From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Tue May 01 2001 - 10:18:38 MDT
Amara,
I meant that fantasizing that Gaia equates to a god awakening to the sound of
all phones ringing, or a Global Brain of the anthropomorphic kind, or an
autonomous alien intelligence, or a meta-human entity that thinks, such
fantasies about Gaia can happen now. Gaia doesn't put feedback loops to
intelligent use, or the Singularity would have happened (or maybe it happened
and we missed it?). Didn't we cover this a couple of years ago?
τΏτ
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
Useless hypotheses:
consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism
Everything that can happen has already happened, not just once,
but an infinite number of times, and will continue to do so forever.
(Everything that can happen = more than anyone can imagine.)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Amara Graps" <amara@amara.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 3:20 AM
Subject: Re: Near-term stuff
> Anders Sandberg
> >> modifying the Net does introduce an element of intelligence. So my answer
> >> would be that we should look more for something like the global
intelligence
> >> of the EarthWeb in Marc Stiegler's novel rather than a god awakening to
the
> >> sound of all phones ringing.
> "J. R. Molloy"
> >OK, that puts a Global Brain beyond near-term stuff (except for fantasies
> >about "Gaia").
>
> I'm not aware of "Gaia fantasies" ... could you educate me please?
>
> My knowledge of Gaia-ideas is from nonlinear physics and chaos theory,
> that is: feedback loops, self-regulating systems, etc. and yes, I've read
> James Lovelock. Isn't Gaia considered a large complex and deeply
> interconnected system (Earth), where the physics, chemistry, biology, etc.
> each have their important role to maintain a particular balance?
>
> BTW, One of my favorite "interdisciplinary books: about Gaia-ideas is:
> >From Gaia to Selfish Genes: Selected Writngs in the Life Sciences_,
> ed. Connie Barlow.
>
> Amara
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