Extropians Digest Wed, 23 Jun 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0349 Today's Topics: A:FRIV:format meme [3 msgs] AIT VirtSem: Other Topics [1 msgs] B:BOOKS: Sci-fi [1 msgs] D: Re: META: Self-Rating System [1 msgs] EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate [1 msgs] Extropian Music? Extropian Fiction? [4 msgs] HODGEPODGE: Hercules Text, Seminar [1 msgs] INFO: new newsgroup [1 msgs] META: Are you FIFOing? I'm not seeing it that way [2 msgs] PHYSIO: Hypothermia and the Diving Reflex [1 msgs] SOC/CHAT: Appearances and Multiple Worlds [6 msgs] SOC/CHAT: San Francisco dinosaur diorama [1 msgs] SOC: All Critical Mass Theories Bogus? [1 msgs] TECH/WAR: Wormhole Wars [1 msgs] address chagne [1 msgs] evolution, logical depth Gell-Mann and Chaitin [1 msgs] Administrivia: This is the digested version of the Extropian mailing list. Please remember that this list is private; messages must not be forwarded without their author's permission. To send mail to the list/digest, address your posts to: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu To send add/drop requests for this digest, address your post to: exi-daily-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu To make a formal complaint or an administrative request, address your posts to: extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu If your mail reader is operating correctly, replies to this message will be automatically addressed to the entire list [extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu] - please avoid long quotes! The Extropian mailing list is brought to you by the Extropy Institute, through hardware, generously provided, by the Free Software Foundation - neither is responsible for its content. Forward, Onward, Outward - Harry Shapiro (habs) List Administrator. Approximate Size: 50356 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 14:53:07 PDT From: tribble@memex.com (E. Dean Tribble) Subject: address chagne Please send mail to me now at `tribble@netcom.com` thanks, dean ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 15:43:41 PDT From: desilets@sj.ate.slb.com (Mark Desilets) Subject: META: Are you FIFOing? I'm not seeing it that way As of recently, maybe the last couple of weeks, I have been getting the list in batches of LIFO, rather than a continuous FIFO, which is what I would expect and hope for. Is the mailer software sending (reflective mode) messages FIFO and I'm getting hosed somewhere in between, or have you written a truly weenie remailer (no intense offended, Ray)? Previously, I had gotten messages in roughly FIFO order, although there were minor deviations. Is there a recent change which precipitated the current silliness? Needless to say, getting messages in reverse order can require quite a context saving capability. Help and or advice, please? Mark ============================================================================== | DoD #1.03144248E28 | Vote Libertarian | Mark DeSilets (408)437-5122 | | Redskins, Orioles | | desilets@sj.ate.slb.com | ============================================================================== | Defeat the wiretap chip proposal. Call your congresscritter. | ============================================================================== | Laete paschimur quos nos domare volunt | ============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 15:48:24 -0700 From: freeman@MasPar.COM (Jay R. Freeman) Subject: D: Re: META: Self-Rating System Nice idea, but there is a problem with the large number of posts that should be rated ... D -- Post that everyone but the poster will deem utterly boring to everyone but the poster. Lots of mine are that way, but I am much too conceited to know it. :-) Jay Freeman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 15:52:47 PDT From: desilets@sj.ate.slb.com (Mark Desilets) Subject: Extropian Music? Extropian Fiction? Extropian Cult Naysayer Tim May proclaims: > I suspect there's no such as Extropian music, fiction, or whatever, > only what we personally like or dislike. I understand what you mean, I guess, but don't entirely agree. Given that Extropia has a certain set of principles, BESTDOITSO, it *is* possible to identify music, or literature, or whathaveyou, which exemplifies one of these principles. And certainly it is easy to pick music, for example, which is patently *not* extropian. Could you ever imagine anything by (say) MegaDeath on the Extropian Top Ten? I have avoided posting my catalogue of Extropian Hits, but would be happy to play same for anyone who wants to hear them, or exchange tapes with anyone interested. Mark ============================================================================== | DoD #1.03144248E28 | Vote Libertarian | Mark DeSilets (408)437-5122 | | Redskins, Orioles | | desilets@sj.ate.slb.com | ============================================================================== | Defeat the wiretap chip proposal. Call your congresscritter. | ============================================================================== | Laete