From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Thu Jun 3 00:51:03 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA27699; Thu, 3 Jun 93 00:51:01 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 AA07893; Thu, 3 Jun 93 00:50:57 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) id ; Thu, 3 Jun 93 03:46:44 -0400 Message-Id: <9306030746.AA01705@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: ExI-Daily@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 03:46:22 -0400 X-Original-Message-Id: <9306030746.AA01694@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Original-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu From: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Extropians Digest V93 #0296 X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on June 3, 373 P.N.O. [07:46:43 UTC] Reply-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: OR Extropians Digest Thu, 3 Jun 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0296 Today's Topics: ACTIVISM: Official WhiteHouse Email [1 msgs] Contrapositive Crows [1 msgs] ECON/SPACE: Sell the Solar System [1 msgs] Fermi Paradox Resolved! [3 msgs] Game Theory: Dollar Auction [1 msgs] Genes, Memes, Fermi Paradox [1 msgs] May 19 Frank Drake talk [1 msgs] SPACE/EVOL: Fermi paradox, etc. [1 msgs] SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. [5 msgs] Unusual Event [2 msgs] Verifying Privacy as an Upload/AI? [1 msgs] You should read this, (fwd frm tcmay) [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: 62697 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 18:35:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Carol Moore Subject: Fermi Paradox Resolved! I like Klaus when he takes on those who deserve it like Lawyers. Now how about Internal Revenue Service employees who join the Libertarian Party--I personally know three (since I live in District of Corruption/uh I mean Columbia). Yikes, have they no shame?? (And yet LPers are so sorrily grateful for members that they accept even them . . .) (-: Like My Short Sig-Line?? -- cmoore@cap.gwu.edu :-) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 18:47:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Carol Moore Subject: ACTIVISM: Official WhiteHouse Email Any body want to make any bets on how long it takes before some cyber-psycho uses this medium to make illegal threats vs. Bill (kill that horny polygamist in Waco) Clinton? I wonder how many hours it will take the Secret Service to find her/him? -------------------------- On Wed, 2 Jun 1993, Nick Szabo wrote: > > I got this thoughtful, personal reply less than ten seconds after > I sent my first missive. Gee, they read fast! :-) > > Nick > > Forwarded message: ----------------------------------- (-: Like My Short Sig-Line?? -- cmoore@cap.gwu.edu :-) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 15:43:38 PST From: "Mark W. McFadden" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. On Wed, 02 Jun 1993 17:15:15 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > >"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. Capitalization added by MWM. Keep this argument in mind, it returns like Banquo's Ghost. > >> >> 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. Agreed, please get serious. Or try reading what you are criticizing. > 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. Yes, it goes forward, but the forward, upward path you keep describing is _ours_, and that is not pre-destined. The "equation" you keep postulating is intelligence+technology+time=space migration and nanotechnology. And as I will keep repeating until even you can understand it, none of our technological advances beyond simple tools were predestined. They are not inevitable. It does not follow. You keep writing of alien races as Us, but living over there. 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. THE MINORITY THAT HAVE THE DESIRE WILL VERY SOON GROW TO DWARF THE MAJORITY. > It is just the sheer inescapable fact that that which gains more resources >to reproduce with and reproduces will be more visible. But, it will be visible to us _only_ if it chooses to go into or send signals into space, and that will require DESIRE and MOTIVATION. > >> > 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. No, you have a chronic problem with irony. > 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. How droll. And predictably smarmy. If you will direct _your_ attention to your _last_ sentence " The ones who pick the route with more surivival value leave more offspring." Now, try utilizing our frontal lobes, manipulate a few symbols, check for irony. Ahem, for the congenitally humorless and literal: Are you saying that producing more offspring proves that you are better equipped to survive? Now think of Calcutta, Rio, rural China. Note how "adopted medieval level agriculture" is a given and that hunter gatherers with stone knives don't enter into it. I don't expect a laugh, but I thought you'd at least get the joke. > >> 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? Duh,stars at night? Nah, too simple. >> evolved under cloud cover ever look at the sky? > >Given that its likely to have eyes, and that things are likely to fly, >yes. Looking _up_ is not looking at the night sky. Now speculate on primitive people looking at _stars_ in night sky, seeing pictures, making stories, astrology, astronomy, telescopes, radio telescopes,cosmology....... nothing inevitable, but you can see the linkage. _____________________________________________________________________ | Mark W. McFadden | Been there....done that. mwm@wwtc.timeplex.com | __________________________________|__________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 18:54:32 EDT From: Brian.Hawthorne@East.Sun.COM (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect Engineering) Subject: Fermi Paradox Resolved! Welcome back, Klaus! Of course, I'm not sure this counts as parody, since it rings so true... Actually, though, it made me think of something else. What if the reason we have never met anyone else is that the technology necessary to produce Von Neumann probes and contact other planets is sufficient to induce the Singularity we have hypothesized about so much. In other words, by the time a species is advanced enough to contact others, they are either no longer interested in doing so, or we would be incapable of recognizing such contact. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 20:04:10 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission "Mark W. McFadden" says: > 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. > > THE MINORITY THAT HAVE THE DESIRE WILL VERY SOON GROW TO DWARF THE > MAJORITY. > By introducing this quotation of mine here, you demonstrate that you really don't understand the argument -- you still don't grok how evolution works. Its all really simple. Provided just a few odd folks do something that gives them a reproductive edge, they will come to dominate, and high technology and ultimately space travel are a giant edge. Given this, its hard to see how a technological civilization wouldn't have individuals who push into high technology and ultimately space travel -- given enough individuals and a technological civilization, a few will likely have the idea, and it only takes a very few to do it. I see no further reason to correspond. I'll only end up repeating the same arguments over, and you will continue to misunderstand them. I will, however, reply once more to this particular message to point out your ignorance of the history of technology. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 20:09:25 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission "Mark W. McFadden" says: > > > >> 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? > > Duh,stars at night? Nah, too simple. Yup, too simple. I'm afraid you are completely ignorant of the history of radio astronomy. Radio Astronomy was discovered when Arno Penzias one day found interference with his big antenna array, and had no idea where it came from untill he and a colleague who's name I forget got the brilliant idea that it might be coming from space. No one started by pointing a radio telescope at the sky -- they started by discovering a new phenomenon and only later discovered that it might be useful for astronomy. No one started by asking "gee, I wonder if we can pick up stellar radio transmittions." > >> evolved under cloud cover ever look at the sky? > > > >Given that its likely to have eyes, and that things are likely to fly, > >yes. > > Looking _up_ is not looking at the night sky. > Now speculate on primitive people looking at _stars_ in night sky, seeing > pictures, making stories, astrology, astronomy, telescopes, radio > telescopes,cosmology....... Lets forget the "primitive people" bit. We are talking about the development of technology. Lets assume you had a technological civilization on a planet with heavy cloud cover. I suspect that radio astronomy would show up as soon as antenna arrays showed up. Failing that, the development would likely arise as a result of the development of flight. You can't avoid it. Eventually you will discover the outside world. > nothing inevitable, but you can see the linkage. No, I can't. I doubt anyone else can either. You are stretching for reasons a technological civilization might not expand in all directions within a few millenia of its origin, and none of them are convincing. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 20:14:45 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: Fermi Paradox Resolved! X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect Engineering says: > > Welcome back, Klaus! Of course, I'm not sure this counts as parody, since > it rings so true... > > Actually, though, it made me think of something else. What if the reason > we have never met anyone else is that the technology necessary to > produce Von Neumann probes and contact other planets is sufficient > to induce the Singularity we have hypothesized about so much. > > In other words, by the time a species is advanced enough to contact > others, they are either no longer interested in doing so, or we would > be incapable of recognizing such contact. I assume you mean some sort of "transcendence" which we are not yet aware of. Well, I'll just tote out the evolutionary argument once more. Just as there are both dung beetles and humans on this planet, I suspect that some people are going to remain human into the distant future even as we become transhuman. Too many memes, you know? The odds that EVERYONE would transcend somehow are low, because evolution tends to try to fill every possible niche. This would lead you to believe that "transcending", since it is just another niche, is not the only possible future -- some people likely won't take it, and their equivalents in other civilizations would be the originators of the Von Neuman Machines. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 18:16:45 PDT From: Robin Hanson Subject: ECON/SPACE: Sell the Solar System Perry Metzger asks: >So, the UN has auctioned everything off. Ten years later, I go to the >moon with my cronies and ignore them on the basis that they have no >way to enforce their claims. What happens now? Look. If you are right, and having the UN granted piece of paper doesn't help anyone hold onto property, then no one should want to buy any, and the price should be zero. Some folks might expect, however, that sometimes bullies would be discouraged from just grabbing stuff, because then maybe a bigger bully would then use that as an excuse to grab from them. Those folks might then see a value in this paper, and pay real money for it. So if we hold an auction, the market would decide if these property right claims have value. If they have value, then the introduction of the auction has reduced the degree of homesteading of stuff. Would that be a good thing? Been meaning to offer this parable. OK, I like all you extropians and want to reward you. So I've just placed $100 cash on my desk, to give to the first extropian to grab it. Ready? Go! ... Got it. Now don't you all feel blessed? No? What if I agreed not to grab it, would you still think I'd done