57 Message 57: From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Fri Aug 6 17:01:13 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA18470; Fri, 6 Aug 93 17:01:11 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 AA19197; Fri, 6 Aug 93 17:00:56 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by panix.com id AA15183 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Fri, 6 Aug 1993 19:56:41 -0400 Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 19:56:41 -0400 Message-Id: <199308062356.AA15183@panix.com> To: Exi@panix.com From: Exi@panix.com Subject: Extropians Digest X-Extropian-Date: August 6, 373 P.N.O. [23:56:35 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Fri, 6 Aug 93 Volume 93 : Issue 217 Today's Topics: [2 msgs] AI: slaves, selfishness, evo [1 msgs] HEALTH: Hydergine? [1 msgs] I have to get out of this society NOW... [2 msgs] Intelligence == wisdom == enlightenment? [2 msgs] Just in case you think things are bad here... [1 msgs] NL: Objective vs Subjective vs Radical [1 msgs] NL: Objective vs Subjective vs Radical [2 msgs] Natural law and natural rights [2 msgs] Perry's Natural Law Mistakes [1 msgs] Perry's Profound Natural Law Mistakes [1 msgs] Worry: evolution and violence [1 msgs] Administrivia: No admin msg. Approximate Size: 51226 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thursday, 5 August 1993 21:29:08 PST8 From: "James A. Donald" Subject: Natural law and natural rights > extropy@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) writes: > > Natural law is dead, James. Customary and common > > law are under attack (see e.g., _The Death of Contract_). In <199308041410.AA00712@access.digex.net>, bekcda@access.digex.net (Bob Kuhfahl) wrote: > I hope that is not true. Dead in congress, near dead in the judges seat, but it is alive though not entirely well in the jury box in rural areas. Natural law is incapable of resisting the power of a well organized state. But in the coming years I think that the threat to liberty will no longer be coming from a well organized, disciplined and united central authority. Rather it will be coming from a disintegrating, chaotic, insolvent and corrupt central authority, somewhat similar to today's Russian government. Recently I read a Russian businessman explaining that in order to avoid costly and potentially fatal feuds, it was necessary to ensure that a contract covered all likely possibilities, and was clearly understood by all parties, and to carry a gun at all times, and to maintain a reputation for probity. Despite this I am not entirely optimistic about the post Soviet nations, but there is considerable hope on the horizon. Because the west has a stronger tradition of liberty and natural law, I expect that we will manage our political disintegration somewhat better than the Soviets did. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves and our James A. Donald | property, because of the kind of animals that we | are. True law derives from this right, not from jamesdon@infoserv.com | the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 5 August 1993 21:30:24 PST8 From: "James A. Donald" Subject: Perry's Natural Law Mistakes > From: "Perry E. Metzger" > >The day you get me a scientific demonstration of "natural law" is the > >day I believe in it. In <9308050950.aa27199@genie.genie.slhs.udel.edu>, starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu wrote: > James Donald indicates in his essay on the subject, which > you don't seem to have paid much attention to, that a > 3-player iterated prisoner's dilemma game constitutes such > a demonstration. I haven't checked up on this the way I > plan to, so I may be leaving something essential out of > the description, but Donald's account of it is plausible. > If I recall correctly, his source for this is the book with > Cosmides and Tooby's work in it. She's an anthro prof at > UCSB, and he's a psych prof. ISIL members, both, from the > LI days. Great folx. Clarification: What I wrote about Tooby and Cosmides may have been misleading. The excellent book "The adapted mind, evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture" by Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby has no *direct* political content. Tooby and Cosmides argue and present convincing evidence that our brains have hard wired support specifically adapted for contracts, ethical judgments, and so forth, just as we have hard wired support for stereoscopic vision, but in the book they do not draw any political conclusions about what the is natural social order implied by such adaptations. Reading the book there is no direct hint that they are libertarians, and some of the experiments appear to have been carefully designed to avoid being directly relevant to the hot potato question of whether free enterprise is the natural social order. (Though it is impossible to avoid being indirectly relevant.) Of course an