From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Wed Jun 2 15:55:09 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA12600; Wed, 2 Jun 93 15:55:01 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA19349; Wed, 2 Jun 93 15:54:52 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) id ; Wed, 2 Jun 93 18:46:34 -0400 Message-Id: <9306022246.AA28261@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: ExI-Daily@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 18:45:52 -0400 X-Original-Message-Id: <9306022245.AA28246@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Original-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu From: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Extropians Digest V93 #0295 X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on June 2, 373 P.N.O. [22:46:33 UTC] Reply-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: OR Extropians Digest Wed, 2 Jun 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0295 Today's Topics: ACTIVISM: Official WhiteHouse Email [1 msgs] ACTIVISM: Official WhiteHouse Email Address [1 msgs] Contrapositive Crows [2 msgs] ECON: Bundle Auctions [1 msgs] Fermi Paradox Resolved! [1 msgs] SPACE: Fermi Paradox/durability of humans [1 msgs] SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. [4 msgs] SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. -- probably dumb question [3 msgs] SPACE: Fermi paradox-Steent's objection [1 msgs] Verifying Privacy as an Upload/AI? [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. 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Approximate Size: 51430 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 10:28:49 -0500 (EDT) From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. -- probably dumb question Alternative explanation of Fermi's paradox ala a recent Star Trek episode: The conditions of the solar system for supporting life were actually set up a long time ago by an old race. This race seeded each galaxy with one spermia in an attempt to preserve themselves before their empire/planet perished. (possibly with space probes or panspermia) The reason we don't see other civilizations is because they are outside our lightcone and most of them evolved at the same time because of a program embeded in the seeded dna which activated intelligence at approximately the same time and "directed" evolution. (in this episode, the DNA also contained pieces of an ancient program the aliens left behind to explain their presence. The program was spread throughout the galaxy through starsystems in a pattern of the double helix! The major races had to collaborate and put their pieces together, which resulted in program which explained their existence.) So there you have it. The first civilization to evolve terraformed solar systems, seeded them with life and then they transcended or died. We won't see evidence of ETs until a few 100,000 years because all the ETs are about the same age. (+- 10,000 years) Assuming FTL is impossible. This had to be a mighty complex dna program (tremendous logical depth) which could run for billions of years yet still direct evolution. However, it's not implausible. Maybe it added components to natural selection to bumb and nudge mutations towards a simplistic goal, increased data processing. Or maybe all intelligence takes about the same evolve time (~4 billion years). I have noticed in the Tierra simulator that certain programs classes always evolve about the same time each time the simulator is run (no,the random number generator is not using the same seed, in fact the basic cell programs were changed). The only thing that seemed to shorten or lengthen this time-to-evolve-certain-class-of-organism was the mutation rate. Making it too frequent prevented any complex or long/big cells from developing (and sometimes killed everything). Making mutations rare allowed a simplistic cell machine to dominate the soup and the system stayed very stable. Maybe there are simple parameters each planet has that determines the time needed for intelligence to develop (within a few hundred thousand years). Like gravity, solar radiation, magnetic field, volatile abundance, etc. A progenitor race simply engineers a solar system with these parameters and intelligence evolves predictably within a certain time frame. This also explains some parts of the anthropological principle, like why are the right elements available, the earth in the right orbit, etc. Instead of chance super novas and planetoid collisions, super aliens engineered it that way. -- 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, 2 Jun 93 09:38:48 CDT From: eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox-Steent's objection Sub-Re: Whether all individuals in a civilization will end up simulating life, hence no interstellar spread. Condsider religious memes. How likely do you think it will be for one of our Earthly human religions to decide it has to 'bring the Word of God' to the Universe? Whether it is the 'Good News about Jesus' or the 'Word of Allah', it wouldn't take many as a percentage of the total adherents of a faith to mount a serious interstellar program. Imagine if an Ayatollah in an oil producing country declared they needed to spread the Word to the skies, and that the Faithful who went would not only got to Paradise when they die, but would BE in paradise (the heavens) while still alive. The thought makes you shudder, but