From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Thu Jun 3 19:41:47 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA00819; Thu, 3 Jun 93 19:41:46 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 AA16905; Thu, 3 Jun 93 19:41:39 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 22:37:13 -0400 Message-Id: <9306040237.AA10314@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: ExI-Daily@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 22:36:52 -0400 X-Original-Message-Id: <9306040236.AA10304@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Original-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu From: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Extropians Digest V93 #0297 X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on June 4, 373 P.N.O. [02:37:12 UTC] Reply-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: OR Extropians Digest Fri, 4 Jun 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0297 Today's Topics: ANTHONY HARGIS [1 msgs] August Workshop on Architectures and Mechanisms [1 msgs] BIOL: Bits into long term memory [1 msgs] Birmingham Workshop on architectures underlying emotion -- Aug 11-12 [1 msgs] CHAT: Just read _Fire..._ [1 msgs] Contrapositive Crows [1 msgs] Fermi Paradox Resolved! [1 msgs] Fermi Paradox solved! [1 msgs] Forwarded article. [1 msgs] Game Theory: Dollar Auction [2 msgs] Join the Milky Way Conservancy! Save the Milky Way! [1 msgs] May 19 Frank Drake talk [1 msgs] Power Crazed FDA [2 msgs] SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. [2 msgs] SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. -- probably dumb question [2 msgs] The 'README' meme [3 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. 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: 50028 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 11:40:59 GMT From: phil@dingo.demon.co.uk (Philip Tung Yep) Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. Mark McFadden, in reply to Peryy Metzger said: > 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. and > 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 point that Perry is making is that intelligent, outwardly-seeking spacefaring civilisations are like bacteria. One bacterium in a petri dish means it's contaminated and will eventually be filled by it's offspring. A single civilisation with the correct characteristics within your light cone and the same thing happens. Regardless of whether most civilisations or intelligences are inwardly looking, stay-at-homes or lawyer-ridden, a single exception will upset the interstellar quietitude. We >>seem<< to have the right drives to eventually do this - why should we be exceptional? Sideline: Anyone remember David Brin's "Lungfish" - a short from the "River of Time" collection (I think -operating from memory here)? It was a fictionalisation of his suggested solution to the Fermi paradox. Briefly, it has all happened, VN probes of all types have been sent out early in the history of the Universe, met,interacted, warred and evolved. There have by now been several generations of such probes with increasingly sophisticated and cautious strategies, as many early naive civilisations were wiped out by the "nasties". In the story's "present" - next century - civilisations lie low, trying not to call the Berserker or Gobbler types down on them. Interstellar travel and intercourse is carried out entirely by sophisticated VN machines; the Universe is just too dangerous for organic life. We, of course, have already made our presence known and have disaster heading our way, but there is a hint of a new answer... Sadly, I didn't think much of his possible solution but it is a very entertaining story. Barrow and Tipler's idea of there being just one intelligent race in the Universe is compelling (it's nice being the de facto chosen and eventual rulers of the Universe) and neatly provides a solution to the Fermi paradox. Equally, intelligence as a common phenomenon seems feasible but doesn't address the paradox. What seems unlikely is intelligence scattered so thinly that there might be only one per light cone. It seems too finely balanced between all or nothing. But then, perhaps it's one of that class of odd numerical coincidences which seem to bedevil cosmology. Philip -- Philip Tung Yep | phil@dingo.demon.co.uk | Dead Dingo Data Systems | "Zoonecromantic Processors for the Masses"| ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 11:50:39 EDT From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) Subject: Verifying Privacy as an Upload/AI? > ...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... > > Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk Well, as usual I didn't state my premises completely. With the assumption of strong crypto, capability-based operating systems and tamper-proof boxes, it's possible to get into a situation where you're truly safe from torturers, I think. At least you can have the hardware and software (with the assumptions) perfectly protect you against any transaction you don't want to be a part of. With redundancy and annonymity I think you can be reasonably safe from being cut off from transactions you (and the other side) do want to be part of (e.g., the rest of your life). Three possible discussions: 1) How's that again? 