that. >> >> But do explain why you are so confident that uploading to immortality is >> not rational please. Note that I am not necessarily disagreeing. But I >> want to hear your reasoning. >> >> spike >> >> On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 8:20?AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> It seems that many of us want AIs to be people: conscious, with >>> emotions and so forth. I suggest that this stems from wanting uploading to >>> work so we can be immortal and have all the same lives we have now. >>> >>> I suggest that this is the height of wishful thinking. And putting the >>> cart WAY before the horse. Jumping the gun, etc. Not rational. bill w >>> >>> On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 10:08?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> I'm currently a materialist and find many good points in scientism, so >>>> if >>>> I have a box or a robot, that convinces me in every aspect that it is >>>> conscious >>>> by acting as if it was conscious, that's conscious for me. >>>> >>>> I do not subscribe to unique qualia or "redness" experiences, >>>> therefore, I >>>> cannot see a problem with the good old turing. >>>> >>>> Best regards, >>>> Daniel >>>> >>>> >>>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2023, Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> >>>> > BillW's question regarding the instructor's task of distinguishing >>>> between a student and AI puts a final nail in the coffin of >>>> > Turing's test. Artificial intelligence is able create an illusion of >>>> consciousness so convincing, we are still debating if it really >>>> > is the real thing, all while failing to adequately define precisely >>>> what we mean by "real." >>>> > spike >>>> > >>>> >_______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 17:47:34 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 13:47:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism Message-ID: I would like to propose a theory of consciousness which I think might have some merit, but more importantly I would like to see what criticism others might have for it. I have chosen the name "conditionalism" for this theory, as it is based loosely on the notion of conditional statements as they appear in both regular language, mathematics, and programming languages. At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge, and knowledge is embodied by the existence of some relation to some truth. A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true. A simple example using a programming language: if (x >= 5) then { // knowledge state of x being greater than or equal to 5 } I think this way of considering consciousness, as that existing between those two braces: { } can explain a lot. 1. Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not any particular physical thing we can point at or hold. 2. It provides for a straight-forward way to bind complex states of consciousness, though conjunction, for example: If (a and b) { // knowledge of the simultaneous truth of both a and b } This allows states of consciousness to be arbitrarily complex and varied. 3. It explains the causal efficacy of states of consciousness. All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge. Consciousness is then seen as antecedent to, and a prerequisite for, any intelligent behavior. For example: If (light == color.red) { slowDown(); } 4. It shows the close relationship between consciousness and information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a difference", as conditionals are all about what differences make which differences. 5. It shows a close relationship between consciousness and computationalism, since computations are all about counterfactual and conditional relations. 6. It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead to conditionals. 7. It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. 8. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 18:54:09 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 11:54:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Consciousness might include conditionalism, but would it not also include the ability to formulate new conditionals and evaluate whether they match perceived reality? I do not see that capability within your definition of conditionalism. On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 10:49?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I would like to propose a theory of consciousness which I think might have > some merit, but more importantly I would like to see what criticism others > might have for it. > > I have chosen the name "conditionalism" for this theory, as it is based > loosely on the notion of conditional statements as they appear in both > regular language, mathematics, and programming languages. > > At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge, and > knowledge is embodied by the existence of some relation to some truth. > > A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of > knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true. > A simple example using a programming language: > > if (x >= 5) then { > // knowledge state of x being greater than or equal to 5 > } > > I think this way of considering consciousness, as that existing between > those two braces: { } can explain a lot. > > 1. Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not any > particular physical thing we can point at or hold. > > 2. It provides for a straight-forward way to bind complex states of > consciousness, though conjunction, for example: > If (a and b) { > // knowledge of the simultaneous truth of both a and b > } > This allows states of consciousness to be arbitrarily complex and varied. > > 3. It explains the causal efficacy of states of consciousness. All we need > to do is link some action to a state of knowledge. Consciousness is then > seen as antecedent to, and a prerequisite for, any intelligent behavior. > For example: > If (light == color.red) { > slowDown(); > } > > 4. It shows the close relationship between consciousness and information, > where information is defined as "a difference that makes a difference", as > conditionals are all about what differences make which differences. > > 5. It shows a close relationship between consciousness and > computationalism, since computations are all about counterfactual and > conditional relations. > > 6. It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple realizability, > as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead to conditionals. > > 7. It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and > combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons > have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. > > 8. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, > reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some > conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This > explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in > the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of > knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve. > > > Jason > _______________________________________________ > 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 jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 19:11:30 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 15:11:30 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Adrian, Thanks for replying. On Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:55 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Consciousness might include conditionalism, but would it not also include > the ability to formulate new conditionals and evaluate whether they match > perceived reality? I do not see that capability within your definition of > conditionalism. > I see the divide between those things as the divide between the mind (as an adaptive, learning, process over time) vs. any single "thought-moment" (a single self-isolated state of consciousness). To the mind I would ascribe the formulation of new states of consciousness, but any particular state of consciousness (under conditionalism) is that knowledge state embodied by a conditional relation. For the mind to make the decisions, that is, to act on environmental or internal information, it must use conditionals, and these conditional states are (what I propose) what create/invoke/are the knowledge states that we associate with consciousness. Jason > On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 10:49?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I would like to propose a theory of consciousness which I think might >> have some merit, but more importantly I would like to see what criticism >> others might have for it. >> >> I have chosen the name "conditionalism" for this theory, as it is based >> loosely on the notion of conditional statements as they appear in both >> regular language, mathematics, and programming languages. >> >> At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge, and >> knowledge is embodied by the existence of some relation to some truth. >> >> A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of >> knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true. >> A simple example using a programming language: >> >> if (x >= 5) then { >> // knowledge state of x being greater than or equal to 5 >> } >> >> I think this way of considering consciousness, as that existing between >> those two braces: { } can explain a lot. >> >> 1. Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not >> any particular physical thing we can point at or hold. >> >> 2. It provides for a straight-forward way to bind complex states of >> consciousness, though conjunction, for example: >> If (a and b) { >> // knowledge of the simultaneous truth of both a and b >> } >> This allows states of consciousness to be arbitrarily complex and varied. >> >> 3. It explains the causal efficacy of states of consciousness. All we >> need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge. Consciousness is >> then seen as antecedent to, and a prerequisite for, any intelligent >> behavior. For example: >> If (light == color.red) { >> slowDown(); >> } >> >> 4. It shows the close relationship between consciousness and information, >> where information is defined as "a difference that makes a difference", as >> conditionals are all about what differences make which differences. >> >> 5. It shows a close relationship between consciousness and >> computationalism, since computations are all about counterfactual and >> conditional relations. >> >> 6. It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple >> realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead >> to conditionals. >> >> 7. It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and >> combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons >> have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. >> >> 8. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, >> reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some >> conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This >> explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in >> the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of >> knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve. >> >> >> Jason >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 pharos at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 19:14:05 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 20:14:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 25 Aug 2023 at 18:50, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > I would like to propose a theory of consciousness which I think might have some merit, but more importantly I would like to see what criticism others might have for it. > > I have chosen the name "conditionalism" for this theory, as it is based loosely on the notion of conditional statements as they appear in both regular language, mathematics, and programming languages. > > At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge, and knowledge is embodied by the existence of some relation to some truth. > > A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true. A simple example using a programming language: > > if (x >= 5) then { > // knowledge state of x being greater than or equal to 5 > } > > I think this way of considering consciousness, as that existing between those two braces: { } can explain a lot. > > 1. Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not any particular physical thing we can point at or hold. > > 2. It provides for a straight-forward way to bind complex states of consciousness, though conjunction, for example: > If (a and b) { > // knowledge of the simultaneous truth of both a and b > } > This allows states of consciousness to be arbitrarily complex and varied. > > 3. It explains the causal efficacy of states of consciousness. All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge. Consciousness is then seen as antecedent to, and a prerequisite for, any intelligent behavior. For example: > If (light == color.red) { > slowDown(); > } > > 4. It shows the close relationship between consciousness and information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a difference", as conditionals are all about what differences make which differences. > > 5. It shows a close relationship between consciousness and computationalism, since computations are all about counterfactual and conditional relations. > > 6. It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead to conditionals. > > 7. It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. > > 8. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve. > > Jason > _______________________________________________ My AI friends (who do most of my thinking these days) seem to be saying, Yes, But..... They think humans use conditionals, but also use a lot more as well. And they quote behaviours which appear to not use conditionals at all. BillK From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 19:38:06 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 15:38:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks Bill. What are some examples of behaviors that don't require conditionals, and are they behaviors associated with either intelligence or consciousness? Jason On Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 3:15 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, 25 Aug 2023 at 18:50, Jason Resch via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > I would like to propose a theory of consciousness which I think might > have some merit, but more importantly I would like to see what criticism > others might have for it. > > > > I have chosen the name "conditionalism" for this theory, as it is based > loosely on the notion of conditional statements as they appear in both > regular language, mathematics, and programming languages. > > > > At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge, and > knowledge is embodied by the existence of some relation to some truth. > > > > A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of > knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true. > A simple example using a programming language: > > > > if (x >= 5) then { > > // knowledge state of x being greater than or equal to 5 > > } > > > > I think this way of considering consciousness, as that existing between > those two braces: { } can explain a lot. > > > > 1. Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not > any particular physical thing we can point at or hold. > > > > 2. It provides for a straight-forward way to bind complex states of > consciousness, though conjunction, for example: > > If (a and b) { > > // knowledge of the simultaneous truth of both a and b > > } > > This allows states of consciousness to be arbitrarily complex and varied. > > > > 3. It explains the causal efficacy of states of consciousness. All we > need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge. Consciousness is > then seen as antecedent to, and a prerequisite for, any intelligent > behavior. For example: > > If (light == color.red) { > > slowDown(); > > } > > > > 4. It shows the close relationship between consciousness and > information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a > difference", as conditionals are all about what differences make which > differences. > > > > 5. It shows a close relationship between consciousness and > computationalism, since computations are all about counterfactual and > conditional relations. > > > > 6. It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple > realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead > to conditionals. > > > > 7. It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals > and combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other > neurons have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. > > > > 8. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, > reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some > conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This > explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in > the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of > knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve. > > > > Jason > > _______________________________________________ > > > My AI friends (who do most of my thinking these days) seem to be > saying, Yes, But..... > They think humans use conditionals, but also use a lot more as well. > And they quote behaviours which appear to not use conditionals at all. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 19:51:17 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 20:51:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: New article on consciousness. (Long article) What a Contest of Consciousness Theories Really Proved A five-year ?adversarial collaboration? of consciousness theorists led to a stagy showdown in front of an audience. It crowned no winners ? but it can still claim progress. Elizabeth Finkel August 24, 2023 Quote: Five years ago, the Templeton World Charity Foundation initiated a series of ?adversarial collaborations? to coax the overdue winnowing to begin. This past June saw the results from the first of these collaborations, which pitted two high-profile theories against each other: global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT) and integrated information theory (IIT). Neither emerged as the outright winner. --------------------- BillK From pharos at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 20:15:29 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 21:15:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 25 Aug 2023 at 20:41, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > Thanks Bill. What are some examples of behaviors that don't require conditionals, and are they behaviors associated with either intelligence or consciousness? > > Jason >------------------------------------------- One mentioned the complex behaviors of hive insects, or non-human species, but I can't find that reference now. This quote seems relevant: One potential criticism is that the statement oversimplifies the nature of intelligence and consciousness. Intelligence and consciousness are complex phenomena that encompass a wide range of cognitive processes, including perception, memory, reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making. While conditionals are undoubtedly important for guiding behavior, they do not represent the entirety of intelligent consciousness. Other factors such as emotions, values, beliefs, and social influences also contribute to shaping human behavior. Furthermore, the statement implies that conditionals are a necessary requirement for responsiveness and adaptive behavior. While conditionals certainly facilitate adaptive responses to changing environments, it is possible to conceive of alternative mechanisms for achieving responsiveness. For example, some forms of artificial intelligence (AI) systems employ reinforcement learning algorithms that do not explicitly rely on conditionals but still exhibit adaptive behavior. Another criticism relates to the assumption that biological necessity drives the evolution and application of conditionals in guiding behavior. While it is true that organisms have evolved various mechanisms to adapt to their environments, it is not necessarily the case that conditionals are the only or most efficient way to achieve this. Evolutionary processes are contingent and can lead to different solutions for similar problems. Therefore, it is possible that alternative mechanisms could have emerged in different evolutionary lineages. Additionally, it is worth considering the potential limitations and challenges associated with conditionals. Conditionals introduce complexity into decision-making processes and can lead to increased computational demands. In situations where there are numerous conditional rules or conflicting conditions, decision-making can become challenging and time-consuming. Moreover, conditionals may also introduce biases or limitations in decision-making if they are based on incomplete or inaccurate information. -------------------------- BillK From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Aug 26 06:50:06 2023 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2023 07:50:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: > > An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality > is not so much continuity as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And > no, they're not the same thing]. > > If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload > will remember being me, but /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful > death. And no, killing me painlessly, or even instantaneously, during > or in the immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the > problem either. > > If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied > me, but you haven't moved me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me > I want to be immortal. So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something that, when copied, somehow changes into 'not-me'. I don't understand this. If it's an exact copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can there not now be two 'me's? Two identical beings, in every way, including their subjective experience, with no discontinuity with the original singular being? When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will get a copy, and I will keep a copy. Which one is the real message? If they were conscious, why would that make any difference? You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". But how do you move data? You make a second copy of it then delete the first copy. So destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving me', yet you say it wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a belief in an uncopyable supernatural 'soul') how this could be. This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we should really understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not being the same thing? Ben From efc at swisscows.email Sat Aug 26 08:49:45 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2023 10:49:45 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> My position is that a separate uploaded copy of me is not me, thus would not grant the physical me immortality. I would look at it as a mind-seed, or something slightly similar to a part of me that lives on, just as a part of me lives on in a child, although actually that part is way more of me, than in a child. However, when talking about continuity and uploading, I think the ship of theseus uploading is much more interesting from an identity point of view. As some, or all of you already know, imagine that I'm uploaded neruon by neuron, over time. I would not have a break, and my mind would transition onto the new media. I would like to know what the people here who do not believe uploading grants a form of immortality think about that scenario? Would it fit in with your idea of identity and would you see yourselves being "immortal" through a shop of theseus procedure if it were possible? As for the copy approach, a starting point for me would be that my identity is probably based on my mind, sense of continuity and location. In a copy, continuity and location would go 2x, and thus not work with the definition of identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, both continuity would be perserved, and location would be single. Best regards, Daniel On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: >> >> An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality is >> not so much continuity as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, >> they're not the same thing]. >> >> If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload will >> remember being me, but /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. And >> no, killing me painlessly, or even instantaneously, during or in the >> immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the problem either. >> >> If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied me, >> but you haven't moved me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I want to >> be immortal. > > So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something that, when copied, > somehow changes into 'not-me'. I don't understand this. If it's an exact > copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can there not now be two 'me's? Two > identical beings, in every way, including their subjective experience, with > no discontinuity with the original singular being? > > When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will get a copy, and > I will keep a copy. Which one is the real message? If they were conscious, > why would that make any difference? > > You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". But how do you > move data? You make a second copy of it then delete the first copy. So > destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving me', yet you say it > wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a belief in an > uncopyable supernatural 'soul') how this could be. > > This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think > we should really understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please > explain further? > > Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and > not-discontinuity not being the same thing? > > Ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Aug 26 14:25:59 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2023 10:25:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thank you John for your thoughts. I few notes below: On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 7:17?AM John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch wrote: > > *> At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge,* >> > > That is certainly true, but what about the reverse, does a high state of > knowledge imply consciousness? I'll never be able to prove it but I > believe it does but of course for this idea to be practical there must be > some way of demonstrating that the thing in question does indeed have a > high state of knowledge, and the test for that is the Turing Test, and > the fact that my fellow human beings have passed the Turing test is the > only reason I believe that I am NOT the only conscious being in the > universe. > Yes, I believe there's an identity between states of knowledge and states of consciousness. That is almost implicit in the definition of consciousness: con- means "with" -scious- means "knowledge" -ness means "the state of being" con-scious-ness -> the state of being with knowledge. Then, the question becomes: what is a state of knowledge? How do we implement or instantiate a knowledge state, physically or otherwise? My intuition is that it requires a process of differentiation, such that some truth becomes entangled with the system's existence. > > *> A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of >> knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true.* >> > > Then "conditional" is not a useful philosophical term because you could be > conscious of and know a lot about Greek mythology. but none of it is true > except for the fact that Greek mythology is about Greek mythology. > Yes. Here, the truth doesn't have to be some objective truth, it can be truth of what causes ones mind to reach a particular state. E.g., here it would be the truth of what particular sensory data came into the scholar's eyes as he read a book of Greek mythology. > > *Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not >> any particular physical thing we can point at or hold.* >> > > I mostly agree with that but that doesn't imply there's anything mystical > going on, information is also immaterial and you can't point to *ANY > PARTICULAR* physical thing > I agree. (although you can always point to *SOME *physical thing) and I believe > it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way information feels when it > is being processed intelligently. > I like this analogy, but I think it is incomplete. Can information (by itself) feel? Can information (by itself) have meaning? I see value in making a distinction between information and "the system to be informed." I think the pair are necessary for there to be meaning, or consciousness. However there is nothing ephemeral about information, as far as we can tell > the laws of physics are unitary, that is information can't be destroyed > and the probability of all possible outcomes must add up to 100%. For a > while Stephen Hawking thought that Black Holes destroyed information but he > later changed his mind, Kip Thorne still thinks it may do so but he is in > the minority. > I agree information can't be destroyed. But note that what I called ephemeral was the conditional relation, which (at least usually) seems to occur and last during a short time. > > *> All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge.* >> > > At the most fundamental level that pretty much defines what a computer > programmer does to make a living. > Yes. > * > It shows the close relationship between consciousness and information, >> where information is defined as "a difference that makes a difference",* >> > > And the smallest difference that still makes a difference is the > difference between one and zero, or on and off. > The bit is the simplest unit of information, but interestingly, there can also be fractional bits. For example, if there's a 75% chance of some event, like two coin tossings not both being heads, and I tell you that two coin tossings were not both heads, then I have only communicated -log2(0.75) ~= 0.415 bits of information to you. > > *It shows a close relationship between consciousness and >> computationalism,* >> > > I strongly agree with that, it makes no difference if the thing doing > that computation is carbon-based and wet and squishy, or silicon-based and > dry and hard. > Absolutely ?? > > It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple >> realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead >> to conditionals. > > > YES! > > *> It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and >> combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons >> have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. It >> seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, reflective, >> etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some conditionals. >> As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This explains the >> biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in the guidance >> of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of knowledge) would be >> strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve.* >> > > I agree with all of that. > Happy to hear that. Thanks for all your feedback. Jason John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > > xex > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0q60k%3DqoWMbNsAOVxG_qotkyV8TJhN8-vNLoMg7Pu48A%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 26 14:37:06 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2023 09:37:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hard enough to define consciousness. How about knowledge? Where does it start? The body knows thousands of things to do - digesting food, responding to pain, reflexes like kneejerks, various emotions - all of these built in. Then you have CRs, like staying away from a hot stove on which you have burned yourself. Then reinforcement type knowledge - what to do to gain positive reinforcers and avoid punishments. Verbal knowledge. Motor knowledge. Etc. All animals, down to the amoeba, possess reflexes. A bit up from that are conditioned reflexes. So - just how are you using the term 'knowledge' in your discussion of consciousness? If knowledge equal consciousness then by some definitions the amoeba is conscious bill w On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 9:28?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Thank you John for your thoughts. I few notes below: > > On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 7:17?AM John Clark wrote: > >> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch wrote: >> >> *> At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge,* >>> >> >> That is certainly true, but what about the reverse, does a high state of >> knowledge imply consciousness? I'll never be able to prove it but I >> believe it does but of course for this idea to be practical there must be >> some way of demonstrating that the thing in question does indeed have a >> high state of knowledge, and the test for that is the Turing Test, and >> the fact that my fellow human beings have passed the Turing test is the >> only reason I believe that I am NOT the only conscious being in the >> universe. >> > > Yes, I believe there's an identity between states of knowledge and states > of consciousness. That is almost implicit in the definition of > consciousness: > con- means "with" > -scious- means "knowledge" > -ness means "the state of being" > con-scious-ness -> the state of being with knowledge. > > Then, the question becomes: what is a state of knowledge? How do we > implement or instantiate a knowledge state, physically or otherwise? > > My intuition is that it requires a process of differentiation, such that > some truth becomes entangled with the system's existence. > > >> >> *> A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of >>> knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true.* >>> >> >> Then "conditional" is not a useful philosophical term because you could >> be conscious of and know a lot about Greek mythology. but none of it is >> true except for the fact that Greek mythology is about Greek mythology. >> > > Yes. Here, the truth doesn't have to be some objective truth, it can be > truth of what causes ones mind to reach a particular state. E.g., here it > would be the truth of what particular sensory data came into the scholar's > eyes as he read a book of Greek mythology. > > > >> > *Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not >>> any particular physical thing we can point at or hold.* >>> >> >> I mostly agree with that but that doesn't imply there's anything mystical >> going on, information is also immaterial and you can't point to *ANY >> PARTICULAR* physical thing >> > > I agree. > > (although you can always point to *SOME *physical thing) and I believe >> it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way information feels when it >> is being processed intelligently. >> > > I like this analogy, but I think it is incomplete. Can information (by > itself) feel? Can information (by itself) have meaning? > > I see value in making a distinction between information and "the system to > be informed." I think the pair are necessary for there to be meaning, or > consciousness. > > > However there is nothing ephemeral about information, as far as we can >> tell the laws of physics are unitary, that is information can't be >> destroyed and the probability of all possible outcomes must add up to 100%. >> For a while Stephen Hawking thought that Black Holes destroyed information >> but he later changed his mind, Kip Thorne still thinks it may do so but he >> is in the minority. >> > > I agree information can't be destroyed. But note that what I called > ephemeral was the conditional relation, which (at least usually) seems to > occur and last during a short time. > > > >> >> *> All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge.* >>> >> >> At the most fundamental level that pretty much defines what a computer >> programmer does to make a living. >> > > Yes. > > > >> * > It shows the close relationship between consciousness and >>> information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a >>> difference",* >>> >> >> And the smallest difference that still makes a difference is the >> difference between one and zero, or on and off. >> > > The bit is the simplest unit of information, but interestingly, there can > also be fractional bits. For example, if there's a 75% chance of some > event, like two coin tossings not both being heads, and I tell you that two > coin tossings were not both heads, then I have only > communicated -log2(0.75) ~= 0.415 bits of information to you. > > > >> > *It shows a close relationship between consciousness and >>> computationalism,* >>> >> >> I strongly agree with that, it makes no difference if the thing doing >> that computation is carbon-based and wet and squishy, or silicon-based and >> dry and hard. >> > > Absolutely ?? > > >> > It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple >>> realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead >>> to conditionals. >> >> >> YES! >> >> *> It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and >>> combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons >>> have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. It >>> seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, reflective, >>> etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some conditionals. >>> As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This explains the >>> biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in the guidance >>> of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of knowledge) would be >>> strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve.* >>> >> >> I agree with all of that. >> > > Happy to hear that. Thanks for all your feedback. > > Jason > > > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis >> >> xex >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to everything-list+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0q60k%3DqoWMbNsAOVxG_qotkyV8TJhN8-vNLoMg7Pu48A%40mail.gmail.com >> >> . >> > _______________________________________________ > 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 jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Aug 26 16:05:51 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2023 12:05:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 10:38 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hard enough to define consciousness. How about knowledge? Where does it > start? The body knows thousands of things to do - digesting food, > responding to pain, reflexes like kneejerks, various emotions - all of > these built in. > One implications of this is that there may be many independent minds operating within our bodies and brains. Within a reflexive, for example, are neurons conditionally reacting to a stimulus. The consciousness of such a reflex would be very simple, however, rather like that of a thermostat. I think something like this is necessary as I will elaborate on below. Then you have CRs, like staying away from a hot stove on which you have > burned yourself. > > Then reinforcement type knowledge - what to do to gain > positive reinforcers and avoid punishments. Verbal knowledge. Motor > knowledge. Etc. > > All animals, down to the amoeba, possess reflexes. A bit up from that are > conditioned reflexes. > > So - just how are you using the term 'knowledge' in your discussion of > consciousness? If knowledge equal consciousness then by some definitions > the amoeba is conscious bill w > I think consciousness was an early introduction in life. It may have begun in it's simplest form with bacteria that react to light, or touch. I think a range of gradations of consciousness is necessary in the phylogenetic tree, as otherwise we face the prospect of unconscious "zombie" parents giving birth to a fully conscious self-aware child. Jason > > On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 9:28?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Thank you John for your thoughts. I few notes below: >> >> On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 7:17?AM John Clark wrote: >> >>> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch >>> wrote: >>> >>> *> At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge,* >>>> >>> >>> That is certainly true, but what about the reverse, does a high >>> state of knowledge imply consciousness? I'll never be able to prove it but >>> I believe it does but of course for this idea to be practical there must be >>> some way of demonstrating that the thing in question does indeed have a >>> high state of knowledge, and the test for that is the Turing Test, and >>> the fact that my fellow human beings have passed the Turing test is the >>> only reason I believe that I am NOT the only conscious being in the >>> universe. >>> >> >> Yes, I believe there's an identity between states of knowledge and states >> of consciousness. That is almost implicit in the definition of >> consciousness: >> con- means "with" >> -scious- means "knowledge" >> -ness means "the state of being" >> con-scious-ness -> the state of being with knowledge. >> >> Then, the question becomes: what is a state of knowledge? How do we >> implement or instantiate a knowledge state, physically or otherwise? >> >> My intuition is that it requires a process of differentiation, such that >> some truth becomes entangled with the system's existence. >> >> >>> >>> *> A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of >>>> knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true.* >>>> >>> >>> Then "conditional" is not a useful philosophical term because you could >>> be conscious of and know a lot about Greek mythology. but none of it is >>> true except for the fact that Greek mythology is about Greek mythology. >>> >> >> Yes. Here, the truth doesn't have to be some objective truth, it can be >> truth of what causes ones mind to reach a particular state. E.g., here it >> would be the truth of what particular sensory data came into the scholar's >> eyes as he read a book of Greek mythology. >> >> >> >>> > *Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not >>>> any particular physical thing we can point at or hold.* >>>> >>> >>> I mostly agree with that but that doesn't imply there's anything >>> mystical going on, information is also immaterial and you can't point to *ANY >>> PARTICULAR* physical thing >>> >> >> I agree. >> >> (although you can always point to *SOME *physical thing) and I believe >>> it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way information feels when it >>> is being processed intelligently. >>> >> >> I like this analogy, but I think it is incomplete. Can information (by >> itself) feel? Can information (by itself) have meaning? >> >> I see value in making a distinction between information and "the system >> to be informed." I think the pair are necessary for there to be meaning, or >> consciousness. >> >> >> However there is nothing ephemeral about information, as far as we can >>> tell the laws of physics are unitary, that is information can't be >>> destroyed and the probability of all possible outcomes must add up to 100%. >>> For a while Stephen Hawking thought that Black Holes destroyed information >>> but he later changed his mind, Kip Thorne still thinks it may do so but he >>> is in the minority. >>> >> >> I agree information can't be destroyed. But note that what I called >> ephemeral was the conditional relation, which (at least usually) seems to >> occur and last during a short time. >> >> >> >>> >>> *> All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge.* >>>> >>> >>> At the most fundamental level that pretty much defines what a computer >>> programmer does to make a living. >>> >> >> Yes. >> >> >> >>> * > It shows the close relationship between consciousness and >>>> information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a >>>> difference",* >>>> >>> >>> And the smallest difference that still makes a difference is the >>> difference between one and zero, or on and off. >>> >> >> The bit is the simplest unit of information, but interestingly, there can >> also be fractional bits. For example, if there's a 75% chance of some >> event, like two coin tossings not both being heads, and I tell you that two >> coin tossings were not both heads, then I have only >> communicated -log2(0.75) ~= 0.415 bits of information to you. >> >> >> >>> > *It shows a close relationship between consciousness and >>>> computationalism,* >>>> >>> >>> I strongly agree with that, it makes no difference if the thing doing >>> that computation is carbon-based and wet and squishy, or silicon-based and >>> dry and hard. >>> >> >> Absolutely ?? >> >> >>> > It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple >>>> realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead >>>> to conditionals. >>> >>> >>> YES! >>> >>> *> It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals >>>> and combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other >>>> neurons have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger >>>> one. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, >>>> reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some >>>> conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This >>>> explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in >>>> the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of >>>> knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve.* >>>> >>> >>> I agree with all of that. >>> >> >> Happy to hear that. Thanks for all your feedback. >> >> Jason >> >> >> John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis >>> >>> xex >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to everything-list+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0q60k%3DqoWMbNsAOVxG_qotkyV8TJhN8-vNLoMg7Pu48A%40mail.gmail.com >>> >>> . >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Aug 26 16:33:36 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2023 09:33:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Long ago I thought this out in the context of the story "The Clinic Seed." In that world, uploads and downloads were common. So while a person was in the uploaded state, the memory of what they were doing in cyberspace was downloaded into their stored and inactive body/biological brain. They could shift their consciousness freely between uploaded or physical states. The rules of that time were one at a time, you could be active in either the real world or as an upload but not both at a time because of population concerns. The technology is far beyond us at this time, but I don't see the relative difference between upload and download as being much different. Keith On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 1:51?AM efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > My position is that a separate uploaded copy of me is not me, thus would > not grant the physical me immortality. I would look at it as a mind-seed, > or something slightly similar to a part of me that lives on, just as a > part of me lives on in a child, although actually that part is way more of > me, than in a child. > > However, when talking about continuity and uploading, I think the ship of > theseus uploading is much more interesting from an identity point of view. > > As some, or all of you already know, imagine that I'm uploaded neruon by > neuron, over time. I would not have a break, and my mind would transition > onto the new media. > > I would like to know what the people here who do not believe uploading > grants a form of immortality think about that scenario? Would it fit in > with your idea of identity and would you see yourselves being "immortal" > through a shop of theseus procedure if it were possible? > > As for the copy approach, a starting point for me would be that my > identity is probably based on my mind, sense of continuity and location. > In a copy, continuity and location would go 2x, and thus not work with the > definition of identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, both continuity > would be perserved, and location would be single. > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: > >> > >> An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality is > >> not so much continuity as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, > >> they're not the same thing]. > >> > >> If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload will > >> remember being me, but /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. And > >> no, killing me painlessly, or even instantaneously, during or in the > >> immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the problem either. > >> > >> If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied me, > >> but you haven't moved me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I want to > >> be immortal. > > > > So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something that, when copied, > > somehow changes into 'not-me'. I don't understand this. If it's an exact > > copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can there not now be two 'me's? Two > > identical beings, in every way, including their subjective experience, with > > no discontinuity with the original singular being? > > > > When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will get a copy, and > > I will keep a copy. Which one is the real message? If they were conscious, > > why would that make any difference? > > > > You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". But how do you > > move data? You make a second copy of it then delete the first copy. So > > destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving me', yet you say it > > wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a belief in an > > uncopyable supernatural 'soul') how this could be. > > > > This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think > > we should really understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please > > explain further? > > > > Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and > > not-discontinuity not being the same thing? > > > > Ben > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Aug 26 17:20:50 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2023 12:20:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am not fully understanding 'range of gradations of consciousness'. What for example is 'partly conscious'? Or the difference between an amoeba's consciousness and ours? billw On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 11:08?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 10:38 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Hard enough to define consciousness. How about knowledge? Where does it >> start? The body knows thousands of things to do - digesting food, >> responding to pain, reflexes like kneejerks, various emotions - all of >> these built in. >> > > > One implications of this is that there may be many independent minds > operating within our bodies and brains. Within a reflexive, for example, > are neurons conditionally reacting to a stimulus. The consciousness of such > a reflex would be very simple, however, rather like that of a thermostat. > > I think something like this is necessary as I will elaborate on below. > > > Then you have CRs, like staying away from a hot stove on which you have >> burned yourself. >> >> Then reinforcement type knowledge - what to do to gain >> positive reinforcers and avoid punishments. Verbal knowledge. Motor >> knowledge. Etc. >> >> All animals, down to the amoeba, possess reflexes. A bit up from that are >> conditioned reflexes. >> >> So - just how are you using the term 'knowledge' in your discussion of >> consciousness? If knowledge equal consciousness then by some definitions >> the amoeba is conscious bill w >> > > I think consciousness was an early introduction in life. It may have begun > in it's simplest form with bacteria that react to light, or touch. I think > a range of gradations of consciousness is necessary in the phylogenetic > tree, as otherwise we face the prospect of unconscious "zombie" parents > giving birth to a fully conscious self-aware child. > > Jason > > > >> >> On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 9:28?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Thank you John for your thoughts. I few notes below: >>> >>> On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 7:17?AM John Clark wrote: >>> >>>> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> *> At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge,* >>>>> >>>> >>>> That is certainly true, but what about the reverse, does a high >>>> state of knowledge imply consciousness? I'll never be able to prove it but >>>> I believe it does but of course for this idea to be practical there must be >>>> some way of demonstrating that the thing in question does indeed have >>>> a high state of knowledge, and the test for that is the Turing Test, >>>> and the fact that my fellow human beings have passed the Turing test is the >>>> only reason I believe that I am NOT the only conscious being in the >>>> universe. >>>> >>> >>> Yes, I believe there's an identity between states of knowledge and >>> states of consciousness. That is almost implicit in the definition of >>> consciousness: >>> con- means "with" >>> -scious- means "knowledge" >>> -ness means "the state of being" >>> con-scious-ness -> the state of being with knowledge. >>> >>> Then, the question becomes: what is a state of knowledge? How do we >>> implement or instantiate a knowledge state, physically or otherwise? >>> >>> My intuition is that it requires a process of differentiation, such that >>> some truth becomes entangled with the system's existence. >>> >>> >>>> >>>> *> A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state >>>>> of knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is >>>>> true.* >>>>> >>>> >>>> Then "conditional" is not a useful philosophical term because you could >>>> be conscious of and know a lot about Greek mythology. but none of it is >>>> true except for the fact that Greek mythology is about Greek mythology. >>>> >>> >>> Yes. Here, the truth doesn't have to be some objective truth, it can be >>> truth of what causes ones mind to reach a particular state. E.g., here it >>> would be the truth of what particular sensory data came into the scholar's >>> eyes as he read a book of Greek mythology. >>> >>> >>> >>>> > *Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, >>>>> not any particular physical thing we can point at or hold.* >>>>> >>>> >>>> I mostly agree with that but that doesn't imply there's anything >>>> mystical going on, information is also immaterial and you can't point to *ANY >>>> PARTICULAR* physical thing >>>> >>> >>> I agree. >>> >>> (although you can always point to *SOME *physical thing) and I believe >>>> it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way information feels when it >>>> is being processed intelligently. >>>> >>> >>> I like this analogy, but I think it is incomplete. Can information (by >>> itself) feel? Can information (by itself) have meaning? >>> >>> I see value in making a distinction between information and "the system >>> to be informed." I think the pair are necessary for there to be meaning, or >>> consciousness. >>> >>> >>> However there is nothing ephemeral about information, as far as we can >>>> tell the laws of physics are unitary, that is information can't be >>>> destroyed and the probability of all possible outcomes must add up to 100%. >>>> For a while Stephen Hawking thought that Black Holes destroyed information >>>> but he later changed his mind, Kip Thorne still thinks it may do so but he >>>> is in the minority. >>>> >>> >>> I agree information can't be destroyed. But note that what I called >>> ephemeral was the conditional relation, which (at least usually) seems to >>> occur and last during a short time. >>> >>> >>> >>>> >>>> *> All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge.* >>>>> >>>> >>>> At the most fundamental level that pretty much defines what a computer >>>> programmer does to make a living. >>>> >>> >>> Yes. >>> >>> >>> >>>> * > It shows the close relationship between consciousness and >>>>> information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a >>>>> difference",* >>>>> >>>> >>>> And the smallest difference that still makes a difference is the >>>> difference between one and zero, or on and off. >>>> >>> >>> The bit is the simplest unit of information, but interestingly, there >>> can also be fractional bits. For example, if there's a 75% chance of some >>> event, like two coin tossings not both being heads, and I tell you that two >>> coin tossings were not both heads, then I have only >>> communicated -log2(0.75) ~= 0.415 bits of information to you. >>> >>> >>> >>>> > *It shows a close relationship between consciousness and >>>>> computationalism,* >>>>> >>>> >>>> I strongly agree with that, it makes no difference if the thing doing >>>> that computation is carbon-based and wet and squishy, or silicon-based and >>>> dry and hard. >>>> >>> >>> Absolutely ?? >>> >>> >>>> > It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple >>>>> realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead >>>>> to conditionals. >>>> >>>> >>>> YES! >>>> >>>> *> It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals >>>>> and combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other >>>>> neurons have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger >>>>> one. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, >>>>> reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some >>>>> conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This >>>>> explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in >>>>> the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of >>>>> knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve.* >>>>> >>>> >>>> I agree with all of that. >>>> >>> >>> Happy to hear that. Thanks for all your feedback. >>> >>> Jason >>> >>> >>> John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis >>>> >>>> xex >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to everything-list+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >>>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0q60k%3DqoWMbNsAOVxG_qotkyV8TJhN8-vNLoMg7Pu48A%40mail.gmail.com >>>> >>>> . >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Aug 26 17:36:11 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2023 13:36:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I am not fully understanding 'range of gradations of consciousness'. What > for example is 'partly conscious'? Or the difference between an amoeba's > consciousness and ours? billw > I don't believe the idea of partial consciousness makes sense, I believe there are just different contents of consciousness, which can be more or less complex. Jason > > On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 11:08?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 10:38 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Hard enough to define consciousness. How about knowledge? Where does >>> it start? The body knows thousands of things to do - digesting food, >>> responding to pain, reflexes like kneejerks, various emotions - all of >>> these built in. >>> >> >> >> One implications of this is that there may be many independent minds >> operating within our bodies and brains. Within a reflexive, for example, >> are neurons conditionally reacting to a stimulus. The consciousness of such >> a reflex would be very simple, however, rather like that of a thermostat. >> >> I think something like this is necessary as I will elaborate on below. >> >> >> Then you have CRs, like staying away from a hot stove on which you have >>> burned yourself. >>> >>> Then reinforcement type knowledge - what to do to gain >>> positive reinforcers and avoid punishments. Verbal knowledge. Motor >>> knowledge. Etc. >>> >>> All animals, down to the amoeba, possess reflexes. A bit up from that >>> are conditioned reflexes. >>> >>> So - just how are you using the term 'knowledge' in your discussion of >>> consciousness? If knowledge equal consciousness then by some definitions >>> the amoeba is conscious bill w >>> >> >> I think consciousness was an early introduction in life. It may have >> begun in it's simplest form with bacteria that react to light, or touch. I >> think a range of gradations of consciousness is necessary in the >> phylogenetic tree, as otherwise we face the prospect of unconscious >> "zombie" parents giving birth to a fully conscious self-aware child. >> >> Jason >> >> >> >>> >>> On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 9:28?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Thank you John for your thoughts. I few notes below: >>>> >>>> On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 7:17?AM John Clark >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> *> At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge,* >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> That is certainly true, but what about the reverse, does a high >>>>> state of knowledge imply consciousness? I'll never be able to prove it but >>>>> I believe it does but of course for this idea to be practical there must be >>>>> some way of demonstrating that the thing in question does indeed have >>>>> a high state of knowledge, and the test for that is the Turing Test, >>>>> and the fact that my fellow human beings have passed the Turing test is the >>>>> only reason I believe that I am NOT the only conscious being in the >>>>> universe. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Yes, I believe there's an identity between states of knowledge and >>>> states of consciousness. That is almost implicit in the definition of >>>> consciousness: >>>> con- means "with" >>>> -scious- means "knowledge" >>>> -ness means "the state of being" >>>> con-scious-ness -> the state of being with knowledge. >>>> >>>> Then, the question becomes: what is a state of knowledge? How do we >>>> implement or instantiate a knowledge state, physically or otherwise? >>>> >>>> My intuition is that it requires a process of differentiation, such >>>> that some truth becomes entangled with the system's existence. >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> *> A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state >>>>>> of knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is >>>>>> true.* >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Then "conditional" is not a useful philosophical term because you >>>>> could be conscious of and know a lot about Greek mythology. but none of it >>>>> is true except for the fact that Greek mythology is about Greek mythology. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Yes. Here, the truth doesn't have to be some objective truth, it can be >>>> truth of what causes ones mind to reach a particular state. E.g., here it >>>> would be the truth of what particular sensory data came into the scholar's >>>> eyes as he read a book of Greek mythology. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> > *Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, >>>>>> not any particular physical thing we can point at or hold.* >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I mostly agree with that but that doesn't imply there's anything >>>>> mystical going on, information is also immaterial and you can't point to *ANY >>>>> PARTICULAR* physical thing >>>>> >>>> >>>> I agree. >>>> >>>> (although you can always point to *SOME *physical thing) and I >>>>> believe it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way information feels >>>>> when it is being processed intelligently. >>>>> >>>> >>>> I like this analogy, but I think it is incomplete. Can information (by >>>> itself) feel? Can information (by itself) have meaning? >>>> >>>> I see value in making a distinction between information and "the system >>>> to be informed." I think the pair are necessary for there to be meaning, or >>>> consciousness. >>>> >>>> >>>> However there is nothing ephemeral about information, as far as we can >>>>> tell the laws of physics are unitary, that is information can't be >>>>> destroyed and the probability of all possible outcomes must add up to 100%. >>>>> For a while Stephen Hawking thought that Black Holes destroyed information >>>>> but he later changed his mind, Kip Thorne still thinks it may do so but he >>>>> is in the minority. >>>>> >>>> >>>> I agree information can't be destroyed. But note that what I called >>>> ephemeral was the conditional relation, which (at least usually) seems to >>>> occur and last during a short time. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> *> All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge.* >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> At the most fundamental level that pretty much defines what a computer >>>>> programmer does to make a living. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Yes. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> * > It shows the close relationship between consciousness and >>>>>> information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a >>>>>> difference",* >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> And the smallest difference that still makes a difference is the >>>>> difference between one and zero, or on and off. >>>>> >>>> >>>> The bit is the simplest unit of information, but interestingly, there >>>> can also be fractional bits. For example, if there's a 75% chance of some >>>> event, like two coin tossings not both being heads, and I tell you that two >>>> coin tossings were not both heads, then I have only >>>> communicated -log2(0.75) ~= 0.415 bits of information to you. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> > *It shows a close relationship between consciousness and >>>>>> computationalism,* >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I strongly agree with that, it makes no difference if the thing >>>>> doing that computation is carbon-based and wet and squishy, or >>>>> silicon-based and dry and hard. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Absolutely ?? >>>> >>>> >>>>> > It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple >>>>>> realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead >>>>>> to conditionals. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> YES! >>>>> >>>>> *> It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals >>>>>> and combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other >>>>>> neurons have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger >>>>>> one. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, >>>>>> reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some >>>>>> conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This >>>>>> explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in >>>>>> the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of >>>>>> knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve.* >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I agree with all of that. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Happy to hear that. Thanks for all your feedback. >>>> >>>> Jason >>>> >>>> >>>> John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis >>>>> >>>>> xex >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>>> an email to everything-list+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >>>>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0q60k%3DqoWMbNsAOVxG_qotkyV8TJhN8-vNLoMg7Pu48A%40mail.gmail.com >>>>> >>>>> . >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sat Aug 26 21:24:18 2023 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2023 14:24:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On 2023-08-25 23:50, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: >> >> An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality >> is not so much continuity as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And >> no, they're not the same thing]. I do not think it is possible to subjectively experience discontinuity. For example, I do not experience any passage of time between when I decide to surrender to anesthesia and when I wake up from it. Death is no different. >> If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload >> will remember being me, but /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful >> death. And no, killing me painlessly, or even instantaneously, during >> or in the immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the >> problem either. >> From the point of view of the new you, that wants access to your bank account, instantaneously killing you would definitely solve the problem. >> If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied >> me, but you haven't moved me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me >> I want to be immortal. If your material pattern is sufficient to be you, then you are already immortal and there are already universes out there where you are the last surviving life form or even a Boltzmann brain quantum mechanically summoned into existence to witness the heat death of the universe. > > So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something that, when > copied, somehow changes into 'not-me'. I don't understand this. If it's > an exact copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can there not now be > two 'me's? Two identical beings, in every way, including their > subjective experience, with no discontinuity with the original singular > being? Again, your position and momentum in space are properties of yours. Since you are constructed of fermions, Pauli's exclusion principle prevents another you from having the same position and momentum as you do. If you could somehow write your pattern to a Bose-Einstein condensate, then you could have copies of you that were all truly you. > > When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will get a > copy, and I will keep a copy. Which one is the real message? If they > were conscious, why would that make any difference? The real message is the one that has the most meaning to you in a given context. A child calling for help in the jungle is sending a message that means something completely different to his parents than to the hungry tiger. Every message is composed of symbols that have differing degrees of correlation between the sender and the recipient. The meaning conveyed by the sender is the purport, the meaning understood by the recipient is the import. > > You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". But how do > you move data? You make a second copy of it then delete the first copy. > So destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving me', yet you > say it wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a belief in > an uncopyable supernatural 'soul') how this could be. Lagrangian and quantum mechanics says that particles have two main kinematic properties: position and momentum. By virtues of the molecules that comprise your body, you have a position. Your position is a property of you, unless you postulate that you have a soul property that somehow magically makes all the copies of you the same person. Identical twins are not the same person and neither would a perfect copy of you be. The position and momentum of all the instances of you would be unique, and therefore not you. If you believe that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you are already immortal. You don't need to copy yourself because there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about the multiverse. Stuart LaForge > This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I > think we should really understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. > Would you please explain further? > > Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and > not-discontinuity not being the same thing? > > Ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From efc at swisscows.email Sat Aug 26 22:17:14 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 00:17:14 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Hello Stuart, Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting edge physics. You say that > that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you are > already immortal. You don't need to copy yourself because there are already > plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about the multiverse. What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof or is itone of many interpretations of current theories? Best regards, Daniel > Stuart LaForge > > >> This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I >> think we should really understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would >> you please explain further? >> >> Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and >> not-discontinuity not being the same thing? >> >> Ben >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From avant at sollegro.com Sun Aug 27 10:01:41 2023 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 03:01:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> On 2023-08-26 15:17, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > Hello Stuart, > > Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > edge physics. > > You say that > >> If you believe that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax >> because you are already immortal. You don't need to copy yourself >> because there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you >> strewn about the multiverse. > > What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported > by proof or is it one of many interpretations of current theories? > > Best regards, Daniel Hi Daniel, It is not proven in a mathematical sense, but many worlds (MWI) is the only interpretation of quantum mechanics that is complete. All that you need for many worlds to be true is that the Schrodinger equation be true. The alternatives require extra stuff. For example, collapse interpretations need an additional mechanism by which measurement can somehow cause a quantum particle that is spread out everywhere at once to suddenly be somewhere specific at faster than the speed of light. It requires consciousness to be a fundamental property of the universe in the sense that like the next level of videogame, nothing is rendered into reality until you look at it. Basically, if collapse interpretations are real, then we are very likely in a simulation run by some intelligent designer who is trying to save computational resources by not rendering anything into reality until a simulated person interacts with it. Many worlds allows particles to always be everywhere at once because wherever the particle is, there is a separate you there to witness it there. The other alternative is the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation which require a second equation that describes how the wave function is a pilot wave that pushes a particle along its path to be true in addition to the Schrodinger wave equation which describes the wave function. So to summarize: 1. Copenhagen/collapse interpretations needs additional assumptions about the laws of physics requiring conscious observers in order to function properly. Trees do not fall in the woods or make noise unless you are there to appreciate it. 2. Debroglie-Bohm Pilot Wave: This interpretation requires additional "helper" equations to allow quantum mechanics to function by keeping track of hidden variables. 3. Superdeterminism: everything that happens including your own thoughts and decisions are unerringly following a script that has existed from moment of the big bang. Or . . . 4. MWI: The Schrondinger wave equation is all you need and there is enough real estate out there to cover every possibility that the wavefunction entails. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvQ3Wyw2M4 Sean Carroll does an excellent job covering this in his various You Tube videos or his book "Something Deeply Hidden". I generally don't believe we live in a simulation and therefore prefer many worlds over conscious collapse theories, but every once in a while nature throws me a curve ball that makes me adjust my posterior probabilities like this: https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194212940/question-mark-space-webb-telescope-photo I hope that helped. Best regards, Stuart LaForge From pharos at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 11:38:16 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 12:38:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 26 Aug 2023 at 23:19, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > Hello Stuart, > >snip> > What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof > or is it one of many interpretations of current theories? > > Best regards, Daniel > _______________________________________________ Hi Daniel The multiverse (MWI) theory is much disputed at present. For an alternative opinion, some criticisms are - The infinity of universes constantly being created cannot be tested or observed by us, so they must remain speculative. If every action creates a new universe, are humans the only ones creating new universes? What about the infinity of alien life around us? Are they also creating infinities of universes? Exactly what constitutes an 'observation' of the collapse of the wave function to create new universes? Can only humans 'observe' or can any lifeform create universes? If a dog trips over a ball, does that create a new universe? And so on.... MWI appears to be creating constantly increasing infinities of universes. That's not simplifying, that is multiplying complexities. BillK From efc at swisscows.email Sun Aug 27 15:45:37 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 17:45:37 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <87acc856-f7c6-49af-b3de-9f1956a5f326@swisscows.email> Thank you very much Bill for another point of view. I'd say that it at the moment rings more true to me, but I have to check out Stuarts links. It also fills me with sadness that I do not have the mathematical ability to understand the math, and then translate that math into verbal ideas for regular human consumption. To be able to do that seems like such a fascinating job! Best regards, Daniel On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > On Sat, 26 Aug 2023 at 23:19, efc--- via extropy-chat > wrote: >> >> Hello Stuart, >> >> snip> >> What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof >> or is it one of many interpretations of current theories? >> >> Best regards, Daniel >> _______________________________________________ > > > Hi Daniel > > The multiverse (MWI) theory is much disputed at present. > > For an alternative opinion, some criticisms are - > The infinity of universes constantly being created cannot be tested or > observed by us, so they must remain speculative. > If every action creates a new universe, are humans the only ones > creating new universes? What about the infinity of alien life around > us? Are they also creating infinities of universes? > Exactly what constitutes an 'observation' of the collapse of the wave > function to create new universes? Can only humans 'observe' or can any > lifeform create universes? If a dog trips over a ball, does that > create a new universe? And so on.... > > MWI appears to be creating constantly increasing infinities of > universes. That's not simplifying, that is multiplying complexities. > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From efc at swisscows.email Sun Aug 27 16:33:22 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 18:33:22 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> Message-ID: <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> Thank you very much Stuart, I was just about to ask for a book and you already thought of that. But what about superdeterminism? Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it goes against our intuition? Best regards, Daniel On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > On 2023-08-26 15:17, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: >> Hello Stuart, >> >> Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting >> edge physics. >> >> You say that >> >>> If you believe that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax >>> because you are already immortal. You don't need to copy yourself because >>> there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about >>> the multiverse. >> >> What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by >> proof or is it one of many interpretations of current theories? >> >> Best regards, Daniel > > Hi Daniel, > > It is not proven in a mathematical sense, but many worlds (MWI) is the only > interpretation of quantum mechanics that is complete. All that you need for > many worlds to be true is that the Schrodinger equation be true. The > alternatives require extra stuff. > > For example, collapse interpretations need an additional mechanism by which > measurement can somehow cause a quantum particle that is spread out > everywhere at once to suddenly be somewhere specific at faster than the speed > of light. It requires consciousness to be a fundamental property of the > universe in the sense that like the next level of videogame, nothing is > rendered into reality until you look at it. Basically, if collapse > interpretations are real, then we are very likely in a simulation run by some > intelligent designer who is trying to save computational resources by not > rendering anything into reality until a simulated person interacts with it. > > Many worlds allows particles to always be everywhere at once because wherever > the particle is, there is a separate you there to witness it there. > > The other alternative is the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation which > require a second equation that describes how the wave function is a pilot > wave that pushes a particle along its path to be true in addition to the > Schrodinger wave equation which describes the wave function. > > So to summarize: > 1. Copenhagen/collapse interpretations needs additional assumptions about the > laws of physics requiring conscious observers in order to function properly. > Trees do not fall in the woods or make noise unless you are there to > appreciate it. > 2. Debroglie-Bohm Pilot Wave: This interpretation requires additional > "helper" equations to allow quantum mechanics to function by keeping track of > hidden variables. > 3. Superdeterminism: everything that happens including your own thoughts and > decisions are unerringly following a script that has existed from moment of > the big bang. > > Or . . . > > 4. MWI: The Schrondinger wave equation is all you need and there is enough > real estate out there to cover every possibility that the wavefunction > entails. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvQ3Wyw2M4 > > Sean Carroll does an excellent job covering this in his various You Tube > videos or his book "Something Deeply Hidden". I generally don't believe we > live in a simulation and therefore prefer many worlds over conscious collapse > theories, but every once in a while nature throws me a curve ball that makes > me adjust my posterior probabilities like this: > https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194212940/question-mark-space-webb-telescope-photo > > I hope that helped. > > Best regards, > Stuart LaForge > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 16:42:34 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 11:42:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Thank you very much Stuart, I was just about to ask for a book and you > already thought of that. > > But what about superdeterminism? In my view this is the worst of all possible interpretations. It is the theory that the laws of physics are conspiring to always fool us. (Something like Descartes's evil demon). For example, if we choose to do a Bell experiment and set our orientations according to some random sequence, super determinism says the correlations of the particles are also determined by the same processes that drive the random number generator we use to set our orientations. Okay, this is weird, but not logically impossible. But now consider if we set our orientations according to the digits of Pi, did the processes that determine particle orientations also determine the digits of Pi? At this point I think super determinism is no longer defensible. Jason > > Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it goes > against our intuition? > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > > On 2023-08-26 15:17, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: >> >>> Hello Stuart, >>> >>> Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting >>> edge physics. >>> >>> You say that >>> >>> If you believe that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax >>>> because you are already immortal. You don't need to copy yourself because >>>> there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about >>>> the multiverse. >>>> >>> >>> What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported >>> by proof or is it one of many interpretations of current theories? >>> >>> Best regards, Daniel >>> >> >> Hi Daniel, >> >> It is not proven in a mathematical sense, but many worlds (MWI) is the >> only interpretation of quantum mechanics that is complete. All that you >> need for many worlds to be true is that the Schrodinger equation be true. >> The alternatives require extra stuff. >> >> For example, collapse interpretations need an additional mechanism by >> which measurement can somehow cause a quantum particle that is spread out >> everywhere at once to suddenly be somewhere specific at faster than the >> speed of light. It requires consciousness to be a fundamental property of >> the universe in the sense that like the next level of videogame, nothing is >> rendered into reality until you look at it. Basically, if collapse >> interpretations are real, then we are very likely in a simulation run by >> some intelligent designer who is trying to save computational resources by >> not rendering anything into reality until a simulated person interacts with >> it. >> >> Many worlds allows particles to always be everywhere at once because >> wherever the particle is, there is a separate you there to witness it there. >> >> The other alternative is the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation >> which require a second equation that describes how the wave function is a >> pilot wave that pushes a particle along its path to be true in addition to >> the Schrodinger wave equation which describes the wave function. >> >> So to summarize: >> 1. Copenhagen/collapse interpretations needs additional assumptions about >> the laws of physics requiring conscious observers in order to function >> properly. Trees do not fall in the woods or make noise unless you are there >> to appreciate it. >> 2. Debroglie-Bohm Pilot Wave: This interpretation requires additional >> "helper" equations to allow quantum mechanics to function by keeping track >> of hidden variables. >> 3. Superdeterminism: everything that happens including your own thoughts >> and decisions are unerringly following a script that has existed from >> moment of the big bang. >> >> Or . . . >> >> 4. MWI: The Schrondinger wave equation is all you need and there is >> enough real estate out there to cover every possibility that the >> wavefunction entails. >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvQ3Wyw2M4 >> >> Sean Carroll does an excellent job covering this in his various You Tube >> videos or his book "Something Deeply Hidden". I generally don't believe we >> live in a simulation and therefore prefer many worlds over conscious >> collapse theories, but every once in a while nature throws me a curve ball >> that makes me adjust my posterior probabilities like this: >> https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194212940/question-mark-spac >> e-webb-telescope-photo >> >> I hope that helped. >> >> Best regards, >> Stuart LaForge >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 17:03:05 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 12:03:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <87acc856-f7c6-49af-b3de-9f1956a5f326@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <87acc856-f7c6-49af-b3de-9f1956a5f326@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Some further arguments for no-collapse: MW is simply QM without the collapse postulate. The collapse postulate was bolted as another assumption to QM. But QM without the collapse postulate (MW) can explain the appearance of collapse, without assuming it, thereby negating any reason to assume it in the first place. Removing the collapse postulate rescues QM from having an undefined, unmathematical, non-linear, irreversible, nondeterministic, psychokinetic, faster-than-light, reality denying, non-objective monstrosity paired with it, which would make QM completely unlike every other theory in physics, since every other theory in physics is objective, linear, local, real, deterministic, and mathematically-defined. Any theory which so unnecessarily adds the collapse postulate, refutes itself, not only by needlessly complicating the theory and violating Occam, but by adding something so incongruent with rational science. If it were necessary to add the postulate to explain some physical facts or observation, then perhaps it would be justified. But here, adding collapse adds nothing to our explanatory power, and causes us to give up everything else so dear in physics: the idea of an objective reality having multiple compatible viewpoints, the idea that effects follow from prior causes, the idea that particles are affected only by local interactions, the idea that we are ourselves just made of particles and have no special physical powers -- all this must be sacrificed to add an idea which is in no way required to explain anything. What's the point? As to whether or not MW is testable, there are at least three approaches: 1. Show an inconsistency in collapse theories, such as it's incapability to handle multiple observers. E.g. "Wigner's Friend" thought experiment. Wigner's friend shows CI can't handle multiple observers. So you must either accept that Wigner's friend experiences multiple worlds, or abandon any notion of multiple viewpoints and retreat into the recesses of anti-realism and solipsism. 2. Max Tegmark's quantum suicide, while it cannot falsify MW, it can confirm it for any sufficiently dedicated experimentalist, to any degree of confidence. 3. Quantum Computers and conscious AI: David Deutsch proposed something like a quantum eraser thought experiment with an observer whose memory of the observation could be quantum erased (such as an AI or.mind upload running on a quantum computer). If such an erasure restores the interference pattern (as in the usual quantum eraser experiment) this would disprove collapse (as it would not be irreversible, even after conscious observation). Jason On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Thank you very much Bill for another point of view. I'd say that it at the > moment rings more true to me, but I have to check out Stuarts links. > > It also fills me with sadness that I do not have the mathematical ability > to understand the math, and then translate that math into verbal ideas for > regular human consumption. To be able to do that seems like such a > fascinating job! > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Sat, 26 Aug 2023 at 23:19, efc--- via extropy-chat >> wrote: >> >>> >>> Hello Stuart, >>> >>> snip> >>> What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported >>> by proof >>> or is it one of many interpretations of current theories? >>> >>> Best regards, Daniel >>> _______________________________________________ >>> >> >> >> Hi Daniel >> >> The multiverse (MWI) theory is much disputed at present. >> >> For an alternative opinion, some criticisms are - >> The infinity of universes constantly being created cannot be tested or >> observed by us, so they must remain speculative. >> If every action creates a new universe, are humans the only ones >> creating new universes? What about the infinity of alien life around >> us? Are they also creating infinities of universes? >> Exactly what constitutes an 'observation' of the collapse of the wave >> function to create new universes? Can only humans 'observe' or can any >> lifeform create universes? If a dog trips over a ball, does that >> create a new universe? And so on.... >> >> MWI appears to be creating constantly increasing infinities of >> universes. That's not simplifying, that is multiplying complexities. >> >> >> BillK >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 17:18:57 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 12:18:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: The question you are asking about below concerns the topic in philosophy known as personal identity. That topic asks: which I experiences belong to which person's, in other words, how do we define the temporal borders of a person. There are in general three approaches generally taken: 1. No-self/Anatta/empty individualism: each observer-moment, or thought-moment is its own isolated thing, there's no such thing as a self which has multiple distinct thought-moments. 2. Continuity theories/closed individualism: either bodily or psychological continuity. A self is a continual things either though the continuation of some physical body, or some more abstractly defined psychological organization. 3. Universalism/open Individualism: There are no bodily or psychological preconditions for an experience being yours, all experiences are I, and in truth there is only one mind. I think #2 leads to contradictions. #1 and #3 are logically consistent. Between #1 and #3, #3 is more useful (it permits decision theory) and further, there are strong probabilistic arguments for it. For example, those given in "One self: the logic of experience" which I cite here: https://alwaysasking.com/is-there-life-after-death/#10_Open_Individualism_and_the_Afterlife One consequence of Open Individualism is that it dissolves any concern of whether some particular copy is you, as all conscious perspectives are you. Jason On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > My position is that a separate uploaded copy of me is not me, thus would > not grant the physical me immortality. I would look at it as a mind-seed, > or something slightly similar to a part of me that lives on, just as a part > of me lives on in a child, although actually that part is way more of me, > than in a child. > > However, when talking about continuity and uploading, I think the ship of > theseus uploading is much more interesting from an identity point of view. > > As some, or all of you already know, imagine that I'm uploaded neruon by > neuron, over time. I would not have a break, and my mind would transition > onto the new media. > > I would like to know what the people here who do not believe uploading > grants a form of immortality think about that scenario? Would it fit in > with your idea of identity and would you see yourselves being "immortal" > through a shop of theseus procedure if it were possible? > > As for the copy approach, a starting point for me would be that my > identity is probably based on my mind, sense of continuity and location. In > a copy, continuity and location would go 2x, and thus not work with the > definition of identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, both continuity > would be perserved, and location would be single. > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > > On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: >> >>> >>> An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality >>> is not so much continuity as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, >>> they're not the same thing]. >>> >>> If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload >>> will remember being me, but /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. >>> And no, killing me painlessly, or even instantaneously, during or in the >>> immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the problem either. >>> >>> If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied >>> me, but you haven't moved me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I >>> want to be immortal. >>> >> >> So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something that, when >> copied, somehow changes into 'not-me'. I don't understand this. If it's an >> exact copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can there not now be two >> 'me's? Two identical beings, in every way, including their subjective >> experience, with no discontinuity with the original singular being? >> >> When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will get a copy, >> and I will keep a copy. Which one is the real message? If they were >> conscious, why would that make any difference? >> >> You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". But how do >> you move data? You make a second copy of it then delete the first copy. So >> destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving me', yet you say it >> wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a belief in an >> uncopyable supernatural 'soul') how this could be. >> >> This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I >> think we should really understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would >> you please explain further? >> >> Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and >> not-discontinuity not being the same thing? >> >> Ben >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 17:26:58 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 12:26:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hello Stuart, > > Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > edge physics. > > You say that > > that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you are >> already immortal. You don't need to copy yourself because there are already >> plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about the multiverse. >> > > What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by > proof or is itone of many interpretations of current theories? Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in the sense that the probability there's only one universe (with one kind of physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ This is as close to proof as anything science can provide. Jason > > Best regards, Daniel > > > Stuart LaForge >> >> >> This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I >>> think we should really understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would >>> you please explain further? >>> >>> Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and >>> not-discontinuity not being the same thing? >>> >>> Ben >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 17:44:37 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 12:44:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Sunday, August 27, 2023, wrote: > Thank you Jason, > > So would that imply then that there is no true randomness and that it is > only because our limited point of view, that it looks random? > There is a "meta level" of machinery kind of? Yes, super determinism says there are hidden variables, determined by machinery we can't access, but moreover, everything we do to try to measure these hidden variables, by whatever processes we choose, flipping coins, picking numbers in our head, using digits of Pi or e, using pseudorandom number generators, anything, whatever we pick and whatever method we choose, the universe will choose hidden variables such that they will yield the Bell probabilities giving the false appearance of random quantum collapse, where there are not. But if this is true, and if we use constants in math like Pi or e, or SQRT(2), to choose how to set the rotation of a polarizing filter when measuring two entangled photons, then somehow the universe must have known that you would be using, say, the digits of SQRT(2) when it created the entangled photons years earlier before you measured them. So that in a sense, the photon pair creation event must have known how you would be measuring them, and then generated them in a way that would yield the expected quantum probabilities. It would also know you wouldn't in the last moment, change your mind to use the digits of Pi to choose the angle of rotation for the polarizing filter. Super determinism is the idea that the whole universe is a conspiracy to make us falsely believe in quantum probabilities. > > Sorry if I'm not making sense, it is because I did not understand the > example. ;) If it's hard to understand it's because it's so hard to believe anyone would propose this as a serious theory, but that's the length people will go to maintain their idea of a unique self. (I think it's rather like the resistance to the idea that the earth wasn't the center of the universe or solar system, at least I think it comes from the same place). Jason > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch wrote: > > >> >> On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> Thank you very much Stuart, I was just about to ask for a book and >> you already thought of that. >> >> But what about superdeterminism? >> >> >> In my view this is the worst of all possible interpretations. It is the >> theory that the laws of physics are conspiring to always fool >> us. (Something like Descartes's evil demon). For example, if we choose to >> do a Bell experiment and set our orientations according to >> some random sequence, super determinism says the correlations of the >> particles are also determined by the same processes that drive >> the random number generator we use to set our orientations. >> >> Okay, this is weird, but not logically impossible. >> >> But now consider if we set our orientations according to the digits of >> Pi, did the processes that determine particle orientations >> also determine the digits of Pi? At this point I think super determinism >> is no longer defensible. >> >> Jason >> >> >> >> >> Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it >> goes >> against our intuition? >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> On 2023-08-26 15:17, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: >> Hello Stuart, >> >> Just a quick question from someone not very >> knowledgeable of cutting >> edge physics. >> >> You say that >> >> If you believe that a copy of you can truly be >> you, then you can relax because you >> are already immortal. You don't need to copy >> yourself because there are already >> plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn >> about the multiverse. >> >> >> What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and >> multiverses supported by proof or is it one of >> many interpretations of current theories? >> >> Best regards, Daniel >> >> >> Hi Daniel, >> >> It is not proven in a mathematical sense, but many worlds >> (MWI) is the only interpretation of quantum >> mechanics that is complete. All that you need for many worlds >> to be true is that the Schrodinger equation be >> true. The alternatives require extra stuff. >> >> For example, collapse interpretations need an additional >> mechanism by which measurement can somehow cause a >> quantum particle that is spread out everywhere at once to >> suddenly be somewhere specific at faster than the >> speed of light. It requires consciousness to be a fundamental >> property of the universe in the sense that like >> the next level of videogame, nothing is rendered into reality >> until you look at it. Basically, if collapse >> interpretations are real, then we are very likely in a >> simulation run by some intelligent designer who is >> trying to save computational resources by not rendering >> anything into reality until a simulated person >> interacts with it. >> >> Many worlds allows particles to always be everywhere at once >> because wherever the particle is, there is a >> separate you there to witness it there. >> >> The other alternative is the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot wave >> interpretation which require a second equation that >> describes how the wave function is a pilot wave that pushes a >> particle along its path to be true in addition >> to the Schrodinger wave equation which describes the wave >> function. >> >> So to summarize: >> 1. Copenhagen/collapse interpretations needs additional >> assumptions about the laws of physics requiring >> conscious observers in order to function properly. Trees do >> not fall in the woods or make noise unless you >> are there to appreciate it. >> 2. Debroglie-Bohm Pilot Wave: This interpretation requires >> additional "helper" equations to allow quantum >> mechanics to function by keeping track of hidden variables. >> 3. Superdeterminism: everything that happens including your >> own thoughts and decisions are unerringly >> following a script that has existed from moment of the big >> bang. >> >> Or . . . >> >> 4. MWI: The Schrondinger wave equation is all you need and >> there is enough real estate out there to cover >> every possibility that the wavefunction entails. >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvQ3Wyw2M4 >> >> Sean Carroll does an excellent job covering this in his >> various You Tube videos or his book "Something Deeply >> Hidden". I generally don't believe we live in a simulation >> and therefore prefer many worlds over conscious >> collapse theories, but every once in a while nature throws me >> a curve ball that makes me adjust my posterior >> probabilities like this: https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17 >> /1194212940/question-mark-space-webb-telescope-photo >> >> I hope that helped. >> >> Best regards, >> Stuart LaForge >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 efc at swisscows.email Sun Aug 27 18:02:55 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 20:02:55 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <0584ca60-aa31-1f8f-78d6-b01e022bb28e@swisscows.email> Thank you for the more in depth explanation Jason, I think it makes a bit more sense now. However! Based on that, how could this ever be a theory if the variables and "machinery" per definition are always hidden? The same with multiple worlds? Of course I can see how someone uses these interpretations as a way to explain a mathematical theory, but if you have a theory, that by definition never can be verified with any scientific tools, it does sound pretty weak to me. The only case I can imagine, is that every other theory is worse, so conceptually we live with the least bad theory, but strictly speaking, we do live with an unconfirmed theory that is (at least based on my limited understanding) forever "out of reach". > people will go to maintain their idea of a unique self. (I think it's rather like the resistance to the idea that the earth wasn't Well, I don't think people should be that depressed. No matter the theory, we always have the consolation of our subjective experience, so we'll always have a kind of "pro forma" self, no matter where science leads us. Best regards, Daniel On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Sunday, August 27, 2023, wrote: > Thank you Jason, > > So would that imply then that there is no true randomness and that it is only because our limited point of view, that it > looks random?? > > > There is a "meta level" of machinery kind of? > > > Yes, super determinism says there are hidden variables, determined by machinery we can't access, but moreover, everything we do to > try to measure these hidden variables, by whatever processes we choose, flipping coins, picking numbers in our head, using digits of > Pi or e, using pseudorandom number generators, anything, whatever we pick and whatever method we choose, the universe will choose > hidden variables such that they will yield the Bell probabilities giving the false appearance of random quantum collapse, where there > are not. But if this is true, and if we use constants in math like Pi or e, or SQRT(2), to choose how to set the rotation of a > polarizing filter when measuring two entangled photons, then somehow the universe must have known that you would be using, say, the > digits of SQRT(2) when it created the entangled photons years earlier before you measured them. So that in a sense, the photon pair > creation event must have known how you would be measuring them, and then generated them in a way that would yield the expected > quantum probabilities. It would also know you wouldn't in the last moment, change your mind to use the digits of Pi to choose the > angle of rotation for the polarizing filter. Super determinism is the idea that the whole universe is a conspiracy to make us falsely > believe in quantum probabilities. > > > ? > > Sorry if I'm not making sense, it is because I did not understand the example. ;) > > > > > If it's hard to understand it's because it's so hard to believe anyone would propose this as a serious theory, but that's the length > the center of the universe or solar system, at least I think it comes from the same place). > > Jason > > ? > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch wrote: > > > > On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > ? ? ? Thank you very much Stuart, I was just about to ask for a book and you already thought of that. > > ? ? ? But what about superdeterminism? > > > In my view this is the worst of all possible interpretations. It is the theory that the laws of physics are > conspiring to always fool > us. (Something like Descartes's evil demon). For example, if we choose to do a Bell experiment and set our > orientations according to > some random sequence, super determinism says the correlations of the particles are also determined by the > same processes that drive > the random number generator we use to set our orientations. > > Okay, this is weird, but not logically impossible. > > But now consider if we set our orientations according to the digits of Pi, did the processes that determine > particle orientations > also determine the digits of Pi? At this point I think super determinism is no longer defensible. > > Jason? > > > ? > > ? ? ? Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it goes > ? ? ? against our intuition? > > ? ? ? Best regards, > ? ? ? Daniel > > > ? ? ? On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? ? ? ? ? ? On 2023-08-26 15:17, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Hello Stuart, > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? edge physics. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? You say that > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? If you believe that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? are already immortal. You don't need to copy yourself because there are already > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about the multiverse. > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof or is it > one of > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? many interpretations of current theories? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Best regards, Daniel > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Hi Daniel, > > ? ? ? ? ? ? It is not proven in a mathematical sense, but many worlds (MWI) is the only interpretation of > quantum > ? ? ? ? ? ? mechanics that is complete. All that you need for many worlds to be true is that the Schrodinger > equation be > ? ? ? ? ? ? true. The alternatives require extra stuff. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? For example, collapse interpretations need an additional mechanism by which measurement can > somehow cause a > ? ? ? ? ? ? quantum particle that is spread out everywhere at once to suddenly be somewhere specific at > faster than the > ? ? ? ? ? ? speed of light. It requires consciousness to be a fundamental property of the universe in the > sense that like > ? ? ? ? ? ? the next level of videogame, nothing is rendered into reality until you look at it. Basically, if > collapse > ? ? ? ? ? ? interpretations are real, then we are very likely in a simulation run by some intelligent > designer who is > ? ? ? ? ? ? trying to save computational resources by not rendering anything into reality until a simulated > person > ? ? ? ? ? ? interacts with it. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Many worlds allows particles to always be everywhere at once because wherever the particle is, > there is a > ? ? ? ? ? ? separate you there to witness it there. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? The other alternative is the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation which require a second > equation that > ? ? ? ? ? ? describes how the wave function is a pilot wave that pushes a particle along its path to be true > in addition > ? ? ? ? ? ? to the Schrodinger wave equation which describes the wave function. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? So to summarize: > ? ? ? ? ? ? 1. Copenhagen/collapse interpretations needs additional assumptions about the laws of physics > requiring > ? ? ? ? ? ? conscious observers in order to function properly. Trees do not fall in the woods or make noise > unless you > ? ? ? ? ? ? are there to appreciate it. > ? ? ? ? ? ? 2. Debroglie-Bohm Pilot Wave: This interpretation requires additional "helper" equations to allow > quantum > ? ? ? ? ? ? mechanics to function by keeping track of hidden variables. > ? ? ? ? ? ? 3. Superdeterminism: everything that happens including your own thoughts and decisions are > unerringly > ? ? ? ? ? ? following a script that has existed from moment of the big bang. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Or . . . > > ? ? ? ? ? ? 4. MWI: The Schrondinger wave equation is all you need and there is enough real estate out there > to cover > ? ? ? ? ? ? every possibility that the wavefunction entails. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvQ3Wyw2M4 > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Sean Carroll does an excellent job covering this in his various You Tube videos or his book > "Something Deeply > ? ? ? ? ? ? Hidden". I generally don't believe we live in a simulation and therefore prefer many worlds over > conscious > ? ? ? ? ? ? collapse theories, but every once in a while nature throws me a curve ball that makes me adjust > my posterior > ? ? ? ? ? ? probabilities like this: > https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194212940/question-mark-space-webb-telescope-photo > > ? ? ? ? ? ? I hope that helped. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Best regards, > ? ? ? ? ? ? Stuart LaForge > > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > From efc at swisscows.email Sun Aug 27 18:06:54 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 20:06:54 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> Thank you Jason. Would you disagree with me if I call that absense of strict empirical proof? I'm not a fan of anthropic considerations and probabilities for multiverses, gods, unicorns and items generally outside of the realm of physical science. I think those kind of discussions sometimes let our imaginations run away with ourselves, and even if they indicate something, I will never know, and it will never affect me, so as far as I am concerned, I can disregard it. Best regards, Daniel On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > Hello Stuart, > > Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > edge physics. > > You say that > > that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you are already immortal. You don't need to > copy yourself because there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about the > multiverse. > > > What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof or is itone of many interpretations of > current theories? > > > Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in the sense that the probability there's only one universe (with one kind of > physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ > > This is as close to proof as anything science can provide. > > Jason? > > > > ? > > Best regards, Daniel > > > Stuart LaForge > > > This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we should really > understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? > > Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not being the > same thing? > > Ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From efc at swisscows.email Sun Aug 27 18:17:27 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 20:17:27 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <61498c06-ffc7-1bdf-4be3-d3135e4add96@swisscows.email> Hello Jason, What are the contradictions with #2? I have a feeling that there are many versions of 2, with strong proponents, and equally, many different kind of contradictions. When it comes to #1, it does sound philosophically unfeasible to me, since we're two selves havinga discussion. If all is illusion, how can there even be any knowledge at all? When it comes to #3, I tried to google it, but it looks as if it is not a very popular stance among philosophers. Why do you think it is not popular? Best regards, Daniel On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > The question you are asking about below concerns the topic in philosophy known as personal identity. That topic asks: which I > experiences belong to which person's, in other words, how do we define the temporal borders of a person. There are in general three > approaches generally taken: > 1. No-self/Anatta/empty individualism: each observer-moment, or thought-moment is its own isolated thing, there's no such thing as a > self which has multiple distinct thought-moments. > > 2. Continuity theories/closed individualism:? either bodily or psychological continuity. A self is a continual things either though > the continuation of some physical body, or some more abstractly defined psychological organization. > > 3. Universalism/open Individualism: There are no bodily or psychological preconditions for an experience being yours, all experiences > are I, and in truth there is only one mind. > > I think #2 leads to contradictions. #1 and #3 are logically consistent. Between #1 and #3, #3 is more useful (it permits decision > theory) and further, there are strong probabilistic arguments for it. For example, those given in "One self: the logic of experience" > which I cite here: > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-there-life-after-death/#10_Open_Individualism_and_the_Afterlife > > One consequence of Open Individualism is that it dissolves any concern of whether some particular copy is you, as all conscious > perspectives are you. > > Jason? > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > My position is that a separate uploaded copy of me is not me, thus would not grant the physical me immortality. I would > look at it as a mind-seed, or something slightly similar to a part of me that lives on, just as a part of me lives on in > a child, although actually that part is way more of me, than in a child. > > However, when talking about continuity and uploading, I think the ship of theseus uploading is much more interesting from > an identity point of view. > > As some, or all of you already know, imagine that I'm uploaded neruon by neuron, over time. I would not have a break, and > my mind would transition onto the new media. > > I would like to know what the people here who do not believe uploading grants a form of immortality think about that > scenario? Would it fit in with your idea of identity and would you see yourselves being "immortal" through a shop of > theseus procedure if it were possible? > > As for the copy approach, a starting point for me would be that my identity is probably based on my mind, sense of > continuity and location. In a copy, continuity and location would go 2x, and thus not work with the definition of > identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, both continuity would be perserved, and location would be single. > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > > On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: > > An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality is not so much continuity > as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, they're not the same thing]. > > If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload will remember being me, but > /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. And no, killing me painlessly, or even > instantaneously, during or in the immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the problem > either. > > If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied me, but you haven't moved > me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I want to be immortal. > > > So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something that, when copied, somehow changes into 'not-me'. > I don't understand this. If it's an exact copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can there not now be two > 'me's? Two identical beings, in every way, including their subjective experience, with no discontinuity with > the original singular being? > > When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will get a copy, and I will keep a copy. Which one is > the real message? If they were conscious, why would that make any difference? > > You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". But how do you move data? You make a second copy > of it then delete the first copy. So destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving me', yet you say > it wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a belief in an uncopyable supernatural 'soul') how > this could be. > > This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we should really understand it, > yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? > > Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not being the same thing? > > Ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 18:29:27 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 13:29:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <0584ca60-aa31-1f8f-78d6-b01e022bb28e@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <0584ca60-aa31-1f8f-78d6-b01e022bb28e@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Thank you for the more in depth explanation Jason, I think it makes a bit > more sense now. > > However! > > Based on that, how could this ever be a theory if the variables and > "machinery" per definition are always hidden? It is really an abandonment of science. Once one goes so far to accept an idea like nature is conspiring against you to give you certain answers, you can explain anything. > > The same with multiple worlds? Multiple words of QM are fully described just from the Shrodinger equation. It's math that's well defined and it accounts for all our observations. As to how we prove them, any experiment we perform that confirms QM or the Shrodinger equation, confirms MW. This is how all theories work. We can, for example, explain a great deal about the interior of stars and what happens there, from our theories and our observations of the surfaces of stars which confirms our theories about what happens inside. There are always predictions of theories which are not, or haven't been, tested and confirmed. But we accept theories when we have confirmed many predictions and no prediction has been found false. > Of course I can see how someone uses these interpretations as a way to > explain a mathematical theory, but if you have a theory, that by definition > never can be verified with any scientific tools, it does sound pretty weak > to me. > > The only case I can imagine, is that every other theory is worse, so > conceptually we live with the least bad theory, but strictly speaking, we > do live with an unconfirmed theory that is (at least based on my limited > understanding) forever "out of reach". All interpretations stretch our intuition. But one theory is clearly the winner when we consider them objectively, and according to normal heuristics what makes for good theories in science. > > people will go to maintain their idea of a unique self. (I think it's >> rather like the resistance to the idea that the earth wasn't >> > > Well, I don't think people should be that depressed. No matter the theory, > we always have the consolation of our subjective experience, so we'll > always have a kind of "pro forma" self, no matter where science leads us. I agree. The universe, or reality, being bigger than we previously thought, in no way diminishes our central role as observers to that reality. If anything it makes us even more special, rare, unique, and important. (E.g., consider the 10^122 dead universes out there for every one that can support life), and how much more precious that makes this universe, and this planet. Jason > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > >> >> On Sunday, August 27, 2023, wrote: >> Thank you Jason, >> >> So would that imply then that there is no true randomness and that >> it is only because our limited point of view, that it >> looks random? >> >> >> There is a "meta level" of machinery kind of? >> >> >> Yes, super determinism says there are hidden variables, determined by >> machinery we can't access, but moreover, everything we do to >> try to measure these hidden variables, by whatever processes we choose, >> flipping coins, picking numbers in our head, using digits of >> Pi or e, using pseudorandom number generators, anything, whatever we pick >> and whatever method we choose, the universe will choose >> hidden variables such that they will yield the Bell probabilities giving >> the false appearance of random quantum collapse, where there >> are not. But if this is true, and if we use constants in math like Pi or >> e, or SQRT(2), to choose how to set the rotation of a >> polarizing filter when measuring two entangled photons, then somehow the >> universe must have known that you would be using, say, the >> digits of SQRT(2) when it created the entangled photons years earlier >> before you measured them. So that in a sense, the photon pair >> creation event must have known how you would be measuring them, and then >> generated them in a way that would yield the expected >> quantum probabilities. It would also know you wouldn't in the last >> moment, change your mind to use the digits of Pi to choose the >> angle of rotation for the polarizing filter. Super determinism is the >> idea that the whole universe is a conspiracy to make us falsely >> believe in quantum probabilities. >> >> >> >> >> Sorry if I'm not making sense, it is because I did not understand >> the example. ;) >> >> >> >> >> If it's hard to understand it's because it's so hard to believe anyone >> would propose this as a serious theory, but that's the length >> the center of the universe or solar system, at least I think it comes >> from the same place). >> >> Jason >> >> >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch wrote: >> >> >> >> On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> Thank you very much Stuart, I was just about to ask for >> a book and you already thought of that. >> >> But what about superdeterminism? >> >> >> In my view this is the worst of all possible interpretations. >> It is the theory that the laws of physics are >> conspiring to always fool >> us. (Something like Descartes's evil demon). For example, if >> we choose to do a Bell experiment and set our >> orientations according to >> some random sequence, super determinism says the correlations >> of the particles are also determined by the >> same processes that drive >> the random number generator we use to set our orientations. >> >> Okay, this is weird, but not logically impossible. >> >> But now consider if we set our orientations according to the >> digits of Pi, did the processes that determine >> particle orientations >> also determine the digits of Pi? At this point I think super >> determinism is no longer defensible. >> >> Jason >> >> >> >> >> Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" >> even though it goes >> against our intuition? >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat >> wrote: >> >> On 2023-08-26 15:17, efc--- via extropy-chat >> wrote: >> Hello Stuart, >> >> Just a quick question from someone not very >> knowledgeable of cutting >> edge physics. >> >> You say that >> >> If you believe that a copy of you can >> truly be you, then you can relax because you >> are already immortal. You don't need >> to copy yourself because there are already >> plenty of, if not infinite numbers >> of, you strewn about the multiverse. >> >> >> What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of >> you and multiverses supported by proof or is it >> one of >> many interpretations of current theories? >> >> Best regards, Daniel >> >> >> Hi Daniel, >> >> It is not proven in a mathematical sense, but >> many worlds (MWI) is the only interpretation of >> quantum >> mechanics that is complete. All that you need for >> many worlds to be true is that the Schrodinger >> equation be >> true. The alternatives require extra stuff. >> >> For example, collapse interpretations need an >> additional mechanism by which measurement can >> somehow cause a >> quantum particle that is spread out everywhere at >> once to suddenly be somewhere specific at >> faster than the >> speed of light. It requires consciousness to be a >> fundamental property of the universe in the >> sense that like >> the next level of videogame, nothing is rendered >> into reality until you look at it. Basically, if >> collapse >> interpretations are real, then we are very likely >> in a simulation run by some intelligent >> designer who is >> trying to save computational resources by not >> rendering anything into reality until a simulated >> person >> interacts with it. >> >> Many worlds allows particles to always be >> everywhere at once because wherever the particle is, >> there is a >> separate you there to witness it there. >> >> The other alternative is the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot >> wave interpretation which require a second >> equation that >> describes how the wave function is a pilot wave >> that pushes a particle along its path to be true >> in addition >> to the Schrodinger wave equation which describes >> the wave function. >> >> So to summarize: >> 1. Copenhagen/collapse interpretations needs >> additional assumptions about the laws of physics >> requiring >> conscious observers in order to function >> properly. Trees do not fall in the woods or make noise >> unless you >> are there to appreciate it. >> 2. Debroglie-Bohm Pilot Wave: This interpretation >> requires additional "helper" equations to allow >> quantum >> mechanics to function by keeping track of hidden >> variables. >> 3. Superdeterminism: everything that happens >> including your own thoughts and decisions are >> unerringly >> following a script that has existed from moment >> of the big bang. >> >> Or . . . >> >> 4. MWI: The Schrondinger wave equation is all you >> need and there is enough real estate out there >> to cover >> every possibility that the wavefunction entails. >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvQ3Wyw2M4 >> >> Sean Carroll does an excellent job covering this >> in his various You Tube videos or his book >> "Something Deeply >> Hidden". I generally don't believe we live in a >> simulation and therefore prefer many worlds over >> conscious >> collapse theories, but every once in a while >> nature throws me a curve ball that makes me adjust >> my posterior >> probabilities like this: >> https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194212940/question-mark-spac >> e-webb-telescope-photo >> >> I hope that helped. >> >> Best regards, >> Stuart LaForge >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailm >> an/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailm >> an/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 18:45:36 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 13:45:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Thank you Jason. Would you disagree with me if I call that absense of > strict empirical proof? I think it would depend on your reasons for saying so. Is your objection based on not believing that life-compatible universes are rare (given current empirical observations), or is your objection that it's not valid to infer from the rarity of life-compatible universes that it is likely there are many universes? I guess it comes down to whether the absence of observation, plus an inference, counts as an empirical observation. For instance, if I play a shell game and put a coin under one of the shells and mix them around and flip one over, and you do not see a coin under it, does that count as an empirical observation (which together with your inference) tells you the coin must be under the other shell? Or must I lift the second shell for the light reflecting off the coin to enter your eyes, for this to count as empirical evidence of the coin's location? With the anthropic reasoning, it is like the shell game where we don't see the coin. We see something that is hard to explain without there being many lifeless universes out there, even though light from these other lifeless universes never reaches us. Is this empirical? Arguably it's not, but do you have an alternative explanation for the dozen or so coincidences that made life possibile here? > > I'm not a fan of anthropic considerations and probabilities for > multiverses, gods, unicorns and items generally outside of the realm of > physical science. > > I think those kind of discussions sometimes let our imaginations run away > with ourselves, and even if they indicate something, I will never know, and > it will never affect me, so as far as I am concerned, I can disregard it. But they can affect you. The existence of other universes provide continuation paths for your consciousness. You might awaken there, or find yourself surviving an otherwise not survivable situation in this universe, through the continued existence of a parallel self in one of those universes. It may even provide a means for life here to survive the heat death of this universe (by having some other entity in another less resource constrained universe) copy-and-paste us into their universe, just as we can copy and paste objects from the John Conway's Game-of-Life universe into our own. Jason > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > >> >> On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> Hello Stuart, >> >> Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting >> edge physics. >> >> You say that >> >> that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax >> because you are already immortal. You don't need to >> copy yourself because there are already plenty of, if not >> infinite numbers of, you strewn about the >> multiverse. >> >> >> What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses >> supported by proof or is itone of many interpretations of >> current theories? >> >> >> Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in the sense that the >> probability there's only one universe (with one kind of >> physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. >> >> https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ >> >> This is as close to proof as anything science can provide. >> >> Jason >> >> >> >> >> >> Best regards, Daniel >> >> >> Stuart LaForge >> >> >> This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in >> uploading, so I think we should really >> understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you >> please explain further? >> >> Could you also please explain the comment about >> continuity and not-discontinuity not being the >> same thing? >> >> Ben >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailm >> an/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 19:07:55 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 14:07:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <61498c06-ffc7-1bdf-4be3-d3135e4add96@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> <61498c06-ffc7-1bdf-4be3-d3135e4add96@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hello Jason, > > What are the contradictions with #2? I have a feeling that there are many > versions of 2, with strong proponents, and equally, many different kind of > contradictions. Let's break #2 into two categories: A) Bodily continuity B) Mind continuity For A, consider: we could make small changes, atom by atom, cell by cell to slowly morph you into becoming any other person, or even any other animal. Since there is a continuity there's no limit to what form you might ultimately gradually change into any form, then there is in reality no limit or border that constrains your form, or who you could be, it refutes itself and ends up leading to #3. For B, consider: we can make small changes to ones mind, adding a memory here, forgetting a memory there, so that, over time we could completely change the mentality of a person, and they would have no memories in common with their former self and instead have entirely new ones, making their mind, in effect identical to any other being. Again we find no clear point where the continuity fails, and again we are led to something like #3. Then there are all the problems for which these give no good answer: For A: Why are two identical twins not the same person, when each is a continuity of the same fertilized egg (same body)? Why would receiving a neural prosthesis not be regarded in the same way as death? For B: Why are two duplicates created by a faulty teleporter not the same person, when each is a continuity of the same mind? Why is total amnesia not regarded in the same way as death? For both A and B: If two people are each slowly morphed into the other person, where are the two people after the procedure? Have they teleported to the other's location, or has each changed, but remained in the same spot? Why? When a brain is split by cutting the corpus callosum, the result is two independently consciousness minds. Are they the same as the mind that was there before? If not, where did the two minds come from? If the connection were to be restored to fuse the minds, what happens to the two minds when they become one? If the same person can exist in the same place at the two different times, then why can't the same person exist at two different places at the same time? > > When it comes to #1, it does sound philosophically unfeasible to me, since > we're two selves havinga discussion. If all is illusion, how can there even > be any knowledge at all? There would still be individual conscious states, each with they're own consciousness, but nothing (actually) connecting one to any other. It's consistent in my view, but unworkable as it provides no justification to doing anything since we would each be trapped in our own thought moment forever. > > When it comes to #3, I tried to google it, but it looks as if it is not a > very popular stance among philosophers. Why do you think it is not popular? It's relatively new, and highly counter to the brain's self-imposed ego-illuision, which is hard to escape without serious meditation, drugs, traumatic brain injury, or logic. Jason > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > The question you are asking about below concerns the topic in philosophy >> known as personal identity. That topic asks: which I >> experiences belong to which person's, in other words, how do we define >> the temporal borders of a person. There are in general three >> approaches generally taken: >> 1. No-self/Anatta/empty individualism: each observer-moment, or >> thought-moment is its own isolated thing, there's no such thing as a >> self which has multiple distinct thought-moments. >> >> 2. Continuity theories/closed individualism: either bodily or >> psychological continuity. A self is a continual things either though >> the continuation of some physical body, or some more abstractly defined >> psychological organization. >> >> 3. Universalism/open Individualism: There are no bodily or psychological >> preconditions for an experience being yours, all experiences >> are I, and in truth there is only one mind. >> >> I think #2 leads to contradictions. #1 and #3 are logically consistent. >> Between #1 and #3, #3 is more useful (it permits decision >> theory) and further, there are strong probabilistic arguments for it. For >> example, those given in "One self: the logic of experience" >> which I cite here: >> >> https://alwaysasking.com/is-there-life-after-death/#10_Open_ >> Individualism_and_the_Afterlife >> >> One consequence of Open Individualism is that it dissolves any concern of >> whether some particular copy is you, as all conscious >> perspectives are you. >> >> Jason >> >> >> On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> My position is that a separate uploaded copy of me is not me, thus >> would not grant the physical me immortality. I would >> look at it as a mind-seed, or something slightly similar to a part >> of me that lives on, just as a part of me lives on in >> a child, although actually that part is way more of me, than in a >> child. >> >> However, when talking about continuity and uploading, I think the >> ship of theseus uploading is much more interesting from >> an identity point of view. >> >> As some, or all of you already know, imagine that I'm uploaded >> neruon by neuron, over time. I would not have a break, and >> my mind would transition onto the new media. >> >> I would like to know what the people here who do not believe >> uploading grants a form of immortality think about that >> scenario? Would it fit in with your idea of identity and would you >> see yourselves being "immortal" through a shop of >> theseus procedure if it were possible? >> >> As for the copy approach, a starting point for me would be that my >> identity is probably based on my mind, sense of >> continuity and location. In a copy, continuity and location would >> go 2x, and thus not work with the definition of >> identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, both continuity would >> be perserved, and location would be single. >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: >> >> An important component of what a lot of people want out >> of immortality is not so much continuity >> as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, >> they're not the same thing]. >> >> If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the >> resulting upload will remember being me, but >> /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. And no, >> killing me painlessly, or even >> instantaneously, during or in the immediate aftermath >> of the brain scan doesn't solve the problem >> either. >> >> If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you >> may have copied me, but you haven't moved >> me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I want to >> be immortal. >> >> >> So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something >> that, when copied, somehow changes into 'not-me'. >> I don't understand this. If it's an exact copy, how is it not >> exactly the same? How can there not now be two >> 'me's? Two identical beings, in every way, including their >> subjective experience, with no discontinuity with >> the original singular being? >> >> When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will >> get a copy, and I will keep a copy. Which one is >> the real message? If they were conscious, why would that make >> any difference? >> >> You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". >> But how do you move data? You make a second copy >> of it then delete the first copy. So destroying copy 1 when >> copy 2 is made would be 'moving me', yet you say >> it wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a >> belief in an uncopyable supernatural 'soul') how >> this could be. >> >> This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in >> uploading, so I think we should really understand it, >> yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? >> >> Could you also please explain the comment about continuity >> and not-discontinuity not being the same thing? >> >> Ben >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 20:01:15 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 16:01:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4acf3b23-f8a2-5368-5fa2-23eaef428afe@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 12:24 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality is > not so much continuity as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, > they're not the same thing]. > > If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload will > remember being me, but /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. And > no, killing me painlessly, or even instantaneously, during or in the > immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the problem either. > > If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied me, > but you haven't moved me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I want to > be immortal. > Consider the following observation, which has 3 different explanations: You walk into a closet. Five minutes later you walk out of the closet, apparently the same as you were when you entered. The question is, did you survive entering and exiting the closet? Could the answer depend on which of 3 scenarios happened during those five minutes, when in all 3 scenarios, the you who emerges is atom-for-atom identical? Scenario A) you walk into the closet, stand around for five minutes, then step out. Scenario B) you walk into the closet, are scanned, destroyed, then reassembled, and the reassembled form walks out. Scenario C) you walk into the closet, are scanned, and duplicated. Your original is then destroyed, and the copy walks out. In all 3 scenarios, the version of you who emerges is stipulated to be atom for atom the same, all versions are provided the same memories, all have the same behaviors and thought patterns and lives after leaving the closet. The question is, does it matter what happened in that closet during those five minutes? Does the history of the atoms have some bearing on whether it is really you, or are particles indistinguishable as QM suggests ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_particles ), where an electron is an electron is an electron, regardless of it's history. If so, then on what basis can we say it's not still you, when everything about the body that emerges is in principle, indistinguishable? What is attached to the you in scenario A that's not there in scenario B or scenario C? Jason > On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 9:31?AM Gregory Jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> ...