it is quite possible. Dani Eder ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 09:37:14 PST From: "Mark W. McFadden" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. All the arguments given for alien races not being evident (they're not there or they would have contacted us by now; they're there but they haven'y contacted us because.....) consistently give human motivations to alien cultures. _If_ they are there, they are alien, we might not be capable of understanding their reasons for doing anything. Some examples: > Given nanotechnology and von Neuman machines, one > would expect the manifestations of complex life to become ubiquitous > very very fast. What is so inevitable about nanotechnology and von Neuman machines? Is there some logical progression to technology? I can imagine a race that never "progresses" beyond Newtonian physics and does not notice the lack. If the progression of technological innovation is so predestined, how come we still have essentially Stone Age tribes on our own planet? Are they retarded? Much of the Third World is older, and was civilized before the Western World, how come they aren't centuries ahead of us in technology? What shape would our present physics be in without a few "inspired" individuals in this century? Were their theories so intuitively obvious that anyone could and would have conceived them? Would astronomy be so fascinating if your primary sense was hearing? If your evidence for other worlds was exclusively instrument readings, would the sheer romance of it all just inevitably lead you to space flight? What if we just shift your visible spectrum; wouldn't heat be more fascinating than light? Would you still speculate up to relativity? Our definitions of advanced and highly evolved is biased towards mammals in general and primates in particular. How much of the behavior we think of as civilized and evidence of intelligence is simply primate behavior on a grand scale. We were hunter/gatherers, so of course we explore. Cold- blooded vegetarian egg-layers might not have any exploration instincts. Just thinking out loud. _____________________________________________________________________ | Mark W. McFadden | Been there....done that. mwm@wwtc.timeplex.com | __________________________________|__________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 10:32:29 PDT From: Robin Hanson Subject: Contrapositive Crows David Friedman seems to grant I.J. Good's argument that the observation of a black crow need not raise one's degree of belief in the claim that all crows are black. David suggests that perhaps conditioning on evidence of the form "the first A that I see is B" is more what he had in mind, and that if one thinks in terms of observations having more than one type of effect, he can save his original concept. I'm pretty sure that the usual discussions of "Hempel's paradox", as this black raven thing is called, talk about observations as new objects seen, not necessarily the first such object of some type. And without a constraint on what other kinds of effects observations can have, any claim about evidence could be saved in this way. Anyway, I think it too much to conclude >Note that, if one is not willing to take some such position, Good's >argument implies that all general statements about evidence (as opposed to >proof) are false. The axioms of probability, together with the rule that upon observing E one should change from old beliefs P to new beliefs P' according to P'(A) = P(A|E), are general statements about evidence. For general qualitative statements, see the classic: George Polya, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, Vol II, 1968, Princeton U. Press. Robin Hanson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 13:57:40 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. -- probably dumb question X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission "James A. Donald" says: > > > The possibility that I would consider the second most likely possibility is > > > that as life forms evolve, they become more complex, more fragile - more > > > easily destroyed, and also more capable of destruction. Consequently > > > population density becomes lower and lower, and life spans become longer > > > and longer. > > > > Evidence for your contention, please, as on the surface it seems > > wholely absurd. Given nanotechnology and von Neuman machines, one > > would expect the manifestations of complex life to become ubiquitous > > very very fast. > > Also the capability to destroy other manifestations of complex life will > expand very very fast. > > Humans are noticeably easier to kill than simpler animals - for example > lizards can survive damage that would certainly kill a human, etcetera. I don't believe you. I know roaches can survive radiation damage that would easily kill a human, but I can't think of anything that a lizard can survive that a human can't, other than, perhaps, extended hypothermia. Give some proof to your contention. > Humans demand more personal space the other apes, apes demand more personal > space that mice or bats, most cold blooded creatures do not seem to have a > concept of personal space at all in the sense that higher animals do. I see no real evidence for this contention, either. Many animals have far greater notions of "personal space" than humans -- birds with extended territories that go for huge distances. As for cold blooded