you a favor? Amara might, since she's just a few buildings away. But what if there were ten of you closest, all the same distance away. How much would you each be willing to spend, in time and trouble, to try and get it? About $10, if you thought all would try, or maybe $50 if you thought only two of you would try. Either way, I haven't really done anyone a favor. If I offered $100,000, why maybe that would be a favor, because the winner couldn't plausibly spend that much to get here first (most of you are a few miles away). Is the universe of any value to us if we know it will be homesteaded? Well if some folk have special ability to get there first, and cooperate to use that monopoly power, then yes. And if the universe opportunities are so great that those race-to-get-there-first investment opportunities can change total market (risk-adjusted) rates of return, then yes. Otherwise, maybe no -- universe-schmuniverse, who cares if it's there? Robin Hanson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 18:14:38 PDT From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. Not to provoke or further inflame passions, but my colleage Perry Metzger is incorrect: > I'm afraid you are completely ignorant of the history of radio > astronomy. > > Radio Astronomy was discovered when Arno Penzias one day found > interference with his big antenna array, and had no idea where it came > from untill he and a colleague who's name I forget got the brilliant > idea that it might be coming from space. No one started by pointing a > radio telescope at the sky -- they started by discovering a new > phenomenon and only later discovered that it might be useful for > astronomy. No one started by asking "gee, I wonder if we can pick up > stellar radio transmittions." Karl Jansky discovered radio signals coming from the center of the galaxy in the early 1930s, thus ushering in the era of radio astronomy. Several very large radio telescopes (Jodrell Bank in the U.K., Arecibo, Green Bank in W. Va., Parke in Australia, etc.) were then built and were quite active by the time Penzias and Wilson made their discovery in the mid-60s. I know this because the Penzia and Wilson news was very exciting...I was in the 9th grade, as I recall. And radio astronomy was already old hat by then...many science fair projects involved building Yagi antennas and mapping the skies. (These radio astronomers didn't see the 3 kelvins blackbody radiation because low-noise amps, like masers, were necessary. And Penzias and Wilson had the low-noise amps and deserved their Nobel Prize, if only for not dismissing the uniform noise they saw as experimental error or "impossible." I wonder if other radio astronomers saw the noise and simply ignored it?) Having corrected Perry's fact, let me generally agree with his point that any tool-making civilization that progressed to the point of using electronics would likely discover radio waves from the sky fairly quickly, even if they were under perpetual cloud cover. (More problematic might be ocean-dwelling civilizations, but for reasons I won't digress into right now, I doubt they'd be tool-builders....more like porpoises and whales.) Comment: Is it just me, or are the discussions in this group getting too strident, too rancorous, too disputacious? People have strong opinions, of course, but discussions about the Fermi Paradox, or neural nets, or even Godel's and Chaitin's work should be *joyous* discussions, as these areas are vastly more interesting (to most of us, I think, or we wouldn't be here--shades of Barrow and Tipler!) than the ordinary political debates and flames that infest so much of our lives. Just my thoughts. -Tim May -- .......................................................................... 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, 2 Jun 93 19:25:00 PDT From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Game Theory: Dollar Auction Robin Hanson's response to the "Selling the Solar System" thread raises the topic of the "dollar auction." This may have some bearing on the homesteading vs. auctioning outcome, though I'm not sure. In any case, Robin writes: .... > Would that be a good thing? Been meaning to offer this parable. > > OK, I like all you extropians and want to reward you. So I've just > placed $100 cash on my desk, to give to the first extropian to grab > it. Ready? Go! ... Got it. Now don't you all feel blessed? No? > > What if I agreed not to grab it, would you still think I'd done you a > favor? Amara might, since she's just a few buildings away. But what > if there were ten of you closest, all the same distance away. How > much would you each be willing to spend, in time and trouble, to try > and get it? About $10, if you thought all would try, or maybe $50 if > you thought only two of you would try. Either way, I haven't really > done anyone a favor. If I offered $100,000, why maybe that would be a > favor, because the winner couldn't plausibly spend that much to get > here first (most of you are a few miles away). The "dollar auction" experiment works like this: (caveat: I'm only a beginning game theorist and the following is mostly from memory--Poundstone's "The Prisoner's Dilemma" has a section on this.) Alice offers a dollar bill to the highest bidder. There are several variants of the rules that can be considered: Variant 1: Sealed bids, with losing bidders getting their money back. Variant 2: Open bidding, with losers getting their money back (that is, only the winner pays). Variant 3: Open bidding, with all money going into "the pot," as in poker. Variant 4: Open bidding, with all money going to Alice, but only the dollar going to the winner. (A sub-variant could be where the winner got the dollar and the bid he made, while everyone else lost everything. I won't analyze this further.) In variant 1, the bids are likely to approach the "true value," a dollar. In variant 2, the same is also so, only probably with even more "efficiency." Variant 3 is basically just poker (no offense to "just" poker...it just isn't what I want to focus on). Bids can keep going up and up, with all "losers" (those who fold) out their entire investment. Variant 4 is the canonical "dollar auction," performed at dinner parties and at think tanks in the early 1950s when it was invented (I think it was by Shubik, of the Shubik-Shapley voting theory I reported on last November during the fascinating discussion of how much one's vote is really worth...I don't have a copy of Poundstone's book (yet), so I can't check it out.) What Shubik found, experimentally, was that the bidding for the dollar would start low and escalate quickly. As soon as it reached a dollar, which it did, folks would realize they were doomed to be net losers, that even the winner would end up paying more than a dollar for the dollar! But the bids kept going up. Bob and Chuck have each bid, by this point (say), $3.00 for the dollar. Bob figures if he quits, he'll be out the $3, but if he bids $3.25 and wins, he'll get the dollar and hence only be out $3.25 - $1.00 = $2.25. But of course Charles figures the same thing....and the bids keep going up. [This is a perfect experiment for an Extropians parlor game. I have read about this, but long for the direct experience that participation would bring. Too bad I live in Santa Cruz and can't justify driving the 50 miles to the Extropians Bay Area lunch on Thursday, else I'd challenge Robin, Amara, Romana, Lefty, Mark, and all the others to try such a game.] ***SPOILERS FOR OUTCOME*** (don't read what follows if you want to try the experiment yourself) Shubik et. al. found that people started out by bidding the price of a dollar up to about $5 or so. But after they'd played the game a couple of times, their intuitions sharpened and the bids rarely went over a dollar. Mostly people saw the futility and wouldn't play. Now extrapolating simple game theory results to real-world situations is always dangerous, and caution is needed. However, one can imagine that auctioning off some things (like weapons, like strategic real estate) could lead to a "dollar auction" kind of overbidding. (It was partly this outcome that I had in mind when I was reading Robin's earlier claims in the auctioning vs. homesteading thread that auctions could reduce wasteful and pointless "races." Indeed, it might...but it might also result in wasteful overbidding. Hard to say at this point.) I'm not taking sides on the homesteading vs. auctioning approaches...it's a bit early, after all. -Tim May P.S. Anyone interested in game theory, I just got a set of "Mathematica" programs for calculating Nash equilibria, Bayesian outcome analyses, portfolio analyses, and so on. These were in a book, " Economic and Financial Modeling with Mathematica," edited by Hal Varian. Something I'd be interested in seeing is the running of games and tournaments of various sorts over Internet hook-ups. Speaking of which, I have a dollar bill here on my desk.....do I hear twenty-five cents? -- .......................................................................... 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, 2 Jun 93 22:31:10 CDT From: ddfr@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: Contrapositive Crows Robin sneakily takes advantage of his special knowledge that I am likely to be suffering from sleep deprivation consequent on recent fatherhood to continue pointing out the errors in my postings at a time when I am particularly incompetent to answer him. He is of course right that my claim that Good's argument eliminates all general statements about evidence is a considerable overstatement. Indeed, my own posting contained a putative counterexample in the claim that my proposition one, rephrased as I suggested, survived Good's critique. I still think, however, that to say that one cannot describe an observation is evidence for a proposition as long as there is any possible set of priors under which the observation would lower the proposition's probability, stretches the common meaning of "evidence" pretty far. It seems natural to say that a certain fact may be evidence for a proposition via one possible chain of argument and evidence against it via another. Whether the fact is on net evidence for or against then depends on our prior probabilities for other propositions related to the strength of the alternative chains of argument. Which brings me back to my original argument. Although Robin's demonstration of my errors is (I hope) fun for him and (I am confident) good for me, it does not, so far as I can see, solve my puzzle. We have, after all, a particular set of prior beliefs, not any possible set of prior beliefs--and those priors provide, so far as I know, no special relation between color of paper and color of crows. They do not even provide any special relation between how likely one is to come across a sheet of paper and the color of crows. My proof that a sheet of white paper is evidence that all crows are black seems to survive under the sort of priors we actually have. David Friedman University of Chicago Law School ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 23:10:01 -0500 From: extr@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig Presson) Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. In <9306022248.AA28290@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu>, "Mark W. McFadden" writes: |> On Wed, 02 Jun 1993 17:15:15 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: |> |> > |> >"Mark W. McFadden" says: |> >> I contend [...] You are too busy contending; so much so that the rest of your message is NOISE. You owe the list 101,012 deep breaths. ^ / ------/---- extropy@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) /AS 5/20/373 P.N.O. /ExI 4/373 P.N.O. ** E' and E-choice spoken here ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 23:21:27 -0500 From: extr@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig Presson) Subject: Unusual Event My wife and I just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. This is unusual among baby boomers now; but I suspect those of us who hang on may celebrate 120th anniversaries on their favorite asteroids. I won't upload unless the taste of Veuve Cliquot champagne goes with me :-) By some synchronous thinking, we bought each other rings. Mine has a nice pear-cut onyx surrounded with tiny diamonds; hers is just rows of small diamonds. 