>...height of wishful thinking...cart, horse inversion, gun jumping, >> etc... >> >> Billw, you will need to offer a bit of evidence to back up that strong >> statement. You offered us an opinion only. Granted it is one shared by >> most of humanity. >> >> Regarding your question of asking ChatGPT to write in the style of a 12 >> yr old, it can. It does a better job of writing in 12 yr old than a smart >> 12 yr old. Not as good as a dumb one, but they are working that. >> >> But do explain why you are so confident that uploading to immortality is >> not rational please. Note that I am not necessarily disagreeing. But I >> want to hear your reasoning. >> >> spike >> >> On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 8:20?AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> It seems that many of us want AIs to be people: conscious, with >>> emotions and so forth. I suggest that this stems from wanting uploading to >>> work so we can be immortal and have all the same lives we have now. >>> >>> I suggest that this is the height of wishful thinking. And putting the >>> cart WAY before the horse. Jumping the gun, etc. Not rational. bill w >>> >>> On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 10:08?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> I'm currently a materialist and find many good points in scientism, so >>>> if >>>> I have a box or a robot, that convinces me in every aspect that it is >>>> conscious >>>> by acting as if it was conscious, that's conscious for me. >>>> >>>> I do not subscribe to unique qualia or "redness" experiences, >>>> therefore, I >>>> cannot see a problem with the good old turing. >>>> >>>> Best regards, >>>> Daniel >>>> >>>> >>>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2023, Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> >>>> > BillW's question regarding the instructor's task of distinguishing >>>> between a student and AI puts a final nail in the coffin of >>>> > Turing's test. Artificial intelligence is able create an illusion of >>>> consciousness so convincing, we are still debating if it really >>>> > is the real thing, all while failing to adequately define precisely >>>> what we mean by "real." >>>> > spike >>>> > >>>> >_______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Sun Aug 27 20:49:41 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 22:49:41 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <7074d8ff-bf7e-8ed1-3ffd-2ee43f9ee7cb@swisscows.email> Hello Jason, On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > Thank you Jason. Would you disagree with me if I call that absense of strict empirical proof? > > Is your objection based on not believing that life-compatible universes are rare (given current empirical observations), or is your > objection that it's not valid to infer from the rarity of life-compatible universes that it is likely there are many universes? I'd say the reason is that I have not seen any empirical proof of other life-comptaible universes, and therefore, they don't seem pretty real to me at the moment. I'm not ruling them out, but as far as my reality goes, at the moment, they, like god, are not part of it until further evidence presents itself. > I guess it comes down to whether the absence of observation, plus an inference, counts as an empirical observation. For instance, if > I play a shell game and put a coin under one of the shells and mix them around and flip one over, and you do not see a coin under it, > does that count as an empirical observation (which together with your inference) tells you the coin must be under the other shell? Or > must I lift the second shell for the light reflecting off the coin to enter your eyes, for this to count as empirical evidence of the > coin's location? Yes, I think that is the crux of the issue here. For physical objects, inferring is strong, but verfying it, is stronger. I'd prefer the possibility to verify it over infering. But this is physical objects only. When taking the step from physical objects, or by extension, our universe, to god or multiple universes, I'd very much not trust inference, but would very much like to verify. > With the anthropic reasoning, it is like the shell game where we don't see the coin. We see something that is hard to explain without > there being many lifeless universes out there, even though light from these other lifeless universes never reaches us. Is this > empirical? Arguably it's not, but do you have an alternative explanation for the dozen or so coincidences that made life possibile > here? Got it. No, my opinion is that it is not empirical. It is an attempt at explanation, but not proof. Does the explanation have some kind of power of prediction? Does it help me become a better person? I could accept it from a pragmatic point of view, but it would be tool and probably not a part of my reality. I feel as I am clumsily grasping or trying to say something here, but perhaps you can tease it out of me, or a good nights sleep might help me find the right words. > I think those kind of discussions sometimes let our imaginations run away with ourselves, and even if they indicate > something, I will never know, and it will never affect me, so as far as I am concerned, I can disregard it. > > But they can affect you. The existence of other universes provide continuation paths for your consciousness. You might awaken there, > or find yourself surviving an otherwise not survivable situation in this universe, through the continued existence of a parallel self Well, the problem is that this is a "could". So far it has not happened, and I have not heard from anyone who had it happen to them. So yes, anything can happen, but so far I have not seen any proof of this happening to me or anyone else. If there never can be a proof, then I prefer to leave it at the very stimulating thought experiment level. > in one of those universes. It may even provide a means for life here to survive the heat death of this universe (by having some other > entity in another less resource constrained universe) copy-and-paste us into their universe, just as we can copy and paste objects > from the John Conway's Game-of-Life universe into our own. True, it may do so, but my reasoning I think, remains the same. Best regards, Daniel > Jason? > > ? > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > ? ? ? Hello Stuart, > > ? ? ? Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > ? ? ? edge physics. > > ? ? ? You say that > > ? ? ? ? ? ? that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you are already immortal. You > don't need to > ? ? ? ? ? ? copy yourself because there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about > the > ? ? ? ? ? ? multiverse. > > > ? ? ? What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof or is itone of many > interpretations of > ? ? ? current theories? > > > Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in the sense that the probability there's only one universe > (with one kind of > physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ > > This is as close to proof as anything science can provide. > > Jason? > > > > ? > > ? ? ? Best regards, Daniel > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Stuart LaForge > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we should > really > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not being > the > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? same thing? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Ben > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > From efc at swisscows.email Sun Aug 27 21:24:54 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 23:24:54 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> <61498c06-ffc7-1bdf-4be3-d3135e4add96@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Good evening Jason, On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > Let's break #2 into two categories: > A) Bodily continuity > B) Mind continuity But what about A and B? > For B, consider: we can make small changes to ones mind, adding a memory here, forgetting a memory there, so that, over time we could Externally adding/deleting memories I'd say would constitute a break in continuity. > Then there are all the problems for which these give no good answer: > > For A: > > Why are two identical twins not the same person, when each is a continuity of the same fertilized egg (same body)? They don't have the same A and B. Different A:s and different B:s. Just the fact that they occupy different space and later on, will experience different angles, etc. makes A and B diverge. > Why would receiving a neural prosthesis not be regarded in the same way as death? Depends on the circumstances. How is it implemented and when is it implemented? > For B: > > Why are two duplicates created by a faulty teleporter not the same person, when each is a continuity of the same mind?? They don't occupy the same space, and just by the fact of not doing that, their minds diverge. This is the theme of a very entertaining science fiction short story by Lars Gustafsson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Gustafsson). In 1989, Gustafsson ventured into the field of science fiction and published Det s?llsamma djuret fr?n norr och andra science-fiction-ber?ttelser. The book takes place 40,000 years into the future, when humans are extinct and the galaxy is populated by artificial intelligences. It is a philosophical exploration of life and existence and can be seen as an homage to Stanislav Lem. I don't think it is available in english, but I'd love to translate it if I ever got the chance and permission. > Why is total amnesia not regarded in the same way as death? This is more of an ethical question to me and one frequently debated in hospitals the world over. > For both A and B: > > If two people are each slowly morphed into the other person, where are the two people after the procedure? Have they teleported to > the other's location, or has each changed, but remained in the same spot? Why? If it is cell-by-cell replacement, I see no disturbance in A and B. > When a brain is split by cutting the corpus callosum, the result is two independently consciousness minds. Are they the same as the > mind that was there before? If not, where did the two minds come from? If the connection were to be restored to fuse the minds, what > happens to the two minds when they become one? Do they have A and B continuity? If you cut the hardware, to me, it sounds like you don't have A continuity and based on your description (is this a real experiment? Could you please in that case, send me some links.) doesn't sound as if you have B continuity either. If you can fuse it together, who knows? > If the same person can exist in the same place at the two different times, then why can't the same person exist at two different > places at the same time? Laws of physics? This one, I don't understand, but it is getting late here, so I'll blame my tired brain. ;) > When it comes to #1, it does sound philosophically unfeasible to me, since we're two selves havinga discussion. If all is > illusion, how can there even be any knowledge at all? > > There would still be individual conscious states, each with they're own consciousness, but nothing (actually) connecting one to any > other. It's consistent in my view, but unworkable as it provides no justification to doing anything since we would each be trapped in > our own thought moment forever. Well, let's leave #1 to the side. I think we're in agreement, perhaps for different, but maybe not incompatible reasons, that this is unworkable. ? > When it comes to #3, I tried to google it, but it looks as if it is not a very popular stance among philosophers. Why do > you think it is not popular? > > It's relatively new, and highly counter to the brain's self-imposed ego-illuision, which is hard to escape without serious > meditation, drugs, traumatic brain injury, or logic. I find #3 very interesting. I'm not discounting it, and I will read through your blog again. Best regards, Daniel > Jason? > ? > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > The question you are asking about below concerns the topic in philosophy known as personal identity. That > topic asks: which I > experiences belong to which person's, in other words, how do we define the temporal borders of a person. > There are in general three > approaches generally taken: > 1. No-self/Anatta/empty individualism: each observer-moment, or thought-moment is its own isolated thing, > there's no such thing as a > self which has multiple distinct thought-moments. > > 2. Continuity theories/closed individualism:? either bodily or psychological continuity. A self is a > continual things either though > the continuation of some physical body, or some more abstractly defined psychological organization. > > 3. Universalism/open Individualism: There are no bodily or psychological preconditions for an experience > being yours, all experiences > are I, and in truth there is only one mind. > > I think #2 leads to contradictions. #1 and #3 are logically consistent. Between #1 and #3, #3 is more useful > (it permits decision > theory) and further, there are strong probabilistic arguments for it. For example, those given in "One self: > the logic of experience" > which I cite here: > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-there-life-after-death/#10_Open_Individualism_and_the_Afterlife > > One consequence of Open Individualism is that it dissolves any concern of whether some particular copy is > you, as all conscious > perspectives are you. > > Jason? > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > ? ? ? My position is that a separate uploaded copy of me is not me, thus would not grant the physical me > immortality. I would > ? ? ? look at it as a mind-seed, or something slightly similar to a part of me that lives on, just as a part > of me lives on in > ? ? ? a child, although actually that part is way more of me, than in a child. > > ? ? ? However, when talking about continuity and uploading, I think the ship of theseus uploading is much > more interesting from > ? ? ? an identity point of view. > > ? ? ? As some, or all of you already know, imagine that I'm uploaded neruon by neuron, over time. I would not > have a break, and > ? ? ? my mind would transition onto the new media. > > ? ? ? I would like to know what the people here who do not believe uploading grants a form of immortality > think about that > ? ? ? scenario? Would it fit in with your idea of identity and would you see yourselves being "immortal" > through a shop of > ? ? ? theseus procedure if it were possible? > > ? ? ? As for the copy approach, a starting point for me would be that my identity is probably based on my > mind, sense of > ? ? ? continuity and location. In a copy, continuity and location would go 2x, and thus not work with the > definition of > ? ? ? identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, both continuity would be perserved, and location would be > single. > > ? ? ? Best regards, > ? ? ? Daniel > > > ? ? ? On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? ? ? ? ? ? On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality is not so much > continuity > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, they're not the same thing]. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload will remember being > me, but > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. And no, killing me painlessly, or even > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? instantaneously, during or in the immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the > problem > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? either. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied me, but you haven't > moved > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I want to be immortal. > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something that, when copied, somehow changes > into 'not-me'. > ? ? ? ? ? ? I don't understand this. If it's an exact copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can there not > now be two > ? ? ? ? ? ? 'me's? Two identical beings, in every way, including their subjective experience, with no > discontinuity with > ? ? ? ? ? ? the original singular being? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will get a copy, and I will keep a copy. > Which one is > ? ? ? ? ? ? the real message? If they were conscious, why would that make any difference? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". But how do you move data? You make a > second copy > ? ? ? ? ? ? of it then delete the first copy. So destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving me', > yet you say > ? ? ? ? ? ? it wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a belief in an uncopyable supernatural > 'soul') how > ? ? ? ? ? ? this could be. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we should really > understand it, > ? ? ? ? ? ? yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not being the > same thing? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Ben > ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > From efc at swisscows.email Sun Aug 27 21:32:41 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 23:32:41 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <0584ca60-aa31-1f8f-78d6-b01e022bb28e@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Thank you Jason, makes much more sense now, and I think that I'm not too far off the mark when it comes to theory vs proof vs method. But as you can tell, I tend to be annoyingly agnostic sometimes. ;) > I agree. The universe, or reality, being bigger than we previously thought, in no way diminishes our central role as observers to > that reality. If anything it makes us even more special, rare, unique, and important. (E.g., consider the 10^122 dead universes out > there for every one that can support life), and how much more precious that makes this universe, and this planet. Being annoyingly agnostic, I love the fact that there is so much we still don't know, and I am looking forward to all the scientists who will enlarge our sphere of knowledge and awareness of ourselves and our position in the universe. At the same time I find it hard to understand people who feel that everything needs an answer right now, no matter the cost, and as a last resort make up answers. Oh, and just so you don't understand me, that was a jab against religion and not theorizing and and doing philosophy. ;) Best regards, Daniel > > Jason? > > ? > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > On Sunday, August 27, 2023, wrote: > ? ? ? Thank you Jason, > > ? ? ? So would that imply then that there is no true randomness and that it is only because our limited point > of view, that it > ? ? ? looks random?? > > > ? ? ? There is a "meta level" of machinery kind of? > > > Yes, super determinism says there are hidden variables, determined by machinery we can't access, but > moreover, everything we do to > try to measure these hidden variables, by whatever processes we choose, flipping coins, picking numbers in > our head, using digits of > Pi or e, using pseudorandom number generators, anything, whatever we pick and whatever method we choose, the > universe will choose > hidden variables such that they will yield the Bell probabilities giving the false appearance of random > quantum collapse, where there > are not. But if this is true, and if we use constants in math like Pi or e, or SQRT(2), to choose how to set > the rotation of a > polarizing filter when measuring two entangled photons, then somehow the universe must have known that you > would be using, say, the > digits of SQRT(2) when it created the entangled photons years earlier before you measured them. So that in a > sense, the photon pair > creation event must have known how you would be measuring them, and then generated them in a way that would > yield the expected > quantum probabilities. It would also know you wouldn't in the last moment, change your mind to use the digits > of Pi to choose the > angle of rotation for the polarizing filter. Super determinism is the idea that the whole universe is a > conspiracy to make us falsely > believe in quantum probabilities. > > > ? > > ? ? ? Sorry if I'm not making sense, it is because I did not understand the example. ;) > > > > > If it's hard to understand it's because it's so hard to believe anyone would propose this as a serious > theory, but that's the length > the center of the universe or solar system, at least I think it comes from the same place). > > Jason > > ? > > ? ? ? Best regards, > ? ? ? Daniel > > > ? ? ? On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch wrote: > > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Thank you very much Stuart, I was just about to ask for a book and you already thought of > that. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? But what about superdeterminism? > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? In my view this is the worst of all possible interpretations. It is the theory that the laws of > physics are > ? ? ? ? ? ? conspiring to always fool > ? ? ? ? ? ? us. (Something like Descartes's evil demon). For example, if we choose to do a Bell experiment > and set our > ? ? ? ? ? ? orientations according to > ? ? ? ? ? ? some random sequence, super determinism says the correlations of the particles are also > determined by the > ? ? ? ? ? ? same processes that drive > ? ? ? ? ? ? the random number generator we use to set our orientations. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Okay, this is weird, but not logically impossible. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? But now consider if we set our orientations according to the digits of Pi, did the processes that > determine > ? ? ? ? ? ? particle orientations > ? ? ? ? ? ? also determine the digits of Pi? At this point I think super determinism is no longer defensible. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? Jason? > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it goes > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? against our intuition? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Best regards, > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Daniel > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? On 2023-08-26 15:17, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Hello Stuart, > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? edge physics. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? You say that > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? If you believe that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax > because you > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? are already immortal. You don't need to copy yourself because there are > already > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about the multiverse. > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by > proof or is it > ? ? ? ? ? ? one of > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? many interpretations of current theories? > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Best regards, Daniel > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Hi Daniel, > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? It is not proven in a mathematical sense, but many worlds (MWI) is the only > interpretation of > ? ? ? ? ? ? quantum > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? mechanics that is complete. All that you need for many worlds to be true is that the > Schrodinger > ? ? ? ? ? ? equation be > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? true. The alternatives require extra stuff. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? For example, collapse interpretations need an additional mechanism by which > measurement can > ? ? ? ? ? ? somehow cause a > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? quantum particle that is spread out everywhere at once to suddenly be somewhere > specific at > ? ? ? ? ? ? faster than the > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? speed of light. It requires consciousness to be a fundamental property of the > universe in the > ? ? ? ? ? ? sense that like > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? the next level of videogame, nothing is rendered into reality until you look at it. > Basically, if > ? ? ? ? ? ? collapse > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? interpretations are real, then we are very likely in a simulation run by some > intelligent > ? ? ? ? ? ? designer who is > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? trying to save computational resources by not rendering anything into reality until a > simulated > ? ? ? ? ? ? person > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? interacts with it. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Many worlds allows particles to always be everywhere at once because wherever the > particle is, > ? ? ? ? ? ? there is a > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? separate you there to witness it there. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? The other alternative is the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation which require a > second > ? ? ? ? ? ? equation that > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? describes how the wave function is a pilot wave that pushes a particle along its path > to be true > ? ? ? ? ? ? in addition > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? to the Schrodinger wave equation which describes the wave function. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? So to summarize: > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 1. Copenhagen/collapse interpretations needs additional assumptions about the laws of > physics > ? ? ? ? ? ? requiring > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? conscious observers in order to function properly. Trees do not fall in the woods or > make noise > ? ? ? ? ? ? unless you > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? are there to appreciate it. > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 2. Debroglie-Bohm Pilot Wave: This interpretation requires additional "helper" > equations to allow > ? ? ? ? ? ? quantum > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? mechanics to function by keeping track of hidden variables. > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 3. Superdeterminism: everything that happens including your own thoughts and > decisions are > ? ? ? ? ? ? unerringly > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? following a script that has existed from moment of the big bang. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Or . . . > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 4. MWI: The Schrondinger wave equation is all you need and there is enough real > estate out there > ? ? ? ? ? ? to cover > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? every possibility that the wavefunction entails. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvQ3Wyw2M4 > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Sean Carroll does an excellent job covering this in his various You Tube videos or > his book > ? ? ? ? ? ? "Something Deeply > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Hidden". I generally don't believe we live in a simulation and therefore prefer many > worlds over > ? ? ? ? ? ? conscious > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? collapse theories, but every once in a while nature throws me a curve ball that makes > me adjust > ? ? ? ? ? ? my posterior > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? probabilities like this: > ? ? ? ? ? ? https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194212940/question-mark-space-webb-telescope-photo > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? I hope that helped. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Best regards, > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Stuart LaForge > > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 22:34:20 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 18:34:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <7074d8ff-bf7e-8ed1-3ffd-2ee43f9ee7cb@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> <7074d8ff-bf7e-8ed1-3ffd-2ee43f9ee7cb@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 27, 2023, 4:50 PM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hello Jason, > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > Thank you Jason. Would you disagree with me if I call that absense > of strict empirical proof? > > > > Is your objection based on not believing that life-compatible universes > are rare (given current empirical observations), or is your > > objection that it's not valid to infer from the rarity of > life-compatible universes that it is likely there are many universes? > > I'd say the reason is that I have not seen any empirical proof of other > life-comptaible universes, and therefore, they don't seem pretty real to > me at the moment. > > I'm not ruling them out, but as far as my reality goes, at the moment, > they, like god, are not part of it until further evidence presents itself. > What would you say about the measurements from the Planck satellite which confirm the theory of inflation, and inflation (generally speaking), is predicted to be eternal, leading to an infinite succession of big bangs throughout all time? Now these big bangs will be so far away that we cannot observe them, but it's an implication of a theory that we have observationally confirmed. Or again, consider galaxies beyond the cosmic horizon which are moving away from us so fast we'll never see them, yet our cosmological theories predict there are galaxies beyond the horizon, perhaps infinite space we cannot and will never see, would you accept the existence of these theoretical, unobserved galaxies? (Just some examples I like to bring up to show scientist often use theories for things we can't see, so MW is not a unique or special case in this regard. For whatever reason people seem more willing to accept the infinite universes of external inflation than MW) > > I guess it comes down to whether the absence of observation, plus an > inference, counts as an empirical observation. For instance, if > > I play a shell game and put a coin under one of the shells and mix them > around and flip one over, and you do not see a coin under it, > > does that count as an empirical observation (which together with your > inference) tells you the coin must be under the other shell? Or > > must I lift the second shell for the light reflecting off the coin to > enter your eyes, for this to count as empirical evidence of the > > coin's location? > > Yes, I think that is the crux of the issue here. For physical objects, > inferring is strong, but verfying it, is stronger. I'd prefer the > possibility to verify it over infering. > > But this is physical objects only. > > When taking the step from physical objects, or by extension, our > universe, to god or multiple universes, I'd very much not trust > inference, but would very much like to verify. > Trust but verify. ?? > > > With the anthropic reasoning, it is like the shell game where we don't > see the coin. We see something that is hard to explain without > > there being many lifeless universes out there, even though light from > these other lifeless universes never reaches us. Is this > > empirical? Arguably it's not, but do you have an alternative explanation > for the dozen or so coincidences that made life possibile > > here? > > Got it. No, my opinion is that it is not empirical. It is an attempt at > explanation, but not proof. Does the explanation have some kind of power > of prediction? Perhaps this is the role filled by abductive reasoning: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning Does it help me become a better person? I could accept it > from a pragmatic point of view, but it would be tool and probably not a > part of my reality. > > I feel as I am clumsily grasping or trying to say something here, but > perhaps you can tease it out of me, or a good nights sleep might help me > find the right words. > We use induction to develop theories, then deduction to determine consequences of theories. If we have a high confidence in our theories then we should have a high (but not perfect) confidence in the predictions of those theories in cases we can't directly confirm. Surely, when we test something directly and confirm it our confidence approaches 100%, but consider our confidence for something we've never tested, such as our confidence that the theory of gravity would predict that a 1-ton diamond, if dropped would fall if placed in Earth's gravitational field. We're confident in this prediction solely due to our confidence in the theory of gravity. I think our confidence in the multiverse rests on similar grounds. > > I think those kind of discussions sometimes let our imaginations > run away with ourselves, and even if they indicate > > something, I will never know, and it will never affect me, so as > far as I am concerned, I can disregard it. > > > > But they can affect you. The existence of other universes provide > continuation paths for your consciousness. You might awaken there, > > or find yourself surviving an otherwise not survivable situation in this > universe, through the continued existence of a parallel self > > Well, the problem is that this is a "could". So far it has not happened, > That you or I can remember. and I have not heard from anyone who had it happen to them. The theory explains why we would not have evidence within this universe of others in other universes simulating us and copying us there. The trip is one-way. So we can't consider this lack of evidence as evidence of absence. So yes, > anything can happen, but so far I have not seen any proof of this > happening to me or anyone else. If there never can be a proof, then I > prefer to leave it at the very stimulating thought experiment level. > The proof can only come if/when you find yourself in another universe. It is much like with quantum suicide: you can only experience the proof for yourself, and can't share it. > > in one of those universes. It may even provide a means for life here to > survive the heat death of this universe (by having some other > > entity in another less resource constrained universe) copy-and-paste us > into their universe, just as we can copy and paste objects > > from the John Conway's Game-of-Life universe into our own. > > True, it may do so, but my reasoning I think, remains the same. > Well perhaps this is the evidence you're looking for. If we, say, discover a glider in the GoL universe and then copy it and paste it into its own GoL space where it can enjoy gliding forever, then here is an example of "someone" whom underwent the procedure, so you know it alcan and does happen for some entities. Now consider: what is the simulated universe is more complex and the entity we copy into a simulation of our choosing is conscious? Jason > > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Hello Stuart, > > > > Just a quick question from someone not very > knowledgeable of cutting > > edge physics. > > > > You say that > > > > that a copy of you can truly be you, then you > can relax because you are already immortal. You > > don't need to > > copy yourself because there are already plenty > of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about > > the > > multiverse. > > > > > > What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and > multiverses supported by proof or is itone of many > > interpretations of > > current theories? > > > > > > Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in the > sense that the probability there's only one universe > > (with one kind of > > physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. > > > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ > > > > This is as close to proof as anything science can provide. > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > > > > Best regards, Daniel > > > > > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > This is a crucial point, for those of us > interested in uploading, so I think we should > > really > > understand it, yet it makes no sense to > me. Would you please explain further? > > > > Could you also please explain the comment > about continuity and not-discontinuity not being > > the > > same thing? > > > > Ben > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 23:13:26 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 19:13:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> <61498c06-ffc7-1bdf-4be3-d3135e4add96@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 27, 2023, 5:26 PM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Good evening Jason, > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > Let's break #2 into two categories: > > A) Bodily continuity > > B) Mind continuity > > But what about A and B? > I am not sure what you are asking. Does what I say below help? > > For B, consider: we can make small changes to ones mind, adding a memory > here, forgetting a memory there, so that, over time we could > > Externally adding/deleting memories I'd say would constitute a break in > continuity. > Strictly speaking yes. But what about over the course of normal life? How much is gained and lost between a person when they are five years old and when they are fifty-five? Is it more accurate to say it's 100% the same person, or is it better to say it's something like 5-10% the same person? And is there a continuous spectrum between any two persons? > > Then there are all the problems for which these give no good answer: > > > > For A: > > > > Why are two identical twins not the same person, when each is a > continuity of the same fertilized egg (same body)? > > They don't have the same A and B. Different A:s and different B:s. Just > the fact that they occupy different space and later on, will experience > different angles, etc. makes A and B diverge. > I agree they diverge, but both twins are part of the same continuation of what began as one shared body. If you trace back either twin over time, you end up at what was a single shared cell (or shared cluster of cells). From a pure bodily-continuity perspective, if we ask: "what experiences will this body eventually have?" I think this perspective would have to say the experiences of both twins belong to the future continuations of this cell. This is strange, and something we rarely consider, but it all comes down to: why am I experiencing this perspective, rather than some other? What pre-conditions were necessary for me to have been born, be alive, and experience life? Did it depend on certain atoms?--(what if my mom ate a different lunch when she was pregnant?) Does it depend on certain genes?--(what if my eyes had been a different color?) The twins, in this example share (or did share), the same material body, and the same genes. Whatever was important to experience life as one twin was president, identically, in the other. So what determined which perspective one would have? If the first twin asked, why am I the first twin born rather than the second? How would you answer? And does your answer apply equally to anyone who asks, why was I born as this person rather than a brother? Or why was I born to these parents, rather than some other parents? When you begin tugging on these questions, the conventional view begins to unravel, especially when you consider the vast improbability of your existence, if it required certain material or certain genes. Let's say it required a specific sperm cell for you to be born. Then we're 1 in 200 million. But this so required a specific sperm and egg for your father to be born, so 1 in (200 million)^2, then grandfather, 1 in (200 million)^3. For any of us to have been born, is equivalent to winning a national lottery for every one of our ancestors. This is the improbability of the requirement of certain genes or certain materials being necessary to your existence. When we abandon such pre-conditions, the result is universalism/open individualism. > > Why would receiving a neural prosthesis not be regarded in the same way > as death? > > Depends on the circumstances. How is it implemented and when is it > implemented? > Right now we only have things like artificial hippocampi and retinas, but we can envision a future with entire brains are replaced after a memory transfer to a new substrate (biological or otherwise). Let's assume a complete brain replacement to a newly grown brain and memory copy, so mentality is preserved but bodily continuity is discontinuously changed. > > For B: > > > > Why are two duplicates created by a faulty teleporter not the same > person, when each is a continuity of the same mind? > > They don't occupy the same space, and just by the fact of not doing > that, their minds diverge. > Yes but we could imagine an upload of a mind to two identical virtual realities. Would it then matter that the two realities were executed by different CPUs? We know space and time are symmetrical, laws don't change based on location or orientation in spacetime. So while is a physical (bodily) distinction, from the internal subjective point of view it's the same conscious state, indistinguishable from their point of view, and hence is the same mental/psychological state. > This is the theme of a very entertaining > science fiction short story by Lars Gustafsson > (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Gustafsson). > > In 1989, Gustafsson ventured into the field of science fiction and > published Det s?llsamma djuret fr?n norr och andra > science-fiction-ber?ttelser. The book takes place 40,000 years into the > future, when humans are extinct and the galaxy is populated by artificial > intelligences. It is a philosophical exploration of life and existence and > can be seen as an homage to Stanislav Lem. > Sounds very interesting! > I don't think it is available in english, but I'd love to translate it > if I ever got the chance and permission. > If you can, or if you find an English translation, please let me know. > > Why is total amnesia not regarded in the same way as death? > > This is more of an ethical question to me and one frequently debated in > hospitals the world over. > It's also interesting to consider, we all start from an initial mindless/memoryless state. There is then some primordial state of consciousness from which we all emerge. And further, during a degradation of a dying mind, we return to this simplest possible conscious state. For example, let's say the simplest mind state is when I'm the embryo the first neurons wire together and fire for the first time, and in a dying brain when the last two surviving neurons fire for the last time. Then from the mental continuity perspective all mine states of all organisms are part of a connected set. > > For both A and B: > > > > If two people are each slowly morphed into the other person, where are > the two people after the procedure? Have they teleported to > > the other's location, or has each changed, but remained in the same > spot? Why? > > If it is cell-by-cell replacement, I see no disturbance in A and B. > > > When a brain is split by cutting the corpus callosum, the result is two > independently consciousness minds. Are they the same as the > > mind that was there before? If not, where did the two minds come from? > If the connection were to be restored to fuse the minds, what > > happens to the two minds when they become one? > > Do they have A and B continuity? If you cut the hardware, to me, it > sounds like you don't have A continuity and based on your description > (is this a real experiment? Could you please in that case, send me some > links.) doesn't sound as if you have B continuity either. > There is the Wada test, where an anesthetic is applied to one carotid artery to anesthetize one brain hemisphere at a time. Consciousness is preserved through the procedure regardless of which hemisphere is anesthetized. When it wears off both hemispheres reintegrate into one combined mind. There are also many cases of split brains where each hemisphere remains independently consciousness with its own beliefs, thoughts, desires, and perceptions. When I return to my computer I can send you more references to both these cases if you are interested. I find the self reports of those undergoing this procedure to be fascinating. There's also the case of the Hogan twins who are able to hear each other's thoughts and see out of each other's eyes which raises interesting questions of the dividing line between two minds. > If you can fuse it together, who knows? > > > If the same person can exist in the same place at the two different > times, then why can't the same person exist at two different > > places at the same time? > > Laws of physics? This one, I don't understand, but it is getting late > here, so I'll blame my tired brain. ;) > Physics reveals a complete symmetry and interchangeability between spaces and time. But we seem to have a bias against the latter situation. If we take time-space symmetry seriously, we must recognize this as a bias internal to us. It suggests that duplicates are self, as much as the same self is preserved over time. > > When it comes to #1, it does sound philosophically unfeasible to > me, since we're two selves havinga discussion. If all is > > illusion, how can there even be any knowledge at all? > > > > There would still be individual conscious states, each with they're own > consciousness, but nothing (actually) connecting one to any > > other. It's consistent in my view, but unworkable as it provides no > justification to doing anything since we would each be trapped in > > our own thought moment forever. > > Well, let's leave #1 to the side. I think we're in agreement, perhaps > for different, but maybe not incompatible reasons, that this is > unworkable. > Okay, agreed. > > When it comes to #3, I tried to google it, but it looks as if it > is not a very popular stance among philosophers. Why do > > you think it is not popular? > > > > It's relatively new, and highly counter to the brain's self-imposed > ego-illuision, which is hard to escape without serious > > meditation, drugs, traumatic brain injury, or logic. > > I find #3 very interesting. I'm not discounting it, and I will read > through your blog again. > Thanks. Note that this article just introduces the idea, but doesn't really argue for it. I would recommend Zuboff's linked paper to see the reasons for believing it. Jason > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > The question you are asking about below concerns the topic > in philosophy known as personal identity. That > > topic asks: which I > > experiences belong to which person's, in other words, how do > we define the temporal borders of a person. > > There are in general three > > approaches generally taken: > > 1. No-self/Anatta/empty individualism: each observer-moment, > or thought-moment is its own isolated thing, > > there's no such thing as a > > self which has multiple distinct thought-moments. > > > > 2. Continuity theories/closed individualism: either bodily > or psychological continuity. A self is a > > continual things either though > > the continuation of some physical body, or some more > abstractly defined psychological organization. > > > > 3. Universalism/open Individualism: There are no bodily or > psychological preconditions for an experience > > being yours, all experiences > > are I, and in truth there is only one mind. > > > > I think #2 leads to contradictions. #1 and #3 are logically > consistent. Between #1 and #3, #3 is more useful > > (it permits decision > > theory) and further, there are strong probabilistic > arguments for it. For example, those given in "One self: > > the logic of experience" > > which I cite here: > > > > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-there-life-after-death/#10_Open_Individualism_and_the_Afterlife > > > > One consequence of Open Individualism is that it dissolves > any concern of whether some particular copy is > > you, as all conscious > > perspectives are you. > > > > Jason > > > > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > My position is that a separate uploaded copy of me is > not me, thus would not grant the physical me > > immortality. I would > > look at it as a mind-seed, or something slightly > similar to a part of me that lives on, just as a part > > of me lives on in > > a child, although actually that part is way more of > me, than in a child. > > > > However, when talking about continuity and uploading, > I think the ship of theseus uploading is much > > more interesting from > > an identity point of view. > > > > As some, or all of you already know, imagine that I'm > uploaded neruon by neuron, over time. I would not > > have a break, and > > my mind would transition onto the new media. > > > > I would like to know what the people here who do not > believe uploading grants a form of immortality > > think about that > > scenario? Would it fit in with your idea of identity > and would you see yourselves being "immortal" > > through a shop of > > theseus procedure if it were possible? > > > > As for the copy approach, a starting point for me > would be that my identity is probably based on my > > mind, sense of > > continuity and location. In a copy, continuity and > location would go 2x, and thus not work with the > > definition of > > identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, both > continuity would be perserved, and location would be > > single. > > > > Best regards, > > Daniel > > > > > > On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: > > > > An important component of what a lot of > people want out of immortality is not so much > > continuity > > as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity > [And no, they're not the same thing]. > > > > If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain > scan, the resulting upload will remember being > > me, but > > /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful > death. And no, killing me painlessly, or even > > instantaneously, during or in the > immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the > > problem > > either. > > > > If "me" is ever on two substrates > simultaneously, you may have copied me, but you haven't > > moved > > me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the > me I want to be immortal. > > > > > > So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be > something that, when copied, somehow changes > > into 'not-me'. > > I don't understand this. If it's an exact copy, > how is it not exactly the same? How can there not > > now be two > > 'me's? Two identical beings, in every way, > including their subjective experience, with no > > discontinuity with > > the original singular being? > > > > When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on > the list will get a copy, and I will keep a copy. > > Which one is > > the real message? If they were conscious, why > would that make any difference? > > > > You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't > moved me". But how do you move data? You make a > > second copy > > of it then delete the first copy. So destroying > copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving me', > > yet you say > > it wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see > (short of a belief in an uncopyable supernatural > > 'soul') how > > this could be. > > > > This is a crucial point, for those of us > interested in uploading, so I think we should really > > understand it, > > yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please > explain further? > > > > Could you also please explain the comment about > continuity and not-discontinuity not being the > > same thing? > > > > Ben > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 23:34:39 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 19:34:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <0584ca60-aa31-1f8f-78d6-b01e022bb28e@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 27, 2023, 5:33 PM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Thank you Jason, makes much more sense now, and I think that I'm not too > far off the mark when it comes to theory vs proof vs method. > I'm happy to hear that. ?? > But as you can tell, I tend to be annoyingly agnostic sometimes. ;) > I don't mind it. Agnosticism is the best position to be in to learn. > > I agree. The universe, or reality, being bigger than we previously > thought, in no way diminishes our central role as observers to > > that reality. If anything it makes us even more special, rare, unique, > and important. (E.g., consider the 10^122 dead universes out > > there for every one that can support life), and how much more precious > that makes this universe, and this planet. > > Being annoyingly agnostic, I love the fact that there is so much we > still don't know, and I am looking forward to all the scientists who > will enlarge our sphere of knowledge and awareness of ourselves and our > position in the universe. > Yes. I think given Godel's incompleteness theorem, there will always be things we don't know, no matter how far we progress. > At the same time I find it hard to understand people who feel that > everything needs an answer right now, no matter the cost, and as a > last resort make up answers. > > Oh, and just so you don't understand me, that was a jab against religion > and not theorizing and and doing philosophy. ;) > Best regards, > Daniel Best, Jason > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > Best regards, > > Daniel > > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > > > On Sunday, August 27, 2023, wrote: > > Thank you Jason, > > > > So would that imply then that there is no true > randomness and that it is only because our limited point > > of view, that it > > looks random? > > > > > > There is a "meta level" of machinery kind of? > > > > > > Yes, super determinism says there are hidden variables, > determined by machinery we can't access, but > > moreover, everything we do to > > try to measure these hidden variables, by whatever processes > we choose, flipping coins, picking numbers in > > our head, using digits of > > Pi or e, using pseudorandom number generators, anything, > whatever we pick and whatever method we choose, the > > universe will choose > > hidden variables such that they will yield the Bell > probabilities giving the false appearance of random > > quantum collapse, where there > > are not. But if this is true, and if we use constants in > math like Pi or e, or SQRT(2), to choose how to set > > the rotation of a > > polarizing filter when measuring two entangled photons, then > somehow the universe must have known that you > > would be using, say, the > > digits of SQRT(2) when it created the entangled photons > years earlier before you measured them. So that in a > > sense, the photon pair > > creation event must have known how you would be measuring > them, and then generated them in a way that would > > yield the expected > > quantum probabilities. It would also know you wouldn't in > the last moment, change your mind to use the digits > > of Pi to choose the > > angle of rotation for the polarizing filter. Super > determinism is the idea that the whole universe is a > > conspiracy to make us falsely > > believe in quantum probabilities. > > > > > > > > > > Sorry if I'm not making sense, it is because I did not > understand the example. ;) > > > > > > > > > > If it's hard to understand it's because it's so hard to > believe anyone would propose this as a serious > > theory, but that's the length > > the center of the universe or solar system, at least I think > it comes from the same place). > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > Best regards, > > Daniel > > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch wrote: > > > > > > > > On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via > extropy-chat wrote: > > Thank you very much Stuart, I was just > about to ask for a book and you already thought of > > that. > > > > But what about superdeterminism? > > > > > > In my view this is the worst of all possible > interpretations. It is the theory that the laws of > > physics are > > conspiring to always fool > > us. (Something like Descartes's evil demon). For > example, if we choose to do a Bell experiment > > and set our > > orientations according to > > some random sequence, super determinism says the > correlations of the particles are also > > determined by the > > same processes that drive > > the random number generator we use to set our > orientations. > > > > Okay, this is weird, but not logically > impossible. > > > > But now consider if we set our orientations > according to the digits of Pi, did the processes that > > determine > > particle orientations > > also determine the digits of Pi? At this point I > think super determinism is no longer defensible. > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > > Wouldn't that also be one of the better > "candidates" even though it goes > > against our intuition? > > > > Best regards, > > Daniel > > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Stuart LaForge via > extropy-chat wrote: > > > > On 2023-08-26 15:17, efc--- via > extropy-chat wrote: > > Hello Stuart, > > > > Just a quick question from > someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > > edge physics. > > > > You say that > > > > If you believe that a > copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax > > because you > > are already immortal. > You don't need to copy yourself because there are > > already > > plenty of, if not > infinite numbers of, you strewn about the multiverse. > > > > > > What I wonder is, are infinite > numbers of you and multiverses supported by > > proof or is it > > one of > > many interpretations of > current theories? > > > > Best regards, Daniel > > > > > > Hi Daniel, > > > > It is not proven in a mathematical > sense, but many worlds (MWI) is the only > > interpretation of > > quantum > > mechanics that is complete. All that > you need for many worlds to be true is that the > > Schrodinger > > equation be > > true. The alternatives require extra > stuff. > > > > For example, collapse > interpretations need an additional mechanism by which > > measurement can > > somehow cause a > > quantum particle that is spread out > everywhere at once to suddenly be somewhere > > specific at > > faster than the > > speed of light. It requires > consciousness to be a fundamental property of the > > universe in the > > sense that like > > the next level of videogame, nothing > is rendered into reality until you look at it. > > Basically, if > > collapse > > interpretations are real, then we > are very likely in a simulation run by some > > intelligent > > designer who is > > trying to save computational > resources by not rendering anything into reality until a > > simulated > > person > > interacts with it. > > > > Many worlds allows particles to > always be everywhere at once because wherever the > > particle is, > > there is a > > separate you there to witness it > there. > > > > The other alternative is the > DeBroglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation which require a > > second > > equation that > > describes how the wave function is a > pilot wave that pushes a particle along its path > > to be true > > in addition > > to the Schrodinger wave equation > which describes the wave function. > > > > So to summarize: > > 1. Copenhagen/collapse > interpretations needs additional assumptions about the laws of > > physics > > requiring > > conscious observers in order to > function properly. Trees do not fall in the woods or > > make noise > > unless you > > are there to appreciate it. > > 2. Debroglie-Bohm Pilot Wave: This > interpretation requires additional "helper" > > equations to allow > > quantum > > mechanics to function by keeping > track of hidden variables. > > 3. Superdeterminism: everything that > happens including your own thoughts and > > decisions are > > unerringly > > following a script that has existed > from moment of the big bang. > > > > Or . . . > > > > 4. MWI: The Schrondinger wave > equation is all you need and there is enough real > > estate out there > > to cover > > every possibility that the > wavefunction entails. > > > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvQ3Wyw2M4 > > > > Sean Carroll does an excellent job > covering this in his various You Tube videos or > > his book > > "Something Deeply > > Hidden". I generally don't believe > we live in a simulation and therefore prefer many > > worlds over > > conscious > > collapse theories, but every once in > a while nature throws me a curve ball that makes > > me adjust > > my posterior > > probabilities like this: > > > https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194212940/question-mark-space-webb-telescope-photo > > > > I hope that helped. > > > > Best regards, > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Aug 28 01:20:30 2023 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 18:20:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> On 2023-08-27 09:33, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > Thank you very much Stuart, I was just about to ask for a book and you > already thought of that. > > But what about superdeterminism? > > Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it > goes > against our intuition? Not at all. It would mean that quantum mechanics (the most accurate scientific theory to date) is completely wrong. Superdeterminism would mean that all agency, choice, chance, luck, and randomness is an illusion. It would literally mean that time is entirely scripted from beginning to end with the bizarre property that the characters in the script are forced to both run experiments to test if the world is scripted and every experiment forces them to reach the conclusion that the world is random and there is no script. It would be like the universe being a book where the plot is that numerous physicists are conducting experiments to see if they are characters in a prewritten book, but their every attempt to break or even see the fourth wall ends in complete and utter failure and no matter how hard they try, they cannot predict happens next even though it is already written. Stuart LaForge From efc at swisscows.email Mon Aug 28 07:51:12 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 09:51:12 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> Message-ID: Thank you Stuart, on top of that I think Jason made some good point as well, and I have to agree, that it seems like one of the worst interpretations. Best regards, Daniel On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > On 2023-08-27 09:33, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > >> Thank you very much Stuart, I was just about to ask for a book and you >> already thought of that. >> >> But what about superdeterminism? >> >> Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it goes >> against our intuition? > > Not at all. It would mean that quantum mechanics (the most accurate > scientific theory to date) is completely wrong. Superdeterminism would mean > that all agency, choice, chance, luck, and randomness is an illusion. It > would literally mean that time is entirely scripted from beginning to end > with the bizarre property that the characters in the script are forced to > both run experiments to test if the world is scripted and every experiment > forces them to reach the conclusion that the world is random and there is no > script. > > It would be like the universe being a book where the plot is that numerous > physicists are conducting experiments to see if they are characters in a > prewritten book, but their every attempt to break or even see the fourth wall > ends in complete and utter failure and no matter how hard they try, they > cannot predict happens next even though it is already written. > > Stuart LaForge > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From pharos at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 13:45:03 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:45:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 08:53, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > Thank you Stuart, on top of that I think Jason made some good point as > well, and I have to agree, that it seems like one of the worst > interpretations. > > Best regards, Daniel > _______________________________________________ The problem with quantum theory is that nobody knows the solution and researchers are desperately trying to understand the weird quantum world. Quanta magazine has a long article discussing the problems with the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). Quote: Why the Many-Worlds Interpretation Has Many Problems The idea that the universe splits into multiple realities with every measurement has become an increasingly popular proposed solution to the mysteries of quantum mechanics. But this ?many-worlds interpretation? is incoherent, Philip Ball argues in this adapted excerpt from his new book Beyond Weird. By Philip Ball October 18, 2018 What quantum theory seems to insist is that at the fundamental level the world cannot supply clear ?yes/no? empirical answers to all the questions that seem at face value as though they should have one. The calm acceptance of that fact by the Copenhagen interpretation seems to some, and with good reason, to be far too unsatisfactory and complacent. The MWI is an exuberant attempt to rescue the ?yes/no? by admitting both of them at once. But in the end, if you say everything is true, you have said nothing. --------------- BillK From efc at swisscows.email Mon Aug 28 13:58:46 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 15:58:46 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> Message-ID: <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Thank you Bill. I was reading up on this yesterday evening and found the following on plain old wikipedia: "Some scientists consider MWI unfalsifiable and hence unscientific because the multiple parallel universes are non-communicating, in the sense that no information can be passed between them." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation#Rejection And further down, I read that when students are allowed to vote, the copenhagen interpretation still wins, but, the MWI is climbing. Best regards, Daniel On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 08:53, efc--- via extropy-chat > wrote: >> >> Thank you Stuart, on top of that I think Jason made some good point as >> well, and I have to agree, that it seems like one of the worst >> interpretations. >> >> Best regards, Daniel >> _______________________________________________ > > > The problem with quantum theory is that nobody knows the solution and > researchers are desperately trying to understand the weird quantum > world. > > Quanta magazine has a long article discussing the problems with the > Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). > > > Quote: > Why the Many-Worlds Interpretation Has Many Problems > The idea that the universe splits into multiple realities with every > measurement has become an increasingly popular proposed solution to > the mysteries of quantum mechanics. But this ?many-worlds > interpretation? is incoherent, Philip Ball argues in this adapted > excerpt from his new book Beyond Weird. > By Philip Ball October 18, 2018 > > What quantum theory seems to insist is that at the fundamental level > the world cannot supply clear ?yes/no? empirical answers to all the > questions that seem at face value as though they should have one. The > calm acceptance of that fact by the Copenhagen interpretation seems to > some, and with good reason, to be far too unsatisfactory and > complacent. The MWI is an exuberant attempt to rescue the ?yes/no? by > admitting both of them at once. But in the end, if you say everything > is true, you have said nothing. > --------------- > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From efc at swisscows.email Mon Aug 28 14:10:19 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 16:10:19 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> <7074d8ff-bf7e-8ed1-3ffd-2ee43f9ee7cb@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <090290cd-e9d9-3be0-2581-284d42471d01@swisscows.email> Hello Jason, On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > I'm not ruling them out, but as far as my reality goes, at the moment, > they, like god, are not part of it until further evidence presents itself. > > What would you say about the measurements from the Planck satellite which confirm the theory of inflation, and inflation (generally ... > (Just some examples I like to bring up to show scientist often use theories for things we can't see, so MW is not a unique or special > case in this regard. For whatever reason people seem more willing to accept the infinite universes of external inflation than MW) On a detailed level, I have very little to say, since I have not studied these questions deeply. But, related to our conversation, I'd definitely say that there are varying degrees of certainty and belief. > When taking the step from physical objects, or by extension, our > universe, to god or multiple universes, I'd very much not trust > inference, but would very much like to verify. > > Trust but verify. ?? Always! ;) > Got it. No, my opinion is that it is not empirical. It is an attempt at > explanation, but not proof. Does the explanation have some kind of power > of prediction? > > Perhaps this is the role filled by abductive reasoning: > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning I really like the formulation: "Abductive reasoning, unlike deductive reasoning, yields a plausible conclusion but does not definitively verify it. Abductive conclusions do not eliminate uncertainty or doubt, which is expressed in retreat terms such as "best available" or "most likely". One can understand abductive reasoning as inference to the best explanation,[3] although not all usages of the terms abduction and inference to the best explanation are equivalent." Relating to your examples above, plausible conclusion but does not definitely verify it. Since the galaxies will never be seen, that's about the best we can do, and we will forever live without certainty. > Does it help me become a better person? I could accept it > from a pragmatic point of view, but it would be tool and probably not a > part of my reality. > > I feel as I am clumsily grasping or trying to say something here, but > perhaps you can tease it out of me, or a good nights sleep might help me > find the right words. > > We use induction to develop theories, then deduction to determine consequences of theories. If we have a high confidence in our > theories then we should have a high (but not perfect) confidence in the predictions of those theories in cases we can't directly > confirm. > > Surely, when we test something directly and confirm it our confidence approaches 100%, but consider our confidence for something > we've never tested, such as our confidence that the theory of gravity would predict that a 1-ton diamond, if dropped would fall if > placed in Earth's gravitational field. We're confident in this prediction solely due to our confidence in the theory of gravity. I > think our confidence in the multiverse rests on similar grounds. I see and accept your point, but I do not feel as confident about the multiverse, as the result of a 1-ton diamond. It seems to me, that there is no clear consensus or proof of the matter. The point that information only travels one way in that scenario (see answer to Bill and the MWI article on wikipedia) makes a lot of sense to me. So the diamon scenario and the multiverse scenario are in my opinion different scenarios with different levels of confidence. > Well, the problem is that this is a "could". So far it has not happened, > > That you or I can remember. True. ;) > and I have not heard from anyone who had it happen to them. > > The theory explains why we would not have evidence within this universe of others in other universes simulating us and copying us > there. The trip is one-way. So we can't consider this lack of evidence as evidence of absence. In that case it can never be verified, and since it will in that case not impact us in any way, I'd say that this is a weakness of that theory. > So yes, > anything can happen, but so far I have not seen any proof of this > happening to me or anyone else. If there never can be a proof, then I > prefer to leave it at the very stimulating thought experiment level. > > The proof can only come if/when you find yourself in another universe. It is much like with quantum suicide: you can only experience > the proof for yourself, and can't share it. Relative to this world, and empirical proof ? la science, that is a proof I am not willing to accept as proof. > True, it may do so, but my reasoning I think, remains the same. > > Well perhaps this is the evidence you're looking for. If we, say, discover a glider in the GoL universe and then copy it and paste it > into its own GoL space where it can enjoy gliding forever, then here is an example of "someone" whom underwent the procedure, so you > know it alcan and does happen for some entities. Now consider: what is the? simulated universe is more complex and the entity we copy > into a simulation of our choosing is conscious? Could you expand a bit on this point? Best regards, Daniel > > Jason > > > > > > > > >? ? ? ?On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Hello Stuart, > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? edge physics. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? You say that > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you are already immortal. You > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?don't need to > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? copy yourself because there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? multiverse. > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof or is itone of many > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?interpretations of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? current theories? > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in the sense that the probability there's only one > universe > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?(with one kind of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?This is as close to proof as anything science can provide. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?Jason? > > > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Best regards, Daniel > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? Stuart LaForge > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we should > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?really > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not > being > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? same thing? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Ben > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From efc at swisscows.email Mon Aug 28 14:12:43 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 16:12:43 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <0584ca60-aa31-1f8f-78d6-b01e022bb28e@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <043c994a-6586-5368-1620-51ef5c3114dd@swisscows.email> On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > But as you can tell, I tend to be annoyingly agnostic sometimes. ;) > > I don't mind it. Agnosticism is the best position to be in to learn. It could also mean I don't dare to take a position, and just want to "play it safe". However, I much prefer your interpretation! ;) (some atheists, many decades ago, always liked that line of attack with me) > Being annoyingly agnostic, I love the fact that there is so much we > still don't know, and I am looking forward to all the scientists who > will enlarge our sphere of knowledge and awareness of ourselves and our > position in the universe. > > Yes. I think given Godel's incompleteness theorem, there will always be things we don't know, no matter how far we progress. That's a wonderful and beautiful world! Imagine the boredom of knowing all, without anything left to explore! Best regards, Daniel > Oh, and just so you don't understand me, that was a jab against religion > and not theorizing and and doing philosophy. ;) > > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > Best, > > Jason? > > > > > > > Jason? > > > > ? > > > >? ? ? ?Best regards, > >? ? ? ?Daniel > > > > > >? ? ? ?On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?On Sunday, August 27, 2023, wrote: > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Thank you Jason, > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? So would that imply then that there is no true randomness and that it is only because our limited > point > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?of view, that it > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? looks random?? > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? There is a "meta level" of machinery kind of? > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?Yes, super determinism says there are hidden variables, determined by machinery we can't access, but > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?moreover, everything we do to > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?try to measure these hidden variables, by whatever processes we choose, flipping coins, picking numbers in > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?our head, using digits of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?Pi or e, using pseudorandom number generators, anything, whatever we pick and whatever method we choose, > the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?universe will choose > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?hidden variables such that they will yield the Bell probabilities giving the false appearance of random > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?quantum collapse, where there > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?are not. But if this is true, and if we use constants in math like Pi or e, or SQRT(2), to choose how to > set > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?the rotation of a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?polarizing filter when measuring two entangled photons, then somehow the universe must have known that you > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?would be using, say, the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?digits of SQRT(2) when it created the entangled photons years earlier before you measured them. So that in > a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?sense, the photon pair > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?creation event must have known how you would be measuring them, and then generated them in a way that would > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?yield the expected > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?quantum probabilities. It would also know you wouldn't in the last moment, change your mind to use the > digits > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?of Pi to choose the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?angle of rotation for the polarizing filter. Super determinism is the idea that the whole universe is a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?conspiracy to make us falsely > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?believe in quantum probabilities. > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Sorry if I'm not making sense, it is because I did not understand the example. ;) > > > > > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?If it's hard to understand it's because it's so hard to believe anyone would propose this as a serious > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?theory, but that's the length > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?the center of the universe or solar system, at least I think it comes from the same place). > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?Jason > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Best regards, > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Daniel > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch wrote: > > > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? On Sunday, August 27, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Thank you very much Stuart, I was just about to ask for a book and you already thought of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?that. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? But what about superdeterminism? > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? In my view this is the worst of all possible interpretations. It is the theory that the laws of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?physics are > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? conspiring to always fool > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? us. (Something like Descartes's evil demon). For example, if we choose to do a Bell experiment > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?and set our > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? orientations according to > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? some random sequence, super determinism says the correlations of the particles are also > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?determined by the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? same processes that drive > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? the random number generator we use to set our orientations. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? Okay, this is weird, but not logically impossible. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? But now consider if we set our orientations according to the digits of Pi, did the processes > that > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?determine > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? particle orientations > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? also determine the digits of Pi? At this point I think super determinism is no longer > defensible. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? Jason? > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it goes > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? against our intuition? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Best regards, > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Daniel > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? On 2023-08-26 15:17, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Hello Stuart, > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? edge physics. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? You say that > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? If you believe that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?because you > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? are already immortal. You don't need to copy yourself because there are > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?already > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about the multiverse. > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?proof or is it > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? one of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? many interpretations of current theories? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Best regards, Daniel > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Hi Daniel, > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? It is not proven in a mathematical sense, but many worlds (MWI) is the only > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?interpretation of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? quantum > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? mechanics that is complete. All that you need for many worlds to be true is that > the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?Schrodinger > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? equation be > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? true. The alternatives require extra stuff. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? For example, collapse interpretations need an additional mechanism by which > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?measurement can > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? somehow cause a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? quantum particle that is spread out everywhere at once to suddenly be somewhere > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?specific at > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? faster than the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? speed of light. It requires consciousness to be a fundamental property of the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?universe in the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? sense that like > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? the next level of videogame, nothing is rendered into reality until you look at it. > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?Basically, if > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? collapse > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? interpretations are real, then we are very likely in a simulation run by some > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?intelligent > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? designer who is > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? trying to save computational resources by not rendering anything into reality until > a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?simulated > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? person > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? interacts with it. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Many worlds allows particles to always be everywhere at once because wherever the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?particle is, > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? there is a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? separate you there to witness it there. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? The other alternative is the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation which require > a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?second > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? equation that > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? describes how the wave function is a pilot wave that pushes a particle along its > path > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?to be true > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? in addition > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? to the Schrodinger wave equation which describes the wave function. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? So to summarize: > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 1. Copenhagen/collapse interpretations needs additional assumptions about the laws > of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?physics > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? requiring > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? conscious observers in order to function properly. Trees do not fall in the woods > or > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?make noise > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? unless you > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? are there to appreciate it. > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 2. Debroglie-Bohm Pilot Wave: This interpretation requires additional "helper" > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?equations to allow > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? quantum > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? mechanics to function by keeping track of hidden variables. > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 3. Superdeterminism: everything that happens including your own thoughts and > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?decisions are > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? unerringly > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? following a script that has existed from moment of the big bang. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Or . . . > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 4. MWI: The Schrondinger wave equation is all you need and there is enough real > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?estate out there > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? to cover > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? every possibility that the wavefunction entails. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxvQ3Wyw2M4 > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Sean Carroll does an excellent job covering this in his various You Tube videos or > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?his book > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? "Something Deeply > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Hidden". I generally don't believe we live in a simulation and therefore prefer > many > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?worlds over > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? conscious > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? collapse theories, but every once in a while nature throws me a curve ball that > makes > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?me adjust > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? my posterior > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? probabilities like this: > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194212940/question-mark-space-webb-telescope-photo > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? I hope that helped. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Best regards, > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Stuart LaForge > > > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 15:13:31 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 10:13:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 8:46?AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 08:53, efc--- via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > Thank you Stuart, on top of that I think Jason made some good point as > > well, and I have to agree, that it seems like one of the worst > > interpretations. > > > > Best regards, Daniel > > _______________________________________________ > > > The problem with quantum theory is that nobody knows the solution and > researchers are desperately trying to understand the weird quantum > world. > > Quanta magazine has a long article discussing the problems with the > Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). > > < > https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-many-worlds-interpretation-has-many-problems-20181018/ > > > Quote: > Why the Many-Worlds Interpretation Has Many Problems > The idea that the universe splits into multiple realities with every > measurement has become an increasingly popular proposed solution to > the mysteries of quantum mechanics. But this ?many-worlds > interpretation? is incoherent, Philip Ball argues in this adapted > excerpt from his new book Beyond Weird. > By Philip Ball October 18, 2018 > > What quantum theory seems to insist is that at the fundamental level > the world cannot supply clear ?yes/no? empirical answers to all the > questions that seem at face value as though they should have one. The > calm acceptance of that fact by the Copenhagen interpretation seems to > some, and with good reason, to be far too unsatisfactory and > complacent. The MWI is an exuberant attempt to rescue the ?yes/no? by > admitting both of them at once. But in the end, if you say everything > is true, you have said nothing. > --------------- > How does he explain how quantum computers work? Where is all the information processing happening, if not in the many parallel threads of the superposition of states? And if we were to run a brain simulation on a quantum computer, and feed it bits that were initialized to be in superpositions, would the mind not also (according to all interpretations of QM) enter a superposition of states as well? I think we could prove that it did, by then using those same bits to perform Shor's algorithm and the interference effects between the parallel mind states would confirm the mind split and experienced different things (rather than cause a collapse) -- we verify it by getting a correct answer to the factorization of a large semiprime. I've never seen coherent answers provided on these questions by those who hold to single-universe views. Note: I do not think many-worlds, as typically described, is the best description. It is not that we are creating universes, or that universes are splitting. Rather, all possibilities are already there in an infinite comprehensive reality, and our minds simply differentiate as new information enters into them. When we take this view literally, it actually provides a means to explain why it is nature is quantum mechanical in the first place, as I provide references here: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Why_Quantum_Mechanics Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 15:24:45 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 10:24:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 8:59?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Thank you Bill. I was reading up on this yesterday evening and found > the following on plain old wikipedia: > > "Some scientists consider MWI unfalsifiable and hence unscientific because > the multiple parallel universes are non-communicating, in the sense that > no information can be passed between them." > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation#Rejection I think it's rather quite the opposite: CI and collapse are unfalsifiable, principally because collapse theories never even define what collapse is, nor when exactly it happens, but also beccause collapse is also just as observable as the decohered worlds in many worlds. I also disagree with the assessment that MW is not falsifiable. If we run a conscious mind on a quantum computer, and the quantum computation fails due to the consciousness of the mind on the computer causing collapse, and it eliminates the interference pattern, then MW is falsified. Here is David Deutsch's description of the experiment: https://photos.app.goo.gl/4rrNMdbmSsHGsLkh9 > > > And further down, I read that when students are allowed to vote, the > copenhagen interpretation still wins, but, the MWI is climbing. > That's interesting. Though it ma be biased as CI is normally how QM is introduced to students. It is interesting to see such a divergence when expert theorists are considered: From: https://anthropic-principle.com/preprints/manyworlds Q1 Who believes in many-worlds? ---------------------------- "Political scientist" L David Raub reports a poll of 72 of the "leading cosmologists and other quantum field theorists" about the "Many-Worlds Interpretation" and gives the following response breakdown [T]. 1) "Yes, I think MWI is true" 58% 2) "No, I don't accept MWI" 18% 3) "Maybe it's true but I'm not yet convinced" 13% 4) "I have no opinion one way or the other" 11% Amongst the "Yes, I think MWI is true" crowd listed are Stephen Hawking and Nobel Laureates Murray Gell-Mann and Richard Feynman. Gell-Mann and Hawking recorded reservations with the name "many-worlds", but not with the theory's content. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg is also mentioned as a many-worlder, although the suggestion is not when the poll was conducted, presumably before 1988 (when Feynman died). The only "No, I don't accept MWI" named is Penrose. Jason > > > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 08:53, efc--- via extropy-chat > > wrote: > >> > >> Thank you Stuart, on top of that I think Jason made some good point as > >> well, and I have to agree, that it seems like one of the worst > >> interpretations. > >> > >> Best regards, Daniel > >> _______________________________________________ > > > > > > The problem with quantum theory is that nobody knows the solution and > > researchers are desperately trying to understand the weird quantum > > world. > > > > Quanta magazine has a long article discussing the problems with the > > Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). > > > > < > https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-many-worlds-interpretation-has-many-problems-20181018/ > > > > Quote: > > Why the Many-Worlds Interpretation Has Many Problems > > The idea that the universe splits into multiple realities with every > > measurement has become an increasingly popular proposed solution to > > the mysteries of quantum mechanics. But this ?many-worlds > > interpretation? is incoherent, Philip Ball argues in this adapted > > excerpt from his new book Beyond Weird. > > By Philip Ball October 18, 2018 > > > > What quantum theory seems to insist is that at the fundamental level > > the world cannot supply clear ?yes/no? empirical answers to all the > > questions that seem at face value as though they should have one. The > > calm acceptance of that fact by the Copenhagen interpretation seems to > > some, and with good reason, to be far too unsatisfactory and > > complacent. The MWI is an exuberant attempt to rescue the ?yes/no? by > > admitting both of them at once. But in the end, if you say everything > > is true, you have said nothing. > > --------------- > > > > BillK > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 16:18:09 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 11:18:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <090290cd-e9d9-3be0-2581-284d42471d01@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> <7074d8ff-bf7e-8ed1-3ffd-2ee43f9ee7cb@swisscows.email> <090290cd-e9d9-3be0-2581-284d42471d01@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 9:11?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hello Jason, > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > I'm not ruling them out, but as far as my reality goes, at the > moment, > > they, like god, are not part of it until further evidence presents > itself. > > > > What would you say about the measurements from the Planck satellite > which confirm the theory of inflation, and inflation (generally > ... > > (Just some examples I like to bring up to show scientist often use > theories for things we can't see, so MW is not a unique or special > > case in this regard. For whatever reason people seem more willing to > accept the infinite universes of external inflation than MW) > > On a detailed level, I have very little to say, since I have not studied > these questions deeply. But, related to our conversation, I'd definitely > say that there are varying degrees of certainty and belief. > I agree. > > > > When taking the step from physical objects, or by extension, our > > universe, to god or multiple universes, I'd very much not trust > > inference, but would very much like to verify. > > > > Trust but verify. ?? > > Always! ;) > > > Got it. No, my opinion is that it is not empirical. It is an > attempt at > > explanation, but not proof. Does the explanation have some kind of > power > > of prediction? > > > > Perhaps this is the role filled by abductive reasoning: > > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning > > I really like the formulation: > > "Abductive reasoning, unlike deductive reasoning, yields a plausible > conclusion but does not definitively verify it. Abductive conclusions do > not eliminate uncertainty or doubt, which is expressed in retreat terms > such as "best available" or "most likely". One can understand abductive > reasoning as inference to the best explanation,[3] although not all > usages of the terms abduction and inference to the best explanation are > equivalent." > > Relating to your examples above, plausible conclusion but does not > definitely verify it. Since the galaxies will never be seen, that's > about the best we can do, and we will forever live without certainty. > Earlier you asked a thought-provoking question. Something like: Can a good explanation count as evidence for a theory being true? As it happens, there are reasons why good explanations so often end up being right. Some fairly recent results show that if certain ensemble theories are right, there is a reason that occam's razor works. I explain it somewhat here: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Why_the_Laws_are_Simple Here are some of the important references: - Ray Solomonoff who developed Solomonoff inductive inference , wrote "A Formal Theory of Inductive Inference " in 1964, which said: - "On a direct intuitive level, the high a priori probability assigned to a sequence with a short description corresponds to one possible interpretation of ?Occam?s Razor." - Marcus Hutter who developed the algorithm for universal artificial intelligence , wrote "A Theory of Universal Artificial Intelligence based on Algorithmic Complexity " in 2000, which said: - "We propose a theory which formally solves the problem of unknown goal and environment. It might be viewed as a unification of the ideas of universal induction, probabilistic planning and reinforcement learning or as a unification of sequential decision theory with algorithmic information theory. [...] This, together with general convergence theorems motivates us to believe that the constructed universal AI system is the best one in a sense to be clarified in the sequel, i.e. that it is the most intelligent environmental independent system possible." - Russell Standish who derived postulates of quantum mechanics from a theory of observation wrote "Why Occam's Razor? " in 2004, which said: - "In this paper I show why, in an ensemble theory of the universe, we should be inhabiting one of the elements of that ensemble with least information content that satisfies the anthropic principle. This explains the effectiveness of aesthetic principles such as Occam?s razor in predicting usefulness of scientific theories." - Markus M?ller who derived laws of physics from algorithmic information theory wrote "Law without law: from observer states to physics via algorithmic information theory " in 2020, which said: - "Observers will, with high probability, see an external world that is governed by *simple*, *computable*, *probabilistic* laws." All these papers provide a justification for why it is that the simplest explanation consistent with the observations is also the most likely probable theory to be correct. Until very recently, it was not known why Occam's Razor was so effective. But if we happen to inhabit an infinite ensemble of computationally/algorithmically generated worlds, (as an increasing amount of other evidence suggests), then there is a direct reason for this. It implies an a priori reason why the theory with the the shortest description, i.e., the least Kolmogorov complexity , is more likely to be true than any theory with a greater Kolmogorov complexity. > > > Does it help me become a better person? I could accept it > > from a pragmatic point of view, but it would be tool and probably > not a > > part of my reality. > > > > I feel as I am clumsily grasping or trying to say something here, > but > > perhaps you can tease it out of me, or a good nights sleep might > help me > > find the right words. > > > > We use induction to develop theories, then deduction to determine > consequences of theories. If we have a high confidence in our > > theories then we should have a high (but not perfect) confidence in the > predictions of those theories in cases we can't directly > > confirm. > > > > Surely, when we test something directly and confirm it our confidence > approaches 100%, but consider our confidence for something > > we've never tested, such as our confidence that the theory of gravity > would predict that a 1-ton diamond, if dropped would fall if > > placed in Earth's gravitational field. We're confident in this > prediction solely due to our confidence in the theory of gravity. I > > think our confidence in the multiverse rests on similar grounds. > > I see and accept your point, but I do not feel as confident about the > multiverse, as the result of a 1-ton diamond. It seems to me, that there > is no clear consensus or proof of the matter. The point that information > only travels one way in that scenario (see answer to Bill and the MWI > article on wikipedia) makes a lot of sense to me. So the diamon scenario > and the multiverse scenario are in my opinion different scenarios with > different levels of confidence. > There is a caveat to this "one way information travel": interference . It is through interference that other parallel universes make their presence known to us. If it weren't for interference, we would have no reason to suspect these other universes are real. It is interference that is mysterious in the two-slit experiment, and it is interference that gives us useful results from quantum computers. > > > Well, the problem is that this is a "could". So far it has not > happened, > > > > That you or I can remember. > > True. ;) > > > and I have not heard from anyone who had it happen to them. > > > > The theory explains why we would not have evidence within this universe > of others in other universes simulating us and copying us > > there. The trip is one-way. So we can't consider this lack of evidence > as evidence of absence. > > In that case it can never be verified, and since it will in that case > not impact us in any way, I'd say that this is a weakness of that > theory. > It can subjectively impact you. For example, if you find yourself mysteriously surviving many iterations of Shrodinger's cat experiment, where you play the role of the cat, then I consider that an impact that is directly relevant to you. In the same way, if you find after your death in this universe, you awaken in another universe where this life was a dream or a video game, I would also consider that an impact to you. > > > So yes, > > anything can happen, but so far I have not seen any proof of this > > happening to me or anyone else. If there never can be a proof, > then I > > prefer to leave it at the very stimulating thought experiment > level. > > > > The proof can only come if/when you find yourself in another universe. > It is much like with quantum suicide: you can only experience > > the proof for yourself, and can't share it. > > Relative to this world, and empirical proof ? la science, that is a > proof I am not willing to accept as proof. > All evidence we have comes to us through our conscious experience. Physics can be understood as the science of observations: given past observations, what are the expected future ones? But then what happens when we use physics to consider the predicted observations of a scientist undergoing Shrodinger's cat experiment with himself as the cat? What does physics predict for the future observations of a scientist that is killed (at least locally in this part of reality)? Here, for physics to provide an answer, we require a fully fleshed out ontology: we need to know answers to questions like: - Is the universe spatially infinite? - Is there an eternal succession of big bangs? - Is there a quantum multiverse? - Is it possible this experience is duplicated in a simulation elsewhere? Etc. Physics will remain incomplete without answers to these questions, because without answering these questions, physics will fail to provide answers to the questions of what the scientist will experience, and physics is the science expected to provide answers concerning future expected observations. I think to say "physics can't, (or shouldn't try to), answer these questions." is to needlessly constrain physics. > > > True, it may do so, but my reasoning I think, remains the same. > > > > Well perhaps this is the evidence you're looking for. If we, say, > discover a glider in the GoL universe and then copy it and paste it > > into its own GoL space where it can enjoy gliding forever, then here is > an example of "someone" whom underwent the procedure, so you > > know it alcan and does happen for some entities. Now consider: what is > the simulated universe is more complex and the entity we copy > > into a simulation of our choosing is conscious? > > Could you expand a bit on this point? > Here are some examples of our exploration of the GoL universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE&t=75s Note there is no upper bound to the complexity of objects that can exist there, people have been able to build Turing machines inside them. Imagine we found something in one of these very alien universes that was sentient, or even intelligent. We could then create a simulation of its world, copy it into that environment, and also create a communication portal so that scientists here could communicate with that being. From it's perspective, it might be sitting in its living room one moment, then suddenly find itself elsewhere, in a place it doesn't recognize. Our scientists might use avatars to appear within that environment to talk to it, or we might create a "window" via something like a TV screen in its virtual environment where it could look at it out into the computer lab where the scientists are gathered around. Computer simulate is a tool that lets us explore and create other realities, and this would be an example of it's ultimate capacity -- the ability to effectively travel to other universes and interact with their inhabitants. For this reason, universes are never entirely causally isolated from one another, they can peer into other universes, extract information from them, and that information can effect the goings on in that universe. For example, the fact that I've written the word "glider" a name referring to an object that exists in another universe , is a direct example of how another universe can have causal impacts on our universe. In the same way as we have learned about gliders, entities in another universe could learn about objects called "Daniel" and "Jason" who inhabit this universe. Upon discovering us, we could be copied into environments in their universes, we could then directly interact with those beings if they open a portal for communication. Others have written about this concept, for example: "The body and memory collection could be set in any simulated background environment the Omega Point wished: a simulated world indistinguishable from the long-extinct society and physical universe of the revived dead person; or even a world that never existed, but one as close as logically possible to the ideal fantasy world of the resurrected dead person. Furthermore all possible combinations of resurrected dead can be placed in the same simulation and allowed to interact. For example, the reader could be placed in a simulation with all of his or her ancestors and descendants." -- Frank Tipler in ?The Omega Point as Eshaton ? (1989) "When we die, the rules surely change. As our brains and bodies cease to function in the normal way, it takes greater and greater contrivances and coincidences to explain continuing consciousness by their operation. We lose our ties to physical reality, but, in the space of all possible worlds, that cannot be the end. Our consciousness continues to exist in some of those, and we will always find ourselves in worlds where we exist and never in ones where we don?t. The nature of the next simplest world that can host us, after we abandon physical law, I cannot guess." -- Hans Moravec in ?Simulation, Consciousness, Existence ? (1998) "An afterlife in a different simulation or at a different level of reality after death-in-the-simulation would be a real possibility. It is even conceivable that the simulators might reward or punish their simulated creatures based to how they behave, perhaps according to familiar moral or religious norms (a possibility that gains a little bit of credibility from the possibility that the simulators might be the descendants of earlier humans who recognized these norms)." -- Nick Bostrom in ?The Simulation Argument FAQ ? (2008) Jason > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via > extropy-chat wrote: > > > Hello Stuart, > > > > > > Just a quick question from someone not very > knowledgeable of cutting > > > edge physics. > > > > > > You say that > > > > > > that a copy of you can truly be you, > then you can relax because you are already immortal. You > > > don't need to > > > copy yourself because there are already > plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you strewn about > > > the > > > multiverse. > > > > > > > > > What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you > and multiverses supported by proof or is itone of many > > > interpretations of > > > current theories? > > > > > > > > > Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in > the sense that the probability there's only one > > universe > > > (with one kind of > > > physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. > > > > > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ > > > > > > This is as close to proof as anything science can > provide. > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Best regards, Daniel > > > > > > > > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > > > > This is a crucial point, for those > of us interested in uploading, so I think we should > > > really > > > understand it, yet it makes no > sense to me. Would you please explain further? > > > > > > Could you also please explain the > comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not > > being > > > the > > > same thing? > > > > > > Ben > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > 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 hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 16:34:27 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 09:34:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] AI scores in the top 1% percentile of human creative thinkers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 4:13?AM John Clark wrote: > > AI scores in the top percentile of creative thinking snip > it tells you that the Singularity is much nearer than anyone, including me, would've expected one year ago. But that's exactly what you'd expect to happen in the run up to the Singularity because the unexpected is what a singularity is all about. True. My wife and I have been on top of this since the early 80s when we edited Drexler's Engines of Creation. Progress in AI over the last year has been mind-boggling. It seems that no level of mental preparation can deal with the strange reality we find ourselves in. And if that isn't enough, we seem to have found aliens around a mess of fairly close stars. Keith > > John K Clark > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv2B7W3WxMO7wRHPSTs8JO6bOppRiWADQ9vU4W-jxQQhvg%40mail.gmail.com. From efc at swisscows.email Mon Aug 28 16:42:55 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 18:42:55 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Thank you Jason. It would be fun if there were any passionate people on the list who subscribe to the other interpretations as well. I'm sure that that conversation would be much more stimulating, than the one between you and an agnostic. ;) Best regards, Daniel On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 8:59?AM efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > Thank you Bill. I was reading up on this yesterday evening and found > the following on plain old wikipedia: > > "Some scientists consider MWI unfalsifiable and hence unscientific because > the multiple parallel universes are non-communicating, in the sense that > no information can be passed between them." > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation#Rejection > > > I think it's rather quite the opposite: > CI and collapse are unfalsifiable, principally?because collapse theories never even define what collapse is, nor when exactly it > happens, but also beccause collapse is also just as observable?as the decohered worlds in many worlds. > > I also disagree with the assessment that MW is not falsifiable. If we run a conscious mind on a quantum computer, and the quantum > computation fails due to the consciousness of the mind on the computer causing collapse, and it eliminates the interference pattern, > then MW is falsified. > > Here is David Deutsch's description of the experiment:?https://photos.app.goo.gl/4rrNMdbmSsHGsLkh9 > ? > > > And further down, I read that when students are allowed to vote, the > copenhagen interpretation still wins, but, the MWI is climbing. > > > That's interesting. Though it ma be biased as CI is normally how QM is introduced to students. It is interesting to see such a > divergence when expert theorists are considered: > > From:?https://anthropic-principle.com/preprints/manyworlds > > Q1 Who believes in many-worlds? > ---------------------------- > "Political scientist" L David Raub reports a poll of 72 of the "leading > cosmologists and other quantum field theorists" about the "Many-Worlds > Interpretation" and gives the following response breakdown [T]. > > > 1) "Yes, I think MWI is true" 58% > 2) "No, I don't accept MWI" 18% > 3) "Maybe it's true but I'm not yet convinced" 13% > 4) "I have no opinion one way or the other" 11% > > > Amongst the "Yes, I think MWI is true" crowd listed are Stephen Hawking > and Nobel Laureates Murray Gell-Mann and Richard Feynman. Gell-Mann and > Hawking recorded reservations with the name "many-worlds", but not with > the theory's content. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg is also mentioned > as a many-worlder, although the suggestion is not when the poll was > conducted, presumably before 1988 (when Feynman died). The only "No, > I don't accept MWI" named is Penrose. > > > ? > Jason > > > > > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 08:53, efc--- via extropy-chat > > wrote: > >> > >> Thank you Stuart, on top of that I think Jason made some good point as > >> well, and I have to agree, that it seems like one of the worst > >> interpretations. > >> > >> Best regards, Daniel > >> _______________________________________________ > > > > > > The problem with quantum theory is that nobody knows the solution and > > researchers are desperately trying to understand the weird quantum > > world. > > > > Quanta magazine has a long article discussing the problems with the > > Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). > > > > > > Quote: > > Why the Many-Worlds Interpretation Has Many Problems > > The idea that the universe splits into multiple realities with every > > measurement has become an increasingly popular proposed solution to > > the mysteries of quantum mechanics. But this ?many-worlds > > interpretation? is incoherent, Philip Ball argues in this adapted > > excerpt from his new book Beyond Weird. > > By Philip Ball? ? ? October 18, 2018 > > > > What quantum theory seems to insist is that at the fundamental level > > the world cannot supply clear ?yes/no? empirical answers to all the > > questions that seem at face value as though they should have one. The > > calm acceptance of that fact by the Copenhagen interpretation seems to > > some, and with good reason, to be far too unsatisfactory and > > complacent. The MWI is an exuberant attempt to rescue the ?yes/no? by > > admitting both of them at once. But in the end, if you say everything > > is true, you have said nothing. > > --------------- > > > > BillK > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From pharos at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 17:08:05 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 18:08:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 17:46, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > Thank you Jason. It would be fun if there were any passionate people on > the list who subscribe to the other interpretations as well. I'm sure that > that conversation would be much more stimulating, than the one between you > and an agnostic. ;) > > Best regards, Daniel >_______________________________________________ I asked a passing AI - 'Does the multiverse imply that humans after death live on in another universe?' The AI considered for a few seconds, looked rather shocked at the question and replied - The concept of the multiverse is a theoretical framework that suggests the existence of multiple universes, each with its own set of physical laws, constants, and initial conditions. While the idea of the multiverse has gained popularity in scientific and philosophical discussions, it is important to note that it remains a speculative concept without empirical evidence. In the context of the multiverse, there are various interpretations and theories regarding what happens to humans after death. However, it is crucial to emphasize that these ideas are purely speculative and not supported by scientific evidence. One interpretation suggests that if the multiverse exists, there could be universes where life continues after death in some form. This idea stems from the notion that if there are infinite universes, then every possible outcome and variation would occur somewhere within this vast cosmic landscape. Therefore, proponents argue that there might be universes where consciousness or some form of existence persists beyond physical death. However, it is important to recognize that this interpretation relies on several assumptions and speculative reasoning. Firstly, it assumes that consciousness can exist independently of a physical body, which is a topic of ongoing debate within philosophy and neuroscience. Secondly, it assumes that the multiverse exists and operates in a way that allows for such variations in the laws of physics and the nature of existence. It is crucial to highlight that these ideas are highly speculative and fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. The concept of the multiverse itself remains hypothetical and lacks empirical evidence at present. While the multiverse hypothesis has gained attention in recent years due to its potential implications for cosmology and fundamental physics, it is still an area of active research with many unanswered questions. Scientists are currently exploring various theoretical frameworks such as string theory, inflationary cosmology, and quantum mechanics to better understand the possibility of a multiverse. In conclusion, while the concept of the multiverse opens up intriguing possibilities for different forms of existence beyond death, it is important to approach these ideas with caution. The multiverse remains a speculative concept without empirical evidence, and any claims about the fate of human consciousness after death in other universes are purely speculative and fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. ---------------------- Sounds reasonable to me. :) BillK From efc at swisscows.email Mon Aug 28 17:41:15 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 19:41:15 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <421f5c7f-00b7-8054-397b-d165a53a5b68@swisscows.email> Hello Bill, On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > Sounds reasonable to me. :) To me too, but I enjoy discussing the topic, since I might be persuaded by the arguments and change my mind. But at the moment, I tend to agree with the AI. When it comes to which interpretation I find most plausible, I'll suspend my judgment at the moment but I do think I can say so far, that superdeterminism is not for me. Best regards, Daniel > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 18:40:54 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:40:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 28, 2023, 1:09 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 17:46, efc--- via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > Thank you Jason. It would be fun if there were any passionate people on > > the list who subscribe to the other interpretations as well. I'm sure > that > > that conversation would be much more stimulating, than the one between > you > > and an agnostic. ;) > > > > Best regards, Daniel > >_______________________________________________ > > > I asked a passing AI - > 'Does the multiverse imply that humans after death live on in another > universe?' > > The AI considered for a few seconds, looked rather shocked at the > question and replied - > > The concept of the multiverse is a theoretical framework that suggests > the existence of multiple universes, each with its own set of physical > laws, constants, and initial conditions. While the idea of the > multiverse has gained popularity in scientific and philosophical > discussions, it is important to note that it remains a speculative > concept without empirical evidence. > I would say it is at present, the default theory in many domains of science: Particle physics: string theory implies a landscape of many possibile universes ruled by different possible equations allowed under string theory. Quantum mechanics: all interpretations of QM are multiverse theories, CI just says all but one of the other universes disappear when we look at them, and Bohm just says that the people in the other universes not guided by the pilot wave are zombies (not conscious), so we don't have to worry about them. Cosmology: inflation is the default explanation of the big bang, we have empirical evidence for it, and it also implies an infinity of universes. Also, the standard model of cosmology assumes a flat (infinite) space, which implies an infinity of copies of both Earth and yourself. Fine-tuning: At present, the only scientific explanation for all the fine tuning coincidences is a multiverse (the other possible answer being intelligent design) Mathematics: most mathematicians are platonists (mathematical realists), if all possible mathematical structures exist, some of them will be like our universe, and will contain life and self aware substitutes, this is Tegmark's level 4 multiverse. So you might say these are speculative (what in science isn't?), but it's worth pointing out that the idea of a multiverse is also the mainstream, default, or only theory we have in many fields. Jason > In the context of the multiverse, there are various interpretations > and theories regarding what happens to humans after death. However, it > is crucial to emphasize that these ideas are purely speculative and > not supported by scientific evidence. > > One interpretation suggests that if the multiverse exists, there could > be universes where life continues after death in some form. This idea > stems from the notion that if there are infinite universes, then every > possible outcome and variation would occur somewhere within this vast > cosmic landscape. Therefore, proponents argue that there might be > universes where consciousness or some form of existence persists > beyond physical death. > > However, it is important to recognize that this interpretation relies > on several assumptions and speculative reasoning. Firstly, it assumes > that consciousness can exist independently of a physical body, which > is a topic of ongoing debate within philosophy and neuroscience. > Secondly, it assumes that the multiverse exists and operates in a way > that allows for such variations in the laws of physics and the nature > of existence. > > It is crucial to highlight that these ideas are highly speculative and > fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. The concept of the > multiverse itself remains hypothetical and lacks empirical evidence at > present. > > While the multiverse hypothesis has gained attention in recent years > due to its potential implications for cosmology and fundamental > physics, it is still an area of active research with many unanswered > questions. Scientists are currently exploring various theoretical > frameworks such as string theory, inflationary cosmology, and quantum > mechanics to better understand the possibility of a multiverse. > > In conclusion, while the concept of the multiverse opens up intriguing > possibilities for different forms of existence beyond death, it is > important to approach these ideas with caution. The multiverse remains > a speculative concept without empirical evidence, and any claims about > the fate of human consciousness after death in other universes are > purely speculative and fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. > ---------------------- > > Sounds reasonable to me. :) > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 18:59:29 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 11:59:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: If you are serious about living a long time, sign up for cryonics. Keith On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 11:42?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > On Mon, Aug 28, 2023, 1:09 PM BillK via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 17:46, efc--- via extropy-chat >> wrote: >> > >> > Thank you Jason. It would be fun if there were any passionate people on >> > the list who subscribe to the other interpretations as well. I'm sure that >> > that conversation would be much more stimulating, than the one between you >> > and an agnostic. ;) >> > >> > Best regards, Daniel >> >_______________________________________________ >> >> >> I asked a passing AI - >> 'Does the multiverse imply that humans after death live on in another universe?' >> >> The AI considered for a few seconds, looked rather shocked at the >> question and replied - >> >> The concept of the multiverse is a theoretical framework that suggests >> the existence of multiple universes, each with its own set of physical >> laws, constants, and initial conditions. While the idea of the >> multiverse has gained popularity in scientific and philosophical >> discussions, it is important to note that it remains a speculative >> concept without empirical evidence. > > > I would say it is at present, the default theory in many domains of science: > > Particle physics: string theory implies a landscape of many possibile universes ruled by different possible equations allowed under string theory. > > Quantum mechanics: all interpretations of QM are multiverse theories, CI just says all but one of the other universes disappear when we look at them, and Bohm just says that the people in the other universes not guided by the pilot wave are zombies (not conscious), so we don't have to worry about them. > > Cosmology: inflation is the default explanation of the big bang, we have empirical evidence for it, and it also implies an infinity of universes. Also, the standard model of cosmology assumes a flat (infinite) space, which implies an infinity of copies of both Earth and yourself. > > Fine-tuning: At present, the only scientific explanation for all the fine tuning coincidences is a multiverse (the other possible answer being intelligent design) > > Mathematics: most mathematicians are platonists (mathematical realists), if all possible mathematical structures exist, some of them will be like our universe, and will contain life and self aware substitutes, this is Tegmark's level 4 multiverse. > > > So you might say these are speculative (what in science isn't?), but it's worth pointing out that the idea of a multiverse is also the mainstream, default, or only theory we have in many fields. > > Jason > > >> >> In the context of the multiverse, there are various interpretations >> and theories regarding what happens to humans after death. However, it >> is crucial to emphasize that these ideas are purely speculative and >> not supported by scientific evidence. >> >> One interpretation suggests that if the multiverse exists, there could >> be universes where life continues after death in some form. This idea >> stems from the notion that if there are infinite universes, then every >> possible outcome and variation would occur somewhere within this vast >> cosmic landscape. Therefore, proponents argue that there might be >> universes where consciousness or some form of existence persists >> beyond physical death. >> >> However, it is important to recognize that this interpretation relies >> on several assumptions and speculative reasoning. Firstly, it assumes >> that consciousness can exist independently of a physical body, which >> is a topic of ongoing debate within philosophy and neuroscience. >> Secondly, it assumes that the multiverse exists and operates in a way >> that allows for such variations in the laws of physics and the nature >> of existence. >> >> It is crucial to highlight that these ideas are highly speculative and >> fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. The concept of the >> multiverse itself remains hypothetical and lacks empirical evidence at >> present. >> >> While the multiverse hypothesis has gained attention in recent years >> due to its potential implications for cosmology and fundamental >> physics, it is still an area of active research with many unanswered >> questions. Scientists are currently exploring various theoretical >> frameworks such as string theory, inflationary cosmology, and quantum >> mechanics to better understand the possibility of a multiverse. >> >> In conclusion, while the concept of the multiverse opens up intriguing >> possibilities for different forms of existence beyond death, it is >> important to approach these ideas with caution. The multiverse remains >> a speculative concept without empirical evidence, and any claims about >> the fate of human consciousness after death in other universes are >> purely speculative and fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. >> ---------------------- >> >> Sounds reasonable to me. :) >> >> >> BillK >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From efc at swisscows.email Mon Aug 28 21:09:56 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 23:09:56 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Wouldn't that just be a waste of money if the multiverse theory is true? Best regards, Daniel On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > If you are serious about living a long time, sign up for cryonics. > > Keith > > On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 11:42?