creatures, were not the first experiments on extreme territorial behavior performed with sticklebacks? I believe you are just plain wrong. > It is therefore reasonable to expect that creatures that are several hundred > million years evolved ahead of us - as far ahead of us as we are ahead of > the slimy things that crawled under the Precambrian rocks - would have > extremely high demands for personal space. Why? You haven't proven your original contention. However, this is immaterial. You contended that humans were extremely fragile -- you have no evidence for that. Humans are actually fairly hardy, even naked, vague comments about "lizards" (pick a specific lizard at least!) to the contrary. You contend that this is a generic tendancy of "advanced" life, even though I can show "advanced" creatures that are hardy and "low level" creatures that are extremely fragile (like coral, for example). Then you contend that humans are especially territorial, and that we want the most personal space of any creatures on the planet, and this just plain isn't true, either, and then you generalize THAT into a matter of "evolvedness" and then you generalize THAT into a characteristic of your mythic aliens, too. I'd say you don't have a leg to stand on. > > (By the way, Humans are among the least fragile creatures on the > > planet. We outperform the bulk of creatures in many PHYSICAL respects > > Ability to endure blows is certainly not one of them. Human bones are > markedly more fragile than those of any similar animal. Proof, Mr. Donald. I'd like to see some proof. You are making assertions. I want to see some evidence that they are correct -- because from what I know they are plain absurd. From what I can tell, humans have average durability in our skeletons given our approximate characteristics. Humans have astonishing levels of endurance for the animal kingdom. As I noted, we can run horses down. We handle a very wide range of temperatures for mammals evolved on the african plains. We are pretty strong for our size when our muscles are regularly used, and I see no evidence that our bones are any more fragile than other creatures our size in spite of your proof by assertion. > Humans have more endurance and rough country capability than most other > animals, but most other animals can beat a human in the short dash. Not "most animals". Again, you are overgeneralizing. Trained humans do just fine compared to many animals -- we just do badly compared to gazelles and cheetas. In any case, your argument that we would expect highly intelligent beings to want lots of personal space and to be especially physically fragile seems to have no basis in fact. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 14:02:56 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. -- probably dumb question X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission Derek Zahn says: > Alex's proposed solution to the Fermi paradox is interesting: > Something Much Better Awaits. Still, it's not clear to me that > it quite gets around the von Neumann Replicator problem; as has > been pointed out, all it takes is one of those being created > in between nanotech mature enough to build one and a Singularity > such as Alex's "upload into vacuum microstructure" or "creation > of alternate universes"... or whatever, even if the Something > Much Better is completely compelling and absorbs everybody. Furthermore, evolutionary arguments would make one tend to believe that even if "something much better" is around that we would still see creatures in the "ordinary" universe. Why? Because evolution tends to flood-fill all niches. The fact that there are humans on this planet doesn't mean that there are no dung-beetles. We would expect some intelligent beings somewhere to like this universe even if there are possibilities of better things, just as we should not be suprised to find all sorts of tastes among humans. I find deathism to be a strange belief system, but I'm not suprised to find that its prevalent. There will likely be ordinary non-uploaded humans long after the rest of us have moved on. I therefore suspect that its likely that we would see at least some intelligent beings that didn't take a "way out" even if it was presented. > Interesting area of study... no matter what, it seems like > something absurd must be true! I'm most comfortable with the notion that we are simply the first to evolve in this light cone. Someone has to be, and its likely that whomever does it first nukes everything else in its path. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 11:21:57 PDT From: Robin Hanson Subject: ECON: Bundle Auctions I proposed selling the universe (or the solar system) whole in order to avoid misbundling costs, and in describing his intriguing analogy in intellectual property, David Friedman mentioned how bundling was a central issue there, since "It probably would be a desirable proposal in a world where it was obvious what the right bundles of property rights were". So I thought I'd tell folks about "bundle auctions" or combinitorial auctions, or whatever different folks call them (I'm not sure terminology has settled). Such auctions are a topic of current research, and are proposed as market alternatives for selling pipeline access, electricity grid lines, railroad cars, and are even to be used to allocate different kinds of resources among competing experiments within some