21st anniversary: non-perishable food and small arms ;-) ^ / ------/---- extropy@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) /AS 5/20/373 P.N.O. /ExI 4/373 P.N.O. ** E' and E-choice spoken here ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 23:53:18 EST From: mike@highlite.gotham.COM (Mike Wiik) Subject: Genes, Memes, Fermi Paradox I've been playing with SimLife lately so naturally this reminds me again of my favorite Fermi resolution - that we're all in a simulation. We haven't been programmed to meet aliens yet. This model seems useless but it does provide the possibility that intelligence might evolve the ability to reprogram the universe. Perhaps more agreeable is the idea from _The Selfish Gene_ that we (and all life) are simply vehicles for genes, which are the things doing the evolving. Might memes someday overthrow genes entirely? If so, what vehicles would advanced memes use for reproducing? Perhaps all intelligence evolves to the point where it consists only of Messages from Space -Mike | o==== . : ... : : . |Mail Me Neat Stuff->POB 3703 Arlington VA 22203 --@-- . o o o ... O -O- o o : | mike@highlite.gotham.com | ... : : |----------------------------------------------- mEmEs fRoM sPAcE ARt stUdiOs |History:ReadIt&RollUncontrollablyWithLaughter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 07:21:19 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) 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. > For what's worth (I could have missed the whole point of this) I don't think you could ever protect privacy with uploaded copies falling into the hands of an enemy (state or individual). It seems quite straightforward. The Torturer makes extra multiple copies, keep some as backups, tortures the rest and cross checks answers. Get a different answer on some point, just blast the whole bunch with agony - I think "I" would soon get the point. Or get a sufficiency advanced servant scan one of the backups down to the logical neural connection level and 'read off' the answers. One reason why I don't intend to let copies of myself roam the universe. > Later, > --Steve (fnerd) Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk AS member (21/3/93) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 02:42:29 -0400 From: Alexander Chislenko Subject: SPACE/EVOL: Fermi paradox, etc. Perry writes: > 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. Evolution fills all the niches... Water fills all holes... The question is, what is a 'niche'? It is not *any* state; there are several classes of states the evolution wouldn't come up with, or at least wouldn't stay at for a noticeable period of time: 1) Inefficient states: Try to find creatures with one wing, three legs, etc. 2) Transitional states. If a state allows immediate improvement, it won't be permanent. Our chances of finding a civilization whose best computers have 640K of RAM are as slim as your chances of seeing a puddle of water on your wall. 3) Unreachable states. Evolution, just as a flow of water, has its own laws of development, and doesn't find all the niches. Change the parameters a little, and it may fill a quite different set of niches, e.g.: - if humans had X-ray vision, they would convey emotions with their bowels instead of facial muscles, would hardly develop fashions, etc. - a computer-confined AI would have no interest in Newtonian physics. 4) Unstable/slippery states A species with one hair on the head, and whatever. _) Also notice that in a stable state any sufficiently complex system should consume external resources to stay alive [and will eventually exhaust any given resource]; therefore, there is a contradiction between a lifespan of a civilization and stability of its structure. - Our civilization is clearly in a transitional state; Chances to find another one in a similar state are very,very small: should be real close to us spacially, and pass this stage at exactly the same time as earthlings. One out of a billion, at best. = Nanochance. Chances to find a civilization that would have this very state as permanent/long-term? Nil, IMO. Unless it's a simulation by some Almighty Trickster. We *will* come to a relatively stable state sooner or later [?]. There we *might* find some peers. So we could start with trying to describe this next state. But... I suspect that every scenario of the future that we may be discussing here will become completely irrelevant long before anybody would be able to envision the main features of this next island of stability. (It doesn't mean I wouldn't listen to the ideas of what it may look like). Alex - sasha@cs.umb.edu - The First Russian Extropian! ;-) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 01:03:41 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: Unusual Event 'Grats! I'm impressed. One full score of years! -- When marriage is outlawed only outlaws will be inlaws! Stanton McCandlish, SysOp: Noise in the Void DataCenter Library BBS Internet anton@hydra.unm.edu IndraNet: 369:1/1 FidoNet: 1:301/2 Snail: 1811-B Coal Pl. SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 USA Data phone: +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400 v32bis, N-8-1) Vox phone: +1-505-247-3402 (bps rate varies, depends on if you woke me up...:) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 0:11:32 PDT From: more@chaph.usc.edu (Max More) Subject: You should read this, (fwd frm tcmay) I've already sent e-mail to Tim (May), responding to parts of his posting of May 22, but I want to make some public response also. > > - and some comments about the "science editors" of "Extropy" > > > > TRAVERSABLE WORMHOLES > > > > My point about the danger of "crankishness" was perhaps a bit too harsh, > > and maybe that's what angered Mike so much. To my view, any articles on > > pure speculation about time travel and computing or on time travel and > > wormholes should be treated with extreme caution! The danger for