15 Message 15: From exi@panix.com Thu Jul 29 04:21:48 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA03787; Thu, 29 Jul 93 04:21:46 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA18056; Thu, 29 Jul 93 04:21:33 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by panix.com id AA15061 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Thu, 29 Jul 1993 07:04:55 -0400 Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1993 07:04:55 -0400 Message-Id: <199307291104.AA15061@panix.com> To: Exi@panix.com From: Exi@panix.com Subject: Extropians Digest X-Extropian-Date: July 29, 373 P.N.O. [11:04:52 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Thu, 29 Jul 93 Volume 93 : Issue 209 Today's Topics: [2 msgs] Cryonics & Pascal's Wager [1 msgs] Intellectual Property and the personal computer industry [1 msgs] Irrationality of e-word [1 msgs] MEDIA: tv in general [1 msgs] Meta: List functions and forwarding permission [2 msgs] Nightly Market Report [1 msgs] QUERY: GA's list [1 msgs] Remove me... [1 msgs] competition [1 msgs] television [1 msgs] Administrivia: No admin msg. Approximate Size: 51752 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 17:44:28 -0700 From: davisd@nimitz.ee.washington.edu Subject: Meta: List functions and forwarding permission I would like to see the new list software allow each user to set a default reposting policy which will list in all his message headers, which he can override explicitly in his message. As it is now, the default is "do not forward", by list rules, which is unnecessary for a lot of people, including myself. I've sent email to people asking to forward some joke they posted, and it just seems like a needless waste of time for all parties. Buy Buy -- Dan Davis ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 22:49:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Harry Shapiro Subject: Meta: List functions and forwarding permission a conscious being, davisd@nimitz.ee.washington.edu wrote: > I would like to see the new list software allow each user to set a > default reposting policy which will list in all his message headers, > which he can override explicitly in his message. To: davisd@nimitz.ee.washington.edu and other interested list members. We will consider adding such a feature but it would require extra cpu access on each message. Are you willing to underwrite such a feature? (we don't know what the cost will be; we will not be adding any cpu based features for several months so we can find/determine the costs of the current set-up.) In the future we hope to have "allowed" list posts be archived and hyperlinked via something LIKE Wais/www. Thus we we add commands like: "::wais" or "::repost ok" There is a low cost solution you can use right away. It can be done at the front end; it is an "x-reposting-policy:" header. You can add this header to all your outgoing mail. /hawk -- Harry S. Hawk habs@extropy.org Electronic Communications Officer, Extropy Institute Inc. The Extropians Mailing List, Since 1991 EXTROPY -- A measure of intelligence, information, energy, vitality, experience, diversity, opportunity, and growth. EXTROPIANISM -- The philosophy that seeks to increase extropy. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 00:10:02 EDT From: The Hawthorne Exchange Subject: Nightly Market Report The Hawthorne Exchange - HEx Nightly Market Report For more information on HEx, send email to HEx@sea.east.sun.com with the Subject info. --------------------------------------------------------------- News Summary as of: Thu Jul 29 00:10:01 EDT 1993 Newly Registered Reputations: MMORE Max More New Share Issues: (None) Share Splits: (None) --------------------------------------------------------------- Market Summary as of: Thu Jul 29 00:00:05 EDT 1993 Total Shares Symbol Bid Ask Last Issued Outstanding Market Value 1000 .10 .20 .10 10000 2000 200.00 110 - .10 - 10000 - - 150 - .10 - 10000 - - 1E6 - .10 - 10000 - - 1E9 - .10 - 10000 - - 200 .10 .20 .10 10000 2000 200.00 80 - .10 - 10000 - - 90 - .20 .10 10000 2000 200.00 ACS - .15 .50 10000 1124 562.00 AI - .50 .20 10000 1000 200.00 ALCOR 2.00 3.80 2.00 10000 3031 6062.00 ALTINST - .10 .10 10000 200 20.00 ANTO - - - - - - BIOPR - .20 .10 10000 1500 150.00 BLAIR - 30.00 50.00 10000 25 1250.00 CHAITN - .05 - 10000 - - CYPHP .15 .20 - 10000 - - DEREK - .42 1.00 100000 8220 8220.00 DRXLR - 2.00 2.00 10000 2246 4492.00 DVDT 1.55 1.63 1.50 10000 10000 15000.00 E - .70 .60 10000 5487 3292.20 ESR - - - - - - EXI 1.00 1.25 1.25 10000 3000 3750.00 FCP - .50 - 80000 4320 - GHG - .01 .01 10000 2755 27.55 GOBEL .01 .30 1.00 10000 767 767.00 H .75 - - 30000 18750 - HAM - .20 .10 10000 3000 300.00 HEINLN .30 .50 - 10000 - - HEX 100.00 125.00 100.00 10000 3268 326800.00 HFINN 2.00 6.88 10.00 10000 1005 10050.00 IMMFR .25 .80 .49 10000 1401 686.49 JFREE - .15 .10 10000 3000 300.00 JPP .25 .40 .25 10000 2510 627.50 LEARY - .20 .20 10000 