upcoming NASA space platforms. Most of these have till now been regulated on the excuse that they are difficult for markets, as situations where bundles matter lots -- so that for example you need this much power, this much bandwidth, and this much space or you'd have to redesign your whole experiment. (Econ term is "non-convexities up the wazo" :-). A bundle auction can be very simple. Each bid puts a price on a specific bundle of resources, and at each moment in the auction the resources are allocated to some non-conflicting set of bundle bids "on the board". If you come in with a new bid for a new bundle, it probably conflicts with some bids on the board, wanting resources allocated to them. The rule is that your bid gets to bump these bids if the price you offer with your bid is more than the sum of the prices for those bids, that is if the new non-conflicting board had a higher total price than the old one. Once on the board, you can't retract your bid unless it gets bumped. It helps to have a side area of bids that can't yet get on the board, but which someone might want to design a bid to mesh with. Caltech folk have done experiments showing this works nicely. Other folks at U. Iowa have designed other kinds of bundle auctions, such as using a central algorithm to search for an optimal allocation given fuller demand curves bids, or some such, but I like this approach best. Applied to the solar system, one could hold a bundle auction, and folks who expected that we didn't know enough to pick the right bundles could buy big bundles, hoping that they could then break it up later at a profit. Again, one might want to require substantial breakup before any commercial use to avoid monopolies. Applied to intellectual property, I haven't a clue - I'm still mulling that one over. Robin Hanson (hoping this post attracts less flames :-) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 14:21:17 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission "Mark W. McFadden" says: > All the arguments given for alien races not being evident (they're not > there or they would have contacted us by now; they're there but they > haven'y contacted us because.....) consistently give human motivations to > alien cultures. _If_ they are there, they are alien, we might not be > capable of understanding their reasons for doing anything. > Some examples: > > Given nanotechnology and von Neuman machines, one > > would expect the manifestations of complex life to become ubiquitous > > very very fast. > What is so inevitable about nanotechnology and von Neuman machines? Is > there some logical progression to technology? Well, lets think about what we KNOW about the aliens for a moment. "What!" you say. "How can we know anything about them?" We know plenty. We know that they evolved, and we know thus that they have a survival orientation. We know that as a result of this that they will tend to try to exploit their environments to enhance their survival. This is not a question of motivation -- most individuals of the species can be wholely unmotivated. This is a question of those who exploit things for their surivival surviving better. > I can imagine a race that > never "progresses" beyond Newtonian physics and does not notice the > lack. I don't buy it. If they develop Newtonian Physics, they are likely to try to exploit it to try to enhance their survival. Yeah, maybe some individual members of the species might not, but given enough members and a survival orientation some must try to exploit it to enhance their survival capacity. In the act of exploiting it they will gain a reproductive and survival edge over their fellows. There will end up being more of them, just as there are more adherents to our way of life than that of most remaining aboriginal cultures even though 10,000 years ago there weren't many "westerners" around. It doesn't require "motivation" on the part of the creatures. Its just a matter of who leaves the most offspring, both genetic AND memetic. > If the progression of technological innovation is so predestined, how come > we still have essentially Stone Age tribes on our own planet? Because evolution, both cultural and gentic, works on the INDIVIDUAL level, not on the level of SPECIES. The thing to note is that compared to the number of people who've at least adopted medieval level agriculture the number of stone agers left alive is miniscule. Some individuals pick one route, some pick another. The ones who pick the route with more surivival value leave more offspring. > What shape would our present physics be in without a few "inspired" > individuals in this century? Were their theories so intuitively obvious > that anyone could and would have conceived them? No, but they are obvious enough that given enough millions of individuals and a survival orientation it was inevitable that some people would be smart enough and think of them eventually. > Would astronomy be so fascinating if your primary sense was hearing? No, but I doubt that your primary sense even if you are an alien will be hearing. Why? Eyes have independantly evolved a dozen times on this planet alone. I seriously doubt that were there aliens that they wouldn't develop them. Even so, however, I suspect that astronomy might be fairly interesting eventually -- once the proper tools were developed. Radio Astronomy is interesting to us, even though we are not born with radio telescopes on our faces. However, the whole point here is that I doubt that there are intelligent aliens in our light cone. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 12:23:15 -0700 From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Fermi Paradox Resolved! All this bickering and general nastiness here on the list needs some fresh speculations. What should be an interesting topic for this list to discuss is going nowhere. In fact, it suggests to me the likeliest explanation of "why they aren't here." Premise: Life is ubiquitous. Nearly every star system has planets. Nearly every planetary system has life-supporting planets. Life evolved inevitably on nearly every one of them. Intelligent life is the natural outcome. Conclusion: Intelligent life is all around us. Probably within a few light-years. So where are they? Barrow and Tipler note several possible reasons (purists will note that we are discussing "possible worlds" here, so the use of "possible" or "probable" is justified). This list has mentioned most of them. A major reason has been left out! My theory combines the threads on the Fermi Paradox with the recent threads on the selling of the universe (auctioning vs. homesteading, and the legal wrangles, involvement of the U.N., World Government, etc.). I theorize that *legal wranglings* and *planetary governments* have frozen expansion of *all* of these civilizations. They are so tied up with legal briefs about ownership, property tax, equal rights amendments (gives "illegal aliens" a new meaning), and whatnot that they are trapped on their home planets. The lawyers are, of course, very happy with this state of affairs. The usual argument about all it takes is *one* building of a Von Neumann Probe to expand across the galaxy in a few million years is *false*. Simple examination of the legal culture on our own planet--and by extension, all of our many neighbors--reveals that lawyers can replicate faster than any known process, including the purported 22-minute doubling time of bacteria-like nanomachines (hardly surprising, given that lawyers are a specialized form of bacteria). In fact, the Von Neumann Probes are actually carrying legal briefs to neighboring systems, introducing them to the law if they have not already discovered it (hardly!), and filing suit against them if they already have. Of course, a few civilizations (dare I call them that?) have made contact with their nearest neighbors, resulting in a flurry of lawsuits and torts. Since every theory needs to be falsifiable in order to be considered seriously, this is what we need to look for in order to confirm my theory: - every star system should be surrounded by a Dyson Sphere to house all the lawyers, suggesting an infrared signature. Clearly, star systems we can see are *not* primarily radiating in the infrared. Why? My theory is that we are seeing primarily visible light because of the well-known fact that lawyers always demand *outside window* offices. With the Dyson Spheres, each of the quadrillions of lawyers thus has a window on the outside of the Sphere, and what we are seeing in the visible spectrum are their _office lights_! (Ultra high-res images and spectral analysis will likely confirm this, as well as giving us the formula for new kinds of fluorescent light bulbs. Variable stars are of course telling us what their working hours are.) There's an old saying that a single lawyer in a town starves, two lawyers prosper. With the mass of the galaxy converted to lawyers and their briefs, imagine the galactic prosperity! -Klaus! von Future Prime ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 15:23:37 CDT From: eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) Subject: SPACE: Fermi Paradox/durability of humans >However, this is immaterial. You contended that humans were extremely >fragile -- you have no evidence for that. Humans are actually fairly >hardy, even naked, vague comments about "lizards" (pick a specific >lizard at least!) to the contrary. You contend that this is a generic >tendancy of "advanced" life, even though I can show "advanced" >creatures that are hardy and "low level" creatures that are extremely >fragile (like coral, for example). >Humans have astonishing levels of endurance for the animal kingdom. As >I noted, we can run horses down. We handle a very wide range of >temperatures for mammals evolved on the african plains. We are pretty >strong for our size when our muscles are regularly used, and I see no >evidence that our bones are any more fragile than other creatures our >size in spite of your proof by assertion. Perry A gentleman I used to work with, Pat Cornelius, wintered at the South Pole, twice (he wants to be an astronaut, and he thought it would be good training, last I heard he went to work for NASA in Houston, in the Mission Control back room). He was a member of the '300 degree club'. To get into this select club, you had to go into a sauna at 200F wearing nothing but insulated boots, get your picture taken, then run outside, where it is -100F, and get your picture taken again, standing naked except for the boots, next to the South Pole. If you didn't stay outside too long, nothing happened to you. The boots were required so the sweat on your feet didn't freeze you to the ground. Our astonishing ability to run at 12 mph for two hours at a time (in running a marathon), and the ability to go without food for several months (in starvation