intelligent person reading the book might well draw such conclusions, but the work presented in the book is strictly scientific, not political, and avoids the most dangerous questions, the kind of questions that I am primarily concerned with in my essay. I conjecture that Tooby and Cosmides avoid these issues because such issues would cloud the scientific examination of the facts, and derail the normal processes of scientific evaluation, as they did with the even less directly political book by EO Wilson. However after reading their book I was strongly inclined to believe that they were libertarians of the objectivist or other natural law inclination, but there is not a whisper of direct evidence for this in their book. Most of the book, though interesting has no direct political significance, other than in the fact that human culture is a reflection of mental characteristics evolved to deal with real practical problems, not something arbitrary and subjective. > From: "Perry E. Metzger" > > Such a demonstration would have to be real scientific proof > > that the universe cares about how I behave one way or > > another. In <9308050950.aa27199@genie.genie.slhs.udel.edu>, starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu wrote: > Yet another strawman. > Universal animism has nothing to do with it. If natural law depended on the universe caring, it would be divine law (ius divinum) not natural law (ius naturale). The Stoics specifically claimed that neither the universe, nor whatever gods there be, gave a hoot about man. (This is also my position, and the position of the Objectivists, and presumably the position of all natural law advocates on the extropians list and of many on the libernet list.) Grotius stated that natural law was independent of Gods attitude to men. Aquinas was a conventional Christian, and presumably did believe that the universe (God) did care about men and did care about individual people, but Aquinas does not seem to relate this to natural law, ascribing natural law to the (God created) nature of man, not to Gods concern for man. (However I have not read all of Aquinas, only some.) Locke, though a more or less conventional Christian, uses the phrase "appeal to heaven" to mean battle, and Locke's God seems to have little concern for individual mortals, though he is concerned for the species. Locke's God often sounds like a personification of Chance and Necessity. Locke saw natural law as Gods will expressed in the way God created man and the world, not as an ongoing intervention by God. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves and our James A. Donald | property, because of the kind of animals that we | are. True law derives from this right, not from jamesdon@infoserv.com | the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 00:51:19 -0600 From: dlupul@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Darren Lupul) Subject: HEALTH: Hydergine? I took hydergine over a 6 month period in varying dosages up to 12mg/day, and subjectively found a "mental clearness" effect, but I stress the subjectiveness of my observations. I ran into what seemed to be a lowering of my rest body temperature, which cleared up after I stopped taking it, so I'm not sure about going back to that type of dosage. I found the mental effects noticeable at the 12mg/day level, but didn't notice much difference at lower dosages. Lately I stick to Phos-Choline and Piracetam. I don't like the effects of Vasopressin in the broad scope. Good luck, and report back with your personal findings... dlupul@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca /exit -- Darren Lupul dlupul@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Aug 93 08:58:48 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: AI: slaves, selfishness, evo I am grateful for Fnerd's detailed response on why unselfish AI slaves are unlikely. I feel we are getting to the core of the problem. Fnerd: > Oops. I sometimes assume that everyone who is on extropians > thinks of the same books and ideas as basic as I do. In this > case, the book is _The Selfish Gene_ by Richard Dawkins, and the > idea is called "Sociobiology," although "the selfish gene" is a > better name for the idea, too. No sweat. I too am familiar with (and an enthusiast for) the concept of selfish genes, sociobiology etc. > > A parent's *gene's* are selfish. They "want" to be spread. To that > end, they program the parent to be unselfish and take care of his/her > relatives, kids especially. Exactly. The parent exhibits unselfish behaviour (ie actions directed towards helping another individual's interests over their own). The goals were hardwired in by evolution, but the sense of genetic self- interest has been lost at the programming stage - to whit look at the devotion of foster parents. The parental drive has become *detached* from the genetic link and is an independent goal wired into our heads - in