any > > future-oriented publication like "Extropy," especially one seeking news > > stand sales, is overhyping and playing fast and loose with the science in > > order to grab the attention of finicky readers. This is what I am worrying > > about. As Editor of EXTROPY, I share Tim's concern about being too loose with science in order to publish stimlating articles that attract readers. It is deeply important to me to maintain the reputation and standards that EXTROPY has and continues to develop. EXTROPY will publish speculative science, but it must always be reasonable - not obviously violating well-established principles - as well as fascinating. This can be a thin line to walk, especially in areas where my knowledge is minimal and for which I have no volunteers for editing. I welcome additions to the editorial board of Extropians with specialized knowledge. > > > > > > WHERE ARE THE SCIENCE EDITORS? > > > > And I'd feel a lot better about things if "Extropy"'s "science editors" > > were reading and contributing to the discussion on *this list*. The better > > to gauge our inputs on what's important, what's fluff, etc., and to > > contribute their own ideas to the list. Max More occasionally comments, but > > is perhaps too busy doing other things. Ditto for Dave Krieger (Science), > > Russell Whitaker (Communications), Simon! D. Levy (Computing, Linguistics), > > Greg Benford (Physics...is Benford *really* involved, or just on the > > masthead?), Michael Perry (Cryonics), and so on. I am getting the distinct > > impression that our debates here on this list bear little or no resemblance > > to the stuff printed in "Extropy." This is not meant to be a rant against > > the magazine--it can be a lot of fun. Yes, Gregory Benford *is* involved, and not just a masthead name. [For the few who don't know, Gregory Benford, Ph.D., is both a best-selling SF writer and a professor of Physics at UC Irvine.] I handed Greg a copy of the wormholes article, then a few days later the revised version, while he was out here in Riverside last week. He promised to read it carefully right away. He also tells me that he knows a fair bit about the topic. I don't believe Greg has the time to regularly read this list, nor do I agree with Tim that this is at all necessary. The editors simply need to be well chosen to do a competent job on the articles I give them. However, I am certainly willing to pass on to them relevent e-mail from the list. Given the already impossible demands on my time, and my current desultory reading of the Extropians list, I would appreciate volunteers to collect comments relevant to topics being considered for EXTROPY, and forward them to me. I hope to return to more active involvement with the list in a few weeks, after EXTROPY #11 is well on the way, and I've got my long-neglected dissertation underway. Perhaps the place to begin would be a response to comments made on my long posting about identity. > > > > I guess I'd feel a lot more comfortable about Mike's article if it was > > *very clearly* labeled "wild speculation" or somesuch. Magazines often have > > "blue sky" or "unrealizable dreams" sections, especially to "contain" such > > articles. This, to me, would defuse some of the dangers. Once I've heard from the two physics-competent persons currently evaluating Mike's wormholes article, I may decide to label it something like "Speculative Science", if that will satisfy those worried about giving a false impression of the status of the ideas. > > > > And why not a "Letters" section for critiques and rebuttals? There will be a letters section when someone takes time away from the list to *write* letters to EXTROPY! I welcome letters - in fact I *implore* you to write letters commenting on articles. I continue to be puzzled by the large number of highly enthusiastic comments about EXTROPY unaccompanied by publishable analyses of the articles. One way I will be attempting to add balance wil be to organize Forum debates, where two (or more) knowledgeable folks can have their views published. I appreciate, Tim, the fact that though you are more devoted to the Extropians list than the magazine, you care about its continued quality. Finally, I will once again suggest to the large number of Extropians who do not yet receive EXTROPY to please subscribe (at least try an issue). EXTROPY is the backbone of the Extropian movement still, and was the cause of this list getting started by Perry in the first place. It's reaching thousands of people who've never heard of Extropianism before, from New York to L.A., from Australia to Finland, from Japan to Germany. It led to a GQ (UK) article with Russell Whitaker in England, and a subsequent BBC TV appearance, and it led to me just being invited to an expenses-paid "New Edge" conference in Holland (June 17-20) where I'll be able to introduce Extropian ideas to 300+ people from all over the world. Upward and Outward! Max More more@usc.edu Editor EXTROPY: The Journal of Trashumanist Thought President Extropy Institute (ExI) Extropy Institute 11860 Magnolia Ave., Ste. R Riverside, CA 92503 909-688-2323 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 00:10:11 PDT From: GRAPS@galileo.arc.nasa.gov Subject: May 19 Frank Drake talk This is a summary of a talk that me, T. May, R. Machado, and G. Dale attended about 2 weeks ago. I am filling in the blanks from my notes. In some places I mention details that Drake left out, and in some places I point out (nitpicking, probably!) where I think Drake made an erroneous assumption or else engaged in a little too-much handwaving. -Amara ----------------- On May 19, Frank Drake gave a public talk at UC Santa Cruz on the status of the SETI project. It was 1 1/2 - 2 hours long, where he first defined the problem that SETI was trying to solve, second, described the SETI's search strategy, and third, stated where the SETI project is at now, as far as achieving its goals. He was an entertaining speaker, often describing concepts or sizes or scales in terms of something that the audience would be more familiar with. {Example: The radio telescope dish at Arecibo, Puerto, is so large, that the dish would hold 357 million boxes of cornflakes. (This is in case you didn't get it when he also said that it was 1000 ft in diameter, had 20 acres of collecting area, and contained 38,000 individual reflecting panels!)