or hunger strikes) is derived from our background as cursorial hunters (we ran game to exhaustion, and the game was big and intermittent). We have adaptions like a lack of body hair and a great ability to dispose heat by sweating, and a metabolic reduction to withstand food shortages (which explains why it is so hard to lose weight by dieting - our bodies think we're short of big game, so the metabolism slows down). Like many other animals (nest building insects and birds, beavers) we modify our local environment to improve our viability. Like the birds we gather stones and wood and build our nests (subdivision houses on concrete block/slab). Dani Eder ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 13:40:18 PDT From: Robin Hanson Subject: ACTIVISM: Official WhiteHouse Email Address Supposedly, you can now email to the whitehouse at: president@whitehouse.gov, vice.president@whitehouse.gov From: Robert L Krawitz Subject: FYI: White House EMail Sender: Info-Nets Mailing List To: info-nets@Think.COM Errors-to: owner-info-nets@Think.COM Message-id: <9306020140.AA07355@merlin.think.com> X-Administrator: Robert L. Krawitz Precedence: bulk Approved: info-nets@think.com This originally appeared on the com-priv mailing list. I thought that it would be interesting here on info-nets. THE WHITE HOUSE Office of Presidential Correspondence ______________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release June 1, 1993 LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT IN ANNOUNCEMENT OF WHITE HOUSE ELECTRONIC MAIL ACCESS Dear Friends: Part of our commitment to change is to keep the White House in step with today's changing technology. As we move ahead into the twenty-first century, we must have a government that can show the way and lead by example. Today, we are pleased to announce that for the first time in history, the White House will be connected to you via electronic mail. Electronic mail will bring the Presidency and this Administration closer and make it more accessible to the people. The White House will be connected to the Internet as well as several on-line commercial vendors, thus making us more accessible and more in touch with people across this country. We will not be alone in this venture. Congress is also getting involved, and an exciting announcement regarding electronic mail is expected to come from the House of Representatives tomorrow. Various government agencies also will be taking part in the near future. Americans Communicating Electronically is a project developed by several government agencies to coordinate and improve access to the nation's educational and information assets and resources. This will be done through interactive communications such as electronic mail, and brought to people who do not have ready access to a computer. However, we must be realistic about the limitations and expectations of the White House electronic mail system. This experiment is the first-ever e-mail project done on such a large scale. As we work to reinvent government and streamline our processes, the e-mail project can help to put us on the leading edge of progress. Initially, your e-mail message will be read and receipt immediately acknowledged. A careful count will be taken on the number received as well as the subject of each message. However, the White House is not yet capable of sending back a tailored response via electronic mail. We are hoping this will happen by the end of the year. A number of response-based programs which allow technology to help us read your message more effectively, and, eventually respond to you electronically in a timely fashion will be tried out as well. These programs will change periodically as we experiment with the best way to handle electronic mail from the public. Since this has never been tried before, it is important to allow for some flexibility in the system in these first stages. We welcome your suggestions. This is an historic moment in the White House and we look forward to your participation and enthusiasm for this milestone event. We eagerly anticipate the day when electronic mail from the public is an integral and normal part of the White House communications system. President Clinton Vice President Gore PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV VICE.PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 14:44:18 MDT From: Mark_Muhlestein@Novell.COM (Mark Muhlestein) Subject: Contrapositive Crows I enjoy reading the extropians list because there always seems to be a variety of new, mind-expanding topics. I had never really thought much about the problem of what constitutes evidence for a proposition, but spurred on by some of the recent discussions here, I have found a whole new area of interest to me. David's contrapositive crows problem, or "Hempel's paradox," as it is called in the literature, was first clearly elucidated in Carl Hempel's paper "Studies in the Logic of Confirmation" which was published in the 1940s. It has generated a surprisingly large literature, with contributions from the likes of Rudolf Carnap, Karl Popper, and many other heavyweights among the philosophers of science. >From what I have read (admittedly not that much), this and a few related paradoxes seem to have generated a great deal of controversy, but there does not seem to be a clear consensus on what the "correct" resolution would be. (Of course, convincing all philosophers of a point is hardly