2) Yes but the assumptions are bad so modify or forget it. 3) I understand all that but it doesn't work or has limitations. 4) (My question) How does one get there and verify that one has? My current thinking, based mostly (& self-referentially) on Paul Baclace's contribution is that "You've got to have friends." You've got to have your friends watch over the uploading procedure and make sure you're loaded into a safe place. This is a much scarier (for me) version of the quandry about, say, having someone generate a key pair for you at a cypherpunks meeting on his laptop. "When was the last time you ran that virus checker, Eric?" Only think of asking your friends to make sure that the nanotech-based downloading machine has no security holes. Anyway, as part of the conditions of the first safe box you get set up with, there would be connections you trust to actual cameras, phones, speakers, waldos, etc., in the outside world. With those, you could physically visit other boxes that you wanted to check out as safe places to live. (Transit between safe boxes is safe because of crypto.) But it seems like every such step is another chance for compromise. The same would go for any "web of trust" sort of situation. ("Come on in, the security's fine!") Maybe this could be improved with ways of cutting losses. Maybe that could be done without ever having to cancel your recent history and roll back to a backup... -fnerd use q-tips on the outside of your ear but *never* on the inside -bill cosby ...right... -bill cosby ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 12:16:08 -0400 From: pcm@cs.brown.edu (Peter C. McCluskey) Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. -- probably dumb question ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 11:15:23 CDT From: capntaz@dudemar.b24a.ingr.com (Heath G. Goebel) Subject: Power Crazed FDA I just heard on the NPR hourly update that the FDA has banned all over the counter "stop smoking" gums, tablets, etc because it claims that none help users to stop smoking. Can anyone confirm this with more info? (Where) will it end? -- Heath G. Goebel, ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1993 12:31:32 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: Power Crazed FDA X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission Heath G. Goebel says: > I just heard on the NPR hourly update that the FDA > has banned all over the counter "stop smoking" > gums, tablets, etc because it claims that none > help users to stop smoking. Actually, it banned them because it has no proof that they stop smoking -- there is a difference. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 12:52:13 -0400 From: pcm@cs.brown.edu (Peter C. McCluskey) Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. -- probably dumb question X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute freely Is there anything wrong with the following hypothesis? Most of the mass in the universe is part of intelligent lifeforms. This is the "missing mass" that many physicists have been searching for recently. It is hard for us to detect because sophisticated lifeforms have very effective mechanisms for preventing energy from being lost in the form of radiation, and any communication they use over long distances is compressed to the point that it is indistinguishable from a random signal except to those who know the compression algorithm. So they could be all around us, and we would have no way of identifying them. The only difficulty is explaining the existence of mass which does not seem to have been incorporated into these lifeforms (apparently a lot of mass, but without knowing the total mass of the universe our notion of "a lot" is unreliable). We would still have to resort to such speculations as a nature preserve, a scientific experiment, or a simulation for their amusement. This hypothesis still requires that new life evolves much less often than Drake's analysis implies. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter McCluskey >> Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, pcm@cs.brown.edu >> even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 03 Jun 93 12:43:56 EDT From: Sandy <72114.1712@CompuServe.COM> Subject: ANTHONY HARGIS _________________________________________________________________ SANDY SANDFORT ssandfort@attmail.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A couple of weeks ago, someone posted an item about Hargis' "gold bank" being shut down by the Federales. I would like to find out what your source of information was. Specifically, I want to know if he was jumped on because of his business, or because he was defrauding his clients or some such. Could anyone with information on the bust please reply to me at my AT&T MAIL ADDRESS. Thanks, S a n d y (arbitration volunteer) >>>>>> Please address e-mail to: ssandfort@attmail.com <<<<<< _________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 10:05:57 PDT From: Robin Hanson Subject: May 19 Frank Drake talk GRAPS@galileo.arc.nasa.gov writes: > 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. Hmm. Is the fossil record complete enough for us to rule out the possibility that some dinosaurs *did* get as smart as us? I'd always thought this an unlikely scenario, but from what you say ... would make their extinction easier to understand :-). >What wavelengths do we search in? ... 