100 20.00 LEF - .15 .30 10000 1526 457.80 LEFTY - .30 .15 10000 1951 292.65 LIST .40 .50 .50 10000 5000 2500.00 LP - .09 - 10000 - - LSOFT .58 .60 .58 10000 7050 4089.00 LURKR - .09 - 100000 - - MARCR - - - - - - MED21 - .08 - 10000 - - MLINK - .09 .02 1000000 2602 52.04 MMORE - - - - - - MORE .75 1.60 .75 10000 3000 2250.00 MWM .15 .15 1.50 10000 1260 1890.00 N 20.00 25.00 25.00 10000 98 2450.00 NEWTON - .20 - 10000 - - NSS - .05 - 10000 - - OCEAN .10 .15 .10 10000 1500 150.00 P 20.00 25.00 25.00 1000000 66 1650.00 PETER - .01 1.00 10000000 600 600.00 PLANET - .10 .05 10000 1500 75.00 PPL .10 .25 .10 10000 400 40.00 PRICE - 4.00 2.00 10000000 1410 2820.00 R .49 2.80 .99 10000 5100 5049.00 RAND - .06 - 10000 - - RJC 1.00 999.00 .60 10000 5100 3060.00 ROMA - - - - - - RWHIT - - - - - - SGP - - - - - - SHAWN - 1.00 - 10000 - - SSI - .05 - 10000 - - TCMAY .38 .75 .75 10000 4000 3000.00 TIM 1.00 2.00 1.00 10000 100 100.00 TRANS - .05 .40 10000 1511 604.40 VINGE .20 .50 .20 10000 1000 200.00 WILKEN 1.00 10.00 10.00 10000 101 1010.00 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 415516.63 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 22:08:33 PDT From: thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com (Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~) Subject: Cryonics & Pascal's Wager > Actually, if I remember correctly, all these scenarios only hold for > the 20th century form of instant gratification heaven, or for > reincarnation. Isn't the old style heaven something which only comes > at the end of time, with in fact your soul hanging out in your body > until Gabriel(?) blows his horn? Indeed, it is hard to find a biblical reference which would suggest otherwise. In John 3:13, Jesus explicitly tells Nicodemus that no one has ever gone into heaven except Jesus himself. > Gotta decide on which heaven you believe in before you calculate your > utility for cryonics. Cryonics definitely goes with the old style > heaven, since I'd rather live til the end of time than just wait in a > hole. If you believe in reincarnation, it would seem that the choice > is whether to switch bodies or not. If you believe in the instant > gratification heaven, you'll have to figure out just how the soul business > works with reanimation. So many brands, how does one choose? Dare I blaspheme, but could it be that things such as cryonics and uploading might be the avenues to heaven, and that once revived, or in cyberspace, we'll be there? :-) Maybe God's waiting for all of us to be suspended or uploaded before he descends, and then he'll bestow upon us the technology for revival and unlimited CPU cycles, and we really will be in heaven! You know, with all the interpretations of the bible (especially Revelations), why not an Extropian one? It wouldn't be _any_ less plausible. We could publish an Extropian interpretation of the bible, and call it "From Heaven to Cyberspace, the Christian's guide to Extropy" :-) Tony Hamilton | thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com HAM on HEx ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 21:33:00 -0500 From: michael.morgan@ehbbs.com (Michael Morgan) Subject: Irrationality of e-word Sorry this is so late; the BBS here crashed and has been resurrected. Mike at mike@highlite.gotham.com writes: > o that extropianism was conceived to further the ideals > behind the extropian principles, among which included > rationality and libertarianism. > > o that many list members joined the list seeking fellow > rationalist libertarianists, and consider the self- > transformational things limited to a healthy colon while > waiting for nanotech uploading... I agree and can find no wrong in this (not that I think you intended to write there was wrong here). More at the end... > o Free will. And I quote from Minsky's _Society of Mind_: > > "No matter that the physical world provides no room for > freedom of will: that concept is essential to our models > of the mental realm. Too much of our psychology is based > on it for us to ever give it up. We're virtually forced > to maintain that belief, even though we know it's > false...." (30.7) There seems to be two warring camps here. Freewill and pure determinism. In a zennish state of mind I say poopoo to both and assume that nature (whatever that is) has caused us to seek a greater degree of freewill (when I really should remain mute and let it happen). We can easily see that in the 1400s there were no airplanes, now there are. We wrought another tiny piece of freewill on our minuscule anvils of desire. I make no claim of what degree of freewill we have now, but say that we are achieving more. And I think that's good. > o The idea that we are all fully conscious and aware of our > decisions (this all follows from free will). It's an interesting self-transformation experiment for me to temporarily assume that I am not fully conscious and then try to think about what I'm not conscious of. I constantly do something similar in assuming that I am not me, not alive (but rather a gestalt of all those things and memories that make up 'me'). What was it about me that caused me to be me? Nothing rational there: I happen without thinking about happening. It seems the "I" that I am is an illusion. Thus any transformational scheme that I use will need to encompass all the different parts of me (including my need to feel part of some larger group). And admittedly this is a game too, but it's a useful game. B^) > o The idea that we are important. Hey, we might be the only > intelligent race in the universe. In the cosmic sense of > things, this seems ridiculous - although I hasten to add > that we should act as if we are, this gives our lives > purpose - but this is a belief, not the result of > rational analysis (imho). Wouldn't you agree that in a universe devoid of meaning we humans can assign to the meaning of life anything we want? Thus, while there appears to be no absolute reason for us to exist we can choose and cultivate any meaning(s) we desire, including adopting the ridiculous. And if the ridiculous makes us feel good, then it has more power over us. Nice trap there, huh? > When I first saw the reading list in Extropy #9, I was amazed: a group > devoted to everything I'm interested in. The shorter list in # 10 was > disappointing: more evidence that the self-transformational aspects had > taken a back seat to libertarianism, about which there is already plenty > of stuff produced elsewhere. Would you agree that politics is beginning to take precedence over self-transformation? I'd agree. I also assume that's normal for us domesticated-primate type animals. B^) > I'd suggest > that everyone read the first chapter of RA Wilson's _Prometheus Rising_, > concerning the "Thinker" and the "Prover", and decide for themselves if > Tim May's p-word judgement is due more to his "prover" confirming his > "thinker" than rational analysis. I'd also like to recommend a current article in the July issue of THE HUMANIST which addresses the problems some humanists perceive in their community. With just a scanning of that article I see that it fairly applies to groups like Extropians. > Imho, self-transformation requires a deep sense of self-understanding. > Extropianism (imho) has it's own set of beliefs which I've never seen to > be proven "rationally". And it remains to be proven (as THE HUMANIST article points out) that an effective community of individuals can be directly or indirectly coerced (via any number of techniques) to form such a community. The banned p-worders (as I know them) seek a community which forms *naturally* (not virtually, nor rationally) of its own accord. Individualist seem to seek to extend their individualism at the expense of community. Like the apparently useless freewill/determinism debate the community/individualism debate may clarify the issues, but still seems to lead us to dead ends. We need a new perspective, but I can't foster one at this time other than writing that rationality has its limit(s). And irrationally, while seeming ridiculous has its deep, multi-dimensional grip in our psyches. So if we are to ban the p-word because of the inclusion of irrational myth, then should we not ban extropianism because of the irrational aspects of pure individualism?? Humm... I call myself a futurist, humanist and extropian, but there's nothing really rational about that. B^) It's just something I like doing. ... When privacy is outlawed only outlaws will have privacy. --- Blue Wave/QWK v2.10 ---- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Ed Hopper's BBS - Home of uuPCB - Usenet for PC Board | | Node 1 - USR HST - 404-446-9462 Node 2 - V.32bis - 404-446-9465 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 23:18:07 -0700 (PDT) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: QUERY: GA's list GA-list has been mentioned. Also of interest is the the genetic programming list (genetic-programming-request@ cs.stanford.edu) and the comp.ai.genetic newsgroup which covers evolutionary techniques in general. Genetic programming uses computer program parse trees instead of strings as the genetic code. One interesting task GP implements easily is symbolic regression, which breeds an arbitrary, possibly nonlinear function to best least-squares-fit the input data -- in other words the regression includes automatically finding the best family of function, instead of forcing the user to specify linear vs. quadratic vs. cubic vs. Taylor series vs. etc. Nick Szabo szabo@techbook.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 23:58:34 -0700 From: Inigo Montoya Subject: Intellectual Property and the personal computer industry Well, I think I'm going to abandon this quote/respond model because Ray seems to be heading off into the deepend of sarcasm. However, the confusion about my stance has reached a level that causes me to make at least one more post on the subject. But probably only one. A good chunk of this has almost nothing to do with intellectual property, and a lot to do with half-baked speculation about where personal computing is headed. I'd actually like to hear people's opinions on that, independent of the intellectual property debate. First, Ray made a comment (in response to someone else) that "no one will get rich in software anymore" unless property rights are respected. I'd like to make quite clear that I don't see that as a problem. If Ray thinks this is not "EC" of me, well, that's his business. I *do* care about the quality of my future, and how much I accomplish, and how much fun I have along the way. Getting rich is irrelevant. I understand he may feel otherwise. Many people do. Let's see if I can clarify some other points. As Dean Tribble pointed out, even if you give the source away for free, there are opportunities to make money (a) matching people up with products (b) supporting the product (this may mean adding desired features, fixing bugs, training, notifying of upgrades). Ray seems to think that this money is going to dry up Real Soon Now when we get the Holy Grail of Computing (bug-free, user-friendly, expert system, object-oriented programs -- did I miss any buzzwords? I notice functional programming has dropped from the standard list these days, and I haven't heard fault tolerant. Or real time.). I think he's wrong, but I'll cheer if he turns out to be right. Ray also seems to be concerned about several other things. One of the major ones is that products for the personal computer market are going to somehow dry up if we don't charge for the software. Let me explain what I think will happen to the personal computer market. *NOT* under anarchocapitalism. Here. In the near future. Or at least a version of the near future which accepts the idea that people will copy software about like they copy videos, tapes, and articles in the newspaper. (Which means anyone who saves this can laugh really hard at me when I turn out to be totally wrong n years down the line.) I think that all those wide varieties of word processors, desktop publishers, spreadsheets, and other amazingly common applications are going to shakeout over the next decade or so. The results of this shakeout will wind up sold in ROM chips (rare upgrades, but real solid -- pretty close to being effectively bug free). I know of at least one startup in Bellevue betting on exactly this (and hoping to get the portable result down to somewhere in the vicinity of early calculator size). I think that along the way to this, OS's (at least for that market) are going to shakeout and become transparent. The resulting combination of hardware/software will be a portable tool that will let you do everything from write the Great American (Hypertext) Novel (word processor), to balancing the federal budget (spreadsheet), publish a magazine (desktop -- er, pocket publisher), connect to whatever the net is in those years, watch tv, listen to the radio, make telephone calls, morph images, animate random sh*t, design a house (CAD), play arbitrary numbers of games, lord knows what else. Hopefully good map software and a mechanism for telling me how to get there from here. OK. *Several* decades down the line. But I can dream, can't I? And I think the word processsing/spreadsheet/terminal version could happen almost immediately. I think there will continue to exist applications programmers (in the sense I think of them now). I have a hard time imagining a world which isn't continually hungry for new games, if nothing else. How do I see people paying for this? Never mind anarchocapitalism, what do I think will happen here? I'll have to pay for the hardware when I buy one of these toys, but I doubt it'll be expensive. More than a watch. Less than a car. High end stuff will be prime theft targets. Low end stuff you can get for 10 boxtops + postage and handling. Early obsolescence. It'll come with a variety of stuff already (word proc., spreadsheet, etc. ad absurdum). I'll be able to *buy* additional ROM software. (These programs will be solid, very close to bug free, and flipping fast. They will be designed to solve a well-defined task. And I'll pay for them, because I'm basically paying for the media. The developers will likely sell them for a flat rate (no royalties) to the chip makers, who need them to sell chips -- because there is no money in hardware.). I'll be able, via magnetic media or a network, to acquire other software. This stuff will likely run slower, and have more bugs (earlier in the cycle), but may have features unavailable elsewhere. How do I acquire it? If it's available on something like AMIX (sorry about that earlier typo, by the way), I probably will wind up paying money at some point (to find it, to learn how to use it, to find out what the heck it *does* -- and believe me, if things go the way I expect they will, it may accomplish a well-defined task in a user-friendly fashion, but if I have no *clue* what that task is, I have a problem. Just like Jane User and Yacc. Simple, elegant, easy to use. But the task is as obscure as, as, as, scholasticism (I mean the philosophy).). If it's been posted in a publicly accessible area, maybe I can grab it (only cost being amortized cost of my access, and whatever media I need to get it from there to here). Once I have it, I see nothing stopping me from letting all my friends borrow/copy/use/change it. Got that? Nothing. Not the technology, not the law. But I won't be able to sell it, because anybody can get it for free. If I got it off something like AMIX, I might have to sign something saying I won't do some of those things. Contract version of intellectual property. The future I envision is one in which early versions are posted in extremely accessible areas, the middle-cycle (about what would be considered a mature product in the pc market) stuff available from stuff like AMIX, and the *really good stuff* being available on chip. Cashing in is convincing a chip-maker that so many people have grabbed your software (off AMIX, or whatever -- you're collecting statistics, right?) and like it *so much* that they can expect people to buy their chips if your product is on it. They buy your product (one time sale, but big). By this time, of course, everyone who's anyone knows how to use it, and it enters the core group of applications everyone expects to be around forever. Serious users of the product will buy the chip, because it'll run faster, and stop taking up temp space -- and they don't have to worry about their copy getting corrupted. ROM ain't exactly susceptible to virus attack. (You probably sign a contract with the ROM people saying you're not going to sell it to anyone else.) And the only way to get rich in this future is by being one of the lucky few who has a great idea just everybody will want, and seeing it through to that one time major cash sale. Sort of like getting a best-selling novel made into a movie. But you can make a respectable living the AMIX route, or contracting your skills to someone who needs something that doesn't exist already. I see, as a result, software development becoming something like writing novels. A lot of people do it, but work a day job. Some of the people who do it, actually sell something, but not enough to live off of. And a few people make a respectable living A dozen or so get rich. One of the holes in this scenario is, what's to stop a chip maker from buying a copy of the software, and putting it on chip without paying you a dime? Depends on what the legal setting is. If intellectual property of nearly any form is upheld, it shouldn't be a big problem (and you can sue if it becomes one). If you're really worried, don't ever post a public version (this may slow down propagation of the product, or even prevent it from getting the mass-market it needs to succeed. If you worry about people stealing your story and making a movie, publishing it as a novel is a risk.). Sell all copies with signed contracts not to further copy/distribute/etc. Nail every twonk who breaks the contract. Use stegnography to track copies. But I think I agree with some of what Harry Hawk said. Specifically, I think that those chip makers will pay to get a trusted source. (If only because a successful product will generate a lot of pirating along the way, cluing the developers in to the fact that they have A Hot Item. They can then insert some obscure but Really Really Bad thing into the code for the last couple of versions before selling to the chipmakers -- any chipmaker who buys one of those versions is going to hurt as a result. They will pay for a Trusted Source. I'm sure you all can think of other clever scenarios with the same result. In fact, it strikes me as likely that chip-makers would approach the developer partway through the cycle and negotiate a deal with the developer long before it reached the ultimate, ultra-stable stage. To ace other hardware manufacturers out.) Prior to that fuzzy future, tho, the pragmatist in me looks around and thinks of all those pirate boards, and tries to remember the last time someone she knew paid for software, and notices that all the corporations that buy software behave in a fashion that causes her to think you could *give it away*, and they'd throw money at you to support/train/fix it/listen while they whine. Does everyone on this list realize that, in the workstation market, most vendors of major products will ship a bugfixed version for an important customer between scheduled versions? Sometimes only *to* that customer? This is what they pay for. Microlimp doesn't do this. NOBODY in the pc market does this, to my knowledge. This is why people *buy* products on workstations and *pirate* stuff on pcs. This is why I suggested giving the software away and *selling* the warranty. I believe the net result would reward people who produce good products, and punish (right out of the market) those who produce crap. I believe the net result would focus development in a useful direction, in an efficient way. Rather than some twonk dreaming up what I want, I can tell a developer what I want to see in the next release, and if enough other people ask, actually get it. And you can say all you want how training/supporting/fixing/upgrading will One Day Be AutoMagicked Out of Existence, but they've been chasing that grail for 30 years now (new software techniques, expert systems to aid in development, compilers will one day be obsolete, etc., etc., etc.), and they're *still* here and they're *still* where the money is. In the meantime, new software development and new hardware development goes on, because if you don't have something to support/train/fix/upgrade, ya got nothing. Oh, and if giving away software seems so odd to you, keep in mind that companies give away hardware to sell software *right now*. That is a trend that will continue. Summary for those who think the above too wordy: I think we've been promised the Holy Grail of bug-free, user-friendly, computing a lot too many times. I'll believe it when I see it; I'll adjust when I must. If Ray wins by anticipating it by a decade or so, well, congratulations! I've seen too many people get nailed hard expecting this. (And NASA is definitely the 5%, btw. I don't even need to invoke exceptio probat regulum. That's what Sturgeon's Law says.). In the meantime (certainly for the next ten years), the money will be increasingly in support/training/upgrades/warranties, decreasingly in the software itself, and, as usual, hardware will only be produced because you can't run software without it. Eventually, the money will probably be in matchmaking and specialized development, too. The older the industry gets, the fewer people getting rich. And my old argument was: Really interesting development doesn't happen in mass-markets. It'll continue to happen, independent of intellectual property issues (excepting trade secrets), in phone companies, banking institutions, and insurance companies, with some in government and academia (and scattered niche markets, plus weird stuff like FSF, which is financed about like a charity in many ways). The rest of the argument was that I don't give a rat's ass about the pc market anyway, AND people don't behave as tho they believe in property rights, and you'll lose if you try to impose it. Sell what the people who *are* buying care about: support/training/upgrades/documentation. And ultra, ultra, ultra stripped down version: My initial suggestion was merely that in an anarchocapitalistic society, ppls would coexist, some of which would support some form of intellectual property, and others which would not recognize it (with shades in between). I said I'd belong to the latter. Quickie question: even if this were a stupid decision economically (which I *do not* stipulate, save for purposes of this digression), why would anyone else *care*? Doesn't the continued existence of FSF (and the willingness of people like Harry to support FSF even tho disagreeing with their politics) support that bald assertion? I think the most surprising thing about this is the vituperative nature of the response I got from Ray. Why on earth should he care if I go broke or have to work at McD's to support myself? Do you think my behavior will so undercut your product and attempts to sell it that you'll wind up poor, too? I kind of doubt that. I don't see GNU/FSF putting anyone out of business. Rebecca Crowley standard disclaimers apply rcrowley@zso.dec.com (Posted from a borrowed account, so replying isn't a great idea.) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 9:19:09 MET DST From: Massimo Zancanaro Subject: ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 00:39:45 -0700 From: dasher@netcom.com (D. Anton Sherwood) Subject: competition rgardner@charon.MIT.EDU wrote: > Why is it that when A get 25% more, and B gets 75% > more, A will prefer that A and B get only 10% more? > I think this phenomenon is known as the "Prisoners > Dilema". It is explained very nicely in "How Real > Is Real?" by Paul Watzlawick. . . . Tell me more about that book! But it doesn't quite meet the definition of "Prisoner's Dilemma" as we are accustomed to using the term (after Dawkins). Anton Sherwood dasher@netcom.com +1 415 267 0685 1800 Market St #207, San Francisco 94102 USA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 00:41:02 -0700 From: dasher@netcom.com (D. Anton Sherwood) Subject: television It ain't all bad. I particularly enjoy "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" (Bravo), "The Kids in the Hall" (Comedy Central) and "Northern Exposure" (CBS?). Each entertainingly assaults the edges of reality in different ways. An occasional character in "Kids" wears what looks like a "There's No Government Like No Government" button. I recently saw "Picket Fences" for the first time, a multi-threaded episode about Waco, self-transformation, duty, free will an' stuff. I was blotto so I'll refrain from recommending it ;) Also, I often stumble on good movies by chance, like "Noises Off", a farce within a farce. *\\* Anton Ubi scriptum? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1993 18:28:23 -0500 (EST) From: X91007@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au Subject: MEDIA: tv in general exclude thread tv ::exclude thread tv ::exclude thread television ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 12:24:35 EDT From: roy@eckerd.edu (Jonathan Roy) Subject: Remove me... I apologize for mailing the entire list with my request, but mail to exi-daily-request and extropians-request seems to be ignored. About 2 weeks ago I requested a user at my site be removed from the mailing list. In responce, I was added! I've never requested myself to be added, and definatly do not want to be on the list. We have to pay LD charges for email, so now we are stuck paying even more each night for asking to be removed... If anyone out there can do anything about this, PLEASE do. Thank you. F F Jonathan Roy, of the Free Access Foundation Email: ninja@faf.org A Mail faf@halcyon.com for information, or FTP to halcyon.com: /pub/faf/ F F Vorlons, of the Galactic Bloodshed Development Team GEnie: J.ROY18 "Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design." - _RotJ_ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 9:08:55 GMT From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu Subject: Searle's Chinese Torture Chamber >From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) >Subject: AI: Searle's Chinese Torture Chamber > >Tim Starr sez- >> ... >> Imagine you're an intelligence agent that has been given instructions on how >> to communicate with a field operative. All you know is that if he tells you >> X, you're to tell him A; if he tells you Y, you're to tell him B. >> >> You get a message from the operative: Y. You reply: B. What did you just >> say? What did you tell him? What do A, B, X, and Y mean? He knows this, >> but you didn't need to know, so you weren't told. >> >> >From your field operative's perspective, you seem to know what you're >> communicating. But you don't. > >The point is, "you", the agent, aren't the person who the field operative is >communicating with. He is communicating with the system: {agent+instructions+ >scratchpaper}. That whole system *does* know what it's saying. The field >operative may be fooled into thinking you're the person, but that's >irrelevant. This at least brings the contrast into high relief, but I don't understand why anything beyond the agent should be considered to be the one being communicated with. >Talking about the agent alone is like talking about the processor without >its memory contents (program+data), or the neurons considered separately >from their synapses, arrangement and connection to sensors/effectors. This begs the question of whether computers and minds are analogous, and ignores serious differences between them. Mental agents get input on their own. They also program themselves. Computers do neither. >> Searle's argument is that computers can seem like they know what they're >> communicating in the same way, but they don't. His argument is designed so >> that people trained to approach subjects from one point of view only, the >> third-person, external point of view, have to approach it from another >> point of view, the first-person, internal one. > >In other words, he's trying to locate the homunculus, the little person >inside the person. Strawman. The person is quite clearly the human being, not his instructions or his scratch paper. >But there is no such person to be found in either a >real person, an upload, or an AI. Only the person as a whole is a person! There are no such things as uploads or AIs. Their very possibility seems to depend upon whether the mechanistic view of mind is true. I don't think it is, and that's what I'm questioning, so don't jump ahead of the game. I'm not doing this because I want to be a spoil-sport, but because I love truth. Why should "the person as a whole" include anything external to the human being? >> Then, if I were the intelligence agent in the above scenario, you'd be able >> to observe that I'd have no awareness whatsoever of what A, B, X, and Y >> mean. You'd be able to observe for yourself that I had no understanding of >> what I was communicating, even though the field operative wouldn't be able >> to tell this about me. > >Whoa, as I said, the agent is not the system. Saying something != proving or explaining it. >You've wired the