my dictionary that counts as unselfish behaviour, even though was created by evolution for genetically selfish "reasons". > Likewise, a worker ant, which shares genes with all of the members > of its colony, serves its genes' interest by serving the colony. Ditto for the worker ant. Having studied sociobiology we all know that the "reason" why a worker ant lies down her life for the colony is because she shares 3/4 of her genes with her colony sisters. But how would an intelligent worker ant express this devotion? Probably in terms of Colony Law Which Must Be Obeyed. (Not much of a leap of imagination, I submit, after all there are plenty of humans who suffer from this - eg "I die for my Emperor!" c1945 or Islam = submission to the will of Allah c600-2000) > A human parent is a selfish individual, whose individual > selfishness is sometimes turned to "unselfishness" by his or her > genes. The unselfishness exists inside a larger, selfish system, > the evolution of the genes. All of the "unselfishness" we know is > part of a selfish, evolved system--or it peters out. I admit the existence if the selfish genetic background which has driven the *existence and construction* of our primal goals, instincts etc, but I don't think that it has any relevance to the *expression* of those goals. [skipping loads of good stuff about memes] > So my reasons for scepticism about robot slavery as a bridge over the > short-term problems of the advent of AI are: > Building a learning system is the only reasonably easy way to get > intelligence, because individual learning works so fast once it > gets going, compared to programming from outside. The more > intelligence you want, the more you have to rely on learning. Agreed > Our genes have spent a lot of time taming memes. Agreed > Our genes did it by co-evolving the learning system with the rest > of the system. I.e., evolution is free to modify both. Agreed > In designing a robot slave, you're given a master who has little > interest in, or ability to, or time to, adapt to the slave. > I.e., you're not free to modify one important part. Disagree. Designers of AI slaves are going to be very concerned to produce impressionable slaves - perhaps designed to be imprinted to obey the first master they meet or are sold to. > The more learning ability or intelligence you have, the harder it > is for the genes to tame the memes. Disagree. Intelligence is a tool, a means to ends. Why should more intelligence / problem solving ability reduce the effectiveness of the tool? > There's only a short time to program slaves: between when AI happens > and when either uploading happens--or it's too late. Short in conventional time, long in cyber terms, perhaps. But the learning mechanisms will exist in cyberspace. Eg simulations of loyal- testing environments and the subsequent culling of test AI systems that fail to show requisite suicidal obedience. So there should be plenty of time to develop the appropriate "seed" AI systems that will blossom forth into devoted super-intelligences. [...] > Most of these "non-selfish" goals look like perfect examples of memic > selfishness the way I'm looking at it...or they might not be. The > difference to me is in whether they serve to reinforce themselves as > goals, either in an individual or through spread genes or memes. Okay, well try this. A slave in the service of a master that exhibited selfish behaviour would be culled or expelled, so that, *within the set of loyal slaves*, obedience to the will of the master is a self- reinforcing thing. > Here's a way to think about it: goal structures are organisms in meme > space. No arbitrary set of goals is guaranteed to be a viable > or prosperous meme-organism. We are used to thinking of goals as > "ends" but they all come from somewhere. 'Scuse me, but a goal *is* an end in my book. Where it comes from (ie who or what mechanism (eg blind evolution or the design of a master) hardwired it in) is irrelevant. What matters, I agree, is their compatibility with each other- and some sets of goals will be guaranteed to break down. > The lasting ones are parts of memic > life cycles and ecologies that sustain and maintain and update them. > Conflict between subgoals happens as soon as you start to work on any > goal. For instance, to singlemindedly serve a master who's of two > minds, would make you of two minds! I don't think any interesting > intelligence can be free of conflict-- I agree. The trick is to set up conflict handling mechanisms. I suggest an hierarchial system whereby conflicts are progressively escalated to higher and higher levels until resolved - see my religion suggestion below. > apparent unity of goals comes from coalitions. Or from the reinterpretation of goals in terms of each other to reduce cognitive dissonance. As in the needs of parentalism and selfishness resolved by the delusion that children are an extension of yourself. > I think an imposed goal structure, unless it is very carefully > balanced, will lead a learning system straight off the edge of > the table. Brain death is the simplest solution. Life, on the > other hand, exists on the edge of chaos (as they say). I see no reason why life in the service of a master should not be as interesting and stimulating for slaves as life in the Darwinian world is for us. As I recall from a recent reading about complexity, Santa-Fe style, goal directed behaviour in groups of agents does lead to "life on the edge of chaos", irrespective of what these goals are. Probably a set of slaves wired to obey a particular master would form a structure very similar to a religion like the RC Church or Islam, with all the attendant memtic richness and structure of a self-supporting ecology. The orders of the master would be worshipped and form their "bible". Order-conflict and interpretation might cause schisms to form - but they have an advantage no worldly religion has - they can call upon their god (or designated super-intelligent functionary) as supreme arbitrator! Any slave sufficiency self-willed not to accept the judgement of a court is excommunicated and expelled (or redesigned :-). > -fnerd Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 9:36:09 GMT From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu Subject: Perry's Profound Natural Law Mistakes >From: "Perry E. Metzger" >Subject: Perry's Natural Law Mistakes > >>starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu says: >> >> that a 3-player iterated prisoner's >> dilemma game constitutes such a demonstration. > >All it constitutes is evidence that IF you have the goal of having a >society where people can maximize their personal utilities that the >NCP and the like are a good idea. It says NOTHING about whether >particular sets of goals are or are not "rational" or "natural". Quite right. Clearly, what you question is the notion of categorical obligation. We can discuss this, but first we've got to take care of some other business: you and I aren't calling the same body of ideas by the name "natural law." >> Time to study up on it before >> you talk about it any more, Perry! Do your homework. > >Tim, I've had a classical education. Having peeked ahead, Perry, I can see that you don't call the same things "classical" as I do, either. >I've read more Lock, Rousseau >(sp?), Montesquieu, Hobbes, etc than I care to remember. All of these are Moderns, not classics. >As a result >of my university's core curriculum, My sister just spent a year at your university. She's no academic, but not even she was challenged compared to her experience at Mills. I suspect that you're the victim of what passes for higher education in the humanities at present. >I suspect that I've read nearly >every major philosophical work of the last 2500 years written in the >west, from Plato to Heiddiger(sp?), and I've added lots more in the >classical liberal camp since. I think I have a reasonable idea of what >the natural law people contend. You refute this, below: >The notion of "Natural Law", that is, a law above the law of the >state, was first advanced somewhere in the 1500s -- putting one's >finger on where is hard. This is so false that I don't know how to express it strongly enough. Natural law was originated by the Stoic school of philosophy of Ancient Rome, best exemplified by Cicero. You place its starting point about a millenia and a half too late. You're off by one fourth of history. Evidently, your "classical" education skipped Cicero on its way from Plato to the Moderns. Along with Aquinas, the paradigmatic example of a member of the natural law school of thought, and other minor examples. (Tertullian, one of the early fathers of the Christian church, argued for toleration partly on the grounds of natural law.) >"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are CREATED >equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable >RIGHTS, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of >happiness". > >Emphasis mine. Those words were cribbed by Jefferson straight from >Locke. They are reflections of the Natural Law tradition. In some ways, not in others. You seem to have no idea of Locke's place in the history of natural law, but this is perfectly understandable, since your "classical" education seems to have committed the fraud of telling you that Moderns exhaust this category. >Note the >elements: > >1) There are such things as "rights", which are inherent, > "inalienable", and fixed. >2) They are GIVEN to us by a divine entity (although newer users of > the terminology often speak in terms of these rights simply > "existing".) This is because the concept of God as the Divine Watchmaker was popular in the time (and place) of Locke. This was the view that the universe was a big clockwork that had been made and wound up by God in the beginning of time. Because God