1420 MHz ... 1700 MHz ... 22 GHz. Some argue that near lazers at visible frequencies would be better, as better time/frequency/angular focus/concentration. This plausible? >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. Be sure to look for those Dyson spheres! Robin Hanson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 10:18:37 PDT From: Robin Hanson Subject: Game Theory: Dollar Auction Timothy C. May writes: Alice offers a dollar bill to the highest bidder. There are several variants of the [auction] rules that can be considered ... Variant 4 is the canonical "dollar auction," .... folks would [soon] realize they were doomed to be net losers, ... But after they'd played the game a couple of times, ... 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.) Yes, of course there are many kinds of auctions, some work well and others poorly, and there is a rich literature, some theoretical and some experimental, comparing them. But there are known good auctions for this sort of thing, and I of course propose using them. 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. This worth buying? Robin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 10:12:56 PST From: "Mark W. McFadden" Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. Let's see....when you disagree with me, it's because I'm wrong. When I disagree with you, it's because I don't _understand_. Okey dokey, now that I know the ground rules we can get back to the subject at hand (see Subject:). Once again, for the conceptually impaired: Yes, intelligent creatures will develope technology Yes, the smart/best/extropian ones will use this technology to improve their lives But, and here is my original, much ignored/evaded point......there is nothing inevitable about the course, goal or end result of technology. Because a technology would enhance survival is no guarantee that it would be discovered. Or used.The Aztecs had wheels on their toys, but no carts. Look, the space migration meme has been bouncing around in our society for quite some time. Let's assume that all the best/brightest/most-genetically- fit all fervently believe in space migration as the inevitable Thing To Do. They have to convince all those other poor unenlightened slobs that Perry so blithely dismisses to _pay_ for it. Look at our technology and resources , now look at our space program. What held the Soviet Union back? I guess that whole part of the world was just an evolutionary backwater, full of genetically inferior stock that just couldn't _understand_. I'm sure the State imposed direction that science took under Stalin had little to do with it :-) But back to hypothetical aliens and THE SUBJECT. Why would each and every race inevitably decide that interstellar colonization was a better idea than harnessing the resources of their own solar system for a nice comfy Dyson sphere? Of course, this implies that any race bright enough to do this knows that overpopulation is a bad idea. Why do all these nanotechnology/wormhole using races all seem to breed like bunnies? Guess the condom meme isn't as universal as the nanorobot meme. :-) _____________________________________________________________________ | Mark W. McFadden | Been there....done that. mwm@wwtc.timeplex.com | __________________________________|__________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 13:18:43 EDT From: sulko-m@acsu.buffalo.edu (Mark A. Sulkowski) Subject: Fermi Paradox solved! From: Brian.Hawthorne@East.Sun.COM (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect Engineering) >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. Yes, this is exactly what I meant when I suggested a few days ago that the reason we haven't met alien intelligences is that they have already Transcended (met their singularities) by now. They could be playing God in their own created pocket universes by now. Who knows? =============================================================================== | |\ /| | "But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to | | \\ // | think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, | | \\// | but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal..." | | Mark \/enture | - Aristotle, _The Nicomachean Ethics_ | =============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 10:49:24 PDT From: Robin Hanson Subject: Contrapositive Crows David Friedman writes: Robin's demonstration of my errors ... 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 ... 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. OK, let's try a standard prior and see what happens. Let's use the two distinctions C(row) and B(lack), and their N(egation)s to distinguish four possibilities: C&B, C&NB, NC&B, NC&NB. The standard multinomial likelihood has a parameter for each possibilities, call them q_i, where i ranges over these four possibilities. Now unless q_C&NB is exactly zero, not all crows are black. But I think we are more interested in the conditional probability, call it P, that the next crow we see is black. Our intuitions are tuned for this case, rather than about all crows anywhere. This is: P = p_C&B / ( p_C&B + p_C&NB ) where p_i is the expected value of q_i, and gives our probability for the next thing we see to be of type i. A standard multinomial