likely in any case!) In my opinion, these paradoxes of confirmation cannot be lightly dismissed. I don't have the expertise (or time) to properly summarize the many arguments which have been put forward, but I can recommend a book which contains several of the important papers on this topic. From the Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, it is called _The Concept of Evidence_, edited by Peter Achinstein. It contains Hempel's original paper, and several other fascinating philosophical explorations. Just one example that might be of interest: by a simple manipulation one can show that the sentence "All crows are black" is equivalent to the sentence "Anything which is or is not a crow is either not a crow or black." Now this second sentence would be confirmed by any object that is (1) a crow or not a crow, and, in addition, (2) not a crow, or else is black. Since (1) is tautologous, any object which satisfies (2) may be taken as evidence for the original proposition. So now we have *any non-crow object at all*, or black crows, as evidence for the proposition "All crows are black"! Mark_Muhlestein@novell.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 13:55:16 PST From: "Mark W. McFadden" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. Perry Metzger writes: To the rhetorical question, "What can we know about them"? >We know plenty. We know that they evolved, and we know thus that they >have a survival orientation. We know that as a result of this that >they will tend to try to exploit their environments to enhance their >survival. This is not a question of motivation -- most individuals of >the species can be wholely unmotivated. This is a question of those >who exploit things for their surivival surviving better. Yes, I know. i think we can assume that the aliens we are talking about are intelligent (or we wouldn't be talking about them) and that implies that they probably evolved (barring Divine Intervention) and that ,yes, they probably actively go about trying to survive. And(surprise), they probably got around to using technology of some sort to make their lives better. But the same can be said about chimpanzees and Creationists. The subject at hand (see thread) is why we haven't been contacted. I contend that an interest or desire to contact the rest of the Universe or develope space travel is not the logical, inevitable end result of technology or evolution. It's just what _we_ did. And damn few of us at that. Or did someone complete SETI while my back was turned? >> I can imagine a race that >> never "progresses" beyond Newtonian physics and does not notice the >> lack. >I don't buy it. If they develop Newtonian Physics, they are likely to >try to exploit it to try to enhance their survival. Yeah, maybe some >individual members of the species might not, but given enough members >and a survival orientation some must try to exploit it to enhance >their survival capacity. In the act of exploiting it they will gain a >reproductive and survival edge over their fellows. You can have a whale of a time utilizing Newtonian physics to enhance your survival, your income, your power, whatever, for centuries and never once feel the need to know the speed of light. And survive like all get out. Like human history up to the 20's and 30's. You can _see_ Newtonian physics at work (ballistics is a precise science). Quantum physics are a learned faith. No? Kindly point to a quark, please. Kindly don't come railing back at me, claiming I doubt the validity of modern physics. I'm just trying to illustrate that they are not intuitively obvious. And in many cases are counter-intuitive. Most people experience time in only one direction. >Because evolution, both cultural and gentic, works on the INDIVIDUAL >level, not on the level of SPECIES. Well, actually, an individual is a MUTANT. When enough individuals reproduce that gene, you have evolution of a species. And an individual, by definition, is not a culture. > The thing to note is that compared >to the number of people who've at least adopted medieval level >agriculture the number of stone agers left alive is miniscule. Some >individuals pick one route, some pick another. The ones who pick the >route with more surivival value leave more offspring. I guess that explains Calcutta. And rural mainland China. And most of Rio. And finally, would you build a radio telescope if you never had any reason or evidence to think there was anything to aim at? Would a being that evolved under cloud cover ever look at the sky? And assuming some mutated genetically advanced genius alien _was_ inspired to build a radio telescope, would it's findings ever progress beyond a gee whiz article in Omni? _____________________________________________________________________ | Mark W. McFadden | Been there....done that. mwm@wwtc.timeplex.com | __________________________________|__________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 17:15:15 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission "Mark W. McFadden" says: > I contend that an interest or desire to contact the rest of the Universe > or develope space travel is not the logical, inevitable end result of > technology or evolution. Of course it is. Those who migrate off their home world have huge new resources available in which to expand. Those creatures that take advantage of these resources will rapidly have more offspring available. Even if the