paschimur quos nos domare volunt | ============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:11:33 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: SOC/CHAT: Appearances and Multiple Worlds >I think this multiple worlds idea is interesting enough to >read a recommended multiple world SF story? References anyone? As I recall, Larry Niven (maybe?) had one that followed different version of an event (an attempted suicide?) through several time-streams. If it _was_ Niven, it's an old story. -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:34:38 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: Extropian Music? Extropian Fiction? Extropian Puppet Mark Desilets avers: >Extropian Cult Naysayer Tim May proclaims: > >> I suspect there's no such as Extropian music, fiction, or whatever, >> only what we personally like or dislike. > >I understand what you mean, I guess, but don't entirely agree. Given that >Extropia has a certain set of principles, BESTDOITSO, it *is* possible to >identify music, or literature, or whathaveyou, which exemplifies one >of these principles. And certainly it is easy to pick music, for example, >which is patently *not* extropian. Sure. But I doubt this has anything to do with whether people will actually _listen_ to it. I guess "Teen Angel" could be considered "deathist", but I still enjoy it. The problem here is that people, by and large, do not choose music for its philosophical content, but rather for "the way it sounds". I was (and am) a big fan of the group Yes when I was in high school. After listening to 'em for about twenty years, I _still_ haven't a clue what the vast majority of their songs are about. I suspect a cursory inspection of the state of musical composition in China or the Soviet Union will demonstrate that philosophy and music are not really good bedmates. The fact is, extropian music may not be _good_ music. And if it _isn't_ good, it doesn't matter how philosophically correct it is. Nobody will listen to it. -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 16:48:45 PDT From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: SOC/CHAT: Appearances and Multiple Worlds Lefty writes, quoting Heath Goebel: > >I think this multiple worlds idea is interesting enough to > >read a recommended multiple world SF story? References anyone? > > As I recall, Larry Niven (maybe?) had one that followed different version > of an event (an attempted suicide?) through several time-streams. If it > _was_ Niven, it's an old story. In fact, in *every one* of the Many Universes that make up this region of the Grand Ensemble of Universes, there are dozens of such novels about "many worlds" and alternate universes. In Your Universe, which some of you believe to be the One True Reality, some of the better-known writers are: * Larry Niven, several stories, circa early 1970s. * Philip K. Dick, "Man in the High Castle" and other novels. * L. Neil Smith, various novels in his alternate worlds series * Heinlein, "Glory Road" and other novels ("Job" dealt with this, as I recall) * Fred Pohl, "The Coming of the Quantum Cats" (a recent novel) * others too numerous to mention * even some mainstream novels in which history diverged (alternate worlds) This "many worlds" idea spread from one Universe to the Others by the Hundredth Monkey Effect (from the Monkey Universe, of course), mediated by the ozmotic morphogenetic fields discovered by noted SETI researcher Frank Sheldrake. -Tim -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 17:05:09 PDT From: desilets@sj.ate.slb.com (Mark Desilets) Subject: Extropian Music? Extropian Fiction? Re-emergently vexatious Extropian heretic Lefty snipes: > > Extropian Puppet Mark Desilets avers: > >Extropian Cult Naysayer Tim May proclaims: > > > >> I suspect there's no such as Extropian music, fiction, or whatever, > >> only what we personally like or dislike. > > > >I understand what you mean, I guess, but don't entirely agree. Given that > >Extropia has a certain set of principles, BESTDOITSO, it *is* possible to > >identify music, or literature, or whathaveyou, which exemplifies one > >of these principles. And certainly it is easy to pick music, for example, > >which is patently *not* extropian. > > Sure. But I doubt this has anything to do with whether people will > actually _listen_ to it. I guess "Teen Angel" could be considered > "deathist", but I still enjoy it. Of course. I listen to a whole lotta music which could in no way be thought extropian. I further have heard a number of pieces which could be thought extropian, but which were unappealing to me. Still, it was my belief that the topic of conversation centered around the (admittedly subjective) topic of which pieces of music belong in the intersection of the sets of extropian music (exemplifying one or more of the principles) and of good music (appealing or inspiring to listen to irrespective of philosophy). > > The problem here is that people, by