prior over the q_i is proportional to: Product_i (q_i)^(1/I - 1) where I is the number of possible values, 4 in this case. Given this prior, and having observed N_i of each type so far, we get p_i = (N_i + 1/I) / (N + 1) where N = Sum_i N_i, the total number of things seen so far. Plugging this into the above, we get P = (N_C&B + 1/I) / (N_C&B + N_C&NB + 2/I) So when I is large, our belief in the chance that the next crow will be black hardly changes at all when we see a non-crow. But if we haven't seen many crows so far, this belief can change a lot with the next crow. To analyze the all crows black case, you need to pick a prior that gives weight to q_C&NB = 0. Straightforward to do, but I haven't the time at the moment, maybe later. Robin Hanson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 14:28:39 CDT From: eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) Subject: Fermi Paradox Resolved! Even absent the evolutionary niche-filling argument, there are lots of people who are into historical re-creation (myself included), of every time period from the middle ages to the Civil War, and I would expect that the 'authenticity mavens' among these recreationists would insist on recreating physical presence on Earth, rather than just doing a simulation. And what about all the people who visit historical sites (from the Pyramids and Stonehenge on)? Do you think they will stop just because they transcended? You can buy videotapes of trips to Europe, but most people still prefer to actually go there themselves. Dani Eder ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 16:32:28 EDT From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) Subject: The 'README' meme Has anyone noticed that the name "README" is actually a very successful meme? Obviously there are practical reasons to have readme files, and reasons to settle on a conventional name for such files. But the thing about the name "README" is that it's imperative, and actually insists that you pay attention to it. So maybe that's how it won out in the competition for what name people would give that sort of file. -fnerd ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 15:28:53 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: The 'README' meme >Has anyone noticed that the name "README" is actually a very successful meme? > >Obviously there are practical reasons to have readme files, and reasons to >settle on a conventional name for such files. But the thing about the >name "README" is that it's imperative, and actually insists that you >pay attention to it. > >So maybe that's how it won out in the competition for what name people >would give that sort of file. Gee, I've actually noticed just the contrary. My team puts out Apple's Network Software Installer disks three or four times a year. We constantly get asked questions which are clearly answered in the "Read Me" file. We've considered changing the name to "Don't Read Me". -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 18:25:36 -0400 From: pavel@PARK.BU.EDU (Paul Cisek) Subject: BIOL: Bits into long term memory Thanks for posting this review Michael. I must say that again I am not impressed by the attempt to quantify brain capacity. Of course I should read the Landauer article before criticizing it - perhaps I will find the time... But my problem with it is not the answer he gives, but the question he asks. The fundamental problem I see here is, again, the use of inappropriate metaphors to describe the functionality of the brain. Landauer asks a question like `What is the bandwidth of the system that transmits memories from the past to the future?' (please suggest a better wording if I have misrepresented his point). This question reveals several, IMHO, naive assumptions about the nature of neural function. Among these I would list the notion that the brain is an input/output device, that it is fundamentally concerned with prediction, that it explicitly stores memories in a neural code (compressed of course), that it constructs an internal model of the environment... I realise that almost everyone (at least on this list), feels that these are very reasonable assumptions, and would never think to question them. Well, I think computer scientists are too quick to describe a problem in their own terms and too unwilling to question the applicability of their methods to a problem that may after all, have nothing to do with computers... Sure, these descriptions may apply, but are they the ones that will give us any insight into what is going on? But it's really a matter of what is the proper level of analysis. Neurobiologists suffer from naive reductionism, assuming that the key to a system is the part that is smallest in physical size. James A. Donald also seems to suffer from this, stressing that since neural systems are not understood then neurons must not be well understood. Psychologists suffer from only providing high level descriptions, such as the statement that a dopamine imbalance causes schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, hyperactivity, etc. I want to know why - but the question is extremely difficult. This is further confounded by the insistence of most psychologists to study humans - all the other animals are considered unworthy of their attention. Then come the computer scientists, who