bulk of the population of the alien species in question has no desire to engage in this behavior, the minority that have the desire will very soon grow to dwarf the majority. > >> I can imagine a race that > >> never "progresses" beyond Newtonian physics and does not notice the > >> lack. > > >I don't buy it. If they develop Newtonian Physics, they are likely to > >try to exploit it to try to enhance their survival. Yeah, maybe some > >individual members of the species might not, but given enough members > >and a survival orientation some must try to exploit it to enhance > >their survival capacity. In the act of exploiting it they will gain a > >reproductive and survival edge over their fellows. > > You can have a whale of a time utilizing Newtonian physics to enhance > your survival, your income, your power, whatever, for centuries and never > once feel the need to know the speed of light. And survive like all get > out. Like human history up to the 20's and 30's. You can _see_ Newtonian > physics at work (ballistics is a precise science). Quantum physics are a > learned faith. No? Kindly point to a quark, please. I'm sorry, but this is rapidly degenerating into nonsense. I'm not interested in defending modern physics from accusations that its "faith". I'll just note that the capacity to construct devices based on modern physics (such as tunnelling based semiconductor devices) is rapidly altering our society. Competition and evolution drive progress relentlessly forward. Pretty soon our continued survival will be owed largely to modern physics. I can't see any reason that aliens would have such different rules of survival that individuals in their societies wouldn't similarly take advantage of modern physics to enhance their survival. As I've said, it has nothing to do with DESIRE or MOTIVATION. It is just the sheer inescapable fact that that which gains more resources to reproduce with and reproduces will be more visible. > > The thing to note is that compared > >to the number of people who've at least adopted medieval level > >agriculture the number of stone agers left alive is miniscule. Some > >individuals pick one route, some pick another. The ones who pick the > >route with more surivival value leave more offspring. > > I guess that explains Calcutta. And rural mainland China. And most of Rio. I see you have difficulty reading. Please reread that last sentence that said "Compared to the number of people who've at least adopted medieval level agriculture the number of stone agers left is miniscule". If you can find me anyone in India or rural China who lives a hunter gatherer lifestyle and uses stone knives, I can easily name a number of places that will gladly grant you a PhD for your work. > And finally, would you build a radio telescope if you never had any reason > or evidence to think there was anything to aim at? What gave us any reason to think there was anything to aim at? Again, we are not born with radio dishes for eyes. Penzias and company didn't get a Nobel Prize for the startlingly obvious. > Would a being that > evolved under cloud cover ever look at the sky? Given that its likely to have eyes, and that things are likely to fly, yes. > And assuming some mutated > genetically advanced genius alien _was_ inspired to build a radio telescope, > would it's findings ever progress beyond a gee whiz article in Omni? Probably, yes. Perry Metzger ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 17:24:53 EDT From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) Subject: Verifying Privacy as an Upload/AI? Paul-- I did see your messages about verifying that you're safe as an upload. I'm waiting to see if anybody else posts any ideas. I'm kinda embarrassed about cross-posting to extropians and cypherpunks. Later, --Steve (fnerd) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 15:07:53 -0700 (PDT) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: ACTIVISM: Official WhiteHouse Email I got this thoughtful, personal reply less than ten seconds after I sent my first missive. Gee, they read fast! :-) Nick Forwarded message: >From whitehouse.gov!postmaster Wed Jun 2 15:02:50 1993 Apparently-To: Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 17:55:26 -0400 From: postmaster@whitehouse.gov Message-Id: <9306022155.AA15592@whitehouse.gov> Thank you for sending in your thoughts and comments to the President via electronic mail. We are pleased to introduce this new form of communication into the White House for the first time in history. I welcome your response and participation. As we work to reinvent government and streamline our processes, this electronic mail experiment will help put us on the leading edge of progress. Please remember, though, this is still very much an experiment. Your message has been read, and we are keeping careful track ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ :-) of all the mail we are receiving electronically. We will be trying out a number of response-based systems shortly, and I ask for your patience as we move forward to integrate electronic mail from the public into the White House. Again, on behalf of the President, thank you for your message and for taking part in the White House electronic mail project. Sincerely, Marsha Scott, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Correspondence ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0295 ****************************************