and large, do not choose music for its > philosophical content, but rather for "the way it sounds". I was (and am) > a big fan of the group Yes when I was in high school. After listening to > 'em for about twenty years, I _still_ haven't a clue what the vast majority > of their songs are about. Yes is great. My first concert was Yes. I listen to them frequently. Is yes extropian? Probably not, although I have a nagging suspicion that if I think hard about it, I could come up with a song or two that is. Still, this does not do any damage to my premise that there *is* a category of extropian and enjoyable music, which music is worth recommending to potentially like-minded folks. > > I suspect a cursory inspection of the state of musical composition in China > or the Soviet Union will demonstrate that philosophy and music are not > really good bedmates. Certainly no one would claim that just because a song has philosophical content, or even philosophical content with which one agrees, that the song is therefore worth a damn from a musical perspective. > > The fact is, extropian music may not be _good_ music. And if it _isn't_ > good, it doesn't matter how philosophically correct it is. Nobody will > listen to it. I suppose that whoever started the Extropian Music thread should probably have requested "Good Extropian Music", but he/she/it probably took it for granted > > -- > Lefty (lefty@apple.com) > C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. > > ObDoD: Getta Bike, Lefty. Mark P.S. Let's take this to e-mail if you want to discuss further. P.P.S. In case it wasn't clear, here's a smiley :-} to append to the intro. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 19:17:00 EST From: mike@highlite.gotham.COM (Mike Wiik) Subject: PHYSIO: Hypothermia and the Diving Reflex > I have just had a thought: In Roy Walford's _Maximum Life Span_ he > devotes a whole chapter to the possibilities of life extension if we > could only lower our core body temperature. I was gonna mention this in the "Durk looks sick" thread: He's under- nourished, avoids the sun and has lowered his body temperature :) The novel "Jitterbug Perfume", about medieval life extensionists has it's main protagonist taking frequent warm baths, then stepping out into the cold air sans towels or bathrobes. Then, it's back to the hot tub to repeat the cycle. Him and his GF also have frequent sex but avoid having children thus supposedly fooling the body into thinking its still adolescent. Of course they're fictional characters, but they manage to live for several hundred years using these and little-explained "mystical" techniques.... > Patrick Wilken > ----------------- > x91007@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au -Mike mike@highlite.gotham.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 19:24:02 CST From: "" Subject: SOC/CHAT: Appearances and Multiple Worlds On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:11:33 -0800, Lefty wrote: >As I recall, Larry Niven (maybe?) had one that followed different version >of an event (an attempted suicide?) through several time-streams. If it >_was_ Niven, it's an old story. > All the Myriad Ways" -- Larry Niven. See also "For a Foggy Night." Read Damon Knight's collection _A Century of Science Fiction_ for a really innovative excerpt from the magazine version of Keith Laumer's _Worlds of the Imperium_. It was the best part, and it was left out of the book version. Dan Goodman dsg@staff.tc.umn.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 01:09:27 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: SOC/CHAT: Appearances and Multiple Worlds > >I think this multiple worlds idea is interesting enough to > >read a recommended multiple world SF story? References anyone? > > As I recall, Larry Niven (maybe?) had one that followed different > version of an event (an attempted suicide?) through several > time-streams. If it _was_ Niven, it's an old story. > > Lefty The Niven story is "All the Myriad Ways". The best many-worlds story I read was the "The Proteus Experiment" by James P Hogan. Quite witty and self consistent, and also non-creaky characters (unlike Niven). What's the name of the Moravec story about tripping over the cord etc? Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 01:27:32 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: TECH/WAR: Wormhole Wars > Of course very spatially concentrated civilizations would have the > same advantages as side universes, the ability to police their > border. Difficult to stop a well aimed, massive black hole. Hiding in a basement universe has considerable other advantages as well: You're only visible when you choose to be, and if you don't like the location of your exit portals, you move them somewhere else. And you can be connected to all over the universe as well. > Activity would have to be very concentrated as well of course - > probably look something like a quasar ;-). A beacon to the marauding, berserker hordes.... I