don't want to get their hands dirty mucking around in the brain and prefer to sit back and _invent_ its functionality from first principles. The problem with their approach is not that nobody can come up with reasonable theories, but that their theorizing is almost completely unconstrained. I myself rather like the cybernetic approach of the early 20th century (servomechanisms, homeostasis), but it's not enough to build a theory of cognition upon... It needs strict psychophysical experiments, evidence from neuroanatomy, and serious mathematical analysis. (Fortunately, this is being done, though it's largely ignored in the watered-down versions of reports on the `state-of-the-art of AI') So we have all these different approaches, none of which is willing to acknowledge the others except to say that it understands them. (The title of this thread starts with "BIOL" - is that supposed to stand for "biology"?) -Paul ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 20:00:07 EDT From: sulko-m@acsu.buffalo.edu (Mark A. Sulkowski) Subject: Join the Milky Way Conservancy! Save the Milky Way! From: eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) >And what about all the people who visit historical sites (from the >Pyramids and Stonehenge on)? Do you think they will stop just >because they transcended? You can buy videotapes of trips to >Europe, but most people still prefer to actually go there themselves. Well, maybe they have inobvious ways of watching us. Or maybe we are too uninteresting. Perhaps we just don't rate as high as the Pyramids or Stonehenge to them. :) We could be a special protected project of theirs. I can just see the black monoliths now... Maybe they block out all EM transmissions from all those millions of other intelligent races out there. Or maybe we are in some kind of gigantic "nature preserve". (Join the Milky Way Conservancy!) Perhaps super-advanced races destroy all of the replicating machines and obnoxious alien races that try to enter it. Perhaps they have destroyed ALL replicating machines due to the nuisance of having them around. =============================================================================== | |\ /| | "But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to | | \\ // | think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, | | \\// | but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal..." | | Mark \/enture | - Aristotle, _The Nicomachean Ethics_ | =============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 22:43:25 GMT From: whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell Earl Whitaker) Subject: Forwarded article. This article was forwarded to you by whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell Earl Whitaker): --------------------------------- cut here ----------------------------- Xref: demon uk.ikbs:21 uk.events:151 eunet.misc:184 Newsgroups: uk.ikbs,uk.events,midlands.evens,eunet.misc Path: eternity.demon.co.uk!demon!zaphod.axion.bt.co.uk!uknet!bhamcs!axs From: A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk (Aaron Sloman) Subject: Birmingham Workshop on architectures underlying emotion -- Aug 11-12 Message-ID: Summary: workshop submissions invited Sender: news@cs.bham.ac.uk Nntp-Posting-Host: aaron Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 00:41:18 GMT Lines: 256 ================================================================ Workshop on architectures underlying motivation and emotion CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS 11-12 August 1993 Centre for Research in Cognitive Science The University of Birmingham ================================================================ Aa small workshop (at most about 30 people) will be held at the University of Birmingham on Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th August 1993 to report on and discuss work on architectures and mechanisms underlying motivator processing, emotions and control of attention. We invite offers of contributions. The workshop, to be held in one of the university halls on the attractive Birmingham campus, will bring together people from a variety of disciplines (e.g. AI, psychology, philosophy, psychiatry, animal behaviour) who share an interest in the "design-based" study of mental processes (as opposed to simply being concerned with collecting empirical data, or investigating semantic issues such as how we use emotion words). The focus will be on architectural requirements for a COMPLETE autonomous agent, combining the various sub-functions and sub-mechanisms normally studied separately in AI and psychology, and including asynchronous generation of new motivators by a variety of independent processes. A lot of research on so called "reactive planning", "rational agents", and "resource bounded agents" may be relevant to this workshop. More precisely the workshop will attempt to address the following questions: 1. What sorts of phenomena will need to be explained by a design-based theory of mechanisms underlying the processing of motives and production of affective states? In particular: what sorts of *processes* needed to be explained: how do motives arise, what is their aetiology, what sorts of side effects can they have, including effects on diversion or control of attention, what sorts of pathologies can occur, and which forms of treatment help people with problems in this area? (It may prove useful to see how processing in "normal" adults differs from that in very young children, or people with brain damage or other sources of motivational, emotional or attention-control problems. It may also be useful to compare humans and other animals ) 2. Is there a unitary set of mechanisms underlying affective states such as - grieving for a lost child, - rejoicing in an election victory, - fearing that the Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims will never again live in peace, - looking forward to a holiday in the sun, - hoping that your boss will not discover the dreadful error you made, - exulting in a major mathematical discovery after weeks of effort, - terror as your car loses control at speed on the motorway, - joy at watching a child at play - claustrophic panic at being in an enclosed space - enjoying a beautiful sunset - being unwilling to lift a spider out of the bath and put it out through the window - revulsion at the sight of a tiger killing and eating a young deer - obsessive devotion to the task of preparing for a major competition or examination or other event (e.g. a wedding). Are there common mechanisms that produce these states, influence the ways they develop, and, in some cases, make them die down? Or are these largely unrelated phenomena with little in common? 3. What kinds of architectures and mechanisms have so far been proposed to account for these and similar phenomena and to what extent are they successful, merely promising, or downright inadequate? Are the mechanisms unique to humans or are they shared with other animals? Could they be replicated in autonomous robots? 4. What alternative new approaches are worth exploring? What are the most promising lines of attack, and what should be done to ensure that they are pursued effectively? In particular, can a design-based approach hope to hit on fruitful explanatory models by analysing such phenomena and using available knowledge about functions of the mind, or is the only hope to explore very much simpler architectures and mechanisms for the foreseeable future with the hope that one day we can return to these grand issues? Is analytical design feasible at all, or is the task so complex that only simulated evolution can possibly arrive at suitable models? Are the existing known architectures and mechanisms (including symbol-processing mechanisms, neural net mechanisms, and mixtures of the two) adequate to the task, or is something totally different required? If so what are the requirements to be satisfied by suitable alternatives and how can they be recognized when we find them? The workshop will be supported by funds from a research council grant awarded to Glyn Humphreys and Aaron Sloman, for the "Attention and Affect" project, which is primarily concerned with investigating design requirements for resource-limited and knowledge-limited intelligent agents with multiple independent sources of motivation and including mechanisms concerned with the control of attention. (See appended references to some of our work.) By restricting attendees to about 30 persons we shall be able to pay for accommodation and meals for ALL participants. We may be able to make a contribution towards travel costs for a SMALL number of participants who find it difficult to obtain funds for travel, though funds are severely limited. All participants will be required to produce in advance (by the end of July) a printed statement of between 500 about 2000 words, for circulation to attendees at the conference. The statement could be either a new attempt to answer some of the above questions, or else a report on some aspect of your own work that is likely to be of interest to attendees. In addition to providing a written statement and taking part in the discussions following talks there are three further possible levels of participation: 1. Presenting a short talk (20 minutes plus 10 minutes discussion) (I expect there will be space for eight or nine of these) 2. Taking part in a panel discussion on the Wednesday evening after dinner. We'll have five or six panellists to introduce discussion. 3. Chairing and reporting back from a working group meeting after lunch on the second day If you are willing to attend please let me know whether you would like to take one of these roles, or whether you'd prefer merely to be a participant in the discussions. If you are willing to give a talk please indicate which of roles 1 or 2 you'd prefer, and also give me a title and a brief summary. There will be a very small number of larger invited talks, and an introductory talk by Aaron Sloman. Space is limited, so if we have too many offerings, members of our project will make a selection. Please state whether your attendance is conditional on help with travel expenses (probably only a small contribution will be possible.) TIME TABLE: 1. Initial notifications of interest in attending. These can be received in the format given below any time up to early July and will be processed if there are still places left, or returned with a polite refusal. The first wave of applications will be processed by about 11th June, or earlier. 2. Notification of acceptance: usually within two weeks of submission. Sometimes earlier. 