From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Mon Jun 28 22:48:46 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA16919; Mon, 28 Jun 93 22:48:44 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 AA25495; Mon, 28 Jun 93 22:48:39 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) id ; Tue, 29 Jun 93 01:36:35 -0400 Message-Id: <9306290536.AA04610@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: ExI-Daily@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 01:36:15 -0400 X-Original-Message-Id: <9306290536.AA04601@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Original-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu From: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Extropians Digest V93 #0363 X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on June 29, 373 P.N.O. [05:36:34 UTC] Reply-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: OR Extropians Digest Tue, 29 Jun 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0363 Today's Topics: A Question for Rand Fans [4 msgs] AIT VirtSem: The Game of "Go" as an Example [2 msgs] BRIEF ADVICE: Re: Flying snakes [1 msgs] Bill to ban ads in space [1 msgs] DIET/EVOLUTION/SATIRE: Sagittal crests, webs and fighting fangs [1 msgs] DIET: Metabolic stimulators [3 msgs] EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate [7 msgs] Jurassic Park (again) [2 msgs] MEDIA: Jurassic Park - biology and scientific ethics [1 msgs] META: Grading and "FRIV:" or "BLAH/BLAH" [1 msgs] POLI: Penn Jillette voted LP [1 msgs] Today Antarctica, tommorrow the universe [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: 51332 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 19:44:03 -0400 (EDT) From: Edward J OConnell Subject: BRIEF ADVICE: Re: Flying snakes Read Dawkins, Blind watchmaker, for a good discussion of the 'intermediary forms' argument. Using the eye, and a lot of classic creationist arguments, he pretty much convinces you that natural selection explains everything, though the paths may be hard for us to see now, the state of the fossil record being what it is... Also, the Artificial Life book by Stephen Levy I just read has some neat examples of very complex things arising from natural selection... Dawkins basically points out that a lot of evolutionary stuff is going to seem improbable to us, because our lifespans are so short compared with evolutionary time. He gives a great example, as a thought experiment, of a very long lived race that is less baffled and impressed by evolution, because in their eons long lives, they see *very* unlikey things happen. The A-life book was fun, because as I was reading the Red Queen stuff, about evolutionary arms races, and the importance of parasites, I was reminded of extropians. Turns out that individuals competing in an environment without parasites often get caught in a local maxima, and are 'out evolved' by those individuals that continually have to struggle against parasites... Finally, I thought, an evolutionary argument *against* anarchocapitalism. Where would we be without our favorite parasites? ;-) A joke. Sorry. Jay ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 17:40:02 PDT From: "Mark W. McFadden" Subject: EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate On Mon, 28 Jun 1993 17:51:18 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > >I will repeat -- I'll bet any reasonable amount of money that you >can't find me any credible studies showing that you need meat to >survive winter. Heh heh, I just can't stay out of this. I don't remember Eric ever explicitly stating that there was anything nutritionally/mystically/ magically special about meat per se that makes it necessary for life in the cold. The thread (remember that?) was originally "EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto hominids ate". It's devolved into fat-swilling short-lived dirty-coloned carnivores versus emaciated ectomorphic albino Aushwitz survivors (again), but perhaps we can get back on track. As I understand it, the assertion that started all this was simply that meat eating is a better survival tactic in cold weather. The dearth of aboriginal vegetarians in colder climes would seem to bear this out. The vegan lifestyle may very well provide a longer, healthier life; but that is a luxury that pre-technological humans could not afford. However, (this'll make Eric happy), there is the possibility that the humans that evolved under these conditions can better assimilate meat than those that evolved in the tropics. Lactose tolerance would also be a plus. > > I contend that calories are calories. Show me otherwise. >> Essentially true. The difference is in how many calories have to be invested in food gathering before you get to eat. A family size bowl of ramen per adult was not an option. > >Fine. Drink olive oil. Thats vegan. Now what? > "Let them drink olive oil". Seems like a lot of trouble to press all those olives when you're already getting all that energy from meat. >You have to state something remotely like a MECHANISM by which eating >no meat would kill you in a cold climate. Alright, how about starving to death because you can't gather enough food fast enough to keep yourself alive in a cold clime? >can you point me at even one researcher who's done a controlled study that >backs your outrageous claim that people will somehow die if they live in >cold climates and don't eat meat? > No. But Darwin might point out that everyone that tried it died. Or moved. >Hey, I'm not the guy who goes dancing naked around fires. Hey, what's wrong with dancing naked around a fire? Mankind has done it longer than we've been hacking Unix. Admittedly, my wife won't talk to me after I do it at family gatherings, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Besides, you swim with dogs. Yada yada yada. And Eric's got a sagittal crest. Neener neener neener. >Perry ______________________________________________________________________ | Mark W. McFadden | Been there.....done that. mwm@wwtc.timeplex.com | | ___________________________________|__________________________________ I wasted time and company money writing this. I hope your list software doesn't discard it. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 17:46:15 -0700 (PDT) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: Today Antarctica, tommorrow the universe For a long time I've been comparing Antarctica to outer space. Alas, most space activists get so pissed off by the negative connotations of that comparison, that they don't stop to think about the sad legal status of physical frontiers in general. Capitalism is practically banned from an entire continent for at least the next 45 years. Not satisfied with an entire continent, it's time for 99.99999999999999999...% of the rest of the universe to go socialist. After all we can't have evil capitalists putting billboards in space, can we? And while we're at it let's cut off all other sources of advertising revenue from the commercial space sector. How dare they sell anybody's agenda but the state's on our mighty rockets! This is also an example of what happens what legal issues are solved by boolean fiat, rather than by setting up property-rights regimes, a topic we discussed in this context in an earlier Extropian list thread. Alas, lawyers and the legal system in general continue to be ignorant of economics, and thereby blind to solving these issues by the establishment of new property rights, rather than by the dogmatic fiat we see here. -------------------------------------------- From: xrcjd@calvin.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles J. Divine) Subject: Bill to ban ads in space Jim Davidson of Texas is the source of information for this action. Senator James Jeffords (R.-VT) has introduced bill S1145 into the Senate. The purpose of this bill is to ban advertising in space. This bill would ban such things as advertisements painted on the sides of rockets, TV commercials filmed on space stations and advertising structures visible from the ground (e.g., a proposed reflective Mylar sheet with a corporate symbol on it). If enacted into law, the bill will impose a fine of $30 million on corporations that engage in this activity and a US ban on the sale of that corporation's products. Significant effects of this bill would include the drying up of one significant source of funds for space companies in the US. The EER Conestoga has already earned money by being launched with an advertisement for the movie "Last Action Hero" painted on its side. A proposal has been made to launch a large Mylar sheet into space as a corporate advertisement. The Mylar sheet would be attached to environmental sensors that would increase our knowledge. But, no advertisement, no satellite. Another problem with this bill is more in the political realm. It rather clearly violates the 1st Amendment protections on Freedom of Speech that Americans enjoy. The most significant environmental impact of the advertisements would be a bright satellite visible for a few minutes around local sunrise or sunset. A companion piece is being introduced in the House by Edward Markey (D-MA), Susan Mollinari (R-NY) and Eshoo (sp?) (D-CA). Jim and I discussed what sort of action to take. We both agreed that, at this time, it would be best for people to write to their own Senators and Representatives and send a copy of their letters to Senator Jeffords (and indicate it is a copy.) In your letters, please stress the harm that this legislation would do to space commerce (less private sector money). Mentioning the conflicts with the 1st Amendment is a definite plus as well. You may write your Senators at Name of Senator United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 You may write your Representative at Name of Representative House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Note well: foreign companies (such as Arianespace) would not be affected by this legislation. This would also be worth mentioning in the letter. Senator Jeffords wants to think this as "banning advertisements in places like national parks." Jim and I both oppose putting ads in national parks. Trouble with this bill is that space is not a national park -- and it never will be. This is not an official NSS alert. Thanks for your help. -- Chuck Divine ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 19:45:50 -0600 From: zane@genesis.mcs.com (Sameer) Subject: Jurassic Park (again) In message <9306280641.AA21436@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu>, davisd@pierce.ee.washington.edu writes: > > Actually, I believe this is the biggest blooper of many in the movie. > Where was the technical staff on this one? > > The boy should not have been shocked at all. He was not grounded. > Didn't you ever see a pidgeon on a high voltage line? Do they get > shocked? Maybe one of the wires held a positive potential while another held a negative potential. (Or was a ground) This fact notwithstanding, it *is* a rather glaring inaccuracy for him to be thrown off instead of stuck to the fence. -- | Sameer Parekh-zane@genesis.MCS.COM-PFA related mail to pfa@genesis.MCS.COM | | Apprentice Philosopher, Writer, Physicist, Healer, Programmer, Lover, more | | "Symbiosis is Good" - Me_"Specialization is for Insects" - R. A. Heinlein_/ \_______________________/ \______________________________________________/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 09:08:59 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: A Question for Rand Fans As part of my ongoing investigation of Objectivism, I've started reading "The Virtue of Selfishness", and came across the following passage: [T]ry to imagine an immortal, indestructible robot,an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values; it would have nothing to gain or to lose; it could not regard anything as _for_ or _against_ it, as serving or threatening its welfare,as fulfilling or frustrating its interests. It would have no interests and no goals. In light of the expressed interest on the part of many on this list to, essentially, become "immortal, indestructible robot[s]", and in light of the appeal that Rand's philosophy appears to hold for many of that contingent, how does one reconcile Rand's statement with these other aspirations? -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 09:08:57 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate >Stanton McCandlish says: >> Counter-challenge. Find me any truly "pure vegan" culture. Period. > >The Jains. Jainism is a religion. I think you're stretching the term "culture" here. -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 20:21:48 -0400 (EDT) From: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) Subject: EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate Perry, you have a selective memory. Or you're being dishonest. > Now, you've > made false fantastical claims before -- like that no land animals other > than humans voluntarily swim, for example (I can think of others). I have never claimed this. I grepped my extropians archive to check. I *did* observe that humans are "much more water-loving and better swimmers than any other primate". Find me a macaque that can swim the English Channel and I'll consider myself refuted. > You seem to have this notion that > vegans are all concentration camp survivers wasting away because they > aren't eating meat. Most of us aren't, but you are basing quite a lot > on this notion that somehow you can't get enough calories unless you > gorge on fat three times a day. Nor have I made either of these assertions. I'll cop to repeating someone else's *joke* predicated on the first --- but I *never* said *anything like the second (I find the idea disgusting). If I can't trust you to respond to what I've actually *said*, as opposed to your defensive fantasies about what I've said, why should I bother with your forensics and primate posturing? I give up. You've "won", and can now smear your feces over a bigger territory somewhere. I'm going to have a life. -- Eric S. Raymond ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 21:26:55 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: Jurassic Park (again) The Scientific Explanation of why the kid got catapulted off the electric fence? Artistic License. -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 18:51:57 PDT From: "Mark W. McFadden" Subject: EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate On Mon, 28 Jun 1993 15:41:31 -0400 (ED, Eric S. Raymond wrote: I maintain that in a temperate-zone winter, without >artificial heat and good clothes, you will *die* if you don't eat meat or >dairy products. > Eric S. Raymond Whoops! Sorry all. He did get around to expliciting stating it. I'll have to say that the observation is valid enough, but I don't quite agree with the conclusion. This is the polite way of saying I think you've stepped in it now Eric. ______________________________________________________________________ | Mark W. McFadden | Been there.....done that. mwm@wwtc.timeplex.com | | ___________________________________|__________________________________ I wasted time and company money writing this. I hope your list software doesn't discard it. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 21:49:36 -0400 From: Alexander Chislenko Subject: MEDIA: Jurassic Park - biology and scientific ethics I just asked my father (he happens to be a zoologist) some questions about the "Jurassic park" dinos. (He saw the movie, too). Here are a few things of interest: - It would take _decades_ for a dinosaur to grow to the size we saw in J.P. ( so in any reasonable sequence of events, the park would open with eggs and baby dinos. It just doesn't make any economic sense to wait for, say, 30 years until the creatures grow up to show them to [a new generation of] public ). - The big herbivores from J.P. would live in water - lakes or marshes; there it's a lot easier for them to move, more food, and water solves the problem of energy dissipation that would otherwise fry them up. (Of course, snake-like necks raising out of the marsh would look neither innocent nor glorious. Hard to pet, too ;-). - T. Rex was real slow, and at its peak speed would hardly outpace a human, let alone a car. Its most likely prey would be big slow animals, better sick or dead - like the triceratops in J.P. T. Rex's arms are not created for fight, rather for working on ready food (they are not really good for that either). -- on lions and mice: there were observations of tigers eating locusts, by sweeping them into a heap with paws, etc. The relative difference between the hugest possible predator and a human is a lot smaller, so we may still hope to be of genuine interest... Aside from biology: If you publish an article in a scientific journal, or a school text book, where you would distort the scientific truth to any considerable extent, you will find yourself in big trouble. I would assume that the 'scientific facts' absorbed by the American (and world) population from J.P. shape the global meme pool to a lot greater extent than most of specialized articles and textbooks. For most of the population (non-professional school graduates) it may well be the most important exposure to the concept domain that they are ever going to have. Should somebody be responsible for feeding grossly incorrect concepts to tens of millions of people? If they were politically incorrect (say, showed T.Rex having sex with a minor 'raptor ;-) ), the studio would be finished (though the damage to the public's views may be much easier to repair). As for science, nobody cares... From the other hand, in a free society anybody should be allowed to publish anything, right? Including scientific fraud? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Alexander Chislenko | sasha@cs.umb.edu | Cambridge, MA | (617) 864-3382 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 21:45:21 EDT From: revpk@cellar.org Subject: POLI: Penn Jillette voted LP "Perry E. Metzger" writes: > > Jeffrey Adam Johnson says: > > > > Of relevance here is the following paragraph: > > > > I read the New York Times. I don't agree with it much ( except > > for Frank Rich's praise for our show ). During last year's > > campaign, the Times kissed Clinton and I didn't. My politics > > are different. [ Hint: The man and woman team I voted for were > > on the ballot in all 50 states, yet weren't in any of the TV > > debates, and you could store the full names of all the people > > that voted for them, uncompressed, on six floppies with room > > left over for WordStar (not 2000). Of course, now that Bill's > > my President, I'm behind him 103 percent because that's the > > kind of American I am, goddamn it. ] > > Yeah, he's a Libertarian. He's also a pretty cool guy. > > Perry Just goes to show the two need not be mutually incompatible. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 22:06:12 -0400 From: Alexander Chislenko Subject: DIET: Metabolic stimulators I saw an ad of "thermogenic tea" recently in one of the flyers I receive. (I believe it's fro Nutriguard research). As I remember, it's completely herbal, and freely available in U.S. I can find some more info if anybody's interested. The flyer claimed that this is the [only?] way to lose just fat, and no muscle tissue, compared with about 50/50 loss in dieting, etc. I am no expert to comment on this. However, I wouldn't use it. Higher metabolism means shorter lifespan, and to lose weight, I prefer eating more fruit and taking aerobic classes. Chromium Picolinate too, to preserve lean mass. As for metabolism, I'd rather take something to slow it down. I wonder if there are any metabolic inhibitors on the market... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Alexander Chislenko | sasha@cs.umb.edu | Cambridge, MA | (617) 864-3382 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 10:03:39 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: META: Grading and "FRIV:" or "BLAH/BLAH" Stanton writes: >Just to chime in: > >I do NOT like the A, B, C grading scheme. I dislike the grading idea a great deal. For one thing, it's so completely subjective as to be virtually pointless. More importantly, no matter _how_ or _where_ you put the bloody letter it plays merry hell with trying to sort messages into threads. The least offensive place to put it would be at the very, _very_ end of the subject line. That way, it just screws up the time order of the postings. A bad idea. Don't do it. -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 19:29:24 -0700 (PDT) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: AIT VirtSem: The Game of "Go" as an Example James Donald: > Your intuition is remarkably different from mine. I think that to evolve > a go program in this way we would need to start from agents that had some > unobvious secret magic ingredient, Your intuituition is based on traditional AI, and efforts like EURISKO that claimed to mimic evolution but did not. Your intutition is wrong. For example, GP has evolved a psuedorandom number generator with higher entropy than any human-designed algorithm; the only preconceived information were the arithmetic operators and a fitness function to measure entropy. Keep in mind there are only about three people who've been working on GP for more than a year, without access to supercomputers. Only one of these (Peter Angeline) has worked on co-evolving games. Nevertheless, some real problems (eg the psueudorandom generator) have fallen to GP. For further info, I suggest you check _Genetic Programming_ by Koza, esp. the sections comparing it to EURISKO, and the pseudorandom number generator. GA is starting to be used in industry for a wide variety of big problems. Roadblocks include the complexity of encoding data structures as binary strings, and the resistance to an algorithm based on randomness and Darwinian evolution. Imagine trying to talk your Creationist manager into solving problems