[ExI] [Extropolis] Thoughts on the manifesto of futurist science (1916).

[Giulio Prisco]

John:

< Brian Josephson was a great scientist and in the early 60's when he was
only 22 he wrote an absolutely brilliant paper on superconductivity and won
a Nobel Prize for it, but very soon after that he abandoned the scientific
method. The parapsychology meme virus infected his mind and thus despite
such a spectacular early start to his career he hasn't had a creative
thought since then, for the last half century he has accomplished precisely
nothing. There seems to be no idea so screwy he can't make himself believe
it. The poor man has lost his mind.>

That Josephson was a genius at 22 doesn’t imply that he was always right.
But I think it implies that he deserves the benefit of doubt. Perhaps he
was right on parapsychology, and his detractors were wrong. Perhaps.

< As for Stuart Kauffman, he has said some things that I've disagreed with,
such as:

 "if mind is partially quantum, nonlocality is possible so psychokinesis is
possible and testable, as is telepathy."

But psi has been tested over and over again, and it keeps on failing. And
it's not surprising it failed given that because Bell's Inequality is
violated we know that nonlocality is real but we also know that phenomenon
cannot be used to transmit information, so it can't be involved in
telepathy or signaling by way of psychokinesis.>

I think you forgot to add something like “as far as we presently know.”
Also, yes, correlation doesn’t imply causation, but this cuts both ways.
Even if there’s nothing involved that we would call causation, the
correlation is still there. A particle doesn’t “tell” its spin to its
entangled pair (again, as far as we presently know), but the spin of its
entangled pair is (anti)correlated anyway. If you and I consistently happen
to think the same thing, isn’t this telepathy?

< And Kaufman has said some things that I find puzzling, such as:

"I can find NO direct evidence for free will, but the quantum enigma
requires it and it is possible."

I'll know if I agree or disagree with him about that as soon as he tells me
what the hell "free will" is supposed to mean.  >

I define the free will of an agent as the ability to do things that are not
entirely and uniquely determined by the rest of the universe (that is, the
universe minus the agent). Kauffman seems to think more or less the same.
Much more in my next book. I plan to have the draft ready by the end of the
year, and I’ll invite you to read and criticize the draft.

< And Kaufman has said some things that I can't make heads or tails out of,
such as:

"Evolution creates the very possibilities into which it becomes, without
"selection" "acting" to achieve the very adjacent possible opportunities
into which it becomes."

Huh?>

I think he means that actual history changes what he calls the “adjacent
possible” and creates new possibilities that could (or not) become actual.

On 2023. Jun 7., Wed at 12:20, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 1:28 PM Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> ESP research that had led, just like everybody else's ESP research,
>>> precisely nowhere"
>>
>>
>> *> This is your opinion. Others, including top scientists like Stuart
>> Kauffman and winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics like Brian Josephson,
>> think that there’s plenty of solid experimental evidence for ESP.*
>>
>
> Brian Josephson was a great scientist and in the early 60's when he was
> only 22 he wrote an absolutely brilliant paper on superconductivity and won
> a Nobel Prize for it, but very soon after that he abandoned the scientific
> method. The parapsychology meme virus infected his mind and thus despite
> such a spectacular early start to his career he hasn't had a creative
> thought since then, for the last half century he has accomplished precisely
> nothing. There seems to be no idea so screwy he can't make himself believe
> it. The poor man has lost his mind.
>
> As for Stuart Kauffman, he has said some things that I've disagreed with,
> such as:
>
>  *"if mind is partially quantum, nonlocality is possible so psychokinesis
> is possible and testable, as is telepathy."*
>
> But psi has been tested over and over again, and it keeps on failing. And
> it's not surprising it failed given that because Bell's Inequality is
> violated we know that nonlocality is real but we also know that phenomenon
> cannot be used to transmit information, so it can't be involved in
> telepathy or signaling by way of psychokinesis.
>
> And Kaufman has said some things that I find puzzling, such as:
>
> *"I can find NO direct evidence for free will, but the quantum enigma
> requires it and it is possible."*
>
> I'll know if I agree or disagree with him about that as soon as he tells
> me what the hell "free will" is supposed to mean.
>
> And Kaufman has said some things that I can't make heads or tails out of,
> such as:
>
> *"Evolution creates the very possibilities into which it becomes, without
> "selection" "acting" to achieve the very adjacent possible opportunities
> into which it becomes."*
>
> Huh?
>
> 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/CAJPayv0AaKXGUiD-a5w7kxnK6VRRi6qqnUTJ60t%3DKGiWuuV49g%40mail.gmail.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAJPayv0AaKXGUiD-a5w7kxnK6VRRi6qqnUTJ60t%3DKGiWuuV49g%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
> .
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20230608/3e7e463e/attachment.htm>