} Interestingly enough, he didn't mention his "Drake equation." Maybe he was sick of it or maybe he didn't want to present math equations to this kind of general audience? However, the ideas he presented could have been formulated in that equation. FIRST, SETI'S GOAL. The problem that SETI is trying to solve is one that most of us have discussed and are familiar with: Are we alone in the universe? In his talk, Drake, in a very cursory manner, described the formation of solar systems, how life begins on Earth-like planets, and how human beings arrived as being the primary intelligent species of life on this planet. If we assume that the arrival of intelligent species on this planet is a common result of planet formation, biological evolution etc., then it probably happened elsewhere in the universe. So the goal of SETI is to find those other intelligent beings. Formation of Solar Systems... The solar system formation process is one that astrophysicists know relatively well. If you start with a small dense, cool, cloud clump embedded in a hot, dilute, larger gas cloud, the clump will begin to collapse. The clump will probably have an angular rotation and will probably flatten and fragment into small subcondensates. These small pieces can grow into full-scale planets by capturing neighboring pieces of material. The angular momentum is transfered from the inner to the outer regions of the disk. This process is called the "nebular hypothesis" for the origin of the solar system. (Ref 1) Astrophysicists generally assume that this is a common process in star and planet formation (but the details differ), and so they are interested in observing this process in action. In the last 10 years, we have observed several stars with circumstellar dust material in visible light, and have hypothesized many more circumstellar dust stars by using infrared techniques. Drake showed a slide of the famous example of a circumstellar dust star called beta Pictoris. He claimed that beta Pic was a good example of a solar system in formation. It even has gaps in the dust at about the right locations where planets would have swept up the material. {BEGIN nitpicking.} We actually don't know for sure whether beta Pic is a finished or a failed solar system (Ref 2). The observed gap could mean either: 1) the planets are finished, so that small, easily detected grains have disappeared via accretion, or 2) there was never material in that region. We are pretty sure that beta Pic is not a solar system presently *making* planets, because 1) from F. Witteborn's work, my former boss, we would expect an extremely high infrared signal from dust in that gap, and we never saw any, and 2) our solar system was mostly finished when our sun was beta Pic's age (200 Myr). {END nitpicking.} So, given that the nebular hypothesis is correct, and that there are solar systems being born all over the galaxy, we should be able to find them. (side Note: Dana Backman, my colleague and an expert in this field, says that our current technology won't allow us to search for planets (instead of dust) for another decade.) To continue with this scenario. We have a new star with material accreting into planets. Drake claimed that ~1 new Earth/every year in our galaxy is born. I looked into where he might have gotten this number. Say there are about a few hundred billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, so ~2x10^{11} stars. The current hypothetical age of the Milky Way is ~15x10^{9) years old (actually 10-20 billion years is the best we know, so I chose a number in the middle). If *all* of the stars had an Earth-like planet, and if we are in the middle of the galactic stellar evolution cycle so that 1/2 have gone nova, then the above numbers give us about 6 Earth-like planets born in our galaxy every year. So it looks like Drake is assuming that about 1/6 of all stars in the Milky Way has an Earth-like planet. Results from the IRAS (the Dutch Infrared Astronomical Satellite) sky survey suggest a number greater than or equal to this (Ref 3), so Drake's ~1 new Earth/every year is a reasonable number. How Life Begins on Earth-like Planets... Frank Drake uses the Miller-Urey experiments as a jumping off point in this part of his discussion. The Miller-Urey experiments, which occurred mostly in the late 1950's, consisted of mixing together in a flask, the gases of primitive Earth: hydrogen, water, ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide and then spark the gases to simulate lightning (Ref 4). What always occurred as a result of this experiment was that the interior of the flask would become covered in a thick brown tar which was a very rich mixture of complex organic molecules, including the constituent parts of proteins and nucleic acids. These are the essential building blocks of life. Drake then stated that because this process occurred so easily, we could assume that ~1 new Earth WITH LIFE/every year in our galaxy was born. {BEGIN nitpicking} I think Drake engaged in some serious hand-waving here. I don't think that because we have an Earth-like planet with complex organic molecules are we *always* going to get life. Sagan says (ref 5): "No one has so far mixed together the gases and waters of the primitive Earth and at the end of the experiment had something crawl out of the test tube." McKay, 1991, says (ref 6) "In most cases polymers and oligimers are produced but further evolution of the resultant mixture toward a living system has not been demonstrated." In addition, a debate has been going on in the planetary science community for a number of years about the source of organic material on early Earth. In that time period, the early atmosphere is thought by a number of researchers to be dominated by C02, N2, and H2O, and hence wouldn't be able to produce the organic material in Miller's flasks. The planetary science