think hiding in basement univeres has a lot going for it. Of course if you had a comms link to a private basement universe (and kept continuous backups) then you'd get all the advantages of roaming freely with the security. Killed, and you wake up 'back at the ranch'. > Robin Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk AS member (21/3/93) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 18:29:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Scott C DeLancey Subject: SOC/CHAT: Appearances and Multiple Worlds > In fact, in *every one* of the Many Universes that make up this region > of the Grand Ensemble of Universes, there are dozens of such novels > about "many worlds" and alternate universes. > > In Your Universe, which some of you believe to be the One True > Reality, some of the better-known writers are: > > * Larry Niven, several stories, circa early 1970s. > * Philip K. Dick, "Man in the High Castle" and other novels. > * L. Neil Smith, various novels in his alternate worlds series > * Heinlein, "Glory Road" and other novels ("Job" dealt with this, as I > recall) > * Fred Pohl, "The Coming of the Quantum Cats" (a recent novel) > * others too numerous to mention > * even some mainstream novels in which history diverged (alternate > worlds) You forget RAWilson's _Schroedinger's Cat_ trilogy? Scott DeLancey delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu Department of Linguistics University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403, USA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 21:19:59 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: META: Are you FIFOing? I'm not seeing it that way Mark Desilets writes: > > > As of recently, maybe the last couple of weeks, I have been getting the list > in batches of LIFO, rather than a continuous FIFO, which is what I would > expect and hope for. Is the mailer software sending (reflective mode) messages > FIFO and I'm getting hosed somewhere in between, or have you written a > truly weenie remailer (no intense offended, Ray)? Previously, I had gotten > messages in roughly FIFO order, although there were minor deviations. Is > there a recent change which precipitated the current silliness? Needless to > say, getting messages in reverse order can require quite a context saving > capability. Help and or advice, please? No, I am not stacking messages with any special code. What you are seeing is probably a result of GNU's funky mailer. (like the double posts you see from me. Look at the message numbers! It's not happening in the list code) The list software basically does this: read incoming message from stdio, attach extropian headers, send out message. I can't do much about it except move the list to another machine. I have even more serious problems on my side as I miss messages, and sometimes my posts go to /dev/null. -Ray p.s. on my side, messages arrive in a jumbled order, not reverse order. > > Mark > > > ============================================================================== > | DoD #1.03144248E28 | Vote Libertarian | Mark DeSilets (408)437-5122 | > | Redskins, Orioles | | desilets@sj.ate.slb.com | > ============================================================================== > | Defeat the wiretap chip proposal. Call your congresscritter. | > ============================================================================== > | Laete paschimur quos nos domare volunt | > ============================================================================== > > -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 21:00:21 -0500 From: nobody@rosebud.ee.uh.edu Subject: evolution, logical depth Gell-Mann and Chaitin derek: > * As Bennett's idea of Logical Depth stands, I don't see how to apply > it to evolution or life. A perhaps completely unrelated idea sprang to mind as I read this, something discussed by Daniel Dennet at the recent Santa Fe Institute/Krasnow Institute Conference on the Brain, the Mind, and Complexity. The meme was that evolution doesn't start from scratch anymore, it applies itself recursively. Evolution develops various things at one level of abstraction that then act as building blocks which are combined into higher level things which evolve at the higher level. This recursion suggests a different kind of logical depth? Gell-Mann was at the conference. He dismissed what I think was Chaitin's (?) definition of complexity by citing Maxwell's equations. His basic idea was that there were rules and there were boundary conditions, and that the algorithmic complexity approach measured the rules only. I don't know a thing about Maxwell's equations, but I got the impression that he was saying that one could describe the same situation with rules that were more complex or less complex by changing the boundary conditions. >Evolutionary processes seem to generate greater and greater complexity. I think there's still plenty of simplicity out there too. > * Biologically, complexity evolves with the development of a food > chain, with more complex organisms typically toward the top. If a food 'chain' is formed by linking who eats who, at the very top are the simpler parasites who live off the complex organisms. The whole chain forms a circle anyhow, so what's the top if we don't adopt a complexity bias? For the general semanticists - Should we say 'The food chain forms a circle' or 'The food chain is circular' or neither? >If so, it would > seem to say that artificial evolution should take ecological > considerations into account. Interesting. Care to elaborate? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 22:43:14 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: SOC: All Critical Mass Theories Bogus? Quoth Carol Moore, verily I say unto thee: > > I've read other debunkings of 100th Monkey observations, > however, I see that many people, including some libertarians, > still use verious of some sort of social critical mass > theory that holds that when a certain percentage of > people hold an idea, most people will adopt it. Umm, isn't this just called "peer pressure"? -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton@hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) * ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 22:55:28 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: Extropian Music? Extropian Fiction? Quoth Timothy C. May, verily I saith unto thee: > Are we truly a religious cult? We talk about "Extropian music," > "Extropian fiction," and "Extropianly correct" views (though a smiley > is implied there, for most of us). > > I suspect there's no such as Extropian music, fiction, or whatever, > only what we personally like or dislike. I certainly hope you are right. I think others might see us as a cult of sorts (thus my "article summary" from the future to lampoon that a little), but when WE think that way...yikes...it'd be uglier than the Church of the Subgenius! -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton@hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) * ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 01:32:21 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate > the sagittal crest, found in gorillas and (I think) some A. robustus > but not in chimps and humans. It's characteristic of primates with > *really powerful* jaws;> the crest anchors jaw muscles at the top of > the skull. Hmm... I am the only human with a sagittal crest? No kidding. Shame you can't see me. :-) > Eric S. Raymond Mike "Klingon" Price price@price.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 23:26:49 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: SOC/CHAT: Appearances and Multiple Worlds Quoth Timothy C. May, verily I saith unto thee: > In Your Universe, which some of you believe to be the One True > Reality, some of the better-known writers are: > > * Larry Niven, several stories, circa early 1970s. > * Philip K. Dick, "Man in the High Castle" and other novels. > * L. Neil Smith, various novels in his alternate worlds series > * Heinlein, "Glory Road" and other novels ("Job" dealt with this, as I > recall) > * Fred Pohl, "The Coming of the Quantum Cats" (a recent novel) > * others too numerous to mention > * even some mainstream novels in which history diverged (alternate > worlds) Well one of the too numerous to mention that must be mentioned is Michael Moorcock. Of particular interest to extropia-at-large would be the Cornelius Cronicles, and the Dancers at the End of Time series. Moorcock's works all deal with alternate realities and universes (in fact the main character of most of his books is some facet of the same person in many different universes. DatEoT especially might interest you, as it deals with a group of people, literally at the end of time, who have everything made for them, perpetual life, etc. Moorcock has it that a machine is doing this, but nanotech could be plugged in in place of the SuperMachine quite easily. They are a sort of aristocracy-without-a-peasantry, and live in a world where "things" have no value, since they can be created at will, and only works of the intellect and imagination have any worth. There's much much more too it than this of course. Morcock's Chronicles of Corum begins with a similar group of people, though it rapidly diverges into otherstuff, all very interesting also. Out of the F&SF vein, his _Brothel_in_Rosenstrasse_ is a great historical novel of the destruction of Mirenburg. If you've read his Elric series, and found it lacking, try some of the others, they are much better. Also, he's done stuff like a trilogy about a world much like ours where dirigibles never went out of style, and one where man, Karl Glogauer, flips back and forth uncontrollably between realities (in another related volume, the award-winning novella "Behold the Man", he ends up in the shoes of Jesus, and despite all his best efforts, ends up starting xianity, and getting crucified anyway.) Well, that's enough. If anyone wants a biblio of Moorcock's stuff, I can probably come up with one pretty quick. Anway, a forewarning: his stuff is not particularly technical, and he spends much more time telling the story than nitpicking. So, it's a bit of a counterpoint to Niven, Pohl, et al. -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton@hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) * ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 23:01:38 -0700 From: Inigo Montoya Subject: HODGEPODGE: Hercules Text, Seminar First off, the author of _The Hercules Text_ was Jack McDevitt (what Tim May said, with a minor spelling correction). I haven't read it, however, and therefore have no further comment. (My references don't say anything to cause me to hunt it down and read it, so I likely won't ever have any further comment.) Varley's _Ophiuchi Hotline_ involved clones, but not androids, as I recall. Tim May offers a reading list, which I am happy to say I have a least a couple books of already (the Pagels -- I found it used; Rucker -- bought this as a result of the Chaitin thread, but keep getting distracted. Maybe this seminar will help.). I'm glad to hear the seminar will be staying focused; if it had tripped off extensively into say, Prigogine, I'd be giving it a miss. I'm quite looking forward to this. Rebecca Crowley standard disclaimers apply rcrowley@zso.dec.com "Stark, staring crazy and forgetful to boot." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 22:57:46 -0700 From: moulton@netcom.com (Fred C. Moulton) Subject: INFO: new newsgroup A while back someone (I think it might have been Tim May) mentioned the value of mentioning good newsgroups that might not be generally known. This note is to inform you of a new newsgroup called sci.nonlinear which just started in the last few days. I will not make a claim about its value since 1) it has just started and is sorting itself out and 2) I do not claim expertise in nonlinear physics, quantum mechanics, etc. So if you are interested in things nonlinear, check it out. Fred ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 23:36:12 -0700 From: freeman@MasPar.COM (Jay R. Freeman) Subject: SOC/CHAT: San Francisco dinosaur diorama Bay area extropian dinosaur fans might want to know that the "Life Through Time" exhibit at the California Academy of Science has some quite neat dinosaur fossil mounts (actually, mounts of castings -- museums display real fossils less and less these days) and dioramas. I am particularly fond of the diorama that half-fills one of the exhibit halls, in which the passer-through walks around a tree and neatly into the clutches of three charging _Velociraptors_ (or is it _Deinonychus_), albeit of the smaller species, not the one shown in _Jurassic_Park_. There are also two neat _T._rex_ exhibits. But my favorite is the "ghost herd" of _Triceratops_, galloping through the wide Montana sky above an excavation of the fossil of one of their skeletons. "Life Through Time" is a superb exhibit, the moreso because some of the dioramas are unexpectedly animated (heh-heh-heh), or even more unexpectedly animate (*cackle*) ... The Cal Academy is in Golden Gate Park, vaguely near the southeast corner. -- Jay Freeman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 23:39:38 -0700 From: dasher@netcom.com (D. Anton Sherwood) Subject: B:BOOKS: Sci-fi A. S. Hall recommends _The Hercules Text_, by (I think) Jack McDevitt. Pretty good, I guess, but spoiled for me by one glaring blunder in verisimilitude -- how many know what I mean? Heath: > I think this multiple worlds idea is interesting enough to > read a recommended multiple world SF story? References anyone? Larry Niven's "All the Myriad Ways" is just about definitive. *\\* Anton ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 23:39:13 -0700 From: dasher@netcom.com (D. Anton Sherwood) Subject: A:FRIV:format meme > > I think the field has been referred to as "bogus". > A noun, Ray, we need a noun! Tee hee. How many of us can cite the origin of this sentence-pattern? It will be interesting to see if anyone's still using it twenty years from now. What similar catch-phrases, or rather catch-structures, have appeared in the last twenty years? The most recent blatantly successful one is the postfix "Not", which I first encountered in the source of the above! I wonder whether Wayne 'n' Garth had been studying Shakespeare and found a sentence like "I love thee not." *\\* Anton pop-top linguist ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 3:50:31 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: A:FRIV:format meme D. Anton Sherwood writes: > > > > I think the field has been referred to as "bogus". > > A noun, Ray, we need a noun! > > Tee hee. How many of us can cite the origin of this sentence-pattern? It will > be interesting to see if anyone's still using it twenty years from now. > > What similar catch-phrases, or rather catch-structures, have appeared in the > last twenty years? The most recent blatantly successful one is the postfix > "Not", which I first encountered in the source of the above! I wonder whether > Wayne 'n' Garth had been studying Shakespeare and found a sentence like "I love > thee not." Postfix not, sucks, not. But not postfix nots are not 90s not-speak. Wouldn't an RPN/LISP structured grammar be cool? Imagine an uploaded future where we communicate with LISP. ;-) (all (not black) (not crows)) ( However, this type of static categorization is guaranteed to piss off E-Prime cultists. ) Has there ever been any kind of science fiction based on linguistics? (Evil politically correct empire uses memetic language bombs to subvert rival civilization?) I know that Vinge has written a short story that has weird phonetics as a background device. Anything else? -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 1:34:25 PDT From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: A:FRIV:format meme [just to humor Carol, I tried to "downgrade" the "A" prefix of this post to something lower, perhaps a "C." However, the mailer I am currently in (elm) does not make this easy...it expects me to _append_ stuff to an existing header, or to make up a new one--but not to edit the interior of an existing one. My other mailer, Eudora, is much more flexible. But until most mailers get a lot more flexible....] Ray Cromwell writes: > ( However, this type of static categorization is guaranteed to piss off > E-Prime cultists. ) > > Has there ever been any kind of science fiction based on linguistics? > (Evil politically correct empire uses memetic language bombs to subvert > rival civilization?) I know that Vinge has written a short story that has > weird phonetics as a background device. Anything else? Of course there's A. E. van Vogt's "The World of Null-A," inspired (?) by Korzybski's work directly, which makes it both a work based on linguistics (loosely) and somewhat related to E-prime. (Bourland, located here in Scotts Valley, has just released "Turbo E Prime," a programming language which does not allow assignments. "X is 5" is an illegal statement. Bourland hopes to be a leader in dysfunctional programming.) -Tim -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 03:19:22 -0700 (PDT) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: AIT VirtSem: Other Topics Another way to find good semiar topics is to freqently let each other know what we are reading. Derek Zahn and I posted big lists of books on & around our desks which gave me a good idea of what Derek was reading, & hopefully vice versa. But those were probably too long, and obviously I wasn't deep into reading all those, just had recently referred to them. I also recently posted that I'm reading _Creating Artificial Life: Self-Organization_ by Edward Rietman, which is widely available, and _Assembly Automation_ by Frank Riley (which is probably obscure, so not very helpful). By doing this we can sort of thermally bounce around and converge on seminar topics. Since a couple posters recommended Colgan's _Optimum Sports Nutrition_, and life extension has become a high priority for me, I'm going to be looking for that, and will post ideas I get from reading that. Other recent list-inspired readings include _Mind Tools_ by Rudy Rucker and (just started) _QED_ by Richard Feynman, since those were both warmly recommended (and reasonably priced :-) I frequently revisit _Nanosystems_ and _Genetic Programming_. Another issue is that there are mailing lists and/or newsgroups specialized for nanotechnology, life extension, information theory, cryonics, libertarian politics, etc. That explains much of the high chat:seminar ratio on this list. Seminars here should emphasize those aspects that cross boundaries, eg applying information theory to one of the above topics. Here's some other good stuff I've recently found at Powell's Bookstore (but cheapskate that I am, didn't buy 'em): _Quantitative Cryofixation_, W.B. Bald -- all about freezing biological samples for microscopy. The main goal is to be able to recover structural information. This is real lab science applicable to cryonics reanimation, uploading, etc. (I hope to see a new edition or new papers, since it dates to 1987 STM is only briefly mentioned). _Neurochemical Correlates of Cerebral Ischemia_, Bazan et. al. ed. All about the biochemistry of stroke and brain death. _Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges_ by George C. Williams (Richard Dawkin's smarter colleague :-) For folks serious about evolution theory, this is the cutting edge. Dawkins has been hinting around about the "evolution of evolvability" lately. Here's the full theory of clade selection, worked out in depth, plus much other fun stuff. Those interested in memetics should check out "Viruses of The Mind", Richard Dawkins, _Free Inquiry_ magazine Summer 1993. Detailed, personal Dawkins rant about religious memes as computer viruses. Nick Szabo szabo@techbook.com ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0349 ****************************************