via evolution! Another reason for small problems is that GA and GP can easily generate solutions that are beyond human understanding. The solutions work under a wide variety of conditions, but (for most non-trivial problems) they're too complex to prove they always work. Much of the research involves comparing GA/GP solutions to traditional solutions. That requires both (a) working on problems that have already been solved, and (b) understanding the solutions so they can be compared to the traditional solutions. However, GA/GP's strength lies in searching new spaces, solving problems that have never been solved (eg champion explicit Go strategies, self-replicating factories, etc.) due to their complexity. In those cases we won't attempt much more than rigorous testing of the resulting design; it will be impossible for any human to comprehend. (Such lack of understanding is not alien -- no single human understands every important design detail of a 747, or a Pentium, or Sys V/4 Unix, or a MacIntosh, or a wide variety of other products. In the case of GP, the ignorance will extend to all humans combined not understading the entire solution). > The method you describe of evolving programs - start of from random stuff > and then throw them in at the deep end - will always evolve them > to a local optimum. This is wrong. GA and GP don't just search the local space around the current n-dimensional point; they do crossover which combine widely separated points into new solutions. Goldberg's _Genetic Algorithms_ gives a good explanation of this, the building block hypothesis, the K-armed bandit, etc. Empirically GP performs as well as GA for a given problem, and so it should still eliminate O(n^3) possibilities per n steps, but this has not yet been proven. Perhaps formal translation TMs described by strings encoding the states, and Lisp S-expression trees can be used to prove or disprove this point. Typically in a co-evolving game situation with search space of size c^n, O(n) games must be played to achieve a good solution. The Go search space of 10^700 should take about 100 times as long to reach a good solution as a search space of 10^7 possible strategies, typical of today's toy problems. > It is likely that to obtain AI capabilities by evolving them it would > be necessary to evolve them against an enormous variety of problems > for a very long time and to evolve both the hardware and the software. The first claim is somewhat correct, the second is true only for I/O problems (eg robotic assembly) that involve physical phenomenon that can't be simulated. In this case, the rules of Go are very simple, there is no need for special hardware. I would call a program that can beat any but the human Go champion a "good solution", equivalent to the current status in Chess. Once GP researchers get access to massively parallel networks and supercomputers, we'll start to see more "real" problems solved, and compute-intensive jobs like Go strategy evolution. Another bottleneck to effective GA/GP is the lack of simulation libraries that are readily available and can be readily integrated. For example, I'm currently searching in vain for good mechanical engineering simulations of linkages, gears, etc. that could be hooked up to GP. (Again this will not be a bottleneck for Go, since its rules are simple). Nick Szabo szabo@techbook.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 22:13:49 -0400 (EDT) From: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) Subject: EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate > >Hey, I'm not the guy who goes dancing naked around fires. > > Hey, what's wrong with dancing naked around a fire? Mankind has done it > longer than we've been hacking Unix. Admittedly, my wife won't talk to me > after I do it at family gatherings, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta > do. Besides, you swim with dogs. Yada yada yada. And Eric's got a sagittal > crest. Neener neener neener. I do *not*! I bare my fighting fangs at you, you contemptible leaf-eater! And, by the way, it's a damn' good thing I learned how to dance naked around bonfires. Otherwise, I might still be the kind of hapless, humorless, excessively-cerebralized nerdoid that thinks scoring debating points on the Net is a reasonable substitute for living. -- Eric S. Raymond ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 22:39:28 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission "Mark W. McFadden" says: > >You have to state something remotely like a MECHANISM by which eating > >no meat would kill you in a cold climate. > Alright, how about starving to death because you can't gather enough food > fast enough to keep yourself alive in a cold clime? In that case, who cares? We have no such difficulty. The point of this whole discussion is what diet is the most healthy. If the worst that can be said about a vegan diet is that you might have trouble finding fresh spinach on the north slope of Alaska and that its much easier to get seals there -- well, I would hardly argue with that contention. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 22:44:50 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: A Question for Rand Fans X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission Lefty says: > In light of the expressed interest on the part of many on this list to, > essentially, become "immortal, indestructible robot[s]", and in light of > the appeal that Rand's philosophy appears to hold for many of that > contingent, how does one reconcile Rand's statement with these other > aspirations? Simple. Rand wasn't always right. Indeed, she was very frequently wrong, and had little sense of her own fallibility. Folks have already said as much. If you want a REAL howler, read the section where she tries to explain why anarchism can't work (summary: "I can't think of how to solve the problem, thus no solution exists" and the problem in question is really simple) and how she plans to fund government (basically, with an economically infeasable system that would be competed out of business.) Rand had many good ideas, and many bad ones. The trick for the small-o objectivist like me is to pick for ourselves what we like and toss out the rest. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 22:49:33 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission Eric S. Raymond says: > > Now, you've > > made false fantastical claims before -- like that no land animals other > > than humans voluntarily swim, for example (I can think of others). > > I have never claimed this. I grepped my extropians archive to check. > I *did* observe that humans are "much more water-loving and better swimmers > than any other primate". Find me a macaque that can swim the English > Channel and I'll consider myself refuted. Actually, there is suspicion that macaques COULD swim the channel -- but I'll point out that humans do it only with extreme aid -- in the form of chase boats and the like. My suspicion is that many mammals could do it provided that they were somehow trained and induced to perform the act -- but its difficult to induce animals to do things for fame and money, and I doubt most would bother for the usual incentives. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 19:53:34 PDT From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: DIET: Metabolic stimulators Alexander Chislenko writes: > I saw an ad of "thermogenic tea" recently in one of the flyers I receive. .... > However, I wouldn't use it. Higher metabolism means shorter lifespan, How true! Careful studies indicate that each person has a little over 2 billion heartbeats. Some people use up their allotment in a mere 50 years and drop dead of a heart attack. Others are careful to avoid exercise and can make their heartbeats last into their 80s. Cryonics works because heartbeats are stopped, hence final death is delayed. Things which increase pulse rate, like bungee-jumping, sex, and reading the flames on this List--should be avoided if one wants to live longer. Don't squander your heartbeats! -Klaus! von Future Prime -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 22:53:28 -0400 (EDT) From: smo@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: A Question for Rand Fans Rand writes: [T]ry to imagine an immortal, indestructible robot,an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values; it would have nothing to gain or to lose; it could not regard anything as _for_ or _against_ it, as serving or threatening its welfare,as fulfilling or frustrating its interests. It would have no interests and no goals. Lefty asks: In light of the expressed interest on the part of many on this list to, essentially, become "immortal, indestructible robot[s]", and in light of the appeal that Rand's philosophy appears to hold for many of that contingent, how does one reconcile Rand's statement with these other aspirations? I've read the Virtue of Selfishness, and I'm still an immortalist. I'd say there are several problems with the Rand passage you quote, and if you have a specific point perhaps you should state it clearly. If, for example, you're saying that Rand wasn't perfect, I'd agree. Shawn smo@gnu.ai.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 23:05:08 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: A Question for Rand Fans Lefty writes: > In light of the expressed interest on the part of many on this list to, > essentially, become "immortal, indestructible robot[s]", and in light of > the appeal that Rand's philosophy appears to hold for many of that > contingent, how does one reconcile Rand's statement with these other > aspirations? It's not the achievement of the goal, but the process which yields the most rewards. It is very likely that an "indestructable" being would lose ethical values unless programmed against the possibility. People on the net tend to become more hostile exibiting behavior they would never show in real life because they are protected from the consequences of their actions. (e.g. getting beat up) Immortality (true immortality) is impossible. However, the strive towards achieving it yields its own benefits. I don't expect long life to take away the dangers and risks in life. There will still be murders, accidents, and trade. Tit-for-tat for keep us ethical. My answer to your question is that it is a strawman. A being unable to be affected or influenced by the universe can't exist. It would have to be omnipotent. Furthermore, the drive for immortality is not the same as preventing the universe from influencing you. If you achieve such a state, you may as well be dead. -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 23:18:48 -0400 From: tburns@gmuvax.gmu.edu (T. David Burns) Subject: AIT VirtSem: The Game of "Go" as an Example >Timothy May >>Derek Zahn >>the post-blender frog >>has high complexity as fertilizer, but isn't much of a frog! >The blended-up frog does *not* have more complexity, in a sense of >"critical" bits for some fitness landscape, any more than a scrambled >program has more information content than an unscrambled program. > We may be on to something here, but doesn't it deny AIT? simplicity, complexity, randomness monotonous order, intricate order, disorder Why should the usefulness or intelligence of something correspond to its complexity? Should randomness be included in this spectrum? What if we think of these, not as a spectrum or axis, but as a circle? levels of abstraction Several persons have noted that a GA may not produce a Go champ due to genetic drift or a weak initial population. There is also the question of the encoding scheme. Anyone who has tried to really solve a problem with a GA knows that this is where the human does the work. By coming up with an encoding scheme, you're defining the universe of conceptualization of the artificial agent, the solution landscape that it will search. That landscape can be too big, too sparse,too dynamic, or too rugged for the GA to perform. This might be picking nits, but I think it would be better to talk about the changes in the complexity of a population, not of a string. When a string changes, it becomes a different string. So, in a very literal sense, the original string has not changed, it's place in the population has been taken by a more complex (?) string. This discussion of GAs is interesting in light of Lindgren's paper in A-life II about a population of Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma strategies. He constrains the evolution of his strings in a way that marries AIT complexity with our intuitive notions. The population begins with random short strings, but one of the variation operators allows the strings to double in length. The coding scheme is such that if you place two identical strings together into one, they produce the same behavior, the same phenotype. So algorithmic information increase is zero until mutation happens. Now there's more room for mutation to fiddle with, so the strategies are ever becoming more savvy, more convoluted. Of course, this is the result of a choice Lindgren made - he could just as easily have begun with random length strings randomly generated. >Platonist might even say there really "is" a "Go landscape" out there, a >multidimensional surface filled with local hills and valleys, crevasses, >watering holes, food sources, walls, and all sorts of other "structure." Go >agents are like biological critters, wandering and reproducing in this >landscape, and learning where the "upward" paths are(upward means winning, The geology of this landscape is not static, but changes depending upon your opponent. Mountains may be swallowed by the Earth at any moment. As in fencing, I would speculate that every Go strategy has its weakness, which can be exploited by a strategy that also has a weakness, etc. Go has no stable mountaintop, no equilibrium. (I think.) > Go clearly exemplifies "increased complexity." Yet >The original Hilbert-Russell point of view, if updated to the modern >computer-AIT era, would be that the Go only contains a few bits. I'm not sure. The rules of the game could be encoded briefly, but some meta-programming needs to be done. (Or else trivially true - we keep talking about Go as a game with simple rules. Therefore, the game does only contain a few bits, its the strategies that are complex!) The rules of the game decide what is legal, not what's good strategy. Even taking the brute force tree searching approach, you have to encode the tree searching strategy. Time and space resources should count too, as in the logical depth approach. Think of it like this. The human mind is the UTM, a simple, general one. The literature surrounding the game of Go, (much of it deducable in the Hilbert-Russell sense) is a program for a virtual Go processor. Why can't the brain generate the best strategy just from knowing the rules and looking at the board? Our tape is noisy? Now I'm babbling. Kate Xiao Zhou ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 23:25:18 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: DIET: Metabolic stimulators X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission -Klaus! von Future Prime says: > Don't squander your heartbeats! Ah, but Klaus! forgets that a conditioned athlete will have a much lower resting pulse and will spend far more time at rest than at an elevated heart rate -- the average rate is much lower than for sedentary folk. Hmmm. Maybe Klaus! has that "finite number of beats" thing right after all... .pm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 22:37:51 -0400 (EDT) From: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) Subject: DIET/EVOLUTION/SATIRE: Sagittal crests, webs and fighting fangs I guess there's no point in trying to hide it any longer --- especially not with the Gala coming up. Mark somehow divined the existence of my sagittal crest. I've let slip about the finger-webs and the fighting fangs. And Perry's all-knowing and imponderable intellect has determined that I disdain mere vegetable matter and gorge on fat three times a day. Yes. It's all true. I am, in fact, the Monster from the Black Lagoon. (My girlfriend remarks "Sagittal crest, indeed. <*eyebrow lift*> *I* can't even get you to wear a Mohawk." Now, if you'll excuse us, she's going to climb into a bikini so we can re-enact the abduction scene...) -- >>eric>> ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0363 ****************************************