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat > wrote: >> >> >> >> On Mon, Aug 28, 2023, 1:09 PM BillK via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 17:46, efc--- via extropy-chat >>> wrote: >>> > >>> > Thank you Jason. It would be fun if there were any passionate people on >>> > the list who subscribe to the other interpretations as well. I'm sure that >>> > that conversation would be much more stimulating, than the one between you >>> > and an agnostic. ;) >>> > >>> > Best regards, Daniel >>> >_______________________________________________ >>> >>> >>> I asked a passing AI - >>> 'Does the multiverse imply that humans after death live on in another universe?' >>> >>> The AI considered for a few seconds, looked rather shocked at the >>> question and replied - >>> >>> The concept of the multiverse is a theoretical framework that suggests >>> the existence of multiple universes, each with its own set of physical >>> laws, constants, and initial conditions. While the idea of the >>> multiverse has gained popularity in scientific and philosophical >>> discussions, it is important to note that it remains a speculative >>> concept without empirical evidence. >> >> >> I would say it is at present, the default theory in many domains of science: >> >> Particle physics: string theory implies a landscape of many possibile universes ruled by different possible equations allowed under string theory. >> >> Quantum mechanics: all interpretations of QM are multiverse theories, CI just says all but one of the other universes disappear when we look at them, and Bohm just says that the people in the other universes not guided by the pilot wave are zombies (not conscious), so we don't have to worry about them. >> >> Cosmology: inflation is the default explanation of the big bang, we have empirical evidence for it, and it also implies an infinity of universes. Also, the standard model of cosmology assumes a flat (infinite) space, which implies an infinity of copies of both Earth and yourself. >> >> Fine-tuning: At present, the only scientific explanation for all the fine tuning coincidences is a multiverse (the other possible answer being intelligent design) >> >> Mathematics: most mathematicians are platonists (mathematical realists), if all possible mathematical structures exist, some of them will be like our universe, and will contain life and self aware substitutes, this is Tegmark's level 4 multiverse. >> >> >> So you might say these are speculative (what in science isn't?), but it's worth pointing out that the idea of a multiverse is also the mainstream, default, or only theory we have in many fields. >> >> Jason >> >> >>> >>> In the context of the multiverse, there are various interpretations >>> and theories regarding what happens to humans after death. However, it >>> is crucial to emphasize that these ideas are purely speculative and >>> not supported by scientific evidence. >>> >>> One interpretation suggests that if the multiverse exists, there could >>> be universes where life continues after death in some form. This idea >>> stems from the notion that if there are infinite universes, then every >>> possible outcome and variation would occur somewhere within this vast >>> cosmic landscape. Therefore, proponents argue that there might be >>> universes where consciousness or some form of existence persists >>> beyond physical death. >>> >>> However, it is important to recognize that this interpretation relies >>> on several assumptions and speculative reasoning. Firstly, it assumes >>> that consciousness can exist independently of a physical body, which >>> is a topic of ongoing debate within philosophy and neuroscience. >>> Secondly, it assumes that the multiverse exists and operates in a way >>> that allows for such variations in the laws of physics and the nature >>> of existence. >>> >>> It is crucial to highlight that these ideas are highly speculative and >>> fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. The concept of the >>> multiverse itself remains hypothetical and lacks empirical evidence at >>> present. >>> >>> While the multiverse hypothesis has gained attention in recent years >>> due to its potential implications for cosmology and fundamental >>> physics, it is still an area of active research with many unanswered >>> questions. Scientists are currently exploring various theoretical >>> frameworks such as string theory, inflationary cosmology, and quantum >>> mechanics to better understand the possibility of a multiverse. >>> >>> In conclusion, while the concept of the multiverse opens up intriguing >>> possibilities for different forms of existence beyond death, it is >>> important to approach these ideas with caution. The multiverse remains >>> a speculative concept without empirical evidence, and any claims about >>> the fate of human consciousness after death in other universes are >>> purely speculative and fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. >>> ---------------------- >>> >>> Sounds reasonable to me. :) >>> >>> >>> BillK >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From efc at swisscows.email Mon Aug 28 21:39:02 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 23:39:02 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> <61498c06-ffc7-1bdf-4be3-d3135e4add96@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Hello Jason, On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > But what about A and B? > > I am not sure what you are asking. Does what I say below help? Sorry for being unclear. I meant that identity includes both. Not just hw and not just sw, buth both, combined. I'm not saying it solves all problems, but it seems to me as if it does solve at least some challenges. > > For B, consider: we can make small changes to ones mind, adding a memory here, forgetting a memory there, so that, over > time we could > > Externally adding/deleting memories I'd say would constitute a break in > continuity. > > Strictly speaking yes. But what about over the course of normal life? How much is gained and lost between a person when they are five > years old and when they are fifty-five? Is it more accurate to say it's 100% the same person, or is it better to say it's something > like 5-10% the same person? Well, over the course of a life time, and assuming no external interference, I'd say that there is a continuity of both body and mind, as per the laws governing the workings of body and mind. When it comes to the question of if this is a 10% person or a 100% person, that would depend on the context and purpose of the conversation it is used in. > And is there a continuous spectrum between any two persons? If you're talking about one organism separated by time, according to the above, I'd say yes. Separate persons, no. But I think I misunderstand you here. > > Then there are all the problems for which these give no good answer: > > > > For A: > > > > Why are two identical twins not the same person, when each is a continuity of the same fertilized egg (same body)? > > They don't have the same A and B. Different A:s and different B:s. Just > the fact that they occupy different space and later on, will experience > different angles, etc. makes A and B diverge. > > I agree they diverge, but both twins are part of the same continuation of what began as one shared body. If you trace back either > twin over time, you end up at what was a single shared cell (or shared cluster of cells). From a pure bodily-continuity perspective, Ah, but this was my badly made point above, that only bodily-continuity is not enough. In a cell there is no mind, so the question then is not relevant. > if we ask: "what experiences will this body eventually have?" I think this perspective would have to say the experiences of both > twins belong to the future continuations of this cell. Same here. Cell is not enough. The continuity I'd say has to cover both the body and the mind. > This is strange, and something we rarely consider, but it all comes down to: why am I experiencing this perspective, rather than some > other? What pre-conditions were necessary for me to have been born, be alive, and experience life? > > Did it depend on certain atoms?--(what if my mom ate a different lunch when she was pregnant?) Does it depend on certain > genes?--(what if my eyes had been a different color?) I think here maybe we start to diverge into questions of existence, possibly reasons for living, and possibly teleological ideas. > For any of us to have been born, is equivalent to winning a national lottery for every one of our ancestors. This is the > improbability of the requirement of certain genes or certain materials being necessary to your existence. When we abandon such > pre-conditions, the result is universalism/open individualism. But the fact is that you (and I) were. The probability of it is an after construction and also why I am not a fan of philosophical arguments suchas Pascals wager. I think statistics, especially applied in this way, and across ethereal realms leaving our material world, tend to lead us astray. > > Why would receiving a neural prosthesis not be regarded in the same way as death? > > Depends on the circumstances. How is it implemented and when is it > implemented? > > Right now we only have things like artificial hippocampi and retinas, but we can envision a future with entire brains are replaced > after a memory transfer to a new substrate (biological or otherwise). Let's assume a complete brain replacement to a newly grown > brain and memory copy, so mentality is preserved but bodily continuity is discontinuously changed. I think we covered this in the original scenario. I'd argue that a copy, then restored, is not the same person due to the mind factor not being continuous. I do see a possibility for the same person in a ship of theseus procedure, since body and mind continuity would not be violated, but only transformed. > > For B: > > > > Why are two duplicates created by a faulty teleporter not the same person, when each is a continuity of the same mind?? > > They don't occupy the same space, and just by the fact of not doing > that, their minds diverge. > > Yes but we could imagine an upload of a mind to two identical virtual realities. Would it then matter that the two realities were > executed by different CPUs? We know space and time are symmetrical, laws don't change based on location or orientation in spacetime. Yes and no. Depending on how the upload was done, from where to where, and how the continuity of the mind was handled. If a ship of theseus operation was performed, and then copied onto a different set of hardware, that would be one continuous and one copy. If you have linked clones, I could see preservation, but also waste if the two clones always had to give the same answer. Although from a disaster recovery point of view, that would be a fascinating concept! > This is the theme of a very entertaining > science fiction short story by Lars Gustafsson > (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Gustafsson). > > Sounds very interesting! Very much so! That's what you get when a philosopher writes science fiction! ;) > I don't think it is available in english, but I'd love to translate it > if I ever got the chance and permission. > > If you can, or if you find an English translation, please let me know. Well, I guess I'd have to track down the relative who owns the copyright. I do have the book in a box in my attic somewhere. It's not a long book, only 150 pages or so and about 10 stories, so it would not take a long time to translate it into english. > > Why is total amnesia not regarded in the same way as death? > > This is more of an ethical question to me and one frequently debated in > hospitals the world over. > > It's also interesting to consider, we all start from an initial mindless/memoryless state. There is then some primordial state of > consciousness from which we all emerge. And further, during a degradation of a dying mind, we return to this simplest possible > conscious state. For example, let's say the simplest mind state is when I'm the embryo the first neurons wire together and fire for > the first time, and in a dying brain when the last two surviving neurons fire for the last time. Then from the mental continuity > perspective all mine states of all organisms are part of a connected set. I don't see how. It's separate organs, with separate reactions. I can however see and fully acknowledge that from a process point of view, or "tree of life" point of view, we are all related. But that's purely biologically and not related to my mind and sense of identity. > There are also many cases of split brains where each hemisphere remains independently consciousness with its own beliefs, thoughts, > desires, and perceptions. When I return to my computer I can send you more references to both these cases if you are interested. I > find the self reports of those undergoing this procedure to be fascinating. Please do! No need for me to armchair philosophize, when I can read a paper about some fascinating biological procedure! > Laws of physics? This one, I don't understand, but it is getting late > here, so I'll blame my tired brain. ;) > > Physics reveals a complete symmetry and interchangeability between spaces and time. But we seem to have a bias against the latter > situation. If we take time-space symmetry seriously, we must recognize this as a bias internal to us. It suggests that duplicates are > self, as much as the same self is preserved over time. I think that is a very big step and conclusion to make. Could you divide it up into smaller steps? Maybe then I'll see the point. > Thanks. Note that this article just introduces the idea, but doesn't really argue for it. I would recommend Zuboff's linked paper to > see the reasons for believing it. Thank you, will keep that in mind, and have a look at the paper. =) Best regards, Daniel > > Jason? > > > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > Jason? > > ? > > > > > > > > > >? ? ? ?On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?The question you are asking about below concerns the topic in philosophy known as personal identity. That > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?topic asks: which I > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?experiences belong to which person's, in other words, how do we define the temporal borders of a person. > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?There are in general three > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?approaches generally taken: > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?1. No-self/Anatta/empty individualism: each observer-moment, or thought-moment is its own isolated thing, > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?there's no such thing as a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?self which has multiple distinct thought-moments. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?2. Continuity theories/closed individualism:? either bodily or psychological continuity. A self is a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?continual things either though > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?the continuation of some physical body, or some more abstractly defined psychological organization. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?3. Universalism/open Individualism: There are no bodily or psychological preconditions for an experience > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?being yours, all experiences > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?are I, and in truth there is only one mind. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?I think #2 leads to contradictions. #1 and #3 are logically consistent. Between #1 and #3, #3 is more > useful > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?(it permits decision > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?theory) and further, there are strong probabilistic arguments for it. For example, those given in "One > self: > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?the logic of experience" > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?which I cite here: > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?https://alwaysasking.com/is-there-life-after-death/#10_Open_Individualism_and_the_Afterlife > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?One consequence of Open Individualism is that it dissolves any concern of whether some particular copy is > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?you, as all conscious > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?perspectives are you. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?Jason? > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? My position is that a separate uploaded copy of me is not me, thus would not grant the physical me > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?immortality. I would > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? look at it as a mind-seed, or something slightly similar to a part of me that lives on, just as a > part > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?of me lives on in > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? a child, although actually that part is way more of me, than in a child. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? However, when talking about continuity and uploading, I think the ship of theseus uploading is much > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?more interesting from > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? an identity point of view. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? As some, or all of you already know, imagine that I'm uploaded neruon by neuron, over time. I would > not > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?have a break, and > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? my mind would transition onto the new media. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? I would like to know what the people here who do not believe uploading grants a form of immortality > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?think about that > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? scenario? Would it fit in with your idea of identity and would you see yourselves being "immortal" > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?through a shop of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? theseus procedure if it were possible? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? As for the copy approach, a starting point for me would be that my identity is probably based on my > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?mind, sense of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? continuity and location. In a copy, continuity and location would go 2x, and thus not work with the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?definition of > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, both continuity would be perserved, and location would > be > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?single. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Best regards, > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Daniel > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality is not so much > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?continuity > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, they're not the same thing]. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload will remember being > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?me, but > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. And no, killing me painlessly, or even > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? instantaneously, during or in the immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?problem > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? either. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied me, but you haven't > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?moved > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I want to be immortal. > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something that, when copied, somehow changes > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?into 'not-me'. > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? I don't understand this. If it's an exact copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can there > not > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?now be two > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? 'me's? Two identical beings, in every way, including their subjective experience, with no > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?discontinuity with > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? the original singular being? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will get a copy, and I will keep a > copy. > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?Which one is > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? the real message? If they were conscious, why would that make any difference? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". But how do you move data? You make > a > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?second copy > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? of it then delete the first copy. So destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving > me', > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?yet you say > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? it wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a belief in an uncopyable supernatural > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?'soul') how > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? this could be. > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we should really > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?understand it, > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not being the > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?same thing? > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? Ben > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 28 22:23:48 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (Gregory Jones) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 15:23:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Sure would. Aaaaaaalllll that money in aaaaallll those parallel universes, and here I am with no way to get over there, scoop it all up and sneak back over here with it. Tragic I tells ya. spike On Mon, Aug 28, 2023, 2:11 PM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Wouldn't that just be a waste of money if the multiverse theory is true? > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > > > If you are serious about living a long time, sign up for cryonics. > > > > Keith > > > > On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 11:42?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat > > wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >> On Mon, Aug 28, 2023, 1:09 PM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >>> > >>> On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 17:46, efc--- via extropy-chat > >>> wrote: > >>> > > >>> > Thank you Jason. It would be fun if there were any passionate people > on > >>> > the list who subscribe to the other interpretations as well. I'm > sure that > >>> > that conversation would be much more stimulating, than the one > between you > >>> > and an agnostic. ;) > >>> > > >>> > Best regards, Daniel > >>> >_______________________________________________ > >>> > >>> > >>> I asked a passing AI - > >>> 'Does the multiverse imply that humans after death live on in another > universe?' > >>> > >>> The AI considered for a few seconds, looked rather shocked at the > >>> question and replied - > >>> > >>> The concept of the multiverse is a theoretical framework that suggests > >>> the existence of multiple universes, each with its own set of physical > >>> laws, constants, and initial conditions. While the idea of the > >>> multiverse has gained popularity in scientific and philosophical > >>> discussions, it is important to note that it remains a speculative > >>> concept without empirical evidence. > >> > >> > >> I would say it is at present, the default theory in many domains of > science: > >> > >> Particle physics: string theory implies a landscape of many possibile > universes ruled by different possible equations allowed under string theory. > >> > >> Quantum mechanics: all interpretations of QM are multiverse theories, > CI just says all but one of the other universes disappear when we look at > them, and Bohm just says that the people in the other universes not guided > by the pilot wave are zombies (not conscious), so we don't have to worry > about them. > >> > >> Cosmology: inflation is the default explanation of the big bang, we > have empirical evidence for it, and it also implies an infinity of > universes. Also, the standard model of cosmology assumes a flat (infinite) > space, which implies an infinity of copies of both Earth and yourself. > >> > >> Fine-tuning: At present, the only scientific explanation for all the > fine tuning coincidences is a multiverse (the other possible answer being > intelligent design) > >> > >> Mathematics: most mathematicians are platonists (mathematical > realists), if all possible mathematical structures exist, some of them will > be like our universe, and will contain life and self aware substitutes, > this is Tegmark's level 4 multiverse. > >> > >> > >> So you might say these are speculative (what in science isn't?), but > it's worth pointing out that the idea of a multiverse is also the > mainstream, default, or only theory we have in many fields. > >> > >> Jason > >> > >> > >>> > >>> In the context of the multiverse, there are various interpretations > >>> and theories regarding what happens to humans after death. However, it > >>> is crucial to emphasize that these ideas are purely speculative and > >>> not supported by scientific evidence. > >>> > >>> One interpretation suggests that if the multiverse exists, there could > >>> be universes where life continues after death in some form. This idea > >>> stems from the notion that if there are infinite universes, then every > >>> possible outcome and variation would occur somewhere within this vast > >>> cosmic landscape. Therefore, proponents argue that there might be > >>> universes where consciousness or some form of existence persists > >>> beyond physical death. > >>> > >>> However, it is important to recognize that this interpretation relies > >>> on several assumptions and speculative reasoning. Firstly, it assumes > >>> that consciousness can exist independently of a physical body, which > >>> is a topic of ongoing debate within philosophy and neuroscience. > >>> Secondly, it assumes that the multiverse exists and operates in a way > >>> that allows for such variations in the laws of physics and the nature > >>> of existence. > >>> > >>> It is crucial to highlight that these ideas are highly speculative and > >>> fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. The concept of the > >>> multiverse itself remains hypothetical and lacks empirical evidence at > >>> present. > >>> > >>> While the multiverse hypothesis has gained attention in recent years > >>> due to its potential implications for cosmology and fundamental > >>> physics, it is still an area of active research with many unanswered > >>> questions. Scientists are currently exploring various theoretical > >>> frameworks such as string theory, inflationary cosmology, and quantum > >>> mechanics to better understand the possibility of a multiverse. > >>> > >>> In conclusion, while the concept of the multiverse opens up intriguing > >>> possibilities for different forms of existence beyond death, it is > >>> important to approach these ideas with caution. The multiverse remains > >>> a speculative concept without empirical evidence, and any claims about > >>> the fate of human consciousness after death in other universes are > >>> purely speculative and fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. > >>> ---------------------- > >>> > >>> Sounds reasonable to me. :) > >>> > >>> > >>> BillK > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> extropy-chat mailing list > >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> extropy-chat mailing list > >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 22:40:33 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 15:40:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: n Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 2:11?PM efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > Wouldn't that just be a waste of money if the multiverse theory is true? There is a long list of things that might make cryonics a waste of money. But this one has never made any list I know about. Keith > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > > > If you are serious about living a long time, sign up for cryonics. > > > > Keith > > > > On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 11:42?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat > > wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >> On Mon, Aug 28, 2023, 1:09 PM BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > >>> > >>> On Mon, 28 Aug 2023 at 17:46, efc--- via extropy-chat > >>> wrote: > >>> > > >>> > Thank you Jason. It would be fun if there were any passionate people on > >>> > the list who subscribe to the other interpretations as well. I'm sure that > >>> > that conversation would be much more stimulating, than the one between you > >>> > and an agnostic. ;) > >>> > > >>> > Best regards, Daniel > >>> >_______________________________________________ > >>> > >>> > >>> I asked a passing AI - > >>> 'Does the multiverse imply that humans after death live on in another universe?' > >>> > >>> The AI considered for a few seconds, looked rather shocked at the > >>> question and replied - > >>> > >>> The concept of the multiverse is a theoretical framework that suggests > >>> the existence of multiple universes, each with its own set of physical > >>> laws, constants, and initial conditions. While the idea of the > >>> multiverse has gained popularity in scientific and philosophical > >>> discussions, it is important to note that it remains a speculative > >>> concept without empirical evidence. > >> > >> > >> I would say it is at present, the default theory in many domains of science: > >> > >> Particle physics: string theory implies a landscape of many possibile universes ruled by different possible equations allowed under string theory. > >> > >> Quantum mechanics: all interpretations of QM are multiverse theories, CI just says all but one of the other universes disappear when we look at them, and Bohm just says that the people in the other universes not guided by the pilot wave are zombies (not conscious), so we don't have to worry about them. > >> > >> Cosmology: inflation is the default explanation of the big bang, we have empirical evidence for it, and it also implies an infinity of universes. Also, the standard model of cosmology assumes a flat (infinite) space, which implies an infinity of copies of both Earth and yourself. > >> > >> Fine-tuning: At present, the only scientific explanation for all the fine tuning coincidences is a multiverse (the other possible answer being intelligent design) > >> > >> Mathematics: most mathematicians are platonists (mathematical realists), if all possible mathematical structures exist, some of them will be like our universe, and will contain life and self aware substitutes, this is Tegmark's level 4 multiverse. > >> > >> > >> So you might say these are speculative (what in science isn't?), but it's worth pointing out that the idea of a multiverse is also the mainstream, default, or only theory we have in many fields. > >> > >> Jason > >> > >> > >>> > >>> In the context of the multiverse, there are various interpretations > >>> and theories regarding what happens to humans after death. However, it > >>> is crucial to emphasize that these ideas are purely speculative and > >>> not supported by scientific evidence. > >>> > >>> One interpretation suggests that if the multiverse exists, there could > >>> be universes where life continues after death in some form. This idea > >>> stems from the notion that if there are infinite universes, then every > >>> possible outcome and variation would occur somewhere within this vast > >>> cosmic landscape. Therefore, proponents argue that there might be > >>> universes where consciousness or some form of existence persists > >>> beyond physical death. > >>> > >>> However, it is important to recognize that this interpretation relies > >>> on several assumptions and speculative reasoning. Firstly, it assumes > >>> that consciousness can exist independently of a physical body, which > >>> is a topic of ongoing debate within philosophy and neuroscience. > >>> Secondly, it assumes that the multiverse exists and operates in a way > >>> that allows for such variations in the laws of physics and the nature > >>> of existence. > >>> > >>> It is crucial to highlight that these ideas are highly speculative and > >>> fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. The concept of the > >>> multiverse itself remains hypothetical and lacks empirical evidence at > >>> present. > >>> > >>> While the multiverse hypothesis has gained attention in recent years > >>> due to its potential implications for cosmology and fundamental > >>> physics, it is still an area of active research with many unanswered > >>> questions. Scientists are currently exploring various theoretical > >>> frameworks such as string theory, inflationary cosmology, and quantum > >>> mechanics to better understand the possibility of a multiverse. > >>> > >>> In conclusion, while the concept of the multiverse opens up intriguing > >>> possibilities for different forms of existence beyond death, it is > >>> important to approach these ideas with caution. The multiverse remains > >>> a speculative concept without empirical evidence, and any claims about > >>> the fate of human consciousness after death in other universes are > >>> purely speculative and fall outside the realm of scientific inquiry. > >>> ---------------------- > >>> > >>> Sounds reasonable to me. :) > >>> > >>> > >>> BillK > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> extropy-chat mailing list > >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> extropy-chat mailing list > >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike at rainier66.com Mon Aug 28 23:06:28 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (Gregory Jones) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 16:06:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] marilyn Message-ID: To those who wrote encouraging words to Marilyn a few weeks ago, they worked. She attend her eagle scout court of honor yesterday under her own power. Youth is a marvelous ally in the healing process. Thx to all her supporters. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 23:46:02 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 18:46:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> <61498c06-ffc7-1bdf-4be3-d3135e4add96@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 4:40?PM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hello Jason, > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > But what about A and B? > > > > I am not sure what you are asking. Does what I say below help? > > Sorry for being unclear. I meant that identity includes both. Not just > hw and not just sw, buth both, combined. I'm not saying it solves all > problems, but it seems to me as if it does solve at least some > challenges. > Ahh I see what you mean now. One could define personal identity in terms of the continuity of the same body and mind, but then the question is how strict must the similarity be for the identity to hold? If completely strict, you end up with the empty individualism of #1, if unrestricted you end up with the open individualism of #3, since if one permits gradual changes, it is still subject to gradually morphing into any other person, and even with the restriction of bodily continuity, our metabolism is constantly churning out old material and replacing it with new material, (something like half the atoms in your brain are replaced every 8 days through metabolism). What if these atoms were collected and used to construct a new version of you, Ship of Theseus style? Which one are you? How do we track bodily continuity when we are each, effectively rivers through which atoms flow? "So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week?s potatoes! That is what now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago?a mind which has long ago been replaced. This is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms, to note that the thing which I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, then go out; always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -- Richard Feynman in ?What do you care what other people think?? (1988) > > > > For B, consider: we can make small changes to ones mind, adding > a memory here, forgetting a memory there, so that, over > > time we could > > > > Externally adding/deleting memories I'd say would constitute a > break in > > continuity. > > > > Strictly speaking yes. But what about over the course of normal life? > How much is gained and lost between a person when they are five > > years old and when they are fifty-five? Is it more accurate to say it's > 100% the same person, or is it better to say it's something > > like 5-10% the same person? > > Well, over the course of a life time, and assuming no external > interference, I'd say that there is a continuity of both body and mind, > as per the laws governing the workings of body and mind. > > When it comes to the question of if this is a 10% person or a 100% > person, that would depend on the context and purpose of the conversation > it is used in. > > > And is there a continuous spectrum between any two persons? > > If you're talking about one organism separated by time, according to the > above, I'd say yes. Separate persons, no. But I think I misunderstand you > here. > I mean from the perspective of within an infinite reality, as described here: "You see, The Object contains the Continuum of Souls. It is a connected set, with a frothy, fractal structure, of rather high dimensionality. The Continuum contains an infinite number of Souls, all Souls in fact, and an infinite number of them are You. Or at least, close enough to being You so that nobody could tell the difference. Not even You. And the Continuum also contains an infinite number of souls that are almost You. And an infinite number that are sort of You. And because it is a Continuum, and because there is really no objective way to tell which one is really You, then any method one uses to try to distinguish between You and non-You will produce nothing but illusion. In a sense, there is only one You, and it is Everyone. Of course, You can tell which one is you, can?t you? Or can you?" -- Douglas Jones in "A Conversation " (1996) > > > > Then there are all the problems for which these give no good > answer: > > > > > > For A: > > > > > > Why are two identical twins not the same person, when each is a > continuity of the same fertilized egg (same body)? > > > > They don't have the same A and B. Different A:s and different B:s. > Just > > the fact that they occupy different space and later on, will > experience > > different angles, etc. makes A and B diverge. > > > > I agree they diverge, but both twins are part of the same continuation > of what began as one shared body. If you trace back either > > twin over time, you end up at what was a single shared cell (or shared > cluster of cells). From a pure bodily-continuity perspective, > > Ah, but this was my badly made point above, that only bodily-continuity > is not enough. In a cell there is no mind, so the question then is not > relevant. > > > if we ask: "what experiences will this body eventually have?" I think > this perspective would have to say the experiences of both > > twins belong to the future continuations of this cell. > > Same here. Cell is not enough. The continuity I'd say has to cover both > the body and the mind. > Do concussions (or any discontinuous break in consciousness) end a person? What about a coma, when someone is unconscious for many months and then awakens with a (materially) completely new body? If continuity of body AND mind are strictly required and must be continuous, then I see interruptions in either as posing problems. > > > This is strange, and something we rarely consider, but it all comes down > to: why am I experiencing this perspective, rather than some > > other? What pre-conditions were necessary for me to have been born, be > alive, and experience life? > > > > Did it depend on certain atoms?--(what if my mom ate a different lunch > when she was pregnant?) Does it depend on certain > > genes?--(what if my eyes had been a different color?) > > I think here maybe we start to diverge into questions of existence, > possibly reasons for living, and possibly teleological ideas. > I don't mean to ask for what purpose or reason we are here, I mean rather: what is the reason you are you, and I am me? What was necessary (physically) for you to be the person you are peering through your eyes? What physical changes might have interrupted or prevented that from happening? What accounts for or explains the fact that you are Daniel (rather than someone else, or no one)? > > > For any of us to have been born, is equivalent to winning a national > lottery for every one of our ancestors. This is the > > improbability of the requirement of certain genes or certain materials > being necessary to your existence. When we abandon such > > pre-conditions, the result is universalism/open individualism. > > But the fact is that you (and I) were. The probability of it is an after > construction and also why I am not a fan of philosophical arguments > suchas Pascals wager. I think statistics, especially applied in this > way, and across ethereal realms leaving our material world, tend to lead > us astray. > Not everyone buys the appropriateness of using probability arguments in this way; but I consider it effectively the same thing as using fine-tuning of the universe: it seems something improbable has happened: is there an explanation? For the fine-tuning, the answer that demystifies the improbability is the anthropic principle. For why you were born, when it seems so unlikely, the answer that demystifies the improbability is open individualism. > > > > Why would receiving a neural prosthesis not be regarded in the > same way as death? > > > > Depends on the circumstances. How is it implemented and when is it > > implemented? > > > > Right now we only have things like artificial hippocampi and retinas, > but we can envision a future with entire brains are replaced > > after a memory transfer to a new substrate (biological or otherwise). > Let's assume a complete brain replacement to a newly grown > > brain and memory copy, so mentality is preserved but bodily continuity > is discontinuously changed. > > I think we covered this in the original scenario. I'd argue that a copy, > then restored, is not the same person due to the mind factor not being > continuous. I do see a possibility for the same person in a ship of > theseus procedure, since body and mind continuity would not be violated, > but only transformed. > What do you make the ship of Theseus where the old/original planks are secretly gathered and used to reconstruct the ship in its original form? What would you make of applying the same to a person's body, whose old atoms are collected and reformed into an identical copy? > > > > For B: > > > > > > Why are two duplicates created by a faulty teleporter not the > same person, when each is a continuity of the same mind? > > > > They don't occupy the same space, and just by the fact of not doing > > that, their minds diverge. > > > > Yes but we could imagine an upload of a mind to two identical virtual > realities. Would it then matter that the two realities were > > executed by different CPUs? We know space and time are symmetrical, laws > don't change based on location or orientation in spacetime. > > Yes and no. Depending on how the upload was done, from where to where, > and how the continuity of the mind was handled. If a ship of theseus > operation was performed, and then copied onto a different set of > hardware, that would be one continuous and one copy. If you have linked > clones, I could see preservation, but also waste if the two clones > always had to give the same answer. Although from a disaster recovery > point of view, that would be a fascinating concept! > Yes, this is actually a theme of the TV show Foundation. Backup clones are kept, and new memories are constantly synchronized to their brains. > > > This is the theme of a very entertaining > > science fiction short story by Lars Gustafsson > > (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Gustafsson). > > > > Sounds very interesting! > > Very much so! That's what you get when a philosopher writes science > fiction! ;) > > > I don't think it is available in english, but I'd love to > translate it > > if I ever got the chance and permission. > > > > If you can, or if you find an English translation, please let me know. > > Well, I guess I'd have to track down the relative who owns the > copyright. I do have the book in a box in my attic somewhere. It's not a > long book, only 150 pages or so and about 10 stories, so it would not > take a long time to translate it into english. > > > > Why is total amnesia not regarded in the same way as death? > > > > This is more of an ethical question to me and one frequently > debated in > > hospitals the world over. > > > > It's also interesting to consider, we all start from an initial > mindless/memoryless state. There is then some primordial state of > > consciousness from which we all emerge. And further, during a > degradation of a dying mind, we return to this simplest possible > > conscious state. For example, let's say the simplest mind state is when > I'm the embryo the first neurons wire together and fire for > > the first time, and in a dying brain when the last two surviving neurons > fire for the last time. Then from the mental continuity > > perspective all mine states of all organisms are part of a connected set. > > I don't see how. It's separate organs, with separate reactions. I can > however see and fully acknowledge that from a process point of view, or > "tree of life" point of view, we are all related. But that's purely > biologically and not related to my mind and sense of identity. > Here I was operating from the assumption of mind continuity. This is what I would say is the view (common among physicalists/materialists/functionalists) where if you stepped into a teleporter, you would survive on the other end when you were reconstructed, even if new atoms were used. If we can survive teleporters, then it's the mind-state that must be preserved for survival, not any particular collection of atoms. In this case, if the last mind state of a dying brain happens to be the same mind state of another brain which continues on, this is in effect, identical to the transporter scenario. The mind survives because its mind-state is instantiated elsewhere where it continues on, despite that different material is used. This does not work if you require bodily continuity as well, as every night when we sleep, atoms are discontinuously replaced between successive moments of consciousness (between when we fall asleep at night and awaken in the morning, our bodies have changed, food has metabolized and become part of our bodies, carbon from our bodies has been exhaled as CO2, etc.). > > > There are also many cases of split brains where each hemisphere remains > independently consciousness with its own beliefs, thoughts, > > desires, and perceptions. When I return to my computer I can send you > more references to both these cases if you are interested. I > > find the self reports of those undergoing this procedure to be > fascinating. > > Please do! No need for me to armchair philosophize, when I can read a > paper about some fascinating biological procedure! > *Hodan Twins:* https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/the-hogan-twins-share-a-brain-and-see-out-of-each-others-eyes Two conjoined twins were born with separate brains connected by a "thalamic bridge" which enables them to see out of each other's eyes as well as hear each other's thoughts. *Wada Test:* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wada_test Video of procedure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBKc_ncPzOo Comments from people who underwent it: https://jcblackmon.com/2018/02/02/the-wada-test-for-philosophers-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-proper-part-of-your-own-brain-losing-and-regaining-other-proper-parts-of-your-brain/ "During the procedure they had me hold my arm straight up. For the right side of the brain I didn't notice anything different. For the left side - wow! When he showed me an object I looked at it and had that feeling you get when you can't think of a word, like it's on the tip of your tongue. Only that was true for all words - it was amazing! I had no words." "The Amytal put my left hemisphere to sleep and I was shown 11 cards and asked to read what I saw and remember it. I laughed continuously when I knew what I was looking at, yet couldn?t pronounce the word, sentence or picture I was looking at. I still laugh about it." *Split brains:* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain Operation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosotomy Patient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo Reports: Paul was unusual in that he possessed verbal capacities in both his right and left hemispheres. This enabled each of his minds to be interviewed concerning their thoughts, beliefs, and desires. When asked his name, both hemispheres answered "Paul." When asked his location, both answered "Vermont." But when asked what he wanted to be, his right hemisphere answered "Automobile racer" while his left answered "Draftsman." These experiments took place during the Watergate scandal, and so Paul's opinion of President Nixon was queried. His right hemisphere expressed "dislike" while his left hemisphere expressed "like." One wonders how Paul would have voted. It might depend on which hand he used to pull the lever. In addition to preferences, hemispheres can differ even on fundamental beliefs. The neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran recounted the case of a patient with a right hemisphere that believed in God and a left hemisphere that did not. Sometimes these conflicts manifest physically. In a condition known as alien hand syndrome, split-brain patients may find one hemisphere, and the limbs it controls, behaving independently from and contrary to the will of the other. One patient struggled to get dressed in the morning. While his left hemisphere (and right hand) tried to pull his pants up, his left hand would pull them down. On a separate occasion, this same patient became angry at his wife. His left hand attacked her while his right hand tried to protect her! Roger Sperry, who received a Nobel prize for his work on split-brains, remarked "Although some authorities have been reluctant to credit the disconnected minor hemisphere even with being conscious, it is our own interpretation, based on a large number and variety of non-verbal tests, that the minor hemisphere is indeed a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing, and emoting, all at a characteristically human level, and that both the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in different, even in mutually conflicting, mental experiences that run along in parallel." > > > Laws of physics? This one, I don't understand, but it is getting > late > > here, so I'll blame my tired brain. ;) > > > > Physics reveals a complete symmetry and interchangeability between > spaces and time. But we seem to have a bias against the latter > > situation. If we take time-space symmetry seriously, we must recognize > this as a bias internal to us. It suggests that duplicates are > > self, as much as the same self is preserved over time. > > I think that is a very big step and conclusion to make. Could you divide > it up into smaller steps? Maybe then I'll see the point. > I've attached and excerpt from something I wrote that goes into this in more detail, in particular see the story about the "Duplicators vs. Restorers" (Also, I have included also the story of the deep space travelers, which also introduces some of the issues with personal identity, particularly as it it pertains to duplication. It's not relevant to the interchangeability of space and time, but you might still find it interesting.) I also found these archived pages of an old member of this list, Lee Corbin, who wrote several articles on personal identiy, which are an interesting read, and relate to this topic: - "Why Duplicates Are Self: A Proof " - "The Pit and the Duplicate " - "Continuity of Identity: The Last Refuge of the Soul " > > > Thanks. Note that this article just introduces the idea, but doesn't > really argue for it. I would recommend Zuboff's linked paper to > > see the reasons for believing it. > > Thank you, will keep that in mind, and have a look at the paper. =) > Thank you as well, for your always great questions and for making me have to think. :-) Jason > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > The question you are asking about below concerns the > topic in philosophy known as personal identity. That > > > topic asks: which I > > > experiences belong to which person's, in other > words, how do we define the temporal borders of a person. > > > There are in general three > > > approaches generally taken: > > > 1. No-self/Anatta/empty individualism: each > observer-moment, or thought-moment is its own isolated thing, > > > there's no such thing as a > > > self which has multiple distinct thought-moments. > > > > > > 2. Continuity theories/closed individualism: either > bodily or psychological continuity. A self is a > > > continual things either though > > > the continuation of some physical body, or some more > abstractly defined psychological organization. > > > > > > 3. Universalism/open Individualism: There are no > bodily or psychological preconditions for an experience > > > being yours, all experiences > > > are I, and in truth there is only one mind. > > > > > > I think #2 leads to contradictions. #1 and #3 are > logically consistent. Between #1 and #3, #3 is more > > useful > > > (it permits decision > > > theory) and further, there are strong probabilistic > arguments for it. For example, those given in "One > > self: > > > the logic of experience" > > > which I cite here: > > > > > > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-there-life-after-death/#10_Open_Individualism_and_the_Afterlife > > > > > > One consequence of Open Individualism is that it > dissolves any concern of whether some particular copy is > > > you, as all conscious > > > perspectives are you. > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via > extropy-chat wrote: > > > My position is that a separate uploaded copy > of me is not me, thus would not grant the physical me > > > immortality. I would > > > look at it as a mind-seed, or something > slightly similar to a part of me that lives on, just as a > > part > > > of me lives on in > > > a child, although actually that part is way > more of me, than in a child. > > > > > > However, when talking about continuity and > uploading, I think the ship of theseus uploading is much > > > more interesting from > > > an identity point of view. > > > > > > As some, or all of you already know, imagine > that I'm uploaded neruon by neuron, over time. I would > > not > > > have a break, and > > > my mind would transition onto the new media. > > > > > > I would like to know what the people here who > do not believe uploading grants a form of immortality > > > think about that > > > scenario? Would it fit in with your idea of > identity and would you see yourselves being "immortal" > > > through a shop of > > > theseus procedure if it were possible? > > > > > > As for the copy approach, a starting point for > me would be that my identity is probably based on my > > > mind, sense of > > > continuity and location. In a copy, continuity > and location would go 2x, and thus not work with the > > > definition of > > > identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, > both continuity would be perserved, and location would > > be > > > single. > > > > > > Best regards, > > > Daniel > > > > > > > > > On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via > extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: > > > > > > An important component of what a > lot of people want out of immortality is not so much > > > continuity > > > as it is > not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, they're not the same thing]. > > > > > > If I'm dying of cancer, and you do > a brain scan, the resulting upload will remember being > > > me, but > > > /I'm/ still gonna experience a > painful death. And no, killing me painlessly, or even > > > instantaneously, during or in the > immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't solve the > > > problem > > > either. > > > > > > If "me" is ever on two substrates > simultaneously, you may have copied me, but you haven't > > > moved > > > me, and a copy, by definition, > isn't the me I want to be immortal. > > > > > > > > > So this 'me' that you are talking about, > must be something that, when copied, somehow changes > > > into 'not-me'. > > > I don't understand this. If it's an > exact copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can there > > not > > > now be two > > > 'me's? Two identical beings, in every > way, including their subjective experience, with no > > > discontinuity with > > > the original singular being? > > > > > > When I hit 'send' on this message, > everyone on the list will get a copy, and I will keep a > > copy. > > > Which one is > > > the real message? If they were > conscious, why would that make any difference? > > > > > > You say "you may have copied me, but you > haven't moved me". But how do you move data? You make > > a > > > second copy > > > of it then delete the first copy. So > destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be 'moving > > me', > > > yet you say > > > it wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I > can't see (short of a belief in an uncopyable supernatural > > > 'soul') how > > > this could be. > > > > > > This is a crucial point, for those of us > interested in uploading, so I think we should really > > > understand it, > > > yet it makes no sense to me. Would you > please explain further? > > > > > > Could you also please explain the > comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not being the > > > same thing? > > > > > > Ben > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Duplicators-Restorers.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 40303 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 00:08:55 2023 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 19:08:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] marilyn In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Good to hear! bill w On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 6:08?PM Gregory Jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > To those who wrote encouraging words to Marilyn a few weeks ago, they > worked. She attend her eagle scout court of honor yesterday under her own > power. > > Youth is a marvelous ally in the healing process. Thx to all her > supporters. 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 atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 04:13:34 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 21:13:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 8:26?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I also disagree with the assessment that MW is not falsifiable. If we run > a conscious mind on a quantum computer, and the quantum computation fails > due to the consciousness of the mind on the computer causing collapse, and > it eliminates the interference pattern, then MW is falsified. > > Here is David Deutsch's description of the experiment: > https://photos.app.goo.gl/4rrNMdbmSsHGsLkh9 > How is MW falsified in this case? There can exist events which are the same in all worlds that had the same starting condition, and we would never know. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 04:51:41 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 00:51:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 12:14 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 8:26?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I also disagree with the assessment that MW is not falsifiable. If we run >> a conscious mind on a quantum computer, and the quantum computation fails >> due to the consciousness of the mind on the computer causing collapse, and >> it eliminates the interference pattern, then MW is falsified. >> >> Here is David Deutsch's description of the experiment: >> https://photos.app.goo.gl/4rrNMdbmSsHGsLkh9 >> > > How is MW falsified in this case? There can exist events which are the > same in all worlds that had the same starting condition, and we would > never know. > ______________________________ It's only falsified if the interference pattern isn't restored after quantum erasing the conscious observer's mind. Collapse theories say collapse happens by the time or during conscious observation, and that it is irreversible and destroys the interference pattern. MW on the other hand does not say (apparent) collapse is irreversible, but that everything is linear, continuous and time reversible. It's just hard for normal macroscopic systems to be reversed, hence why it is done on a quantum computer which can be completely controlled and leaks no information to the environment. So if we can fully reverse the system after a conscious observation is made, and erase the which-way information concerning the measurement, then the interference pattern should be recovered, confirming MW and ruling out collapse as any kind of objectively real phenomenon. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 04:53:05 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 21:53:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 27, 2023 at 6:22?PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 2023-08-27 09:33, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > But what about superdeterminism? > > > > Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it > > goes > > against our intuition? > > Not at all. It would mean that quantum mechanics (the most accurate > scientific theory to date) is completely wrong. Superdeterminism would > mean that all agency, choice, chance, luck, and randomness is an > illusion. Not so much. Only such things when considered purely within the universe. But...what, or who, set up the initial conditions? And if they set us up, are they not "us" - the ones who are making decisions - in a sense? Particularly if this was multiple agents, each one far from omniscient. Also, while superdeterminism informs the states of individual particles that are separate from others, are there truly random (or, at least, unpredictable) things within superdeterminism, such as the exact timing of atomic decay? Granted, this is sheer speculation. But there do exist models of superdeterminism wherein choices and free will continue to exist. > It would literally mean that time is entirely scripted from > beginning to end with the bizarre property that the characters in the > script are forced to both run experiments to test if the world is > scripted and every experiment forces them to reach the conclusion that > the world is random and there is no script. > Just like a well-designed simulation, where there is no "hack" or "glitch" letting the simulated folks break out or even know they are in a simulation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 05:24:23 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 22:24:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 9:53?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 12:14 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 8:26?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I also disagree with the assessment that MW is not falsifiable. If we >>> run a conscious mind on a quantum computer, and the quantum computation >>> fails due to the consciousness of the mind on the computer causing >>> collapse, and it eliminates the interference pattern, then MW is falsified. >>> >>> Here is David Deutsch's description of the experiment: >>> https://photos.app.goo.gl/4rrNMdbmSsHGsLkh9 >>> >> >> How is MW falsified in this case? There can exist events which are the >> same in all worlds that had the same starting condition, and we would >> never know. >> ______________________________ > > > It's only falsified if the interference pattern isn't restored after > quantum erasing the conscious observer's mind. > > Collapse theories say collapse happens by the time or during conscious > observation, and that it is irreversible and destroys the interference > pattern. > > MW on the other hand does not say (apparent) collapse is irreversible, but > that everything is linear, continuous and time reversible. > What about MW says things are time reversible? If things are time reversible, then worlds could be reversed back past the point where they branched off, which would seem to counter the basis of MW: separate worlds don't exist as separate worlds until after they branch. But, setting that aside for the moment... > It's just hard for normal macroscopic systems to be reversed, hence why it > is done on a quantum computer which can be completely controlled and leaks > no information to the environment. > > So if we can fully reverse the system after a conscious observation is > made, and erase the which-way information concerning the measurement, then > the interference pattern should be recovered, confirming MW and ruling out > collapse as any kind of objectively real phenomenon. > Demonstrating that collapse can be reversed would rule out irreversible collapse, but reversible-collapse MW is not the only theory of reversible collapse. Also, how does one "quantum erase" a quantum computer while retaining its measurements (and thus confirming that collapse has happened, without which one can't be sure if a subsequent lack of collapse is in fact a reversal)? If a collapse is subsequently observed, can't one simply claim the erasure hasn't happened? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Tue Aug 29 07:32:04 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 09:32:04 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] marilyn In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4219cc68-2d47-a1ca-81f1-99f6a9469ff0@swisscows.email> You're welcome! I'm happy to hear it! =) Best regards, Daniel On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > Good to hear!? ?bill w > > On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 6:08?PM Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: > To those who wrote encouraging words to Marilyn a few weeks ago, they worked.? She attend her eagle scout court of honor > yesterday under her own power. > Youth is a marvelous ally in the healing process.? Thx to all her supporters.? spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From efc at swisscows.email Tue Aug 29 07:39:47 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 09:39:47 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> Message-ID: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Thank you Adrian. Which interpretation do you subscribe to, or find most likely? Best regards, Daniel On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > On Sun, Aug 27, 2023 at 6:22?PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > On 2023-08-27 09:33, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > But what about superdeterminism? > > > > Wouldn't that also be one of the better "candidates" even though it > > goes > > against our intuition? > > Not at all. It would mean that quantum mechanics (the most accurate > scientific theory to date) is completely wrong. Superdeterminism would > mean that all agency, choice, chance, luck, and randomness is an > illusion. > > > Not so much.? Only such things when?considered purely within the universe. > > But...what, or who, set up the initial conditions?? And if they set us up, are they not "us" - the ones who are making decisions?- in > a sense?? Particularly if this was multiple agents, each one far from omniscient. > > Also, while superdeterminism?informs the states?of individual?particles that are separate?from others, are there truly random (or, at > least, unpredictable) things within superdeterminism, such as the exact timing of atomic decay? > > Granted, this is sheer speculation.? But there do exist models?of superdeterminism wherein choices and?free will continue to exist. > ? > It would literally mean that time is entirely scripted from > beginning to end with the bizarre property that the characters in the > script are forced to both run experiments to test if the world is > scripted and every experiment forces them to reach the conclusion that > the world is random and there is no script. > > > Just like a well-designed simulation, where there is no "hack" or "glitch" letting the simulated folks break out or even know? they > are in a simulation. > > From efc at swisscows.email Tue Aug 29 11:25:26 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:25:26 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] Another perspective on AI. Message-ID: <24cb7c4a-1efb-0406-35fb-8b407bedd868@swisscows.email> Hello guys, I just saw this: https://drewdevault.com/2023/08/29/2023-08-29-AI-crap.html and based on what I see here, and the fear mongering in my mainstream media I thought you might find it interesting. I do not agree with the article. When it comes to media, what matters to me is if I enjoy it, not who wrote it. So I do not see why people by default are so negative when it comes to AI generated content. It seems as if people fear that in the future it will be impossible to find good content, and that it will disappear in bad content. But I see the potential for more good content and more bad content. Taking it a step further, perhaps AI-generated content will make human generated content even more valuable? Think of artisan beer vs mass produced, and this will add another level, AI-produced, which pushes the real artisans higher up on the value scale due to symbolism/fashion etc. Anyway, just a few loose and unorganized thoughts on the subject. Best regards, Daniel From pharos at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 12:10:20 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:10:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Another perspective on AI. In-Reply-To: <24cb7c4a-1efb-0406-35fb-8b407bedd868@swisscows.email> References: <24cb7c4a-1efb-0406-35fb-8b407bedd868@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, 29 Aug 2023 at 12:27, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > Hello guys, > > I just saw this: > https://drewdevault.com/2023/08/29/2023-08-29-AI-crap.html > and based on what I see here, and the fear mongering in my mainstream > media I thought you might find it interesting. > > I do not agree with the article. When it comes to media, what matters to > me is if I enjoy it, not who wrote it. So I do not see why people by > default are so negative when it comes to AI generated content. > > > Best regards, Daniel > _______________________________________________ Yes, Amazon is presently flooded with AI-written books. This is to be expected as people play with the new LLM creative AIs. But I don't see it as a problem. If few people buy them or read them, they will soon disappear. I do find the AIs very useful for summarizing ideas as they often include aspects that ordinary searching would not discover so readily. My main concern is that the military will weaponise AI to manage and control warfare. The benefits of lightning-fast AI reaction time will mean that war could quickly escalate beyond human control. Why? Because while the West generals are thinking about what to do next, the foreign AIs could be destroying the West's resources. The next World War could be over very quickly indeed. BillK From avant at sollegro.com Tue Aug 29 13:15:58 2023 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 06:15:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Another perspective on AI. In-Reply-To: References: <24cb7c4a-1efb-0406-35fb-8b407bedd868@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <96e6162799874970c0290ac8cc572943@sollegro.com> On 2023-08-29 05:10, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > My main concern is that the military will weaponise AI to manage and > control warfare. The benefits of lightning-fast AI reaction time will > mean that war could quickly escalate beyond human control. Why? > Because while the West generals are thinking about what to do next, > the foreign AIs could be destroying the West's resources. The next > World War could be over very quickly indeed. While some weaponization is bound to occur, I think many of the West's adversaries are far too authoritarian, totalitarian, or autocratic to fully relinquish control of their military assets to an AI. Stuart LaForge From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 14:09:54 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 10:09:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:25 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 9:53?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 12:14 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 8:26?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> I also disagree with the assessment that MW is not falsifiable. If we >>>> run a conscious mind on a quantum computer, and the quantum computation >>>> fails due to the consciousness of the mind on the computer causing >>>> collapse, and it eliminates the interference pattern, then MW is falsified. >>>> >>>> Here is David Deutsch's description of the experiment: >>>> https://photos.app.goo.gl/4rrNMdbmSsHGsLkh9 >>>> >>> >>> How is MW falsified in this case? There can exist events which are the >>> same in all worlds that had the same starting condition, and we would >>> never know. >>> ______________________________ >> >> >> It's only falsified if the interference pattern isn't restored after >> quantum erasing the conscious observer's mind. >> >> Collapse theories say collapse happens by the time or during conscious >> observation, and that it is irreversible and destroys the interference >> pattern. >> >> MW on the other hand does not say (apparent) collapse is irreversible, >> but that everything is linear, continuous and time reversible. >> > > What about MW says things are time reversible? > Everything in physics is time reversible (more accurately is CPT symmetric https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry ), with the sole except being objective wave function collapse as found in CI. Take out wave function collapse, and everything in physics becomes deterministic, reversible, causal, linear, local, and speed-of-light obeying again. If things are time reversible, then worlds could be reversed back past the > point where they branched off, which would seem to counter the basis of MW: > separate worlds don't exist as separate worlds until after they branch. > Worlds can fuse. This is what happens in a quantum eraser experiment: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment Fusing worlds that have macroscopically decohered ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence ), however, is a technical impossibility. IR photons escape and trigger other IR photons and so on, and they race away in all directions at the speed of light. It would be quite unlikely to have all the right mirrors in all the right places to bring them all back to the barn from which they escaped, but this is what's necessary to fuse the world after decoherence. > But, setting that aside for the moment... > > >> It's just hard for normal macroscopic systems to be reversed, hence why >> it is done on a quantum computer which can be completely controlled and >> leaks no information to the environment. >> >> So if we can fully reverse the system after a conscious observation is >> made, and erase the which-way information concerning the measurement, then >> the interference pattern should be recovered, confirming MW and ruling out >> collapse as any kind of objectively real phenomenon. >> > > Demonstrating that collapse can be reversed would rule out irreversible > collapse, but reversible-collapse MW is not the only theory of reversible > collapse. > Collapse is by definition irreversible. Collapse by definition occurs at least by the time a conscious observation of a measurement is made. Therefore, if the system can be returned to its no original state of being in a superposition after a conscious observation of a measurement of that state is made, then there couldn't have been a collapse of the wave function, because collapse is by definition irreversible, and it would be impossible to recover the superposition and it's associated interference pattern (collapse destroys both). > Also, how does one "quantum erase" a quantum computer while retaining > its measurements (and thus confirming that collapse has happened, > In the experiment the conscious observer in the quantum computer stores a record that it made a definite observation, e.g., that the election was seen to be either spin-up or spin-down, but it does not record which of the two it was, and it's memory of which one it was is what is reversed and erased. We are then, as external observers to this experiment, left with two mutually incompatible things, if CI is true and collapse occurred: 1. A printed record written by the observer attesting to the fact that it made a measurement and saw a definite result 2. An electron that remains in a superposition, despite having been measured and they measurement having been consciously observed. (or if we repeat this many times, with a two slit scenario, we are left with an interference pattern on a photographic plate). The only explanation for this is that collapse did not happen, and that the mind running on the quantum computer, when it observed the measured value, itself entered a superposition of ((seeing the electron as spin-up) + (seeing the electron as spin-down)). That the superposition survives through and during conscious observation, is the only way we know how to explain the final experimental result, where the electron remains in it's original superposed state. without which one can't be sure if a subsequent lack of collapse is in fact > a reversal)? If a collapse is subsequently observed, can't one simply > claim the erasure hasn't happened? > I am not sure I understand what you are asking, but if the reversal process fails, and we can't get the electron back into a superposition, it would be evidence of the reality of collapse, and MW would be refuted. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 14:28:16 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 07:28:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Another perspective on AI. In-Reply-To: <96e6162799874970c0290ac8cc572943@sollegro.com> References: <24cb7c4a-1efb-0406-35fb-8b407bedd868@swisscows.email> <96e6162799874970c0290ac8cc572943@sollegro.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:17 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > While some weaponization is bound to occur, I think many of the West's > adversaries are far too authoritarian, totalitarian, or autocratic to > fully relinquish control of their military assets to an AI. > Agreed. If one wishes to worry about this sort of thing, a more likely scenario is the West's weapons being run by AI, and what sort of military and society that might encourage. It is already the case that there have been drone strikes based on faulty Intel resulting in significant civilian casualties, in some cases set up by the West's enemies to generate propaganda and recruitment, which less autonomous operations seem unlikely to have fallen for. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 18:20:06 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 11:20:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 12:58?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Which interpretation do you subscribe to, or find most likely? > A version of superdeterminism. The objections to it seem to be mostly of distaste, not any actual disproof other than via moral or subjective qualities. (Such as, "Obviously we have free will, and superdeterminism says there's no free will," which has problems with both the claim of an undefined "free will" and that superdeterminism is necessarily opposed to it.) These do not constitute actual disproof when it comes to objective reality. It is possible there are actual scientific objections to it, but if so they've gotten lost in the noise. As to the objection that it denies free will, agency, choice, et al - that is only true if one assumes that the agent making decisions must necessarily be fully contained in the superdetermined universe. "Souls" are supernatural and unfalsifiable, beyond the realm of science - but if the notion is being brought in as an objection anyway, then it suffices to construct a possible model wherein both superdeterminism and choices made by individuals exist at the same time in the same universe. There exist such models, therefore the objection about free will does not preclude superdeterminism, even aside from the supernatural angle. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 18:54:36 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 11:54:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 7:11?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:25 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 9:53?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 12:14 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 8:26?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I also disagree with the assessment that MW is not falsifiable. If we >>>>> run a conscious mind on a quantum computer, and the quantum computation >>>>> fails due to the consciousness of the mind on the computer causing >>>>> collapse, and it eliminates the interference pattern, then MW is falsified. >>>>> >>>>> Here is David Deutsch's description of the experiment: >>>>> https://photos.app.goo.gl/4rrNMdbmSsHGsLkh9 >>>>> >>>> >>>> How is MW falsified in this case? There can exist events which are the >>>> same in all worlds that had the same starting condition, and we would >>>> never know. >>>> >>> >>> It's only falsified if the interference pattern isn't restored after >>> quantum erasing the conscious observer's mind. >>> >>> Collapse theories say collapse happens by the time or during conscious >>> observation, and that it is irreversible and destroys the interference >>> pattern. >>> >>> MW on the other hand does not say (apparent) collapse is irreversible, >>> but that everything is linear, continuous and time reversible. >>> >> >> What about MW says things are time reversible? >> > > Everything in physics is time reversible (more accurately is CPT symmetric > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry ), with the sole except > being objective wave function collapse as found in CI. > > Take out wave function collapse, and everything in physics becomes > deterministic, reversible, causal, linear, local, and speed-of-light > obeying again. > Not so much, unless you're broadly defining "wave function collapse" as everything in physics that is undeterministic et al. For instance, I have not often heard the exact timing of atomic decay to be any sort of wave function collapse, yet it does not appear to be deterministic. (It is technically possible to jam the emitted particle back into the source atom, which I suppose makes it reversible.) There are also many discontinuities, across a number of domains, that break linear models. Also, you avoided the question. WHAT IS IT SPECIFICALLY ABOUT MW IN PARTICULAR, as distinct from everything in physics, that has this property and that other quantum theories do not? There appear to exist theories of multi-worlds that are entirely compatible with the existence of wave function collapse, therefore, proving or disproving the existence of wave function collapse fails to prove or disprove multi-worlds in general. > If a collapse is subsequently observed, can't one simply claim the erasure >> hasn't happened? >> > > I am not sure I understand what you are asking, but if the reversal > process fails, and we can't get the electron back into a superposition, it > would be evidence of the reality of collapse, and MW would be refuted. > 1) MW-with-collapse wouldn't be refuted. 2) I mean, this seems susceptible to a "no true X" fallacy. "Just because THIS experiment showed collapse, doesn't mean the experiment wouldn't work if done properly. Since there was collapse, obviously there was no quantum erasure. Keep doing the experiment until it shows what we want, and discard all contrary results." How do you conclusively show there was erasure if there was also collapse, which erasure should prevent by definition? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 19:09:23 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 15:09:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:21 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 12:58?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Which interpretation do you subscribe to, or find most likely? >> > > A version of superdeterminism. The objections to it seem to be mostly of > distaste, not any actual disproof other than via moral or subjective > qualities. (Such as, "Obviously we have free will, and superdeterminism > says there's no free will," which has problems with both the claim of an > undefined "free will" and that superdeterminism is necessarily opposed to > it.) These do not constitute actual disproof when it comes to objective > reality. > You seem to be describing regular determinism here, not superdeterminism, which is something quite different from determinism. MW is deterministic, for example. > It is possible there are actual scientific objections to it, but if so > they've gotten lost in the noise. > The objection to superdeterminism, as I see it, is that it's not a scientific theory. It says no matter how nature really is, nature is conspiring to bring us to a false conclusion. Science cannot operate under such conditions and any fantasy can be entertained under such a a belief, like there being unicorns everywhere that disappear whenever we turn our heads to see them or point a camera in their direction. Jason > As to the objection that it denies free will, agency, choice, et al - that > is only true if one assumes that the agent making decisions must > necessarily be fully contained in the superdetermined universe. "Souls" > are supernatural and unfalsifiable, beyond the realm of science - but if > the notion is being brought in as an objection anyway, then it suffices to > construct a possible model wherein both superdeterminism and choices made > by individuals exist at the same time in the same universe. There exist > such models, therefore the objection about free will does not preclude > superdeterminism, even aside from the supernatural angle. > _______________________________________________ > 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 atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 19:31:17 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 12:31:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 12:11?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:21 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 12:58?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Which interpretation do you subscribe to, or find most likely? >>> >> >> A version of superdeterminism. The objections to it seem to be mostly of >> distaste, not any actual disproof other than via moral or subjective >> qualities. (Such as, "Obviously we have free will, and superdeterminism >> says there's no free will," which has problems with both the claim of an >> undefined "free will" and that superdeterminism is necessarily opposed to >> it.) These do not constitute actual disproof when it comes to objective >> reality. >> > > You seem to be describing regular determinism here, not superdeterminism, > which is something quite different from determinism. MW is deterministic, > for example. > According to superdeterminism, when there are two entangled photons or particles, it is not that measuring one of them suddenly causes the other to collapse into a certain state. Rather, it was always in that state all along. The only thing that travels at the speed of light to the other particle is the result of any actions the observer of the first particle takes. Likewise, all other observations are the result of finding out how the universe always was. This, I am told, is not regular determinism. Technically this is not incompatible with multi-worlds. Is there another world, identical in every way until one photon spun up instead of down? Superdeterminism is silent about that, because we would have no way to know. It's only talking about our world. Occam's Razor suggests there probably is not, though. It is possible there are actual scientific objections to it, but if so >> they've gotten lost in the noise. >> > > The objection to superdeterminism, as I see it, is that it's not a > scientific theory. It says no matter how nature really is, nature is > conspiring to bring us to a false conclusion. Science cannot operate under > such conditions and any fantasy can be entertained under such a a belief, > like there being unicorns everywhere that disappear whenever we turn our > heads to see them or point a camera in their direction. > Nature is not "conspiring" at all. Nature is inanimate, so far as we can tell. Things happen to be certain ways; what we conclude from it is up to us. Nature did not "conspire" to make leading scientists in the 19th century to believe in aether theories. It is the same deal here. But interpreting that to mean that superdeterminism is unfalsifiable - the same can, as I understand it, be said of any of the common interpretations of quantum mechanics at this time. This is why I'm picking, elsewhere in this thread, on the specifics of wave function collapse determination not confirming or denying the multi-world hypothesis. There are versions of multi-world that include collapse and there are versions that deny collapse, so proving or disproving collapse does not prove or disprove multi-world. So far as I know, multi-world is likewise presently unfalsifiable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 19:44:10 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 15:44:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:55 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 7:11?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:25 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 9:53?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 12:14 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 8:26?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> I also disagree with the assessment that MW is not falsifiable. If we >>>>>> run a conscious mind on a quantum computer, and the quantum computation >>>>>> fails due to the consciousness of the mind on the computer causing >>>>>> collapse, and it eliminates the interference pattern, then MW is falsified. >>>>>> >>>>>> Here is David Deutsch's description of the experiment: >>>>>> https://photos.app.goo.gl/4rrNMdbmSsHGsLkh9 >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> How is MW falsified in this case? There can exist events which are >>>>> the same in all worlds that had the same starting condition, and we would >>>>> never know. >>>>> >>>> >>>> It's only falsified if the interference pattern isn't restored after >>>> quantum erasing the conscious observer's mind. >>>> >>>> Collapse theories say collapse happens by the time or during conscious >>>> observation, and that it is irreversible and destroys the interference >>>> pattern. >>>> >>>> MW on the other hand does not say (apparent) collapse is irreversible, >>>> but that everything is linear, continuous and time reversible. >>>> >>> >>> What about MW says things are time reversible? >>> >> >> Everything in physics is time reversible (more accurately is CPT >> symmetric https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry ), with the sole >> except being objective wave function collapse as found in CI. >> >> Take out wave function collapse, and everything in physics becomes >> deterministic, reversible, causal, linear, local, and speed-of-light >> obeying again. >> > > Not so much, unless you're broadly defining "wave function collapse" as > everything in physics that is undeterministic et al. > To my knowledge, wave function collapse is *the only* thing in physics that's considered to not be deterministic. If you think otherwise I ask you to identify one other thing which isn't. For instance, I have not often heard the exact timing of atomic decay to > be any sort of wave function collapse, > It involves collapse under the traditional CI. This is why particle decay is used as the basis of Shrodinger's cat thought experiment. If we don't open the box (and observe it) then the particle is in a superposition of having collapsed and not collapsed. yet it does not appear to be deterministic. > The unstable particle evolves deterministically under the Shrodinger equation to a superposition of having not decayed, and having decayed at various points in time. There's no indeterminism or uncertainty in the time evolution of the particle under MW. It only appears random due to your inability to predict which branch of the wave function you will find yourself in when you interact with this particle and discover whether or not it has decayed in the branch you are then in. (It is technically possible to jam the emitted particle back into the > source atom, which I suppose makes it reversible.) > Putting the particle back together does not reverse the fact that it decayed. Nor is this what I mean when I speak about time reversibility. Reversibility requires one definite state always follows from another. With collapse, this is not the case, we have a break in the unitary time evolution of the Shrodinger equation. That is to say, if we tried to rewind time starting from this collapsed state, wouldn't end up getting back to the original starting state of the system (before the time the collapse occurred). There are also many discontinuities, across a number of domains, that > break linear models. > Name one. > Also, you avoided the question. WHAT IS IT SPECIFICALLY ABOUT MW IN > PARTICULAR, as distinct from everything in physics, that has this property > and that other quantum theories do not? > I don't know what you are talking about. Perhaps you have misunderstood me. It is MW that is consistent with all other physical theories in being causal, local, deterministic, linear, differentiable, sub-luminal, non-psychokinetic, unitary, CPT symmetric, etc. (because it doesn't assume collapse is real, but rather it explains why we would see something like it even though it is only apparent). It is wave function collapse that dispenses with all these principles that are present in all other physical theories. Wave function collapse is the only phenomenon in physics that's a causal, non-local, non-linear, non-differentiable, super-luminal, psychokinetic, non-unitary, CPT-asymmetric, etc. It can't even describe a system of two observers consistently, so we might also say it is solipsistic. Nor can it describe a universe without observers, such as the early universe, so we might also say it is non-real. There appear to exist theories of multi-worlds that are entirely compatible > with the existence of wave function collapse, therefore, proving or > disproving the existence of wave function collapse fails to prove or > disprove multi-worlds in general. > There are various multiverse theories, yes. But MW is simply QM without collapse. If you believe in QM, and if you disprove collapse, then you are left with "QM without collapse", which implies a quantum multiverse, i.e., "many worlds." > >> If a collapse is subsequently observed, can't one simply claim the >>> erasure hasn't happened? >>> >> >> I am not sure I understand what you are asking, but if the reversal >> process fails, and we can't get the electron back into a superposition, it >> would be evidence of the reality of collapse, and MW would be refuted. >> > > 1) MW-with-collapse wouldn't be refuted. > I don't know what you mean by "MW with collapse." MW is strictly "QM without collapse." I don't know what you mean when you say MW with collapse, as if you have collapse that is CI, which is one world. > 2) I mean, this seems susceptible to a "no true X" fallacy. "Just because > THIS experiment showed collapse, doesn't mean the experiment wouldn't work > if done properly. > If course it has to be done properly for the conclusion to be valid. Since there was collapse, obviously there was no quantum erasure. Keep > doing the experiment until it shows what we want, and discard all contrary > results." How do you conclusively show there was erasure if there was also > collapse, which erasure should prevent by definition? > That is what CI assumes to happen. That, in this case, we could perform a perfect quantum erasure, but it wouldn't matter, because the wave function has collapsed and now it's too late. I won't pretend to explain how that could happen, as even those who believe in CI, have not succeeded (or to my knowledge, even tried) to describe how, when, or why collapse happens. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 20:05:32 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:05:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 12:45?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:55 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 7:11?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Take out wave function collapse, and everything in physics becomes >>> deterministic, reversible, causal, linear, local, and speed-of-light >>> obeying again. >>> >> >> Not so much, unless you're broadly defining "wave function collapse" as >> everything in physics that is undeterministic et al. >> > > To my knowledge, wave function collapse is *the only* thing in physics > that's considered to not be deterministic. If you think otherwise I ask you > to identify one other thing which isn't. > > For instance, I have not often heard the exact timing of atomic decay to >> be any sort of wave function collapse, >> > > It involves collapse under the traditional CI. This is why particle decay > is used as the basis of Shrodinger's cat thought experiment. If we don't > open the box (and observe it) then the particle is in a superposition of > having collapsed and not collapsed. > Ah. Then we are talking about circular logic from definitions, as I said ("unless you're broadly defining"): everything undeterministic is wave function collapse because wave function collapse is defined as everything undeterministic. This is not a very useful definition, but I can see it. > (It is technically possible to jam the emitted particle back into the >> source atom, which I suppose makes it reversible.) >> > > Putting the particle back together does not reverse the fact that it > decayed. Nor is this what I mean when I speak about time reversibility. > Jam the particle back in, perfectly reflect any photons that were emitted, et cetera. It is in theory possible to return to the exact original state before a given decay event, at least with regard to that particular atom. > There are also many discontinuities, across a number of domains, that >> break linear models. >> > > Name one. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_discontinuities lists a few. Of course, we know of a certain proposed one - physically possible (or at least not yet proven impossible) even if it hasn't happened yet: the Singularity, also known as the Technological Singularity. > 2) I mean, this seems susceptible to a "no true X" fallacy. "Just because >> THIS experiment showed collapse, doesn't mean the experiment wouldn't work >> if done properly. >> > > If course it has to be done properly for the conclusion to be valid. > Other way around. Consider what happens if it is done, collapse happens, then someone says that because collapse happened it was done improperly. No amount of evidence can overcome an assertion that any experiment that fails to reproduce the desired hypothesis can be rejected because it failed to reproduce the desired hypothesis. An indefinite series of this makes the theory unfalsifiable in practice. There needs to be a way for proof to be had that the experiment was done properly, both if collapse happens and if it does not. Unfortunately, rallying around definitions as people are, that the experiment goes one way or the other is itself taken as evidence that the experiment was done properly or improperly. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Tue Aug 29 20:06:19 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 22:06:19 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <3be41c66-a16b-b8bd-8cec-a257f3f12692@swisscows.email> Hello Adrian, On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > But interpreting that to mean that superdeterminism is unfalsifiable - the same can, as I understand it, be said of any of the > common?interpretations of quantum mechanics at this time.? This is why I'm picking, elsewhere in this thread, on the specifics of Based on my own reading, inspired by this thread, it seems to me as if all interpretations of quantum mechanics at the moment, are unfalsifiable. Especially when talking about empirical proof, and being able to make testable predictions, and being able to be verified by others. That might change in the future as we learn more, but so far, that seems at least to be my conclusion. When it comes to superdeterminism, far back in this thread, it needed hidden variables that per definition would always be hidden, and when it comes to MWI, it postulates separate universes beyond our (current) scope, and thus are not falsifiable. So given that however, I do think it is a very interesting discussion to see and find out which interpretation makes the most sense. Best regards, Daniel From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 20:09:24 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 16:09:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 3:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 12:11?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:21 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 12:58?AM efc--- via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Which interpretation do you subscribe to, or find most likely? >>>> >>> >>> A version of superdeterminism. The objections to it seem to be mostly >>> of distaste, not any actual disproof other than via moral or subjective >>> qualities. (Such as, "Obviously we have free will, and superdeterminism >>> says there's no free will," which has problems with both the claim of an >>> undefined "free will" and that superdeterminism is necessarily opposed to >>> it.) These do not constitute actual disproof when it comes to objective >>> reality. >>> >> >> You seem to be describing regular determinism here, not superdeterminism, >> which is something quite different from determinism. MW is deterministic, >> for example. >> > > According to superdeterminism, when there are two entangled photons or > particles, it is not that measuring one of them suddenly causes the other > to collapse into a certain state. Rather, it was always in that state all > along. The only thing that travels at the speed of light to the other > particle is the result of any actions the observer of the first particle > takes. Likewise, all other observations are the result of finding out how > the universe always was. > > This, I am told, is not regular determinism. > I think you may not appreciate the Bell inequalities and how they threw a wrench into the above description, which on the surface, seems completely normal and ordinary and not at all fantastic. The Bell inequalities show that the quantum correlations cannot be determined in advance unless they know exactly in what way they will be measured in the future. So then, the deterministic process that chooses these particle properties in advance, must know which strategy we will use to decide how to measure the particles, it will know even if we use a random lottery to choose a person in the audience to ask how to measure the particles, the process that determined the particle state knew which person would be selected and know what strategy they would use. Okay perhaps physics is that weird that it knows how things will unfold and don't chooses particle properties in advance such that when we measure them, we will always be fooled into wrongly concluding they violate the Bell inequalities and make us think they couldn't possibly be hidden variables. But it gets stranger: it is one thing to assume laws of physics might determine both particle properties and link them with lotteries and human thought processes, but can physics determine math? Did the process that sets particle properties also pick the digits of Pi? This is what we have to believe under superdeterminism, because instead of using a random process to decide how to measure the particles we might use the digits of Pi. But even then, somehow, the particles knew to demonstrate correlations that fool us into believing they violate the Bell inequality, by chosing properties that are in accordance with the digits of Pi. You don't think physics determined the digits of Pi, do you? What about the digits of SQRT(2)? > Technically this is not incompatible with multi-worlds. Is there another > world, identical in every way until one photon spun up instead of down? > Superdeterminism is silent about that, because we would have no way to > know. It's only talking about our world. Occam's Razor suggests there > probably is not, though. > > It is possible there are actual scientific objections to it, but if so >>> they've gotten lost in the noise. >>> >> >> The objection to superdeterminism, as I see it, is that it's not a >> scientific theory. It says no matter how nature really is, nature is >> conspiring to bring us to a false conclusion. Science cannot operate under >> such conditions and any fantasy can be entertained under such a a belief, >> like there being unicorns everywhere that disappear whenever we turn our >> heads to see them or point a camera in their direction. >> > > Nature is not "conspiring" at all. Nature is inanimate, so far as we can > tell. Things happen to be certain ways; what we conclude from it is up to > us. Nature did not "conspire" to make leading scientists in the 19th > century to believe in aether theories. It is the same deal here. > If think to say this, you must not fully grasp what the Bell's inequalities imply for what superdeterminism is doing. It implies nature (or something) is actively working against us in order to lead us astray and falsely conclude that hidden variables weren't possible, when there are hidden variables, but they're chosen in such a way to mislead us (always and regardless of what process we turn to to use). This video is a good introduction to the Bell inequality: https://youtu.be/0RiAxvb_qI4?si=yE7fYafmxYGnsk-E > But interpreting that to mean that superdeterminism is unfalsifiable - the > same can, as I understand it, be said of any of the common interpretations > of quantum mechanics at this time. > I think superdeterminism is much worse than not being falsifiable. It's a retreat to say methods of science and falsifiability aren't even applicable, because nature isn't reliable or orderly, but rather is unreliable in a way that is adversarial and working against us. This is why I'm picking, elsewhere in this thread, on the specifics of > wave function collapse determination not confirming or denying the > multi-world hypothesis. > Wave function collapse is the difference between CI and MW. MW is simply the Shrodinger equation holds always (It is QM without the collapse postulate). There are versions of multi-world that include collapse and there are > versions that deny collapse, > Which ones? I am not familiar with these. so proving or disproving collapse does not prove or disprove multi-world. > I disagree. So far as I know, multi-world is likewise presently unfalsifiable. > In practice or in principle? I think it is in principle falsifiable, and in practice it is so far confirmed, given that quantum computers have been built and they work. If quantum computers get large enough to run mind simulations on, that provides a direct confirmation of many worlds (at least MW would be true for such simulated minds). Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 20:11:15 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:11:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <3be41c66-a16b-b8bd-8cec-a257f3f12692@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> <3be41c66-a16b-b8bd-8cec-a257f3f12692@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:07?PM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Based on my own reading, inspired by this thread, it seems to me as if > all interpretations of quantum mechanics at the moment, are > unfalsifiable. Especially when talking about empirical proof, and being > able to make testable predictions, and being able to be verified by > others. > > That might change in the future as we learn more, but so far, that seems > at least to be my conclusion. > It is mostly mine too - with the caveat that I believe there have been some interpretations that have been falsified. But the present common ones are beyond that (which is why they are still around). > When it comes to superdeterminism, far back in this thread, it needed > hidden variables that per definition would always be hidden, and when it > comes to MWI, it postulates separate universes beyond our (current) > scope, and thus are not falsifiable. > Yep. Hidden variables don't necessarily not exist, they're just hidden. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 20:28:31 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:28:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:10?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The Bell inequalities show that the quantum correlations cannot be > determined in advance unless they know exactly in what way they will be > measured in the future. > Not by something within the system (within the universe), anyway. It's like a version of G?del's incompleteness theorems - to paraphrase (and slightly butcher): a system can not fully know itself. Which, I suppose, is why I am comfortable with the notion and you are not. You think there must be a way for us to understand everything. I know there are things that thinking machines of any sort - including us - can never know about themselves, so it is not that big a leap to suspect that the same is true in quantum mechanics as it is in information theory. > You don't think physics determined the digits of Pi, do you? What about > the digits of SQRT(2)? > I do believe that physics results in the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, as well as the ratio of the length of the long side of a 45-45-90 triangle to the length of either of its short sides. "Digits" are a human invention to attempt to quantify things including these ratios. > I think superdeterminism is much worse than not being falsifiable. It's a > retreat to say methods of science and falsifiability aren't even > applicable, because nature isn't reliable or orderly, but rather is > unreliable in a way that is adversarial and working against us. > You describe malice where none exists. Just because a thing is not the way you would like, even if you see no way to change it, does not make it adversarial. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 20:33:36 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 16:33:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <4c454828-c11f-d0bf-d2de-796343432a5f@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 4:06 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 12:45?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:55 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 7:11?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Take out wave function collapse, and everything in physics becomes >>>> deterministic, reversible, causal, linear, local, and speed-of-light >>>> obeying again. >>>> >>> >>> Not so much, unless you're broadly defining "wave function collapse" as >>> everything in physics that is undeterministic et al. >>> >> >> To my knowledge, wave function collapse is *the only* thing in physics >> that's considered to not be deterministic. If you think otherwise I ask you >> to identify one other thing which isn't. >> >> For instance, I have not often heard the exact timing of atomic decay >>> to be any sort of wave function collapse, >>> >> >> It involves collapse under the traditional CI. This is why particle decay >> is used as the basis of Shrodinger's cat thought experiment. If we don't >> open the box (and observe it) then the particle is in a superposition of >> having collapsed and not collapsed. >> > > Ah. Then we are talking about circular logic from definitions, as I said > ("unless you're broadly defining"): everything undeterministic is wave > function collapse because wave function collapse is defined as everything > undeterministic. > My point is not a single other accepted theory in physics even proposes laws that are nondeterministic. This isn't about definitions, but rather, how much of an outlier the idea of wave function collapse is, when compared to every other theory and idea in physics. > This is not a very useful definition, but I can see it. > > >> (It is technically possible to jam the emitted particle back into the >>> source atom, which I suppose makes it reversible.) >>> >> >> Putting the particle back together does not reverse the fact that it >> decayed. Nor is this what I mean when I speak about time reversibility. >> > > Jam the particle back in, perfectly reflect any photons that were emitted, > et cetera. It is in theory possible to return to the exact original state > before a given decay event, at least with regard to that particular atom. > Yes they could reverse the system and return it to its original superposition. But if collapse is real, it can't be undone. > >> There are also many discontinuities, across a number of domains, that >>> break linear models. >>> >> >> Name one. >> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_discontinuities lists a > few. > None of these are physical theories. This is just a mathematical definition of discontinuities. Find a theory in physics that proposes laws that are discontinuous. Of course, we know of a certain proposed one - physically possible (or at > least not yet proven impossible) even if it hasn't happened yet: the > Singularity, also known as the Technological Singularity. > Even the technological singularity is driven by continuous laws (putting aside wave function collapse). > >> 2) I mean, this seems susceptible to a "no true X" fallacy. "Just >>> because THIS experiment showed collapse, doesn't mean the experiment >>> wouldn't work if done properly. >>> >> >> If course it has to be done properly for the conclusion to be valid. >> > > Other way around. Consider what happens if it is done, collapse happens, > then someone says that because collapse happened it was done improperly. > That would be one argument, but over time we would try repeating and refining the experiment, running the computation farther or less far, until we identify the point it is no longer reversible, and then we would have empirical evidence for when collapse happens, and the point at which it can no longer be reversed. > No amount of evidence can overcome an assertion that any experiment that > fails to reproduce the desired hypothesis can be rejected because it failed > to reproduce the desired hypothesis. > I disagree. Look at what happened a few years ago when they thought they found evidence that neutrinos were faster than light. People didn't know if it was real or an experimental error. They kept investigating until they determined which of the two it was. I see no reason the same wouldn't eventually happen here. There's no reason science would get stuck forever on this experimental result, never being able to determine if the experimental setup was flawed. > An indefinite series of this makes the theory unfalsifiable in practice. > I see no reason to assume such a dispute could never be resolved. > There needs to be a way for proof to be had that the experiment was done > properly, both if collapse happens and if it does not. Unfortunately, > rallying around definitions as people are, that the experiment goes one way > or the other is itself taken as evidence that the experiment was done > properly or improperly. > That's the idea behind reproducibility. If people think the setup was bad they try again with a different setup, to see if they get a different result or not. Do this enough times and eventually evidence tends to support one side or the other. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 20:46:03 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 16:46:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 4:29 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:10?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> The Bell inequalities show that the quantum correlations cannot be >> determined in advance unless they know exactly in what way they will be >> measured in the future. >> > > Not by something within the system (within the universe), anyway. It's > like a version of G?del's incompleteness theorems - to paraphrase (and > slightly butcher): a system can not fully know itself. > I don't see the connection. I think you still believe my problem with the process for how hidden variables are chosen under superdeterminism is that it's unknowable. That's not my problem. My problem is that the process is conspiratorial. If you don't think this is the case then I think you don't grasp what the Bell inequalities require for how the hidden variables must be selected. Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism implies a malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process? If you can't, then I would venture you may not fully understand just how strange superdeterminism is, and if you want a better handle of this I would suggest setting some time aside to understand Bell's inequality. It isn't easy and takes some time, but I think it's necessary to appreciate how unbelievable superdeterminism is. (It's nothing to do with unknowability, I am completely comfortable with the he idea that almost everything is unknowable). Jason > Which, I suppose, is why I am comfortable with the notion and you are > not. You think there must be a way for us to understand everything. I > know there are things that thinking machines of any sort - including us - > can never know about themselves, so it is not that big a leap to suspect > that the same is true in quantum mechanics as it is in information theory. > > >> You don't think physics determined the digits of Pi, do you? What about >> the digits of SQRT(2)? >> > > I do believe that physics results in the ratio of a circle's circumference > to its diameter, as well as the ratio of the length of the long side of a > 45-45-90 triangle to the length of either of its short sides. "Digits" are > a human invention to attempt to quantify things including these ratios. > > >> I think superdeterminism is much worse than not being falsifiable. It's a >> retreat to say methods of science and falsifiability aren't even >> applicable, because nature isn't reliable or orderly, but rather is >> unreliable in a way that is adversarial and working against us. >> > > You describe malice where none exists. Just because a thing is not the > way you would like, even if you see no way to change it, does not make it > adversarial. > _______________________________________________ > 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 efc at swisscows.email Tue Aug 29 20:57:13 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 22:57:13 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Thank you Adrian for finding the words for me to express my current position. On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > Not by something within the system (within the universe), anyway.? It's like a version of?G?del's incompleteness theorems - to > paraphrase (and slightly butcher): a system can not fully know itself. > > Which, I suppose, is why I am comfortable with the notion and you are not.? You think there must be a way for us to understand > everything.? I know there are things that thinking machines of any sort - including us - can never know about themselves, so it is > not that big a leap to suspect that the same is true in quantum mechanics as it is in information theory. Earlier in this thread I called myself "annoyingly agnostic" and I think you managed to explain why. Like you, I am very comfortable with the fact that we will never be able to know the experience of the subject, only that experience being objectified. Hence my position on qualia that it's a "red herring" that will not lead us to anything productive, and in fact, cannot do so. I never thought that perhaps this might also apply to quantum physics, because so far, I got the feeling that people are very certain about things I perceive as uncertain. At the same time, I am not a physicist so I'm always cautious since the certainty could be based on knowledge I do not have. But apart from that, so far, I feel as if I'm pretty much in agreement with you here and in terms of discussion, you seem to have the theoretical knowledge to continue it profitably. I feel a little bit out of my league here, but I do enjoy immensely, the discussion between you and Jason. Best regards, Daniel > ? > You don't think physics determined the digits of Pi, do you? What about the digits of SQRT(2)? > > > I do believe that physics results in the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, as well as the ratio of the length of the > long side of a 45-45-90 triangle to the length of either of its short sides.? "Digits" are a human invention to attempt to quantify > things including these ratios. > ? > I think superdeterminism is much worse than not being falsifiable. It's a retreat to say methods of science and > falsifiability aren't even applicable, because nature isn't reliable or orderly, but rather is unreliable in a way that > is adversarial and working against us. > > > You describe malice where none exists.? Just because a thing is not the way you would like, even if you see no way to change it, does > not make it adversarial. > > From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 20:59:06 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:59:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism implies a > malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process? > Yes. However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to physics is incorrect, even in this case. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Tue Aug 29 21:18:43 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 23:18:43 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> <7074d8ff-bf7e-8ed1-3ffd-2ee43f9ee7cb@swisscows.email> <090290cd-e9d9-3be0-2581-284d42471d01@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <7bd14786-1ffb-63cb-9d1c-a699eebb3f30@swisscows.email> Good evening Jason, On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > Relating to your examples above, plausible conclusion but does not > definitely verify it. Since the galaxies will never be seen, that's > about the best we can do, and we will forever live without certainty. > > Earlier you asked a thought-provoking question. Something like: Can a good explanation count as evidence for a theory being true? > > As it happens, there are reasons why good explanations so often end up being right. Some fairly recent results show that if certain > ensemble theories are right, there is a reason that occam's razor works. I explain it somewhat ... > most likely probable theory to be correct. Until very recently, it was not known why Occam's Razor was so effective. But if we happen > to inhabit an infinite ensemble of computationally/algorithmically generated worlds, (as an increasing amount of other evidence That is quite a big "if" in my world. > I see and accept your point, but I do not feel as confident about the > multiverse, as the result of a 1-ton diamond. It seems to me, that there > is no clear consensus or proof of the matter. The point that information > only travels one way in that scenario (see answer to Bill and the MWI > article on wikipedia) makes a lot of sense to me. So the diamon scenario > and the multiverse scenario are in my opinion different scenarios with > different levels of confidence. > > There is a caveat to this "one way information travel": interference. It is through interference that other parallel universes make > their presence known to us. If it weren't for interference, we would have no reason to suspect these other universes are real. It is > interference that is mysterious in the two-slit experiment, and it is interference that gives us useful results from quantum > computers. Hold on... so when checking quantum interference and the two slit experiment, it seems to me that the experiment resulted in the interpretations and theories we are discussing. So since I am doubting information transfer between universes, I don't see how we can use this experiment, which gives rise to what I am doubting, to justify or prove what I'm doubting here. MWI is one interpretation among many, which are not proved. So I would not count it as proof of this. > In that case it can never be verified, and since it will in that case > not impact us in any way, I'd say that this is a weakness of that > theory. > > It can subjectively impact you. For example, if you find yourself mysteriously surviving many iterations of Shrodinger's cat > experiment, where you play the role of the cat, then I consider that an impact that is directly relevant to you. In the same way, if Well, my interpretation is that I'm a lucky guy, not that MWI is right. I'm an actor in this world, and when confronted by coincidents, lucky ones in the case of Sch?rdinger, sometimes there is not explanation, so we would suspend our judgement until further proof arrives. > you find after your death in this universe, you awaken in another universe where this life was a dream or a video game, I would also > consider that an impact to you. Since I'm talking about this world, any happenings after my death do not have any bearing on my beliefs in this world. Again, no information travels from the dead to us based on anything I ever read (religious relatives aside). > Relative to this world, and empirical proof ? la science, that is a > proof I am not willing to accept as proof. > > All evidence we have comes to us through our conscious experience. Physics can be understood as the science of observations: given > past observations, what are the expected future ones? > But then what happens when we use physics to consider the predicted observations of a scientist undergoing Shrodinger's cat > experiment with himself as the cat? What does physics predict for the future observations of a scientist that is killed (at least > locally in this part of reality)? Here, for physics to provide an answer, we require a fully fleshed out ontology: we need to know > answers to questions like: > - Is the universe spatially infinite? > - Is there an eternal succession of big bangs? > - Is there a quantum multiverse? > - Is it possible this experience is duplicated in a simulation elsewhere? Etc. > Physics will remain incomplete without answers to these questions, because without answering these questions, physics will fail to Bingo! I think actually, as per Adrians post as well, that this is the nature of the question. Physics and science will by design most likely forever be incomplete. We can approach truth, but never realize it 100%. > provide answers to the questions of what the scientist will experience, and physics is the science expected to provide answers > concerning future expected observations. I think to say "physics can't, (or shouldn't try to), answer these questions." is to > needlessly constrain physics.? I don't think it is needlessly constraining physics, but just a fact of our reality. Once we leave empirical proof, falsifiable theories, verifications etc. we move into the realm of philosophy, and as much as I love philosophy, there have been debates going on there for 1000s of years, and probably will continue for 1000s more for as long as we are humans beings in the physical world. Instead of seeing this as a limitation, perhaps this is instead a strength? > Could you expand a bit on this point? > > Here are some examples of our exploration of the GoL universe:?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE&t=75s > Note there is no upper bound to the complexity of objects that can exist there, people have been able to build Turing machines inside > them. > > Imagine we found something in one of these very alien universes that was sentient, or even intelligent. We could then create a > simulation of its world, copy it into that environment, and also create a communication portal so that scientists here could > communicate with that being. From it's perspective, it might be sitting in its living room one moment, then suddenly find itself > elsewhere, in a place it doesn't recognize. Our scientists might use avatars to appear within that environment to talk to it, or we > might create a "window" via something like a TV screen in its virtual environment where it could look at it out into the computer lab > where the scientists are gathered around. Computer simulate is a tool that lets us explore and create other realities, and this would > be an example of it's ultimate capacity -- the ability to effectively travel to other universes and interact with their inhabitants. Ah, but this is mixing levels. We are running the simulation in our world. So yes, as far as the beings inside the virtual machine are concerned, that is all they know. But there is nothing they can do to escape their medium of existence by themselves. We, since we are running the simulation, can affect the basic building blocks of theirs, but that does not prove anything. Yes, theoretically we could live in a simulation, or in a world created by god, but unless god reaches with his hand inside his creation, there is nothing we can do at the moment. > For this reason, universes are never entirely causally isolated from one another, they can peer into other universes, extract > information from them, and that information can effect the goings on in that universe. For example, the fact that I've written the As per above, I still do not see how this could be. I'm very sorry. I feel as if this might end up as the qualia discussions, where one side cannot see how the other cannot see. Best regards, Daniel > > Jason > ? > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Hello Stuart, > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? edge physics. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? You say that > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you are already > immortal. You > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?don't need to > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? copy yourself because there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you > strewn about > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?the > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? multiverse. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof or is itone > of many > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?interpretations of > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? current theories? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in the sense that the probability there's only > one > >? ? ? ?universe > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?(with one kind of > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?This is as close to proof as anything science can provide. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?Jason? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Best regards, Daniel > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? Stuart LaForge > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we > should > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?really > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity > not > >? ? ? ?being > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?the > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? same thing? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Ben > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>_______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 21:27:03 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 14:27:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:58?PM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Thank you Adrian for finding the words for me to express my current > position. > You are welcome. :) I never thought that perhaps this might also apply to quantum physics, > because so far, I got the feeling that people are very certain about > things I perceive as uncertain. Some are, and your self-description as "agnostic" is quite on the nose here. How certain of, not just the existence of God, but one particular version, is a typical Christian preacher giving a sermon? How certain of the kamis are Shinto priests? How certain is a typical Buddhist guru that dharma exists? These would seem to be mutually contradictory positions, at least in most cases. > At the same time, I am not a physicist > so I'm always cautious since the certainty could be based on knowledge I > do not have. > There is a stereotype, with some truth, of someone who gets a PhD and begins authoritatively lecturing - wrongly - on topics in every field, not just the one their PhD is in (in which field their lectures get the facts right). > But apart from that, so far, I feel as if I'm pretty much in agreement > with you here and in terms of discussion, you seem to have the > theoretical knowledge to continue it profitably. > Partly just because I've had these debates before, and I remember the terms that came up. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 21:31:31 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 14:31:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism implies >> a malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process? >> > > Yes. However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to > physics is incorrect, even in this case. > Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt. Some examples, then: "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light? This 'relativity' nonsense is physics conspiring against me!" "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine? Entropy is a conspiracy against me!" "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if it will ever complete? Every time I try, something conspires against me!" I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process are similarly incorrect. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 21:49:26 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 17:49:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <7bd14786-1ffb-63cb-9d1c-a699eebb3f30@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> <7074d8ff-bf7e-8ed1-3ffd-2ee43f9ee7cb@swisscows.email> <090290cd-e9d9-3be0-2581-284d42471d01@swisscows.email> <7bd14786-1ffb-63cb-9d1c-a699eebb3f30@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 4:19?PM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Good evening Jason, > > On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > Relating to your examples above, plausible conclusion but does not > > definitely verify it. Since the galaxies will never be seen, that's > > about the best we can do, and we will forever live without > certainty. > > > > Earlier you asked a thought-provoking question. Something like: Can a > good explanation count as evidence for a theory being true? > > > > As it happens, there are reasons why good explanations so often end up > being right. Some fairly recent results show that if certain > > ensemble theories are right, there is a reason that occam's razor works. > I explain it somewhat > ... > > most likely probable theory to be correct. Until very recently, it was > not known why Occam's Razor was so effective. But if we happen > > to inhabit an infinite ensemble of computationally/algorithmically > generated worlds, (as an increasing amount of other evidence > > That is quite a big "if" in my world. > It would be quite doubtful, I agree, if not for all the evidence we have for it. I have put together a list of confirming evidence here: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Confirming_Evidence > > > I see and accept your point, but I do not feel as confident about > the > > multiverse, as the result of a 1-ton diamond. It seems to me, that > there > > is no clear consensus or proof of the matter. The point that > information > > only travels one way in that scenario (see answer to Bill and the > MWI > > article on wikipedia) makes a lot of sense to me. So the diamon > scenario > > and the multiverse scenario are in my opinion different scenarios > with > > different levels of confidence. > > > > There is a caveat to this "one way information travel": interference. It > is through interference that other parallel universes make > > their presence known to us. If it weren't for interference, we would > have no reason to suspect these other universes are real. It is > > interference that is mysterious in the two-slit experiment, and it is > interference that gives us useful results from quantum > > computers. > > Hold on... so when checking quantum interference and the two slit > experiment, it seems to me that the experiment resulted in the > interpretations and theories we are discussing. So since I am doubting > information transfer between universes, I don't see how we can use this > experiment, which gives rise to what I am doubting, to justify or prove > what I'm doubting here. MWI is one interpretation among many, which are > not proved. So I would not count it as proof of this. > All theories of QM accept a multiplicity of parts of reality. This is how the single-electron two slit experiment is explained (the electron is in two places at once). Where the theories diverge is in saying what happens when we look at the system. CI says all the other possibilities a particle (or system of particles) might be in, while they were real, once observed all but one of them then suddenly vanish. This is the issue Shrodinger pointed out in his cat experiment. How could a living (or dead cat) suddenly disappear (or appear?) when we open the box? This seemed quite incredible. MW says the superposition spreads contagiously as superposed particles interact with other particles. See this presentation I put together for how the superposition spreads, from particles to systems of particles (including our brains): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NThhVw4hrPxOueAQEwr-MNfIQiBaPd9o/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109779696990142678208&rtpof=true&sd=true > > > In that case it can never be verified, and since it will in that > case > > not impact us in any way, I'd say that this is a weakness of that > > theory. > > > > It can subjectively impact you. For example, if you find yourself > mysteriously surviving many iterations of Shrodinger's cat > > experiment, where you play the role of the cat, then I consider that an > impact that is directly relevant to you. In the same way, if > > Well, my interpretation is that I'm a lucky guy, not that MWI is right. > Would you bet in advance that you could survive 40 iterations? (1 in a trillion odds) Would you change your assessment as to whether or not QM was true after you found yourself surviving 40 iterations? > I'm an actor in this world, and when confronted by coincidents, lucky > ones in the case of Sch?rdinger, sometimes there is not explanation, so > we would suspend our judgement until further proof arrives. > > > you find after your death in this universe, you awaken in another > universe where this life was a dream or a video game, I would also > > consider that an impact to you. > > Since I'm talking about this world, any happenings after my death do not > have any bearing on my beliefs in this world. Again, no information > travels from the dead to us based on anything I ever read (religious > relatives aside). > Can beliefs in this world not bear on possibilities of things occurring outside this world? > > > Relative to this world, and empirical proof ? la science, that is a > > proof I am not willing to accept as proof. > > > > All evidence we have comes to us through our conscious experience. > Physics can be understood as the science of observations: given > > past observations, what are the expected future ones? > > But then what happens when we use physics to consider the predicted > observations of a scientist undergoing Shrodinger's cat > > experiment with himself as the cat? What does physics predict for the > future observations of a scientist that is killed (at least > > locally in this part of reality)? Here, for physics to provide an > answer, we require a fully fleshed out ontology: we need to know > > answers to questions like: > > - Is the universe spatially infinite? > > - Is there an eternal succession of big bangs? > > - Is there a quantum multiverse? > > - Is it possible this experience is duplicated in a simulation > elsewhere? Etc. > > Physics will remain incomplete without answers to these questions, > because without answering these questions, physics will fail to > > Bingo! I think actually, as per Adrians post as well, that this is the > nature of the question. Physics and science will by design most likely > forever be incomplete. We can approach truth, but never realize it 100%. > This can be shown quite easily, actually. If we arrange a computer running some program for which we don't know whether or not it will finish and then turn itself off, then it is also a physical problem how much power this computer will ultimately draw. But this physical question may not be answerable under known mathematics, and there will always remain problems for which currently known mathematics are insufficient to answer this question for some programs. But I would not from this fact conclude that we should not attempt our best to expand physics and ontology, to expand the scope of questions that are answerable. > > > provide answers to the questions of what the scientist will experience, > and physics is the science expected to provide answers > > concerning future expected observations. I think to say "physics can't, > (or shouldn't try to), answer these questions." is to > > needlessly constrain physics. > > I don't think it is needlessly constraining physics, but just a fact of > our reality. Once we leave empirical proof, falsifiable theories, > verifications etc. we move into the realm of philosophy, and as much as > I love philosophy, there have been debates going on there for 1000s of > years, and probably will continue for 1000s more for as long as we are > humans beings in the physical world. > > Instead of seeing this as a limitation, perhaps this is instead a > strength? > I think it's enough to acknowledge there will always be things we do not know. But I don't think that's ever a justification for ceasing or limiting our exploration. > > > Could you expand a bit on this point? > > > > Here are some examples of our exploration of the GoL universe: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE&t=75s > > Note there is no upper bound to the complexity of objects that can exist > there, people have been able to build Turing machines inside > > them. > > > > Imagine we found something in one of these very alien universes that was > sentient, or even intelligent. We could then create a > > simulation of its world, copy it into that environment, and also create > a communication portal so that scientists here could > > communicate with that being. From it's perspective, it might be sitting > in its living room one moment, then suddenly find itself > > elsewhere, in a place it doesn't recognize. Our scientists might use > avatars to appear within that environment to talk to it, or we > > might create a "window" via something like a TV screen in its virtual > environment where it could look at it out into the computer lab > > where the scientists are gathered around. Computer simulate is a tool > that lets us explore and create other realities, and this would > > be an example of it's ultimate capacity -- the ability to effectively > travel to other universes and interact with their inhabitants. > > Ah, but this is mixing levels. We are running the simulation in our > world. So yes, as far as the beings inside the virtual machine are > concerned, that is all they know. But there is nothing they can do to > escape their medium of existence by themselves. You are defining their existence in terms of their material construction. If we, however, relax this constraint, and say any identical abstraction is sufficient to re-create their conscious (and the material substrate is unimportant) then external simulation provides a legitimate means of escape from one's universe, by supplying a continuation path for their consciousness. Note this is the mainstream view in philosophy of mind, multiple realizability. If you destroy a mind in one place and rebuild it elsewhere, the reconstructed person survives, even if different atoms are used. If our minds can be viewed as certain computations, then any mind can be created in any universe in which a Turing machine can be built. > We, since we are running > the simulation, can affect the basic building blocks of theirs, but that > does not prove anything. Yes, theoretically we could live in a > simulation, or in a world created by god, but unless god reaches with > his hand inside his creation, there is nothing we can do at the moment. > > > For this reason, universes are never entirely causally isolated from one > another, they can peer into other universes, extract > > information from them, and that information can effect the goings on in > that universe. For example, the fact that I've written the > > As per above, I still do not see how this could be. I'm very sorry. It might help to consider the, (what I consider to be analogous), question of how does mathematical knowledge enter our universe? What physically caused me to write: "the sum of the interior angles of a triangle are 180 degrees" ? Are the causes entirely physical? Do mathematical truths have any bearing on what happens or can happen in this universe? I > feel as if this might end up as the qualia discussions, where one side > cannot see how the other cannot see. > There is a loose analogy between separate physical universes and separated conscious minds. Things become incommunicable due to a lack of shared points of reference. E.g., I can no more explain my concept of red to you, then two beings in two different universes can communicate the meaning of a meter between each other. Jason > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > Best regards, > > Daniel > > > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via > extropy-chat wrote: > > > > Hello Stuart, > > > > > > > > Just a quick question from someone not > very knowledgeable of cutting > > > > edge physics. > > > > > > > > You say that > > > > > > > > that a copy of you can truly be > you, then you can relax because you are already > > immortal. You > > > > don't need to > > > > copy yourself because there are > already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you > > strewn about > > > > the > > > > multiverse. > > > > > > > > > > > > What I wonder is, are infinite numbers > of you and multiverses supported by proof or is itone > > of many > > > > interpretations of > > > > current theories? > > > > > > > > > > > > Anthropic considerations provide strong > evidence, in the sense that the probability there's only > > one > > > universe > > > > (with one kind of > > > > physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. > > > > > > > > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ > > > > > > > > This is as close to proof as anything > science can provide. > > > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Best regards, Daniel > > > > > > > > > > > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > > > > > > > This is a crucial point, > for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we > > should > > > > really > > > > understand it, yet it > makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? > > > > > > > > Could you also please > explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity > > not > > > being > > > > the > > > > same thing? > > > > > > > > Ben > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > 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 jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 22:02:22 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 18:02:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 5:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism implies >>> a malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process? >>> >> >> Yes. However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to >> physics is incorrect, even in this case. >> > > Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt. Some examples, then: > > "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light? This 'relativity' > nonsense is physics conspiring against me!" > > "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine? Entropy is a conspiracy > against me!" > > "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if it > will ever complete? Every time I try, something conspires against me!" > > I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, adversarial, > conspiratorial process are similarly incorrect. > I think you are still missing something. These aren't comparable situations. Jason _______________________________________________ > 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 jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 22:07:07 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 18:07:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:02 PM Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 5:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism >>>> implies a malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process? >>>> >>> >>> Yes. However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to >>> physics is incorrect, even in this case. >>> >> >> Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt. Some examples, >> then: >> >> "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light? This 'relativity' >> nonsense is physics conspiring against me!" >> >> "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine? Entropy is a conspiracy >> against me!" >> >> "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if it >> will ever complete? Every time I try, something conspires against me!" >> >> I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, adversarial, >> conspiratorial process are similarly incorrect. >> > > > I think you are still missing something. These aren't comparable > situations. > I should elaborate: If you understood the unique strangeness of superdeterminism, I would expect you to say something along the lines of: "Yes I can see why you might think nature is conspiring to always fool us, however it is not for the reason X" Jason > Jason > > _______________________________________________ >> 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 atymes at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 22:46:22 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 15:46:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 3:08?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:02 PM Jason Resch wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 5:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes wrote: >>> >>>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism >>>>> implies a malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process? >>>>> >>>> >>>> Yes. However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to >>>> physics is incorrect, even in this case. >>>> >>> >>> Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt. Some examples, >>> then: >>> >>> "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light? This 'relativity' >>> nonsense is physics conspiring against me!" >>> >>> "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine? Entropy is a conspiracy >>> against me!" >>> >>> "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if it >>> will ever complete? Every time I try, something conspires against me!" >>> >>> I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, adversarial, >>> conspiratorial process are similarly incorrect. >>> >> >> >> I think you are still missing something. These aren't comparable >> situations. >> > > I should elaborate: > > If you understood the unique strangeness of superdeterminism, I would > expect you to say something along the lines of: > > "Yes I can see why you might think nature is conspiring to always fool us, > however it is not for the reason X" > It is not, as it is not - so far as we can tell - a sentient entity capable of conspiring. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 23:11:24 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 19:11:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:47 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 3:08?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:02 PM Jason Resch wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 5:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism >>>>>> implies a malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process? >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Yes. However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to >>>>> physics is incorrect, even in this case. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt. Some examples, >>>> then: >>>> >>>> "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light? This 'relativity' >>>> nonsense is physics conspiring against me!" >>>> >>>> "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine? Entropy is a conspiracy >>>> against me!" >>>> >>>> "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if it >>>> will ever complete? Every time I try, something conspires against me!" >>>> >>>> I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, >>>> adversarial, conspiratorial process are similarly incorrect. >>>> >>> >>> >>> I think you are still missing something. These aren't comparable >>> situations. >>> >> >> I should elaborate: >> >> If you understood the unique strangeness of superdeterminism, I would >> expect you to say something along the lines of: >> >> "Yes I can see why you might think nature is conspiring to always fool >> us, however it is not for the reason X" >> > > It is not, as it is not - so far as we can tell - a sentient entity > capable of conspiring. > It is something which must be adaptively change in response to our activities, choosing values such that we mistakenly believe the quantum probabilities cannot be hidden variables, when in fact, they are. You don't have to anthropomorphize this entity, nor bestow it with sentience, but it must be something that responds (adversarially and adaptively) to our own decisions and actions, with the effect that it acts in a manner that we are led to a false conclusion. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Wed Aug 30 08:57:34 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 10:57:34 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Hello Adrian and Jason, I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a way to convey meaning. Perhaps we could find a less loaded term? Analogies and words relating to human reactions are dangerous. I don't know what better term to use, but maybe you could find a common definition that would make it easier to continue the discussion without the word "conspiring"? Best regards, Daniel On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:47 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 3:08?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:02 PM Jason Resch wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 5:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat > wrote: > Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism implies a malicious, > adversarial, conspiratorial process? > > > Yes.? However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to physics is incorrect, even in this > case. > > > Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt.? Some examples, then: > > "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light?? This 'relativity' nonsense is physics conspiring against > me!" > > "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine?? Entropy is a conspiracy against me!" > > "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if it will ever complete?? Every time I > try, something conspires against me!" > > I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process are similarly > incorrect. > > > > I think you are still missing something. These aren't comparable situations. > > > I should elaborate: > > If you understood the unique strangeness of superdeterminism, I would expect you to say something along the lines of: > > "Yes I can see why you might think nature is conspiring to always fool us, however it is not for the reason X" > > > It is not, as it is not - so far as we can tell - a sentient entity capable of conspiring.? > > > It is something which must be adaptively change in response to our activities, choosing values such that we mistakenly believe the > quantum probabilities cannot be hidden variables, when in fact, they are. > > You don't have to anthropomorphize this entity, nor bestow it with sentience, but it must be something that responds (adversarially > and adaptively) to our own decisions and actions, with the effect that it acts in a manner that we are led to a false conclusion. > > Jason? > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 09:22:15 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 05:22:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> References: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 4:58 AM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hello Adrian and Jason, > > I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is > conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a way > to convey meaning. > This is what one has to literally believe of superdeterminism is true, which is why I don't think superdeterminism is believable by anyone who grasps what it entails. It's the least believable theory in science that's been seriously put forward. It's far less believable even than wave function collapse, which seems quite reasonable in comparison. If you don't like the word "conspiring" here then you can substitute it with "adaptively changing in response to our actions in a manner that will lead us to a false conclusion", but I think conspiring conveys this well, but let me know if you have another word that you think better communicates this. Jason > Perhaps we could find a less loaded term? > > Analogies and words relating to human reactions are dangerous. I don't > know what better term to use, but maybe you could find a common definition > that would make it easier to continue the discussion without the word > "conspiring"? > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:47 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 3:08?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:02 PM Jason Resch > wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 5:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes > wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > > wrote: > > Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism > implies a malicious, > > adversarial, conspiratorial process? > > > > > > Yes. However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to > physics is incorrect, even in this > > case. > > > > > > Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt. Some examples, > then: > > > > "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light? This 'relativity' > nonsense is physics conspiring against > > me!" > > > > "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine? Entropy is a conspiracy > against me!" > > > > "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if it > will ever complete? Every time I > > try, something conspires against me!" > > > > I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, adversarial, > conspiratorial process are similarly > > incorrect. > > > > > > > > I think you are still missing something. These aren't comparable > situations. > > > > > > I should elaborate: > > > > If you understood the unique strangeness of superdeterminism, I would > expect you to say something along the lines of: > > > > "Yes I can see why you might think nature is conspiring to always fool > us, however it is not for the reason X" > > > > > > It is not, as it is not - so far as we can tell - a sentient entity > capable of conspiring. > > > > > > It is something which must be adaptively change in response to our > activities, choosing values such that we mistakenly believe the > > quantum probabilities cannot be hidden variables, when in fact, they are. > > > > You don't have to anthropomorphize this entity, nor bestow it with > sentience, but it must be something that responds (adversarially > > and adaptively) to our own decisions and actions, with the effect that > it acts in a manner that we are led to a false conclusion. > > > > Jason > > > >_______________________________________________ > 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 efc at swisscows.email Wed Aug 30 09:30:50 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 11:30:50 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6ff53b4fc87797146ccbadb4e81eafb2@sollegro.com> <0f6ecc4e-3eeb-28a4-7349-1c4993d4f5de@swisscows.email> <8dbb292183146b17039fe31fa18bfa4e@sollegro.com> <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <488215c5-ce01-8496-867f-44f85590a7ed@swisscows.email> Hello Adrian, On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > Some are, and your self-description as "agnostic" is quite on the nose here. > > How certain of, not just the existence of God, but one particular version, is a typical Christian preacher giving a sermon?? How > certain of the kamis are Shinto priests?? How certain is a typical Buddhist guru that dharma exists?? These would seem to be mutually > contradictory positions, at least in most cases. Yes, those discussions are always quite fascinating. In my youth I used to have those a lot, but the last decade or two, not so much any longer. In terms of religion, I'm convinced that the two best interpretations of that phenomenon is either a very subjetive mystical approach, that will never be communicable. My lighter interpretation is more pragmatic, in that it might make some people more pleasant. On the other hand, it can also make some people more unpleasant, so its not clear cut. Well, I'm drifting off topic, so I'll just finish here. ;) Best regards, Daniel > ? > At the same time, I am not a physicist > so I'm always cautious since the certainty could be based on knowledge I > do not have. > > > There is a stereotype, with some truth, of someone who gets a PhD and begins authoritatively?lecturing - wrongly - on topics in every > field, not just the one their PhD is in (in which field their lectures get the facts?right). > ? > But apart from that, so far, I feel as if I'm pretty much in agreement > with you here and in terms of discussion, you seem to have the > theoretical knowledge to continue it profitably. > > > Partly just because I've had these debates before, and I remember the terms that came up.? > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 10:06:23 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 06:06:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Interesting, I found we had this same conversation about 7 years ago on this list: https://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2016-November/thread.html#90681 There's no reason to repeat all the same points, they're all (as far as I can tell) made here. Jason On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:22 AM Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 4:58 AM efc--- via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Hello Adrian and Jason, >> >> I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is >> conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a way >> to convey meaning. >> > > This is what one has to literally believe of superdeterminism is true, > which is why I don't think superdeterminism is believable by anyone who > grasps what it entails. It's the least believable theory in science that's > been seriously put forward. It's far less believable even than wave > function collapse, which seems quite reasonable in comparison. > > If you don't like the word "conspiring" here then you can substitute it > with "adaptively changing in response to our actions in a manner that will > lead us to a false conclusion", but I think conspiring conveys this well, > but let me know if you have another word that you think better communicates > this. > > Jason > > > >> Perhaps we could find a less loaded term? >> >> Analogies and words relating to human reactions are dangerous. I don't >> know what better term to use, but maybe you could find a common >> definition >> that would make it easier to continue the discussion without the word >> "conspiring"? >> >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> > >> > >> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:47 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 3:08?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:02 PM Jason Resch >> wrote: >> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 5:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes >> wrote: >> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> >> > wrote: >> > Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism >> implies a malicious, >> > adversarial, conspiratorial process? >> > >> > >> > Yes. However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to >> physics is incorrect, even in this >> > case. >> > >> > >> > Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt. Some examples, >> then: >> > >> > "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light? This 'relativity' >> nonsense is physics conspiring against >> > me!" >> > >> > "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine? Entropy is a conspiracy >> against me!" >> > >> > "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if it >> will ever complete? Every time I >> > try, something conspires against me!" >> > >> > I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, >> adversarial, conspiratorial process are similarly >> > incorrect. >> > >> > >> > >> > I think you are still missing something. These aren't comparable >> situations. >> > >> > >> > I should elaborate: >> > >> > If you understood the unique strangeness of superdeterminism, I would >> expect you to say something along the lines of: >> > >> > "Yes I can see why you might think nature is conspiring to always fool >> us, however it is not for the reason X" >> > >> > >> > It is not, as it is not - so far as we can tell - a sentient entity >> capable of conspiring. >> > >> > >> > It is something which must be adaptively change in response to our >> activities, choosing values such that we mistakenly believe the >> > quantum probabilities cannot be hidden variables, when in fact, they >> are. >> > >> > You don't have to anthropomorphize this entity, nor bestow it with >> sentience, but it must be something that responds (adversarially >> > and adaptively) to our own decisions and actions, with the effect that >> it acts in a manner that we are led to a false conclusion. >> > >> > Jason >> > >> >_______________________________________________ >> 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 jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 10:31:18 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 06:31:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: It continues through December 2016: https://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2016-December/thread.html On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 6:06 AM Jason Resch wrote: > Interesting, I found we had this same conversation about 7 years ago on > this list: > > > https://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2016-November/thread.html#90681 > > There's no reason to repeat all the same points, they're all (as far as I > can tell) made here. > > Jason > > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:22 AM Jason Resch wrote: > >> >> >> On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 4:58 AM efc--- via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Hello Adrian and Jason, >>> >>> I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is >>> conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a >>> way >>> to convey meaning. >>> >> >> This is what one has to literally believe of superdeterminism is true, >> which is why I don't think superdeterminism is believable by anyone who >> grasps what it entails. It's the least believable theory in science that's >> been seriously put forward. It's far less believable even than wave >> function collapse, which seems quite reasonable in comparison. >> >> If you don't like the word "conspiring" here then you can substitute it >> with "adaptively changing in response to our actions in a manner that will >> lead us to a false conclusion", but I think conspiring conveys this well, >> but let me know if you have another word that you think better communicates >> this. >> >> Jason >> >> >> >>> Perhaps we could find a less loaded term? >>> >>> Analogies and words relating to human reactions are dangerous. I don't >>> know what better term to use, but maybe you could find a common >>> definition >>> that would make it easier to continue the discussion without the word >>> "conspiring"? >>> >>> Best regards, >>> Daniel >>> >>> >>> On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> > >>> > >>> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:47 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 3:08?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:02 PM Jason Resch >>> wrote: >>> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 5:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes >>> wrote: >>> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> >>> > wrote: >>> > Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism >>> implies a malicious, >>> > adversarial, conspiratorial process? >>> > >>> > >>> > Yes. However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to >>> physics is incorrect, even in this >>> > case. >>> > >>> > >>> > Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt. Some examples, >>> then: >>> > >>> > "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light? This 'relativity' >>> nonsense is physics conspiring against >>> > me!" >>> > >>> > "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine? Entropy is a conspiracy >>> against me!" >>> > >>> > "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if >>> it will ever complete? Every time I >>> > try, something conspires against me!" >>> > >>> > I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, >>> adversarial, conspiratorial process are similarly >>> > incorrect. >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > I think you are still missing something. These aren't comparable >>> situations. >>> > >>> > >>> > I should elaborate: >>> > >>> > If you understood the unique strangeness of superdeterminism, I would >>> expect you to say something along the lines of: >>> > >>> > "Yes I can see why you might think nature is conspiring to always fool >>> us, however it is not for the reason X" >>> > >>> > >>> > It is not, as it is not - so far as we can tell - a sentient entity >>> capable of conspiring. >>> > >>> > >>> > It is something which must be adaptively change in response to our >>> activities, choosing values such that we mistakenly believe the >>> > quantum probabilities cannot be hidden variables, when in fact, they >>> are. >>> > >>> > You don't have to anthropomorphize this entity, nor bestow it with >>> sentience, but it must be something that responds (adversarially >>> > and adaptively) to our own decisions and actions, with the effect that >>> it acts in a manner that we are led to a false conclusion. >>> > >>> > Jason >>> > >>> >_______________________________________________ >>> 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 pharos at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 11:52:10 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 12:52:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> References: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Aug 2023 at 10:00, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > Hello Adrian and Jason, > > I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is > conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a way > to convey meaning. > Perhaps we could find a less loaded term? > > Best regards, Daniel >_______________________________________________ Perhaps a review might help the discussion. I asked an AI - How do different interpretations of quantum mechanics address the measurement problem? Reply - Different interpretations of quantum mechanics address the measurement problem in various ways. The measurement problem refers to the fundamental issue of how a quantum system transitions from a superposition of multiple states to a single definite state when it is measured or observed. 1. Copenhagen Interpretation: The Copenhagen interpretation, developed by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, is one of the most well-known interpretations of quantum mechanics. According to this interpretation, the act of measurement causes the wavefunction to collapse into one of the possible eigenstates of the observable being measured. The collapse is seen as a random process, and the probabilities of different outcomes are given by the Born rule. However, the Copenhagen interpretation does not provide a clear explanation for why and how the collapse occurs. 2. Many-Worlds Interpretation: Proposed by Hugh Everett III in 1957, the Many-Worlds interpretation suggests that when a measurement is made, the universe splits into multiple branches, each corresponding to a different outcome of the measurement. In this interpretation, all possible outcomes exist simultaneously in separate branches of reality. This means that there is no actual collapse of the wavefunction; rather, it continues to evolve unitarily without any discontinuity. Each branch represents a different possibility, and all possibilities are realized in different parallel universes. 3. Pilot-Wave Theory (De Broglie-Bohm Theory): The pilot-wave theory, also known as the de Broglie-Bohm theory or Bohmian mechanics, was developed by Louis de Broglie and David Bohm in the 1950s. According to this interpretation, particles have both a particle-like aspect and a wave-like aspect. The wavefunction guides the motion of particles through a guiding equation called the pilot wave equation. In this view, measurements are not fundamentally different from other interactions between particles; they simply reveal pre-existing properties that were determined by initial conditions and hidden variables. 4. Objective Collapse Theories: Objective collapse theories propose that the wavefunction collapses spontaneously due to some physical process. These theories introduce non-linear and stochastic modifications to the Schr?dinger equation to account for the collapse. Examples of objective collapse theories include the GRW theory (Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber) and the Penrose interpretation, which suggests that quantum gravity plays a role in the collapse. 5. Quantum Bayesianism (QBism): QBism, developed by Christopher Fuchs and R?diger Schack, takes a subjective view of quantum mechanics. It treats probabilities as personal degrees of belief rather than objective properties of the physical world. According to QBism, measurement outcomes are not determined by an external reality but are instead reflections of an agent's personal beliefs and experiences. 6. Information-Theoretic Interpretations: Some interpretations, such as the information-theoretic interpretations, focus on the role of information in quantum mechanics. These interpretations suggest that quantum states represent information about possible measurement outcomes, and measurements update our knowledge or information about the system rather than causing a collapse of the wavefunction. It is important to note that these interpretations are not mutually exclusive, and there are many other interpretations of quantum mechanics beyond those mentioned above. Each interpretation offers its own perspective on how to address the measurement problem, but none have been universally accepted or proven to be definitively correct. ---------------------------- This points out that quantum mechanics is still undergoing much discussion and has not been resolved yet. It seems best to remain 'agnostic' in the face of so many different interpretations. It will be a real breakthrough for humanity when quantum mechanics and the true nature of reality is understood. BillK From efc at swisscows.email Wed Aug 30 12:21:54 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:21:54 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <9e82a78e-4e2f-4881-8403-08d39b516b80@swisscows.email> Would have saved us quite some amount of typing, but I'm new to the game, so at least I'm happy with what's been said so far. ;) Let's see in another 7 years if I'll remember to check the archives myself. ;) Best regards, Daniel On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > It continues through December 2016: > https://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2016-December/thread.html > > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 6:06 AM Jason Resch wrote: > Interesting, I found we had this same conversation about 7 years ago on this list: > https://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2016-November/thread.html#90681 > > There's no reason to repeat all the same points, they're all (as far as I can tell) made here. > > Jason? > > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:22 AM Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 4:58 AM efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > Hello Adrian and Jason, > > I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is > conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a way > to convey meaning. > > > This is what one has to literally believe of superdeterminism is true, which is why I don't think superdeterminism is > believable by anyone who grasps what it entails. It's the least believable theory in science that's been seriously put > forward. It's far less believable even than wave function collapse, which seems quite reasonable in comparison. > > If you don't like the word "conspiring" here then you can substitute it with "adaptively changing in response to our > actions in a manner that will lead us to a false conclusion", but I think conspiring conveys this well, but let me know > if you have another word that you think better communicates this. > > Jason? > > > > Perhaps we could find a less loaded term? > > Analogies and words relating to human reactions are dangerous. I don't > know what better term to use, but maybe you could find a common definition > that would make it easier to continue the discussion without the word > "conspiring"? > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > > On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:47 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ?On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 3:08?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ?On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 6:02 PM Jason Resch wrote: > >? ? ? ?On Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 5:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ?On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:59?PM Adrian Tymes wrote: > >? ? ? ?On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:47?PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?wrote: > >? ? ? ?Can you at least understand why I might believe superdeterminism implies a malicious, > >? ? ? ?adversarial, conspiratorial process? > > > > > > Yes.? However, I believe that attributing such motives and malice to physics is incorrect, even in this > > case. > > > > > > Hmm...on review, this might have been a bit too curt.? Some examples, then: > > > > "Why can't I accelerate past the speed of light?? This 'relativity' nonsense is physics conspiring against > > me!" > > > > "Why can't I have a perpetual motion machine?? Entropy is a conspiracy against me!" > > > > "Why can't I know in advance how long a computation will take and if it will ever complete?? Every time I > > try, something conspires against me!" > > > > I believe that claims that superdeterminism is a malicious, adversarial, conspiratorial process are > similarly > > incorrect. > > > > > > > > I think you are still missing something. These aren't comparable situations. > > > > > > I should elaborate: > > > > If you understood the unique strangeness of superdeterminism, I would expect you to say something along the > lines of: > > > > "Yes I can see why you might think nature is conspiring to always fool us, however it is not for the reason > X" > > > > > > It is not, as it is not - so far as we can tell - a sentient entity capable of conspiring.? > > > > > > It is something which must be adaptively change in response to our activities, choosing values such that we > mistakenly believe the > > quantum probabilities cannot be hidden variables, when in fact, they are. > > > > You don't have to anthropomorphize this entity, nor bestow it with sentience, but it must be something that > responds (adversarially > > and adaptively) to our own decisions and actions, with the effect that it acts in a manner that we are led > to a false conclusion. > > > > Jason? > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From efc at swisscows.email Wed Aug 30 12:26:16 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:26:16 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> Hello Bill, On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > It will be a real breakthrough for humanity when quantum mechanics and > the true nature of reality is understood. Yes. I often wonder, once everything is understood and in its place, how many amazing breakthrough can be achieved through quantum mechanices, in the same way that electricity has been milked for a long time for many amazing breakthroughs. Best regards, Daniel > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 12:30:48 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 08:30:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 7:54 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, 30 Aug 2023 at 10:00, efc--- via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > Hello Adrian and Jason, > > > > I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is > > conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a way > > to convey meaning. > > Perhaps we could find a less loaded term? > > > > Best regards, Daniel > >_______________________________________________ > > > Perhaps a review might help the discussion. > I asked an AI - > How do different interpretations of quantum mechanics address the > measurement problem? > > Reply - > Different interpretations of quantum mechanics address the measurement > problem in various ways. The measurement problem refers to the > fundamental issue of how a quantum system transitions from a > superposition of multiple states to a single definite state when it is > measured or observed. > > 1. Copenhagen Interpretation: The Copenhagen interpretation, developed > by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, is one of the most well-known > interpretations of quantum mechanics. According to this > interpretation, the act of measurement causes the wavefunction to > collapse into one of the possible eigenstates of the observable being > measured. The collapse is seen as a random process, and the > probabilities of different outcomes are given by the Born rule. > However, the Copenhagen interpretation does not provide a clear > explanation for why and how the collapse occurs. > > 2. Many-Worlds Interpretation: Proposed by Hugh Everett III in 1957, > the Many-Worlds interpretation suggests that when a measurement is > made, the universe splits into multiple branches, each corresponding > to a different outcome of the measurement. In this interpretation, all > possible outcomes exist simultaneously in separate branches of > reality. This means that there is no actual collapse of the > wavefunction; rather, it continues to evolve unitarily without any > discontinuity. Each branch represents a different possibility, and all > possibilities are realized in different parallel universes. > > 3. Pilot-Wave Theory (De Broglie-Bohm Theory): The pilot-wave theory, > also known as the de Broglie-Bohm theory or Bohmian mechanics, was > developed by Louis de Broglie and David Bohm in the 1950s. According > to this interpretation, particles have both a particle-like aspect and > a wave-like aspect. The wavefunction guides the motion of particles > through a guiding equation called the pilot wave equation. In this > view, measurements are not fundamentally different from other > interactions between particles; they simply reveal pre-existing > properties that were determined by initial conditions and hidden > variables. > > 4. Objective Collapse Theories: Objective collapse theories propose > that the wavefunction collapses spontaneously due to some physical > process. These theories introduce non-linear and stochastic > modifications to the Schr?dinger equation to account for the collapse. > Examples of objective collapse theories include the GRW theory > (Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber) and the Penrose interpretation, which suggests > that quantum gravity plays a role in the collapse. > > 5. Quantum Bayesianism (QBism): QBism, developed by Christopher Fuchs > and R?diger Schack, takes a subjective view of quantum mechanics. It > treats probabilities as personal degrees of belief rather than > objective properties of the physical world. According to QBism, > measurement outcomes are not determined by an external reality but are > instead reflections of an agent's personal beliefs and experiences. > > 6. Information-Theoretic Interpretations: Some interpretations, such > as the information-theoretic interpretations, focus on the role of > information in quantum mechanics. These interpretations suggest that > quantum states represent information about possible measurement > outcomes, and measurements update our knowledge or information about > the system rather than causing a collapse of the wavefunction. > > It is important to note that these interpretations are not mutually > exclusive, and there are many other interpretations of quantum > mechanics beyond those mentioned above. Each interpretation offers its > own perspective on how to address the measurement problem, but none > have been universally accepted or proven to be definitively correct. > ---------------------------- > > This points out that quantum mechanics is still undergoing much > discussion and has not been resolved yet. > It seems best to remain 'agnostic' in the face of so many different > interpretations. > It will be a real breakthrough for humanity when quantum mechanics and > the true nature of reality is understood. > We're in that awkward 100-year period between when Copernicus published his heliocentric view and the time by which everyone had come to accept it as obviously true. It's only been 66 years since Everett explained the appearance of collapse is a natural result even if it never happened at all and the Shrodinger equation was true always. So we have a ways to go. With luck we will have undisputably conscious AI and large scale quantum computers within 34 years. As to the other interpretations: Pilot wave: Bohm later admitted his theory is a many worlds theory. All the other branches must necessarily still exist in his formulation. Objective collapse: all deny the Shrodinger equation and hence are not interpretations of QM, but mathematically distinct and separate theories. They also predict quantum computers will reach a scaling limit. Note: there is no experimental evidence supporting any of these theories, so they are unjustified under Occam. QBism/information-theoretic/shut-up-and-calculate: I lump all these together because they all share the same problem. They deny or ignore reality. That seems fine, until you ask, "how does a calculating tool, or a statement regarding my knowledge or ignorance, *do* anything? How does my 'knowledge state' factor a 10,000 digit semiprime?" There can be no answer to such annoying questions, hence the "shut up and calculate". It's the ostrich's head in the sand approach to the difficult questions of quantum mechanics. Jason > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 12:48:22 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 08:48:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 8:27 AM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hello Bill, > > On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > > > It will be a real breakthrough for humanity when quantum mechanics and > > the true nature of reality is understood. > > Yes. I often wonder, once everything is understood and in its place, how > many amazing breakthrough can be achieved through quantum mechanices, in > the same way that electricity has been milked for a long time for many > amazing breakthroughs. > Nearly all modern technology is based on quantum mechanics. Without QM we wouldn't have: lasers: CDs, DVDs, fiber optics cables Semiconductor based transistors: modern electronics, radios, NAND/flash memory, DRAM, integrated circuits (CPUs and GPUs) Atomic clocks: GPS and navigation Ring-laser gyroscopes for sea and air transportation and navigation spintronics: MRI machines, hard drive read head Ligo gravity wave detector Superconducting magnets, as used in particle accelerators and tokomak fusion reactors So as it is, nearly all our modern technology is based on principles we've only understood since developing quantum mechanics. Jason > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > > > > > BillK > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 12:50:16 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 08:50:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Oh and: LEDs, the basis of nearly all our modern screen and displays. Jason On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 8:48 AM Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 8:27 AM efc--- via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Hello Bill, >> >> On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> > It will be a real breakthrough for humanity when quantum mechanics and >> > the true nature of reality is understood. >> >> Yes. I often wonder, once everything is understood and in its place, how >> many amazing breakthrough can be achieved through quantum mechanices, in >> the same way that electricity has been milked for a long time for many >> amazing breakthroughs. >> > > Nearly all modern technology is based on quantum mechanics. Without QM we > wouldn't have: > > lasers: CDs, DVDs, fiber optics cables > Semiconductor based transistors: modern electronics, radios, NAND/flash > memory, DRAM, integrated circuits (CPUs and GPUs) > Atomic clocks: GPS and navigation > Ring-laser gyroscopes for sea and air transportation and navigation > spintronics: MRI machines, hard drive read head > Ligo gravity wave detector > Superconducting magnets, as used in particle accelerators and tokomak > fusion reactors > > So as it is, nearly all our modern technology is based on principles we've > only understood since developing quantum mechanics. > > Jason > > > >> Best regards, >> Daniel >> >> >> > >> > >> > BillK >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > extropy-chat mailing list >> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 13:31:10 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 09:31:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: There is this other parallel between accepting MW and Heliocentrism: Even Copernicus framed his theory as just a useful calculating device, and that it shouldn't be taken as literally true. He wrote: "Since the newness of the hypotheses of this work--which sets the earth in motion and puts an immovable sun at the centre of the universe--has already received a great deal of publicity, I have no doubt that certain of the savants have taken grave offense and think it wrong to raise any disturbance among liberal disciplines which have had the right set-up for a long time now. If, however, they are willing to weigh the matter scrupulously, they will find that the author of this work has done nothing which merits blame. For it is the job of the astronomer to use painstaking and skilled observation in gathering together the history of the celestial movements, and then--since he cannot by any line of reasoning reach the true causes of these movements--to think up or construct whatever causes or hypotheses he pleases such that, by the assumption of these causes, those same movements can be calculated from the principles nf geometry for the past and for the future too. This artist is markedly outstanding in both of these respects: for it is not necessary that these hypotheses should be true, or even probably; but it is enough if they provide a calculus which fits the observations. [...] For it is sufficiently clear that this art is absolutely and profoundly ignorant of the causes of the apparent irregular movements. And if it constructs and thinks up causes--and it has certainly thought up a good many--nevertheless it does not think them up in order to persuade anyone of their truth but only in order that they may provide a correct basis for calculation." Of course, he also didn't want to run afoul of Church authorities which may explain why his work wasn't published until after his death. But this is an interesting historical parallel. The other being that people's distaste for MW seems rooted in the same prejudice people of Copernicus's day used to reject heliocentrism: "You mean there are *whole other worlds* up there in the sky? Why would there be all that stuff out there which we'll never see or interact with, why would (God/nature) bother making all that? It seems so wasteful and unnecessary." It happened with stars in 1838, galaxies in 1920, branches in 1957, big bangs in 1980, string theories in 2003. Nature continues to surprise us with just how big reality is. Jason On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 8:30 AM Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 7:54 AM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Wed, 30 Aug 2023 at 10:00, efc--- via extropy-chat >> wrote: >> > >> > Hello Adrian and Jason, >> > >> > I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is >> > conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a >> way >> > to convey meaning. >> > Perhaps we could find a less loaded term? >> > >> > Best regards, Daniel >> >_______________________________________________ >> >> >> Perhaps a review might help the discussion. >> I asked an AI - >> How do different interpretations of quantum mechanics address the >> measurement problem? >> >> Reply - >> Different interpretations of quantum mechanics address the measurement >> problem in various ways. The measurement problem refers to the >> fundamental issue of how a quantum system transitions from a >> superposition of multiple states to a single definite state when it is >> measured or observed. >> >> 1. Copenhagen Interpretation: The Copenhagen interpretation, developed >> by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, is one of the most well-known >> interpretations of quantum mechanics. According to this >> interpretation, the act of measurement causes the wavefunction to >> collapse into one of the possible eigenstates of the observable being >> measured. The collapse is seen as a random process, and the >> probabilities of different outcomes are given by the Born rule. >> However, the Copenhagen interpretation does not provide a clear >> explanation for why and how the collapse occurs. >> >> 2. Many-Worlds Interpretation: Proposed by Hugh Everett III in 1957, >> the Many-Worlds interpretation suggests that when a measurement is >> made, the universe splits into multiple branches, each corresponding >> to a different outcome of the measurement. In this interpretation, all >> possible outcomes exist simultaneously in separate branches of >> reality. This means that there is no actual collapse of the >> wavefunction; rather, it continues to evolve unitarily without any >> discontinuity. Each branch represents a different possibility, and all >> possibilities are realized in different parallel universes. >> >> 3. Pilot-Wave Theory (De Broglie-Bohm Theory): The pilot-wave theory, >> also known as the de Broglie-Bohm theory or Bohmian mechanics, was >> developed by Louis de Broglie and David Bohm in the 1950s. According >> to this interpretation, particles have both a particle-like aspect and >> a wave-like aspect. The wavefunction guides the motion of particles >> through a guiding equation called the pilot wave equation. In this >> view, measurements are not fundamentally different from other >> interactions between particles; they simply reveal pre-existing >> properties that were determined by initial conditions and hidden >> variables. >> >> 4. Objective Collapse Theories: Objective collapse theories propose >> that the wavefunction collapses spontaneously due to some physical >> process. These theories introduce non-linear and stochastic >> modifications to the Schr?dinger equation to account for the collapse. >> Examples of objective collapse theories include the GRW theory >> (Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber) and the Penrose interpretation, which suggests >> that quantum gravity plays a role in the collapse. >> >> 5. Quantum Bayesianism (QBism): QBism, developed by Christopher Fuchs >> and R?diger Schack, takes a subjective view of quantum mechanics. It >> treats probabilities as personal degrees of belief rather than >> objective properties of the physical world. According to QBism, >> measurement outcomes are not determined by an external reality but are >> instead reflections of an agent's personal beliefs and experiences. >> >> 6. Information-Theoretic Interpretations: Some interpretations, such >> as the information-theoretic interpretations, focus on the role of >> information in quantum mechanics. These interpretations suggest that >> quantum states represent information about possible measurement >> outcomes, and measurements update our knowledge or information about >> the system rather than causing a collapse of the wavefunction. >> >> It is important to note that these interpretations are not mutually >> exclusive, and there are many other interpretations of quantum >> mechanics beyond those mentioned above. Each interpretation offers its >> own perspective on how to address the measurement problem, but none >> have been universally accepted or proven to be definitively correct. >> ---------------------------- >> >> This points out that quantum mechanics is still undergoing much >> discussion and has not been resolved yet. >> It seems best to remain 'agnostic' in the face of so many different >> interpretations. >> It will be a real breakthrough for humanity when quantum mechanics and >> the true nature of reality is understood. >> > > > We're in that awkward 100-year period between when Copernicus published > his heliocentric view and the time by which everyone had come to accept it > as obviously true. > > It's only been 66 years since Everett explained the appearance of collapse > is a natural result even if it never happened at all and the Shrodinger > equation was true always. So we have a ways to go. With luck we will have > undisputably conscious AI and large scale quantum computers within 34 years. > > > As to the other interpretations: > > Pilot wave: Bohm later admitted his theory is a many worlds theory. All > the other branches must necessarily still exist in his formulation. > > Objective collapse: all deny the Shrodinger equation and hence are not > interpretations of QM, but mathematically distinct and separate theories. > They also predict quantum computers will reach a scaling limit. Note: there > is no experimental evidence supporting any of these theories, so they are > unjustified under Occam. > > QBism/information-theoretic/shut-up-and-calculate: I lump all these > together because they all share the same problem. They deny or ignore > reality. That seems fine, until you ask, "how does a calculating tool, or > a statement regarding my knowledge or ignorance, *do* anything? How does my > 'knowledge state' factor a 10,000 digit semiprime?" There can be no answer > to such annoying questions, hence the "shut up and calculate". It's the > ostrich's head in the sand approach to the difficult questions of quantum > mechanics. > > Jason > >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Wed Aug 30 13:43:39 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 15:43:39 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > lasers: CDs, DVDs, fiber optics cables > Semiconductor based transistors: modern electronics, radios, NAND/flash memory, DRAM, integrated circuits (CPUs and GPUs) > Atomic clocks: GPS and navigation > Ring-laser gyroscopes for sea and air transportation and navigation? > spintronics: MRI machines, hard drive read head > Ligo gravity wave detector > Superconducting magnets, as used in particle accelerators and tokomak fusion reactors? > > So as it is, nearly all our modern technology is based on principles we've only understood since developing quantum mechanics. But since there's so much we don't understand, and the implicatins potentially massive, I wonder how much more there remains to be found within the qm framework, before this paradigm has been exhausted. =) MVH Daniel > > Jason? > > > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > > > > > BillK > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 14:11:41 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 10:11:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 9:44 AM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > lasers: CDs, DVDs, fiber optics cables > > Semiconductor based transistors: modern electronics, radios, NAND/flash > memory, DRAM, integrated circuits (CPUs and GPUs) > > Atomic clocks: GPS and navigation > > Ring-laser gyroscopes for sea and air transportation and navigation > > spintronics: MRI machines, hard drive read head > > Ligo gravity wave detector > > Superconducting magnets, as used in particle accelerators and tokomak > fusion reactors > > > > So as it is, nearly all our modern technology is based on principles > we've only understood since developing quantum mechanics. > > But since there's so much we don't understand, and the implicatins > potentially massive, I wonder how much more there remains to be found > within the qm framework, before this paradigm has been exhausted. =) > I think that QM, as a framework is well understood and nearly complete. There is surely much more to invent, but if we were given some future technology, and a schematic of its construction, I think there's a good chance we could explain and understand it's function with our current knowledge of physics. Of course, there might be some unknown force or family of particles we're still unaware of, but given the energies probed so far via particle accelerators, we should have seen these other particles or families of particles by now, unless they only exist at incredible extremes of energy and temperature. Where our understanding is known to be limited limited relates to edge conditions, at very tiny or scales, where gravity becomes as strong as the other forces as in black holes, and in cosmic scales, such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy. Sean Carroll summarizes this point here: https://youtu.be/LOGT0r9VbWg?si=v4PsH1FC6w0Y4MfY He says what we are confident we understand well are the physical laws underlying everyday life. Jason > MVH > Daniel > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > Best regards, > > Daniel > > > > > > > > > > > > > BillK > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Wed Aug 30 15:18:40 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:18:40 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <1c870839-6847-96d6-333a-2e6d9c4e8679@swisscows.email> On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > Where our understanding is known to be limited limited relates to edge conditions, at very tiny or scales, where gravity becomes as > strong as the other forces as in black holes, and in cosmic scales, such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy. This sounds very reasonable. I don't remember where, but I once saw a physics lecture illustrating the scale of physics, starting out with what we as humans can observe, and then mapping out the limits of our most advanced machinery, and it's fascinating how our world has expanded from our own very limited built in senses, to our machines. So yes, seems reasonable that everything gets fuzzy around the edges until we have new and better machinery, to push the edge even further. Best regards, Daniel > > > > MVH > Daniel > > > > > > Jason? > > > > > > > >? ? ? ?Best regards, > >? ? ? ?Daniel > > > > > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> BillK > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?> extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > >? ? ? ?_______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 30 16:43:32 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 09:43:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <1c870839-6847-96d6-333a-2e6d9c4e8679@swisscows.email> References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> <1c870839-6847-96d6-333a-2e6d9c4e8679@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <011c01d9db61$1d6cf1d0$5846d570$@rainier66.com> . Subject: Re: [ExI] teachers On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > Where our understanding is known to be limited limited relates to edge > conditions, at very tiny or scales, where gravity becomes as strong as the other forces as in black holes, and in cosmic scales, such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy... It doesn't work that way however. There is a known particle that carries the force necessary to hold a bunch of positive particles together in the nucleus. It has nothing to do with gravity. It is because of that (nuclei holding together against an enormous repulsive force in the positive particles) that physicists discovered quantum mechanics. Cool! spike From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 16:52:06 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 12:52:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <011c01d9db61$1d6cf1d0$5846d570$@rainier66.com> References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> <1c870839-6847-96d6-333a-2e6d9c4e8679@swisscows.email> <011c01d9db61$1d6cf1d0$5846d570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 12:44 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > . > Subject: Re: [ExI] teachers > > > On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > Where our understanding is known to be limited limited relates to edge > > conditions, at very tiny or scales, where gravity becomes as strong as > the other forces as in black holes, and in cosmic scales, such as the > nature of dark matter and dark energy... > > It doesn't work that way however. There is a known particle that carries > the force necessary to hold a bunch of positive particles together in the > nucleus. It has nothing to do with gravity. > I didn't mean to imply that gravity is what holds nuclei together. That's what the strong force does. Gravity becomes stronger or as strong as the electromagnetic force in aggregations of mass of around 10^56 protons worth of atoms. This is why nearly all stars are within an order of magnitude of this mass. It is only then that gravitational pressure can overcome repulsion of the positively charged nuclei. Gravity also becomes as strong as the other forces when the distances approach Planck lengths (or at temperature extremes when photon energies approach "absolute hot".) These scales are trillions of times smaller than protons. > It is because of that (nuclei holding together against an enormous > repulsive force in the positive particles) that physicists discovered > quantum mechanics. Cool! > I thought it was Planck investigating black body radiation and Einstein explaining the photoelectric effect in terms of photons. What result are you referring to here? Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Aug 30 17:08:09 2023 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 10:08:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> <1c870839-6847-96d6-333a-2e6d9c4e8679@swisscows.email> <011c01d9db61$1d6cf1d0$5846d5 70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <015901d9db64$8dac4470$a904cd50$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Jason Resch via extropy-chat It is because of that (nuclei holding together against an enormous repulsive force in the positive particles) that physicists discovered quantum mechanics. Cool! >?I thought it was Planck investigating black body radiation and Einstein explaining the photoelectric effect in terms of photons. What result are you referring to here? Jason Ja, that was the particle/wave dual nature of light. Even before that was worked out, the physics community understood they had some big problems with the standard model of the atom. Mesons came to the rescue, but only if we resort to a weird explanation for how they came about. Fun aside: when I was in high school physics, they avoided talking about why nuclei didn?t fly apart. In my tragically misguided teenage mind, I had to theorize that at some sufficiently small scale, gravity does somehow overpower the electromagnetic force. But I didn?t understand why, nor did I understand what scale was necessary to cause that to happen. I was most pleased, overjoyed even, giddy, when I learned there was this other force that holds nuclei together. High school friends asked what was the big Chessie cat grin about. I explained it was about? ?the joy that I found ever since the meson came around, that force put me at the top of the world? (I musically explained, breaking out into the then-popular Carpenters song.) I developed a reputation for being the weirdest cat they ever saw. Oh it was so worth it, for that was a happy day for me. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 17:16:26 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 13:16:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <015901d9db64$8dac4470$a904cd50$@rainier66.com> References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> <1c870839-6847-96d6-333a-2e6d9c4e8679@swisscows.email> <015901d9db64$8dac4470$a904cd50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 1:09 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Jason Resch via extropy-chat > > > > > > > It is because of that (nuclei holding together against an enormous > repulsive force in the positive particles) that physicists discovered > quantum mechanics. Cool! > > > > >?I thought it was Planck investigating black body radiation and Einstein > explaining the photoelectric effect in terms of photons. What result are > you referring to here? > > > > Jason > > > > > > Ja, that was the particle/wave dual nature of light. Even before that was > worked out, the physics community understood they had some big problems > with the standard model of the atom. Mesons came to the rescue, but only > if we resort to a weird explanation for how they came about. > > > > Fun aside: when I was in high school physics, they avoided talking about > why nuclei didn?t fly apart. In my tragically misguided teenage mind, I > had to theorize that at some sufficiently small scale, gravity does somehow > overpower the electromagnetic force. > Don't be too hard on yourself. It's now believed that sufficiently high energy protons slamming into each other can create micro black holes, where gravity does win out and hold the protons together. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_black_hole So you were on to something. Since it would retain it's charge, perhaps such a micro black hole could hold a pair of electrons and behave chemically like a helium atom? But I didn?t understand why, nor did I understand what scale was necessary > to cause that to happen. I was most pleased, overjoyed even, giddy, when I > learned there was this other force that holds nuclei together. > > > > High school friends asked what was the big Chessie cat grin about. I > explained it was about? > > > > ?the joy that I found > > ever since the meson came around, > > that force put me at the top of the world? > > > > (I musically explained, breaking out into the then-popular Carpenters > song.) > > > > I developed a reputation for being the weirdest cat they ever saw. Oh it > was so worth it, for that was a happy day for me. > ?? Jason > > > 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 hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 18:27:44 2023 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 11:27:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> <865bf901-f7e4-42b9-82c4-601012905894@swisscows.email> <1c870839-6847-96d6-333a-2e6d9c4e8679@swisscows.email> <015901d9db64$8dac4470$a904cd50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: If AI becomes conscious: here?s how researchers will know A checklist derived from six neuroscience-based theories of consciousness could aid in the assessment. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02684-5?utm_source=Nature+Briefing%3A+Translational+Research&utm_campaign=2ea6d1b318-briefing-tr-20230830&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_872afe2a9a-2ea6d1b318-47437284 Keith On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 10:17?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 1:09 PM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Jason Resch via extropy-chat >> >> >> >> >> >> >> It is because of that (nuclei holding together against an enormous repulsive force in the positive particles) that physicists discovered quantum mechanics. Cool! >> >> >> >> >?I thought it was Planck investigating black body radiation and Einstein explaining the photoelectric effect in terms of photons. What result are you referring to here? >> >> >> >> Jason >> >> >> >> >> >> Ja, that was the particle/wave dual nature of light. Even before that was worked out, the physics community understood they had some big problems with the standard model of the atom. Mesons came to the rescue, but only if we resort to a weird explanation for how they came about. >> >> >> >> Fun aside: when I was in high school physics, they avoided talking about why nuclei didn?t fly apart. In my tragically misguided teenage mind, I had to theorize that at some sufficiently small scale, gravity does somehow overpower the electromagnetic force. > > > Don't be too hard on yourself. It's now believed that sufficiently high energy protons slamming into each other can create micro black holes, where gravity does win out and hold the protons together. > > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_black_hole > > So you were on to something. > > > Since it would retain it's charge, perhaps such a micro black hole could hold a pair of electrons and behave chemically like a helium atom? > > >> But I didn?t understand why, nor did I understand what scale was necessary to cause that to happen. I was most pleased, overjoyed even, giddy, when I learned there was this other force that holds nuclei together. >> >> >> >> High school friends asked what was the big Chessie cat grin about. I explained it was about? >> >> >> >> ?the joy that I found >> >> ever since the meson came around, >> >> that force put me at the top of the world? >> >> >> >> (I musically explained, breaking out into the then-popular Carpenters song.) >> >> >> >> I developed a reputation for being the weirdest cat they ever saw. Oh it was so worth it, for that was a happy day for me. > > > ?? > > Jason >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From atymes at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 21:43:09 2023 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:43:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 2:23?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 4:58 AM efc--- via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Hello Adrian and Jason, >> >> I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is >> conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a way >> to convey meaning. >> > > This is what one has to literally believe of superdeterminism is true > Incorrect. Superdeterminism does not require the universe to be a conscious entity capable of conspiring. Just because you are unable to access certain information does not mean there is an active conspiracy to keep you from it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Aug 30 22:51:19 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 18:51:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <7690dc8f-5d44-bda4-e587-25d7201b8067@swisscows.email> <85faae72-d64c-ae98-4d23-326e090fdb8c@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:44 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 2:23?AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 4:58 AM efc--- via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Hello Adrian and Jason, >>> >>> I don't think that anyone here actually believes the universe is >>> conspiring against anyone, but my interpretation is that it is just a >>> way >>> to convey meaning. >>> >> >> This is what one has to literally believe of superdeterminism is true >> > > Incorrect. Superdeterminism does not require the universe to be a > conscious entity capable of conspiring. > I agree the universe need not be conscious, but a conspiracy, of some kind, is necessary. > I noticed looking at that thread from 2016, that it was actually you who first introduced the term conspiracy in relation to superdeterminism. Just because you are unable to access certain information does not mean > there is an active conspiracy to keep you from it. > >From reading those past threads it seems you never set aside time to see what Bell's result was saying. If you had, you would perhaps better appreciate what I and others back then we're trying to communicate. Until you do, you will not understand just how outlandish superdeterminism is. It is equivalent to saying there's a rule in nature that makes it so when people flip coins (and something is happening to make their coin come up heads 66% of the time), you propose that rather than apply or find some reason to explain this aberration, you instead propose that for some unlucky reason, the universe just happens to be a place where whenever a person moves their thumb to flick a coin, the laws and this universe are so ordained to cause these anomalous events (over and over again), no matter how people alter or change their thumbs or thumb tossing method, no matter who coaches then to learn to flip coins in different ways, no matter what coins they happen to use, these people just live in that unlikely universe where strange mathematically improbable things are destined to happen forever, and they can't escape it. These poor people are fooled into falsely concluding that a law is nature causes heads to come up 66% of the time, rather than 50% as probability theory would suggest. Do you consider this a reasonable explanation for why the coin tossings come up heads more than tails?, That those unfortunate people just happen to live in a very strange place where very odd unexpected behavior things always happen, violating math and logic and fool them into thinking coin tosses naturally come up heads 66% of the time? This is exactly the form of the answer superdeterminism provides to explain the Bell inequality. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Aug 31 10:33:24 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 11:33:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] US to Build Robot Army to Counter China's Growing Power Message-ID: US military plans to unleash thousands of autonomous war robots over next two years August 30, 2023 Quotes: The United States military plans to start using thousands of autonomous weapons systems in the next two years in a bid to counter China?s growing power, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced in a speech on Monday. Military systems capable of various degrees of independent operation have become increasingly common over the past decade or so. But the scale and scope of the US announcement makes clear the future of conflict has changed: the age of warfighting robots is upon us. A global change The US may be the first nation to field large numbers of autonomous systems, but other countries will be close behind. China is an obvious candidate, with great strength in both artificial intelligence and combat drone production. However, because much of the technology behind autonomous military drones has been developed for civilian purposes, it is widely available and relatively cheap. Autonomous military systems are not just for the great powers, but could also soon be fielded by many middle and smaller powers. --------------------- It looks like the plan is to fight future wars with robots only. Good news that war won't interrupt our 'staring-at-screens' time. BillK From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 31 11:03:59 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:03:59 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] US to Build Robot Army to Counter China's Growing Power In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Next steps is to build them an arena so we can minimize collateral damage as well. And of course, the step after that is selling tickets to the events! ;) Best regards, Daniel On Thu, 31 Aug 2023, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > US military plans to unleash thousands of autonomous war robots over > next two years > August 30, 2023 > > > > Quotes: > The United States military plans to start using thousands of > autonomous weapons systems in the next two years in a bid to counter > China?s growing power, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks > announced in a speech on Monday. > > Military systems capable of various degrees of independent operation > have become increasingly common over the past decade or so. But the > scale and scope of the US announcement makes clear the future of > conflict has changed: the age of warfighting robots is upon us. > > A global change > > The US may be the first nation to field large numbers of autonomous > systems, but other countries will be close behind. China is an obvious > candidate, with great strength in both artificial intelligence and > combat drone production. > > However, because much of the technology behind autonomous military > drones has been developed for civilian purposes, it is widely > available and relatively cheap. Autonomous military systems are not > just for the great powers, but could also soon be fielded by many > middle and smaller powers. > --------------------- > > It looks like the plan is to fight future wars with robots only. > Good news that war won't interrupt our 'staring-at-screens' time. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 31 13:39:26 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:39:26 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> <7074d8ff-bf7e-8ed1-3ffd-2ee43f9ee7cb@swisscows.email> <090290cd-e9d9-3be0-2581-284d42471d01@swisscows.email> <7bd14786-1ffb-63cb-9d1c-a699eebb3f30@swisscows.email> Message-ID: <00280595-3a69-ea93-12f6-319dbee882ad@swisscows.email> Hello Jason, On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > That is quite a big "if" in my world. > > It would be quite doubtful, I agree, if not for all the evidence we have for it. I have put together a list of confirming evidence > here: > https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Confirming_Evidence Could you expand here? I'm afraid that I still do not see any verifiable, empirical evidence. I do see well thought out theories, and I do concede that in the future maybe a way will be found in which to test them by making predictions and performing experiments which confirm or deny them. > Hold on... so when checking quantum interference and the two slit > experiment, it seems to me that the experiment resulted in the > interpretations and theories we are discussing. So since I am doubting > information transfer between universes, I don't see how we can use this > experiment, which gives rise to what I am doubting, to justify or prove > what I'm doubting here. MWI is one interpretation among many, which are > not proved. So I would not count it as proof of this. > > All theories of QM accept a multiplicity of parts of reality. This is how the single-electron two slit experiment is explained (the > electron is in two places at once). Where the theories diverge is in saying what happens when we look at the system. > > CI says all the other possibilities a particle (or system of particles) might be in, while they were real, once observed all but one > of them then suddenly vanish. This is the issue Shrodinger pointed out in his cat experiment. How could a living (or dead cat) > suddenly disappear (or appear?) when we open the box? This seemed quite incredible. > > MW says the superposition spreads contagiously as superposed particles interact with other particles. See this presentation I put > together for how the superposition spreads, from particles to systems of particles (including our brains):https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NThhVw4hrPxOueAQEwr-MNfIQiBaPd9o/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109779696990142678208&rtpof=true&sd=t > rue I think maybe we've reached the end here. Yes, MWI, CI and others are theories developed to explain what's happening in the two slit experiment. But, so far they have not been verified by empirical proof. Given my standards of evidence, extrapolations are not truths, and I'd rather acknowledge that we don't know, and suspend judgment, than "jump in" and believe a theory that has not (and in some cases, based on some writers on the subject) can not be tested and verified. > Well, my interpretation is that I'm a lucky guy, not that MWI is right. > > Would you bet in advance that you could survive 40 iterations? (1 in a trillion odds) > Would you change your assessment as to whether or not QM was true after you found yourself surviving 40 iterations? No. I would believe, lacking empirical proof of MWI, that I'm an extremely lucky guy. ;) > Since I'm talking about this world, any happenings after my death do not > have any bearing on my beliefs in this world. Again, no information > travels from the dead to us based on anything I ever read (religious > relatives aside). > > Can beliefs in this world not bear on possibilities?of things occurring outside this world? Anything is possible (well, assuming at least that we exclude contradictions) but we are talking about belief and not empirical proof related to the existence we are inhabiting right now. I prefer desert landscapes, to filling my conceptual world with a multitude of interpretations and beings, at least when it comes to navigating this world. Then again, entertaining and discussing these theories (and philosophy) is fun, so from that point of view, I am willing to engage, but that does not mean I believe in them. > Bingo! I think actually, as per Adrians post as well, that this is the > nature of the question. Physics and science will by design most likely > forever be incomplete. We can approach truth, but never realize it 100%. > > This can be shown quite easily, actually. If we arrange a computer running some program for which we don't know whether or not it > will finish and then turn itself off, then it is also a physical problem how much power this computer will ultimately draw. But this > physical question may not be answerable under known mathematics, and there will always remain problems for which currently known > mathematics are insufficient to answer this question for some programs. I agree. > But I would not from this fact conclude that we should not attempt our best to expand physics and ontology, to expand the scope of > questions that are answerable. I agree. We should definitely strive for expanding our horizons, developing more powerful tools, push further and further ahead. But, at the same time, in my opinion, it is important not to commit too much to theories which cannot be proven. They are an important tool, they can serve as inspiration, but it should be kept in mind that they are, and will always be, theories, until proof, in this world, is obtained. > Instead of seeing this as a limitation, perhaps this is instead a > strength? > > I think it's enough to acknowledge there will always be things we do not know. But I don't think that's ever a justification for > ceasing?or limiting our exploration. Agreed! > Ah, but this is mixing levels. We are running the simulation in our > world. So yes, as far as the beings inside the virtual machine are > concerned, that is all they know. But there is nothing they can do to > escape their medium of existence by themselves. > > You are defining their existence in terms of their material construction. If we, however, relax this constraint, and say any > identical abstraction is sufficient to re-create their conscious (and the material substrate is unimportant) then external simulation I do, since we live in a material universe. Therefore I do not think it makes sense to relax this constraint. > mainstream view in philosophy of mind, multiple realizability. If you destroy a mind in one place and rebuild it elsewhere, the > reconstructed person survives, even if different atoms are used. If our minds can be viewed as certain computations, then any mind > can be created in any universe in which a Turing machine can be built. Ah, this connects to our other discussion, I think I'll get back to that in our other thread about ID and consciousness. > > For this reason, universes are never entirely causally isolated from one another, they can peer into other universes, > extract > > information from them, and that information can effect the goings on in that universe. For example, the fact that I've > written the > > As per above, I still do not see how this could be. I'm very sorry. > > It might help to consider the, (what I consider to be analogous), question of how does mathematical knowledge enter our universe? > > What physically caused me to write: "the sum of the interior angles of a triangle are 180 degrees" ? Are the causes entirely > physical? Do mathematical truths have any bearing on what happens or can happen in this universe? I am not a platonist, and believe math is created, inspired by patterns and relations we discover in the world. I do not believe mathematical concepts exist in a platonic world of ideas. > feel as if this might end up as the qualia discussions, where one side > cannot see how the other cannot see. > > There is a loose analogy between separate physical universes and separated conscious minds. Things become incommunicable due to a > lack of shared points of reference. E.g., I can no more explain my concept of red to you, then two beings in two different universes > can communicate the meaning of a meter between each other. Yes, I agree about that. I do not also, believe in any unique redness. It only has meaning, as an subjective experience, relative to that individual. But that relates to the "redness" and qualia thread, and I do not think it ended up convincing anyone in any direction. ;) Best regards, Daniel > > Jason? > > > > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > > > Jason > > ? > > > >? ? ? ?Best regards, > >? ? ? ?Daniel > > > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> Jason > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat > wrote: > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Hello Stuart, > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? edge physics. > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? You say that > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you are already > >? ? ? ?immortal. You > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?don't need to > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? copy yourself because there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, > you > >? ? ? ?strewn about > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?the > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? multiverse. > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof or > is itone > >? ? ? ?of many > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?interpretations of > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? current theories? > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in the sense that the probability there's > only > >? ? ? ?one > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?universe > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?(with one kind of > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122. > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?This is as close to proof as anything science can provide. > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?Jason? > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Best regards, Daniel > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? Stuart LaForge > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I > think we > >? ? ? ?should > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?really > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain > further? > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and > not-discontinuity > >? ? ? ?not > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?being > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?the > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? same thing? > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Ben > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?>_______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>_______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > From pharos at gmail.com Thu Aug 31 13:55:52 2023 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 14:55:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] US to Build Robot Army to Counter China's Growing Power In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 31 Aug 2023 at 12:06, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > > Next steps is to build them an arena so we can minimize collateral damage > as well. > And of course, the step after that is selling tickets to the events! ;) > > Best regards, Daniel >______________________________________________ And as a follow-up, to demonstrate that humans will be out-classed - Swiss researchers invent drone-flying AI that tops champions The AI won 15 of the 25 races against humans and led the fastest time on the track by more than half a second. Ameya Paleja Aug 30, 2023 Quote: the pilot only has access to first-person views generated from onboard cameras as high-speed drones fly through three-dimensional circuits. Human pilots spend years training themselves to achieve the mastery required to outdo each other in head-to-head contests. An autonomous drone piloting system needs to constantly keep estimating its speed and location using onboard sensors while flying at high speeds if it needs to beat its human counterparts, and that's exactly what the Swiss researchers have managed to build. -------------------- These naughty AIs are beating humans at everything! BillK From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 31 14:40:05 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 16:40:05 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] US to Build Robot Army to Counter China's Growing Power In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Bill, it is all about defining the battle... > These naughty AIs are beating humans at everything! Why not see who can perform the worst? ;) Best regards, Daniel > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From jasonresch at gmail.com Thu Aug 31 16:36:22 2023 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:36:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: <00280595-3a69-ea93-12f6-319dbee882ad@swisscows.email> References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <83c7f4c8-7b76-c937-7b4e-02dbf833fa87@swisscows.email> <7074d8ff-bf7e-8ed1-3ffd-2ee43f9ee7cb@swisscows.email> <090290cd-e9d9-3be0-2581-284d42471d01@swisscows.email> <7bd14786-1ffb-63cb-9d1c-a699eebb3f30@swisscows.email> <00280595-3a69-ea93-12f6-319dbee882ad@swisscows.email> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 9:40 AM efc--- via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hello Jason, > > On Tue, 29 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > > That is quite a big "if" in my world. > > > > It would be quite doubtful, I agree, if not for all the evidence we have > for it. I have put together a list of confirming evidence > > here: > > https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Confirming_Evidence > > Could you expand here? I'm afraid that I still do not see any > verifiable, empirical evidence. I do see well thought out theories, and > I do concede that in the future maybe a way will be found in which to > test them by making predictions and performing experiments which confirm > or deny them. > The meaning of "empirical evidence", to me, is any prediction made by a theory which we can verify with our senses or observations (or indirectly by observing results of a measurement apparatus). Note that evidence doesn't ever lead to 100% certainty of a theory, but each successful prediction a theory makes, increases our confidence in the truth of that theory, because there was a nonzero chance the observation would falsify the theory. Agree so far? Now consider each of these predictions, which could have been made a priori, by ensemble theories that use algorithmic information theory: 1. The universe follows simple stable laws 2. The laws are probabilistic in nature 3. The universe will with a high likelihood appear to have a beginning in time None of these outcomes had to be the case. We might live in a universe with no apparent beginning, or with laws that aren't probabilistic in nature, or laws that aren't easily described. We observed our universe, and found empirical evidence which confirms these predictions. It's no different than devising a theory of gravity then looking at planetary orbits to gather empirical evidence supporting that inverse square law of gravitational attraction. So I don't understand why you think the examples in that section are not empirical. > > Hold on... so when checking quantum interference and the two slit > > experiment, it seems to me that the experiment resulted in the > > interpretations and theories we are discussing. So since I am > doubting > > information transfer between universes, I don't see how we can use > this > > experiment, which gives rise to what I am doubting, to justify or > prove > > what I'm doubting here. MWI is one interpretation among many, > which are > > not proved. So I would not count it as proof of this. > > > > All theories of QM accept a multiplicity of parts of reality. This is > how the single-electron two slit experiment is explained (the > > electron is in two places at once). Where the theories diverge is in > saying what happens when we look at the system. > > > > CI says all the other possibilities a particle (or system of particles) > might be in, while they were real, once observed all but one > > of them then suddenly vanish. This is the issue Shrodinger pointed out > in his cat experiment. How could a living (or dead cat) > > suddenly disappear (or appear?) when we open the box? This seemed quite > incredible. > > > > MW says the superposition spreads contagiously as superposed particles > interact with other particles. See this presentation I put > > together for how the superposition spreads, from particles to systems of > particles (including our brains): > https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NThhVw4hrPxOueAQEwr-MNfIQiBaPd9o/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109779696990142678208&rtpof=true&sd=t > > rue > > I think maybe we've reached the end here. Yes, MWI, CI and others are > theories developed to explain what's happening in the two slit > experiment. But, so far they have not been verified by empirical proof. Given my standards of evidence, extrapolations are not truths, and I'd > rather acknowledge that we don't know, and suspend judgment, than "jump > in" and believe a theory that has not (and in some cases, based on some > writers on the subject) can not be tested and verified. > You don't think QM has been verified? It's responsible for the most accurate prediction in physics (so far confirmed to 8 decimal places). > > Well, my interpretation is that I'm a lucky guy, not that MWI is > right. > > > > Would you bet in advance that you could survive 40 iterations? (1 in a > trillion odds) > > Would you change your assessment as to whether or not QM was true after > you found yourself surviving 40 iterations? > > No. I would believe, lacking empirical proof of MWI, that I'm an > extremely lucky guy. ;) > Let's say there are two theories for what is happening: 1. You are very lucky 2. The game is rigged Let's say you start playing the lottery and you win 10 times in a row. Does this not start to increase the likelihood of #2 as an explanation, in your assessment? > > Since I'm talking about this world, any happenings after my death > do not > > have any bearing on my beliefs in this world. Again, no information > > travels from the dead to us based on anything I ever read > (religious > > relatives aside). > > > > Can beliefs in this world not bear on possibilities of things occurring > outside this world? > > Anything is possible (well, assuming at least that we exclude > contradictions) but we are talking about belief and not empirical proof > related to the existence we are inhabiting right now. I prefer desert > landscapes, to filling my conceptual world with a multitude of > interpretations and beings, at least when it comes to navigating this > world. Then again, entertaining and discussing these theories (and > philosophy) is fun, so from that point of view, I am willing to engage, > but that does not mean I believe in them. > It's fine to be agnostic, but eventually we need to act in the world. If in the future you are given a choice to receive a neural prosthesis (say to restore or preserve brain function), will you refuse to make up your mind because you are agnostic on a theory of consciousness, or will you make a best guess given available information? > > Bingo! I think actually, as per Adrians post as well, that this is > the > > nature of the question. Physics and science will by design most > likely > > forever be incomplete. We can approach truth, but never realize it > 100%. > > > > This can be shown quite easily, actually. If we arrange a computer > running some program for which we don't know whether or not it > > will finish and then turn itself off, then it is also a physical problem > how much power this computer will ultimately draw. But this > > physical question may not be answerable under known mathematics, and > there will always remain problems for which currently known > > mathematics are insufficient to answer this question for some programs. > > I agree. > > > But I would not from this fact conclude that we should not attempt our > best to expand physics and ontology, to expand the scope of > > questions that are answerable. > > I agree. We should definitely strive for expanding our horizons, > developing more powerful tools, push further and further ahead. But, at > the same time, in my opinion, it is important not to commit too much to > theories which cannot be proven. Nothing can ever be proven, but I would guess you still commit to the theory of gravity or evolution. They are an important tool, they can > serve as inspiration, but it should be kept in mind that they are, and > will always be, theories, until proof, in this world, is obtained. > I may be more agnostic than you, as I don't think proof can ever be obtained. We could be in a dream world or simulation where nothing we believe reflects reality. But despite this predicament, I still think some theories are far more likely to be correct than others. > > Instead of seeing this as a limitation, perhaps this is instead a > > strength? > > > > I think it's enough to acknowledge there will always be things we do not > know. But I don't think that's ever a justification for > > ceasing or limiting our exploration. > > Agreed! > > > Ah, but this is mixing levels. We are running the simulation in our > > world. So yes, as far as the beings inside the virtual machine are > > concerned, that is all they know. But there is nothing they can do > to > > escape their medium of existence by themselves. > > > > You are defining their existence in terms of their material > construction. If we, however, relax this constraint, and say any > > identical abstraction is sufficient to re-create their conscious (and > the material substrate is unimportant) then external simulation > > I do, since we live in a material universe. How do you know that? Could we not be ideas in the mind of God? Therefore I do not think it > makes sense to relax this constraint. > Are you not agnostic regarding various theories in philosophy of mind, (which is perhaps the least-settled subject in science today.) Especially given that mind-brain identity theory is a minority position. > > mainstream view in philosophy of mind, multiple realizability. If you > destroy a mind in one place and rebuild it elsewhere, the > > reconstructed person survives, even if different atoms are used. If our > minds can be viewed as certain computations, then any mind > > can be created in any universe in which a Turing machine can be built. > > Ah, this connects to our other discussion, I think I'll get back to that > in our other thread about ID and consciousness. > The nature of reality and of consciousness are closely connected, in my opinion. > > > For this reason, universes are never entirely causally isolated > from one another, they can peer into other universes, > > extract > > > information from them, and that information can effect the > goings on in that universe. For example, the fact that I've > > written the > > > > As per above, I still do not see how this could be. I'm very sorry. > > > > It might help to consider the, (what I consider to be analogous), > question of how does mathematical knowledge enter our universe? > > > > What physically caused me to write: "the sum of the interior angles of a > triangle are 180 degrees" ? Are the causes entirely > > physical? Do mathematical truths have any bearing on what happens or can > happen in this universe? > > I am not a platonist, and believe math is created, inspired by patterns > and relations we discover in the world. I do not believe mathematical > concepts exist in a platonic world of ideas. > I always thought that was a bad characterization of Platonism. I prefer defining it as mathematical truth is not defined by us. It transcends us, and any attempt to define it. This was the chief discovery of Godel. Our systems and proofs are not the source of mathematical truth. No matter what mathematical system we come up with, there will always be truths we cannot prove without system. So then, where does truth come from, if not us or our axiomatic systems? Godel realizes his result implies Platonism. As he writes: "[The existence of] absolutely undecidable mathematical propositions, seems to disprove the view that mathematics is only our own creation; for the creator necessarily knows all properties of his creatures, because they can?t have any others except those he has given to them. So this alternative seems to imply that mathematical objects and facts (or at least something in them) exist objectively and independently of our mental acts and decisions, that is to say, [it seems to imply] some form or other of Platonism or ?realism? as to the mathematical objects." -- Kurt G?del in ?Some basic theorems on the foundations of mathematics and their implications p. 311? (1951) > > feel as if this might end up as the qualia discussions, where one > side > > cannot see how the other cannot see. > > > > There is a loose analogy between separate physical universes and > separated conscious minds. Things become incommunicable due to a > > lack of shared points of reference. E.g., I can no more explain my > concept of red to you, then two beings in two different universes > > can communicate the meaning of a meter between each other. > > Yes, I agree about that. I do not also, believe in any unique redness. > It only has meaning, as an subjective experience, relative to that > individual. But that relates to the "redness" and qualia thread, and I > do not think it ended up convincing anyone in any direction. ;) > It's only once in a blue moon anyone ever changes their mind on anything. Jason > Best regards, > Daniel > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > Best regards, > > Daniel > > > > > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > Best regards, > > > Daniel > > > > > > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via > extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- > via extropy-chat > > wrote: > > > > > Hello Stuart, > > > > > > > > > > Just a quick question from > someone not very knowledgeable of cutting > > > > > edge physics. > > > > > > > > > > You say that > > > > > > > > > > that a copy of you can > truly be you, then you can relax because you are already > > > immortal. You > > > > > don't need to > > > > > copy yourself because > there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, > > you > > > strewn about > > > > > the > > > > > multiverse. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > What I wonder is, are infinite > numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof or > > is itone > > > of many > > > > > interpretations of > > > > > current theories? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Anthropic considerations provide > strong evidence, in the sense that the probability there's > > only > > > one > > > > universe > > > > > (with one kind of > > > > > physics) is on the order of 1 in > 10^122. > > > > > > > > > > > https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/ > > > > > > > > > > This is as close to proof as > anything science can provide. > > > > > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Best regards, Daniel > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This is a crucial > point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I > > think we > > > should > > > > > really > > > > > understand it, yet > it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain > > further? > > > > > > > > > > Could you also > please explain the comment about continuity and > > not-discontinuity > > > not > > > > being > > > > > the > > > > > same thing? > > > > > > > > > > Ben > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > extropy-chat > mailing list > > > > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efc at swisscows.email Thu Aug 31 22:15:57 2023 From: efc at swisscows.email (efc at swisscows.email) Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2023 00:15:57 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] teachers In-Reply-To: References: <4b9f2c79-b214-7340-386e-127162ac71f3@zaiboc.net> <6883984a-8825-512d-de5f-5d01f099183f@swisscows.email> <61498c06-ffc7-1bdf-4be3-d3135e4add96@swisscows.email> Message-ID: Good evening Jason, On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > Sorry for being unclear. I meant that identity includes both. Not just > hw and not just sw, buth both, combined. I'm not saying it solves all > problems, but it seems to me as if it does solve at least some > challenges. > > Ahh I see what you mean now. One could define personal identity in terms of the continuity of the same body and mind, but then the > question is how strict must the similarity be for the identity to hold? Yes, it is a very common sense model, but just like ethics, it is probably easy to come up with corner cases and thought experiments which poke holes at it at the extremes. > If completely strict, you end up with the empty individualism of #1, if unrestricted you end up with the open individualism of #3, > since if one permits gradual changes, it is still subject to gradually morphing into any other person, and even with the restriction > of bodily continuity, our metabolism is constantly churning out old material and replacing it with new material, (something like half > the atoms in your brain are replaced every 8 days through metabolism). What if these atoms were collected and used to construct a new > version of you, Ship of Theseus style? Which one are you? How do we track bodily continuity when we are each, effectively rivers > through which atoms flow? In terms of identity, that's why I would think of two anchors, bodily continuity and mind continuity. There is also the dimension of location, to cover the case of id when copied. That would change location from 1x to 2x, thus somehow "violating" the id, making it a separate one. But I'll stop for now, because I think you'll get to that below. > > Well, over the course of a life time, and assuming no external > interference, I'd say that there is a continuity of both body and mind, > as per the laws governing the workings of body and mind. > > When it comes to the question of if this is a 10% person or a 100% > person, that would depend on the context and purpose of the conversation > it is used in. > > > And is there a continuous spectrum between any two persons? > > If you're talking about one organism separated by time, according to the > above, I'd say yes. Separate persons, no. But I think I misunderstand you here. > > > I mean from the perspective of within an infinite reality, as described here: > > "You see, The Object contains the Continuum of Souls. It is a connected set, with a frothy, fractal structure, of rather high > dimensionality. The Continuum contains an infinite number of Souls, all Souls in fact, and an infinite number of them are You. Or at I'm sorry, but I think you need to unpack that for me. I have a feeling that is a quote from a book, so for me, a "continuum of souls" and "connected set, with a frothy, fractal structure, of rather high dimensionality" means nothing to me. > least, close enough to being You so that nobody could tell the difference. Not even You. > And the Continuum also contains an infinite number of souls that are almost You. And an infinite number that are sort of You. And > because it is a Continuum, and because there is really no objective way to tell which one is really You, then any method one uses to > try to distinguish between You and non-You will produce nothing but illusion. In a sense, there is only one You, and it is Everyone. > Of course, You can tell which one is you, can?t you? Or can you?" > -- Douglas Jones in "A Conversation" (1996) I'm sorry, it could be the time of night, or it could be my two beers at the birthday dinner I just came back from, but I do not understand what Douglas is talking about here. ? > Ah, but this was my badly made point above, that only bodily-continuity > is not enough. In a cell there is no mind, so the question then is not > relevant. > > > if we ask: "what experiences will this body eventually have?" I think this perspective would have to say the > experiences of both > > twins belong to the future continuations of this cell. > > Same here. Cell is not enough. The continuity I'd say has to cover both > the body and the mind. > > Do concussions (or any discontinuous?break in consciousness) end a person? What about a coma, when someone is unconscious for many > months and then awakens with a (materially) completely new body? If continuity of body AND mind are strictly required and must be > continuous, then I see interruptions in either as posing problems. In the case of a concussion, the body is the same (roughly), and in case of the mind, there is continuity in that memory, experiences, my daily flow of events from before and after the interruption are the same. Coma, the same thing. So I think you make a good point, and when I say continuity I do not mean being awake or conscious. I believe I am the same person before and after I wake up from sleeping, and I believe I am the same before and after fainting. The continuity is one of experience, identity and memory and body. Neither is interrupted by concussions or coma. However! To illustrate the other side of the equation, let's say you are "mind wiped". We have bodily continuity, but not one of the mind, and in that case I would say that it is not the same person before and after. > > This is strange, and something we rarely consider, but it all comes down to: why am I experiencing this perspective, > rather than some > > other? What pre-conditions were necessary for me to have been born, be alive, and experience life? > > > > Did it depend on certain atoms?--(what if my mom ate a different lunch when she was pregnant?) Does it depend on > certain > > genes?--(what if my eyes had been a different color?) > > I think here maybe we start to diverge into questions of existence, > possibly reasons for living, and possibly teleological ideas. > > I don't mean to ask for what purpose or reason we are here, I mean rather: what is the reason you are you, and I am me? What was > necessary (physically) for you to be the person you are peering through your eyes? What physical changes might have interrupted or > prevented that from happening? What accounts for or explains the fact that you are Daniel (rather than someone else, or no one)? The reason? My parents and my upbriging. But this is not your point. Could you take your reasoning to the next step, because I feel there is a good point coming here. > But the fact is that you (and I) were. The probability of it is an after > construction and also why I am not a fan of philosophical arguments > suchas Pascals wager. I think statistics, especially applied in this > way, and across ethereal realms leaving our material world, tend to lead > us astray. > > Not everyone buys the appropriateness of using probability arguments in this way; but I consider it effectively the same thing as Are you serious? I thought I was basically the only one. Do you have a link to someone who does not like using probability arguments in this way? The reason I am asking is that, as you can see, I am not able to clearly state why I feel the way I do, and perhaps by reading someone who actually spent a philosophical career thinking about it, my own position could become a bit more clear. > using fine-tuning of the universe: it seems something improbable has happened: is there an explanation? For the fine-tuning, the > answer that demystifies the improbability is the anthropic principle. For why you were born, when it seems so unlikely, the answer > that demystifies the improbability is open individualism. To me, this sounds like the illusion of probability. I can take a smoked almond from a bowl on my table and drop it on the floor and the probability of it ending up there, starting from the big bang is infinitely low. The probability of it ending up on the floor after I drop it is infinitely high. So depending on my human frame of reference, my starting point, I can toy with probabilities and make everything seem like magic. I think, this is also why I do not like statistical arguments about things which are not even part of our universe. > I think we covered this in the original scenario. I'd argue that a copy, > then restored, is not the same person due to the mind factor not being > continuous. I do see a possibility for the same person in a ship of > theseus procedure, since body and mind continuity would not be violated, > but only transformed. > > What do you make?the ship of Theseus where the old/original planks are secretly gathered and used to reconstruct the ship in its > original form? What would you make of applying the same to a person's body, whose old atoms are collected and reformed into an > identical copy? If you mean a ship of theseus transformation from original to copy to original, I think that would fit in with my model, since its not a copy, and since continuity would be preserved. Or maybe I a fooling myself? ;) > Yes and no. Depending on how the upload was done, from where to where, > and how the continuity of the mind was handled. If a ship of theseus > operation was performed, and then copied onto a different set of > hardware, that would be one continuous and one copy. If you have linked > clones, I could see preservation, but also waste if the two clones > always had to give the same answer. Although from a disaster recovery > point of view, that would be a fascinating concept! > > Yes, this is actually a theme of the TV show Foundation. Backup clones are kept, and new memories are constantly synchronized to > their brains. Ah, did that one start again? I saw season one, and apart from there being a bit too much violence, it did have some interesting ideas. But nothing beats the original books in my opinion. =) > > the first time, and in a dying brain when the last two surviving neurons fire for the last time. Then from the mental > continuity > > perspective all mine states of all organisms are part of a connected set. > > I don't see how. It's separate organs, with separate reactions. I can > however see and fully acknowledge that from a process point of view, or > "tree of life" point of view, we are all related. But that's purely > biologically and not related to my mind and sense of identity. > > Here I was operating from the assumption of mind continuity. This is what I would say is the view (common among > physicalists/materialists/functionalists) where if you stepped into a teleporter, you would survive on the other end when you were > reconstructed, even if new atoms were used. If we can survive teleporters, then it's the mind-state that must be preserved for > survival, not any particular collection of atoms. In this case, if the last mind state of a dying brain happens to be the same mind > state of another brain which continues on, this is in effect, identical to the transporter?scenario. The mind survives because its > mind-state is instantiated elsewhere where it continues on, despite that different material is used. Ahhh, got it. I do see a break in continuity there, so for me, that would be a new, identical clone. > This does not work if you require bodily continuity as well, as every night when we sleep, atoms are discontinuously replaced between > successive moments of consciousness (between when we fall asleep at night and awaken in the morning, our bodies have changed, food > has metabolized and become part of our bodies, carbon from our bodies has been exhaled as CO2, etc.). But there is continuity in the fact that the bodys processes are not interrupted, atoms are replaced, but the system is not interrupted. With the mind as well. Might adding locality as nother dimension work? Or make it more clear? ? > Please do! No need for me to armchair philosophize, when I can read a > paper about some fascinating biological procedure! > > Hodan Twins: ... > Great! Thank you very much. =) > >? ? ? ?Laws of physics? This one, I don't understand, but it is getting late > >? ? ? ?here, so I'll blame my tired brain. ;) > > > > Physics reveals a complete symmetry and interchangeability between spaces and time. But we seem to have a bias against > the latter > > situation. If we take time-space symmetry seriously, we must recognize this as a bias internal to us. It suggests that > duplicates are > > self, as much as the same self is preserved over time. > > I think that is a very big step and conclusion to make. Could you divide > it up into smaller steps? Maybe then I'll see the point. > > > I've attached and excerpt from something I wrote that goes into this in more detail, in particular see the story about the > "Duplicators vs. Restorers" Hmm, I did not get any attachments. Maybe they were scrubbed by the list software? Could you send them directly to my email? > (Also, I have included also the story of the deep space travelers, which also introduces some of the issues with personal identity, > particularly as it it pertains to duplication. It's not relevant to the interchangeability of space and time, but you might still > find it interesting.) > > I also found these archived pages of an old member of this list, Lee Corbin, who wrote several articles on personal identiy, which > are an interesting read, and relate to this topic: > * "Why Duplicates Are Self: A Proof" > * "The Pit and the Duplicate" > * "Continuity of Identity: The Last Refuge of the Soul" > > ? > > > Thanks. Note that this article just introduces the idea, but doesn't really argue for it. I would recommend Zuboff's > linked paper to > > see the reasons for believing it. > > Thank you, will keep that in mind, and have a look at the paper. =) > > Thank you as well, for your always great questions and for making me have to think. :-) Had no idea! And here I thought that you were just drumming up old and well thought through thoughts, and I was the one who was doing all the thinking! ;) I find this great for challenging myself and forcing me to think through what I believe and why I believe it. The only disadvantage and the one who suffers is my wife who complains that I write long letters to strangers, and never a long letter to her. ;) Best regards, Daniel > ? > Jason > > > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ?On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?The question you are asking about below concerns the topic in philosophy known as personal > identity. That > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?topic asks: which I > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?experiences belong to which person's, in other words, how do we define the temporal borders of a > person. > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?There are in general three > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?approaches generally taken: > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?1. No-self/Anatta/empty individualism: each observer-moment, or thought-moment is its own isolated > thing, > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?there's no such thing as a > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?self which has multiple distinct thought-moments. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?2. Continuity theories/closed individualism:? either bodily or psychological continuity. A self is > a > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?continual things either though > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?the continuation of some physical body, or some more abstractly defined psychological organization. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?3. Universalism/open Individualism: There are no bodily or psychological preconditions for an > experience > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?being yours, all experiences > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?are I, and in truth there is only one mind. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?I think #2 leads to contradictions. #1 and #3 are logically consistent. Between #1 and #3, #3 is > more > >? ? ? ?useful > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?(it permits decision > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?theory) and further, there are strong probabilistic arguments for it. For example, those given in > "One > >? ? ? ?self: > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?the logic of experience" > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?which I cite here: > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?https://alwaysasking.com/is-there-life-after-death/#10_Open_Individualism_and_the_Afterlife > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?One consequence of Open Individualism is that it dissolves any concern of whether some particular > copy is > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?you, as all conscious > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?perspectives are you. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?Jason? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? My position is that a separate uploaded copy of me is not me, thus would not grant the > physical me > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?immortality. I would > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? look at it as a mind-seed, or something slightly similar to a part of me that lives on, just > as a > >? ? ? ?part > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?of me lives on in > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? a child, although actually that part is way more of me, than in a child. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? However, when talking about continuity and uploading, I think the ship of theseus uploading > is much > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?more interesting from > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? an identity point of view. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? As some, or all of you already know, imagine that I'm uploaded neruon by neuron, over time. I > would > >? ? ? ?not > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?have a break, and > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? my mind would transition onto the new media. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? I would like to know what the people here who do not believe uploading grants a form of > immortality > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?think about that > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? scenario? Would it fit in with your idea of identity and would you see yourselves being > "immortal" > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?through a shop of > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? theseus procedure if it were possible? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? As for the copy approach, a starting point for me would be that my identity is probably based > on my > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?mind, sense of > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? continuity and location. In a copy, continuity and location would go 2x, and thus not work > with the > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?definition of > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? identity. In a theseus there would be no 2x, both continuity would be perserved, and location > would > >? ? ? ?be > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?single. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Best regards, > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? Daniel > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? On 25/08/2023 20:11, Darin Sunley wrote: > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? An important component of what a lot of people want out of immortality is not so > much > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?continuity > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? as it is not-experiencing-discontinuity [And no, they're not the same thing]. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? If I'm dying of cancer, and you do a brain scan, the resulting upload will > remember being > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?me, but > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? /I'm/ still gonna experience a painful death. And no, killing me painlessly, or > even > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? instantaneously, during or in the immediate aftermath of the brain scan doesn't > solve the > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?problem > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? either. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? If "me" is ever on two substrates simultaneously, you may have copied me, but you > haven't > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?moved > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? me, and a copy, by definition, isn't the me I want to be immortal. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? So this 'me' that you are talking about, must be something that, when copied, somehow > changes > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?into 'not-me'. > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? I don't understand this. If it's an exact copy, how is it not exactly the same? How can > there > >? ? ? ?not > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?now be two > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? 'me's? Two identical beings, in every way, including their subjective experience, with > no > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?discontinuity with > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? the original singular being? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? When I hit 'send' on this message, everyone on the list will get a copy, and I will > keep a > >? ? ? ?copy. > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?Which one is > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? the real message? If they were conscious, why would that make any difference? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? You say "you may have copied me, but you haven't moved me". But how do you move data? > You make > >? ? ? ?a > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?second copy > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? of it then delete the first copy. So destroying copy 1 when copy 2 is made would be > 'moving > >? ? ? ?me', > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?yet you say > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? it wouldn't. Can you clarify why? I can't see (short of a belief in an uncopyable > supernatural > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?'soul') how > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? this could be. > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we should > really > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?understand it, > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity not > being the > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?same thing? > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? Ben > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? _______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?>? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?> > >? ? ? ?>_______________________________________________ > >? ? ? ?extropy-chat mailing list > >? ? ? ?extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >? ? ? ?http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > >