From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Jun 24 1999 - 10:30:58 MDT
"Lee Daniel Crocker" <lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net (none)> writes:
> > I am getting really concerned by what passes for "logic" in these recent
> > discussions. Most of the arguments here lately seem to boil down to random
> > theories with no supporting evidence. When someone objects, the defense is
> > "you can't prove I'm not right." This is not logical, not scientific, and
> > not Extropian.
>
> There is also a place for boundless speculation, and I don't think
> this list is inapropriate for that. Certainly it's true that the
> tendency of humans to apply less scientific rigor to things we want
> to be true infects Extropians too, and where that manifests itself
> it should be pointed out. But not to the exclusion of the idle
> dreamers that give us something to think about.
There are degrees here. Obviously loose speculations about the
singularity or how to cater the Far Edge Party belong here. But what
about stuff like "I believe evolution is guided by Higher
Intelligences from the astral plane"? It relates to the subject of the
list (waguely) but represents a way of thinking that is really
anathema to extropianism. Even worse, such fuzziness can hurt the
image of transhumanist thinking as people join the list and are
deluged with less-than-rational posts. This is even more important
when it comes to transhumanist speculations; as a friend remarked, if
an economist (even an openminded one) overheard a typical
transhumanist discussion he would laugh off transhumanism as something
naive with no grounding in reality.
As I see it, we should try to apply our best standards of thinking
when posting here. We should strive to produce high quality posts,
containing reasoning as good as we can achieve - that way we will both
grow as thinkers, produce a more stimulating environment and nip the
critic that transhumanism is just pie in the sky thinking in the bud.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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