3. Abstracts and statements of interest required for circulation at the conference by Wed 28th July, either by Email (plain or Latex) or on paper. 4. Workshop starts: approx 10 am Wed 11th Aug. 5. Workshop ends: mid or late afternoon Thurs 12th Aug. The papers will NOT be published, although it is possible that one outcome of the conference will be invitations to contribute to a collection of papers to form a book. A form for Email responses follows after some references. If for any reason you prefer to communicate on paper, please post your submission to Aaron Sloman (August Workshop), School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, England Phone: +44-(0)21-414-3711 Fax: +44-(0)21-414-4281 ------------------------ SOME REFERENCES ------------------------ Here are some references to papers leading up to, or produced by our project. A.Sloman and Monica Croucher, `Why robots will have emotions', in Proceedings 7th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Vancouver, 1981, (Morgan Kaufmann) also available as Cognitive Science Research Paper 176, Sussex University, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences. A. Sloman, `Motives Mechanisms Emotions' in Cognition and Emotion 1,3, pp.217-234 1987, reprinted in M.A. Boden (ed) The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence ``Oxford Readings in Philosophy'' Series Oxford University Press, pp 231-247 1990. L.Beaudoin and A.Sloman, 1993, `A study of motive processing and attention', in A. Sloman, D. Hogg, G. Humphreys, A. Ramsay, and D. Partridge (Eds) Prospects for Artificial Intelligence IOS Press.) ------------------------FORM OF APPLICATION------------------------ Email To: A.Sloman@bham.ac.uk Subject: August Workshop on Architectures and Mechanisms Name of Applicant: Full Postal address: Email address: Phone number: Status: (Student, researcher, teacher, etc.): Area of research (1 to 10 lines): Any other relevant information (e.g. list some of your publications, or funded research projects): I WOULD LIKE TO ATTEND THE WORKSHOP AND WOULD BE WILLING TO (delete as appropriate): 1. Present a short talk (20 minutes) or take part in a panel, as required: Title of Contribution: .... Abstract: (300 to 1000 words) 2. Merely take part in discussions. Here is an account of my research Topic: ...... Overview: (At most 1000 words) 3. Chair a discussion group. 4. If accepted I shall submit a summary of my talk, or a description of my research work by July 28th, to be made available to attendees. 5. I understand that the workshop budget normally covers only meals and accommodation for attendees. I do/do not require help with travel expenses (give details). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Aaron Sloman, School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, England EMAIL A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk OR A.Sloman@bham.ac.uk Phone: +44-(0)21-414-3711 Fax: +44-(0)21-414-4281 --------------------------------- cut here ----------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 13:54:38 EDT From: Brian.Hawthorne@East.Sun.COM (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect Engineering) Subject: Game Theory: Dollar Auction > 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? Sure, I'll give you 25 cents for it. (I assume you're paying postage to mail me the dollar, and I'm paying postage on my change, so I doubt my bidding will get anywhere near a dollar). Still, if nobody else bids... You should make it more interesting and auction off a hundred... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 19:43:42 CDT From: pmfitzge@fitz.b30.ingr.com (Patrick Fitzgerald) Subject: The 'README' meme Lefty (lefty@apple.com) says: > > [...] "README" is actually a very successful meme? > [...] > We've considered changing the name to "Don't Read Me". I work in software documentation, and we recently published a pamphlet for internal company use. It explains how managers, developers, etc., must interact with us to get documentation for their products. We also wanted to tell them _not_ to just shove information in the README file, without notifying the tech writer, which happens all too often. The title, in the worst of punning tradition, is Don't README! A Guide to Working with TIM Documentation Perhaps the README meme is dying of overpopulation, smothered by it's own waste products, so to speak. The more prevalent it becomes, the less it attracts your attention. I've seen mutations like "README_1st", how long until we see "README_or_die", "EMDAER", or "REAM_ME"? -- ______ Patrick M. Fitzgerald pmfitzge@ingr.com / ___ ) --------------Intergraph Corporation-------------- / __)/ /__ Senior Software Analyst TIM & DBT Documentation (_/it(_____) (205)730-3741, Bldg 30, Room 122m, Mailstop GD3002 Common sense is what tells you that the world is flat. - Principia Discordia ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 20:08:37 -0500 From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: CHAT: Just read _Fire..._ "Millions of messages, hundreds of points of view. It was not called the Net of a Million Lies for nothing." (Or words to that effect). Great Book. That phrase really rang true with me, given the recent discussion in sci.space about the Scuttle... pgf ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0297 ****************************************