mechanical >telpathy wrong. I don't think so at all. It would work just fine for ordinary conversation, where I did know what the variables symbolized. >Searle puts a human inside his system, and then assumes that the human is >where you should look for the consciousness, rather than looking at the >structure of the system as a whole. You construct a hypothetical system of consciousness, but can only do so on analogy to that of humans. Thus, you, too, must look at humans in order to find consciousness to hypothesize an analog to. Congratulations! You've committed the fallacy of self-exclusion. >Consider this version of the experiment: we put me and Searle in a room. >You see me through a window; Searle is hidden behind a curtain. You ask >me a question; I frown and turn off the outside intercom. Searle answers. >I turn the intercom back on and answer as if I had done the thinking. >Do I know what Searle was thinking? Of course not. So what? Indeed, so what? You aren't conscious of the meaning of what he said, either, unless you can think what he thought. >From: dkrieger@Synopsys.COM (Dave Krieger) >Subject: AI: Searle's Chinese Torture Chamber > >Okay, Tim; now let's suppose that your set of lookup tables is much more >complex: instead of a simple two-possible-inputs, two-possible-outputs >system, you have a much greater list of recognized inputs, available >outputs, conditional and history-based responses ("If the last three >messages were Y-in, B-out, W-in, then send M out."), and so forth. Suppose >that the system is scaled up to the point that it-plus-you passes the >Turing test. It can converse with an outside interlocutor (in Mandarin, if >you like) with sufficient verisimilitude that it cannot be distinguished >from a human being. (There's no way you could implement such a system >using a human being and lookup tables with a response time of less than >centuries, but this is only a thought experiment anyway.) Of course! But why bother? I made my example simple because of Occam's Razor. Why make things more complex than need be? >>Then, if I were the intelligence agent in the above scenario, you'd be able >>to observe that I'd have no awareness whatsoever of what A, B, X, and Y >>mean. You'd be able to observe for yourself that I had no understanding of >>what I was communicating, even though the field operative wouldn't be able >>to tell this about me. > >Then the system it-plus-you _is_ intelligent. You (who are only part of >the system, the "CPU", if you will) are not the mind that is experiencing >the conversation. The intelligence does not reside in you, nor in the >lookup tables, but in the system formed by the union. A CPU with no >software is not capable of doing algebra analytically, but >CPU-plus-Mathematica is. By what definition of intelligence? How can systems that are part biological, part mechanical, have minds? What about my mind? And who cares whether CPUs with Mathematica can perform analytic algebra? CPU's can program themselves, and the combination of both hardware and software can't tell what the variables stand for! Why do you and Steve take mathematics to be paradigmatic of thought? Do you think all thought reducible to the performance of mathematical operations? If so, why? >Searle argues that it would be possible (in principle) to implement a >Chinese room that is indistinguishable from a mind, Au contraire. It is quite clearly distinguishable from a mind - from the first-person point of view. It is only indistinguishable from a mind from the third-person point of view. >but isn't "really" a >mind, because one component of that mind (the person performing the table >lookups, the CPU, the "intelligence agent", Searle's Demon) is not itself >intelligent. What? The person most certainly is intelligent! It's the rest of the system that isn't! >Neither is the speech center of your brain itself an entire >mind... but the system formed from it, plus the other components of the >nervous system, is. This begs the question of whether brains are minds. I don't think this is so, either - and Searle argues against it in an earlier chapter of "Minds, Brains, and Science." Why are brains minds? >Searle's fallacy is that he mistakes the Demon for the interacting mind. Why is this a fallacy? >The intelligence is a characteristic of the system-as-a-whole, not of any >single part. None of the individual faces of a cube has the property of >"being a cube", but the system of six-faces-in-a-particular-relationship >does. This "system" is part human, part inanimate objects. How can inanimate objects be conscious? Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of ISIL, The International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 864-0952; FAX: (415) 864-7506; 71034.2711@compuserve.com Think Universally, Act Selfishly - starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 #209 ********************************* &