community have had serious discussions about the possibility of outside sources like comets and asteroids (the outer solar sytem is richer in organic material than the inner solar system) bringing the material into the Earth's environment. {END nitpicking} How Human Beings Arrived as Being the Primary Intelligent Species of Life on this Planet... OK, so now we have an Earth-like planet with life. Drake assumes that the life would eventually be intelligent, but it doesn't necessarily have to look like us. He spent some time talking about the dinosaurs, pointing out that, while most of the dinosaurs were pretty dumb, there were a few species that were pretty smart. They had brains about the size of a human child, and in a few more million years, they would have been as intelligent as us. Therefore, they might have ended up being the dominant intelligent species on this planet, instead of us- if they hadn't been wiped out by the cataclysmic event (asteroid hit, comet hit, major volcanic eruption, nearby supernova, whatever) that caused 2 months to 2 years of darkness during the latter part of the Cretaceous period (about 100 Myr ago) and killed 80-90% percent of all living things. Little furry animals survived by eating the flesh of of the dead dinosaurs; and thus mammals managed to flourish as they moved into the habitats vacated by dinosaurs. Eventually, plant life was reestablished, and evolution continued with us being the dominant species. SECOND, SETI'S SEARCH STRATEGY. How many possible detectible civilizations are in our galaxy? Frank Drake claims the number to be of order 10,000. I'm not completely certain where this number came from, but I'm guessing that it was from his own Drake equation, N = pRL, where N = number of advanced civilizations in our galaxy, p = a dimensionless number that is a product of fractions representing such terms as the fraction of stars that have planets etc, R = the average rate of forming stars in the galaxy, and L = the average lifetime of a technologically active civilization. Shu (ref 7) similarly gives N = 10,000, if p = 1 (extreme optimism), R = 10/year, and L = 1000 yrs. The distance in light years between these civilizations for Shu's estimate is about a 1000 (assuming that the civilizations have a distribution in the Milky Way similar to that deduced for distribution of stars). Ideally, the search would cover all detectable civilizations in our galaxy. The SETI strategy is a two-pronged approach: 1) use a large telescope for a targeted search on Sun-like stars, and 2) use a smaller telescope that has a larger field-of-view and sweep the sky. What wavelengths do we search in? Three sources of noise drown out the reception of a number of frequencies from space. These sources are: 1) the 3K radiation background, 2) quantum nature of photons (short wavelengths), 3) galactic molecules that act as miniature radio transmitters radiating at their own characteristic frequency (long wavelengths). The early searches were at the favored listening frequencies (often referred to as "watering holes"- the metaphorical interpretation of a meeting place for all sorts of "animals") are 1) the frequency between interstellar hydrogen and the hydroxyl radical (OH) at 1420 MHz (ref 8), 2) the frequency of hydroxyl at 1700 MHz (ref 9), and 3) the frequency of water (H20) at 22 GHz. These are the preferred frequencies to scan near for both large field and targeted star regions. We would want receivers at a fairly fine resolution, like 1 Hz, because signals are broadened through Doppler shifts. So if we were to scan all 1 Hz frequencies in the microwave region, we would have 100 million to scan through. THIRD, WHAT THE SETI PROJECT IS DOING NOW. The SETI project has gained in sophistication from the 1960's Project Ozma with vacuum tube receivers monitoring 1 channel, to the more recent late-80's SETI scanning 3 million frequencies. On October 19, 1992, the High Resolution Microwave Search (HRMS- the new name for SETI) began. This is a 10 million dollar per year project that scans 15 million channels in the microwave region using the Goldstone and Arecibo radio telescopes. Chips now comprise the multichannel spectrum analyzer performing 80 million math computations per second- the same power as a Cray 2. In the first two months of this new operation, 15 candidates were found, but were later discarded as sources caused by Earth. Drake said that we shouldn't be discouraged, he expects that the search should take through the year 2001 before it finds something. In 1996, a radio telescope at Greenback will be a dedicated HRMS telescope (the others can only devote small portions of their time to this search). Drake ended the talk with a brief note saying that, by far, the best location in the Solar System for this type of search is the far side of the Moon, because it never receives any Earth interference. So that's what he is currently hoping for. -------------- I hope you enjoyed this little essay. While I was writing this, I managed to secure a short 1 month project/job this summer helping Dana Backman produce a list of infrared excess stars (stars with possible planets) for the European Infrared Space Observatory. So I may have more notes about this topic in the future. Amara Graps NASA-Ames Research Center MS 245-5 Moffett Field, CA 94035 (415) 604- 5507 References (1) The Physical Universe, F. Shu, University Science Books, 1982, p. 475. (2) 28 May 1993 conversation with Dana Backman. (3) Protostars and Planets III, ed. Levy & Lunine, chapter: Main-Sequence Stars with Circumstellar Solid Material by D. Backman and F. Paresce, p. 1296. (4) Cosmos, C. Sagan, Random House, 1980, p. 38. (5) Cosmos, C. Sagan, Random House, 1980, p. 39. (6) C. P. McKay, "Planetary Evolution and the Origin of Life", Icarus 91, 93-100 (1991). (7) The Physical Universe, F. Shu, University Science Books, 1982, p. 547-548 (8) Paradigms Lost, J. Casti, Avon Bks, 1989, p. 370 (9) Voyage Through the Universe: Life Search, Time Life Books, 1989, p.118. ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0296 ****************************************