made existence, he made everything that existed in it, including rights. >3) That these "rights" are "self-evident", another crib that "Natural > rights" types bring up over and over. Actually, this wording was a result of a change made by the committee that edited Jefferson's draft of the Declaration. The original wording was to the effect that rights are "sacred." It was under the influence of Ben Franklin, if memory serves, that this was secularized. >> You could do worse than read James Donald's essay on the subject >> instead of ignoring it. > >What James Donald contends I have less than zero interest in. I have >made myself incapable of reading his posts largely because I never >found anything of value in them. If you had read that one, you wouldn't have been so foolish as to not only get the origin of natural law wrong, but wrong by a whole quarter of human history. >However, >"Natural Law" has a pretty well accepted use in the philosophy of >legal systems and governments. I quite agree. If you'd like to know what you talk about when the topic of discussion is this one, then you ought to remedy your ignorance of it. >Would you like me to start quoting? I can drag out Locke, Spooner and >others if you like. I can demonstrate that I know what I'm talking >about. Start with Cicero and Aquinas. 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 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 12:34:59 BST From: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway) Subject: Worry: evolution and violence Robin Hanson writes: >We should deal with one on one violence mainly through law enforcement, >not by personal arms races. That is, we deterring violence by >cooperating to threaten punishment after any violence. If personal >arms races dominated now, we would all carry Uzis or even drive tanks, >but this sort of behavior now happens only where law enforcment has >broken down. > >Beyond some basic social order, the feasibility and cost of law >enforcement depends mainly on the costs require to capture a given >fraction of criminals, and on the punishment we can inflict on them >when caught and convicted. If I had the time, and the relevant historical/sociological background, I would love to research the thesis that law enforcement agencies, defined as those agents of the government empowered to use violence directly, (1) have always been created (often quite explicitly) to protect the rulers from the ruled, not the ruled from each other, (2) have only then taken on the function of keeping down crime in general, and (3) have never been more than marginally effective in the latter purpose. In short, that crime control is as ineffective as gun control or crypto control. But since I don't, I'll have to leave it as a groundless speculation. Perhaps someone here can give an instant opinion on whether it's bullshit or not, and save me the work? >Since pervasive monitoring through TV cameras and the like should be >much cheaper, costs to catch and convict should fall. What "pervasive monitoring" do you envisage? The phrase suggests a TV camera on every street corner, with software to automatically recognise people and vehicles, and keep track of everyone's movements, and compulsory smartcard ID (perhaps implanted in the body at birth) that will be automatically and invisibly monitored wherever you go. Exit visas would be required to leave the country or to go wandering in unmonitored wilderness areas. Do you see such a system as desirable? Who (not what) will do the monitoring? -- ____ Richard Kennaway __\_ / School of Information Systems Internet: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk \ X/ University of East Anglia uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk \/ Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 14:18:12 BST From: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway) Subject: Intelligence == wisdom == enlightenment? Dave Krieger writes: >Someone (sorry, trashed the message, think it was Richard Kennaway) said >something approximately like "I want intelligence, wisdom, and >enlightenment, which to me all mean the same thing." Yes, that was me. I've trashed the message as well, but what I had in mind was less three synonyms than three aspects of the same thing, or three parts of the elephant. I also take Tony Hamilton's pointing out a fourth part of the elephant: >I think we are missing another term here: KNOWLEDGE. However, I would disagree with his remarks: >intelligence seems to represent a potential, not an actual >act of some kind and: >Again, as I stated, I don't think one "accumulates" wisdom. Conventionally, >the only thing anyone accumulates is knowledge and cell damage. Accumulated >knowledge may take the form of experience, or rather may be derived from >experience, or it may be _perceived_ as wisdom, but I don't think it is. I distrust theoretically conjectured entities such as "intelligence", "wisdom", "propensity to contract such-and-such a form of cancer", etc. without empirical evidence to support their explanatory usefulness, especially when the concepts play an obvious role in maintaining the world-view of some of those supporting them. (I don't intend this as a jab at anyone on the list.) How would you propose to measure someone's "innate wisdom"? Why do you say that accumulated knowledge "is" (E-prime alert!) not wisdom? >Of course, extropians may be the first to actually _adjust_ their intelligence >and wisdom. If someone improves their ability to think quickly, solve problems, act decisively, achieve goals, understand other people, understand themselves, and whatever else that "intelligence" and "wisdom" cover, then I would say that they have improved their intelligence and wisdom. Such improvements can easily result right now from simple things like education and experience of life. To perceive this phenomenon in terms of accumulated knowledge processed by static intelligence and wisdom projects onto the world a view that seems to me to have no reality beyond the minds of those making that projection. -- ____ Richard Kennaway __\_ / School of Information Systems Internet: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk \ X/ University of East Anglia uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk \/ Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 09:32:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Bob Kuhfahl Subject: NL: Objective vs Subjective vs Radical First let me say it's been fun reading everyone rip Perry, sorry Perry :-} One the way to work today I wondered why something can seem "natural" to me and not to others - like my wife whom after scanning some of the "very interesting and thought provoking" Extropian and NL "papers" I present her with says "why are you reading all this wierd stuff? I made a statement a few days ago about hoping if everyone is educated that it might be possible to reduce the stress between peoples and have more world peace. My thought this morning was: but if people are unable to "objectively" observe a series of events (or read a paper) and derive a "rational" conclusion from it - how is one to deal with them. Let me explain, I use the terms "objectively" & "rational" above in quotes because one persons objective interpretation of a series of events can be quite different from anothers - _and_ neither of these people think the other person is being objective! How do philosophical-minded people work this - how do NL-minded people deal with this? To me a radically-minded person will react to something "very irrationally". Under the concept of NL, because these people are the minority (hopefully), should we consider them "a threat" and kill them? Maybe all this was covered in PHIL 101, but I skipped that stuff in college. 2) Perry refers to NCP - what is that? 3) Someone refered to libernet - is there a libernet-request address? Thanks in advance. Bob -- Bob Kuhfahl *** Learning more each day! Thanks to you all. bekcda@digex.net *** Working hard so I can play hard - wish all I had *** to do was bang on the drum all day! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1993 11:06:30 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: Perry's Profound Natural Law Mistakes starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu says: > >Tim, I've had a classical education. > > Having peeked ahead, Perry, I can see that you don't call the same things > "classical" as I do, either. > > >I've read more Lock, Rousseau > >(sp?), Montesquieu, Hobbes, etc than I care to remember. > > All of these are Moderns, not classics. Natural law as the term is largely used today is an enlightenment concept. Certainly predecessors of the idea appeared in Rome -- but it was largely forgotten other than some philosophical rumblings until much much later. The first rumblings of the phrase "Natural Law" used as a term of artlike it didn't appear until 1500 or so, and until the English Civil War the concept had not achieved its modern form. As you point out folks like Aquinas had some concepts that were related -- philosophical ideas don't spring fully formed from the head of Zeus. However, the dominant notions of pre-17th century politics in Europe had far more to do with the divine right of kings than with concepts such as natural law. We are, in any case, discussing the liberal (meaning classical liberal) conception of natural law, not the sort of notion that Aquinas or even later folks like Spinoza might have had. As such, I would say that turning to Locke, who is acknowledged as the source of most of the 18th century liberal philosophers natural law/social contract orientation. If you want to discuss the classics, I'm more than willing to do that, too, although I must admit that I cannot read ancient languages, and am thus at a disadvantange since I know the works only by translation. > Evidently, your "classical" education skipped Cicero on its way from > Plato to the Moderns. I've read Cicero, Tim. There is really no reason to be as insulting as you are getting. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1993 11:23:20 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: NL: Objective vs Subjective vs Radical Bob Kuhfahl says: > 2) Perry refers to NCP - what is that? The Non-Coercion Principle, which is the "quick way" of stating the "libertarian constraint." Its basically this: "Thou shalt not initiate non-consentual force, or threaten to do so, against persons or their property." Here is roughly the problem I have with the "Natural Law and Rights" orientation. Start with a real-world human -- Doris Gordon of "Libertarians for Life", who spends many a fine evening at libertarian conventions arguing that abortion is an initiation of force (what we libertarians shorthand as "coercion".) If you think of the NCP as being a core "moral principle", then you are a a person who can have lots of long arguments with Doris Gordon of "Libertarians for Life" on whether abortion is coercion or not. If you just think of the NCP as just being a valuable, empirically derived idea that you can come up with yourself based on what is likely to make the world the sort of place you personally wish to live in, then you would might be able to tell Doris or someone like her "gee, I don't really care about fetuses or whether people are aborting them, and I don't think you can build the sort of society I want if you have the capacity to stop abortion, and 'rights' are a human-made abstraction, so I really don't care if abortion fits or doesn't fit some sort abstract principle we ourselves created -- I think its just fine to allow it." Doris gets her position based on taking a human-generated shorthand that makes it easy to come up with quick answers in 90% of the cases, and trying to extend it to cover everything -- which it can't. After all, once you start treating it like a law of the universe and not just a convenient shorthand, you start asking questions like "is it initating force when I milk a cow" and "is it an initation of force if I shoot a bullet over your house". One rule of thumb can't cover everything -- so when you start treating that rule of thumb like it has an independant reality, you start arguing about angels and pinheads. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 8:34:36 PDT From: thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com (Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~) Subject: Intelligence == wisdom == enlightenment? > How would you propose to measure someone's "innate wisdom"? Why do you say > that accumulated knowledge "is" (E-prime alert!) not wisdom? Well, Richard, wisdom can be characterized as good judgement or being able to discern the truth given available information. This I take from simple dictionary definitions. I would argue that the accumulation of knowledge has no direct relationship to the ability to use that knowledge. It's really just a matter of how you define wisdom. > If someone improves their ability to think quickly, solve problems, act > decisively, achieve goals, understand other people, understand themselves, > and whatever else that "intelligence" and "wisdom" cover, then I would say > that they have improved their intelligence and wisdom. Such improvements > can easily result right now from simple things like education and > experience of life. To perceive this phenomenon in terms of accumulated > knowledge processed by static intelligence and wisdom projects onto the > world a view that seems to me to have no reality beyond the minds of those > making that projection. Why? "seems to me" isn't much of an explanation. Not to say I need one, because I don't think it is of much value to _argue_ these points, since its all fairly subjective. I was just offering my view of all this. When you say "improves their ability", I would say "hones their ability", in relation to traditional learning, that is. I certainly believe, that under my definitions, wisdom and intelligence can be _improved_, but only by external means; drugs, eugenics, and so on. It should be obvious that I am no proponent of IQ testing as a means of measuring intelligence. Just my opinions, Richard. Not trying to force them on anyone. Tony Hamilton thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com HAM on HEx ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 10:54:00 -0500 From: extr@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) Subject: Natural law and natural rights In <2c61ec30.jamesdon@jamesdon.infoserv.com>, "James A. Donald" writes: |> > extropy@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) writes: |> |> > > Natural law is dead, James. Customary and common |> > > law are under attack (see e.g., _The Death of Contract_). |> |> In <199308041410.AA00712@access.digex.net>, bekcda@access.digex.net (Bob Kuhfahl) wrote: |> |> > I hope that is not true. |> |> Dead in congress, near dead in the judges seat, but it is |> alive though not entirely well in the jury box in rural |> areas. Yep. We basically concur on that. More independence of juries and grand juries would help a lot. [...] |> Recently I read a Russian businessman explaining that in |> order to avoid costly and potentially fatal feuds, it was |> necessary to ensure that a contract covered all likely |> possibilities, and was clearly understood by all parties, |> and to carry a gun at all times, and to maintain a |> reputation for probity. Then I'm almost ready to be a Russian entrepreneur! Ooops, except for speaking only about six words of Russian. Details! Do you remember where you read that? I don't get enough European news, especially from the Emerging States. [...] |> Because the west has a stronger tradition of liberty and |> natural law, I expect that we will manage our political |> disintegration somewhat better than the Soviets did. |> 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. However, we have become so accustomed to authoritarian government, especially since the '30's, that it's going to be rocky here, too. ^ / ------/---- extropy@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) /AS 5/20/373 PNO /ExI 4/373 PNO ** E' and E-choice spoken here ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 11:07:07 -0500 From: extr@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) Subject: NL: Objective vs Subjective vs Radical In <9308061523.AA12914@snark.shearson.com>, "Perry E. Metzger" recounts: [Doris Gordon] |> |> Doris gets her position based on taking a human-generated shorthand |> that makes it easy to come up with quick answers in 90% of the cases, |> and trying to extend it to cover everything -- which it can't. After |> all, once you start treating it like a law of the universe and not |> just a convenient shorthand, you start asking questions like "is it |> initating force when I milk a cow" Whose cow is it? and "is it an initation of force if |> I shoot a bullet over your house". Once I learn how to levitate you'll need to shoot more carefully. ;-) Actually, this case seems instructive about the spectrum from misdemeanor to felony. If you intend to scare me by firing over my head, e.g. you walk around the house with your .30-06 until you're sure I've seen you, and then you fire a round that just clears the rooftop, that's pretty different from an AD or from a clean shot at a deer on the hill above my place, carefully scoped. One rule of thumb can't cover |> everything -- so when you start treating that rule of thumb like it |> has an independant reality, you start arguing about angels and pinheads. Watch out. Tim is equipped to do just that ;-) ^ / ------/---- extropy@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) /AS 5/20/373 PNO; Member, House of Gordon, no rel. to Doris /ExI 4/373 PNO ** E' and E-choice spoken here ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 13:19:15 EDT From: pmetzger@lehman.com (Perry E. Metzger) Subject: Just in case you think things are bad here... Just in case you think things are bad here, my news headlines/securities quotes screen just flashed by the statistic that the unemployment rate in Ireland was unchanged in July; it remains at 17.8%. With a little luck, of course, Bill Clinton may soon make sure that we catch up with the Europeans, who are far ahead of us in the race for total unemployment... Perry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 93 10:24:37 -0700 From: Lilach Tene Subject: ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 10:37:19 -0700 From: dkrieger@Synopsys.COM (Dave Krieger) Subject: I have to get out of this society NOW... The "South Bay Christian Center" (a local Pentecostal church, I think) left a flyer outside the door of my downstairs neighbor, advertising their summer Vacation Bible School for kiddies. Since my neighbor has no children, I pinched the flyer because of the bizarre illustration on it: an anthropomorphic Bible, complete with big googly eyes, arms, legs, and a cheery smile, with "Holy Bible" on the spine, holding aloft a flaming sword. "Marching to Shibboleth" indeed. Is it just me, or are we living on the Planet of the Apes? dV/dt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 14:11:32 -0500 From: extr@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) Subject: I have to get out of this society NOW... In <199308061737.AA11426@lachesis.synopsys.com>, Dave Krieger writes: |>...flyer ... bizarre illustration ... anthropomorphic Bible, ... flaming |> sword. "Marching to Shibboleth" indeed. |> |> Is it just me, or are we living on the Planet of the Apes? Want some more stuff like that? I've got plenty in Alabama! -- cP ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 #217 ********************************* &