From extropians-request@extropy.org Fri Aug 5 21:02:15 1994 Return-Path: extropians-request@extropy.org Received: from usc.edu (usc.edu [128.125.253.136]) by chaph.usc.edu (8.6.8.1/8.6.4) with SMTP id VAA25440 for ; Fri, 5 Aug 1994 21:02:14 -0700 Received: from news.panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA16486; Fri, 5 Aug 94 21:02:10 PDT Received: by news.panix.com id AA09992 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Sat, 6 Aug 1994 00:02:04 -0400 Date: Sat, 6 Aug 1994 00:02:04 -0400 Message-Id: <199408060402.AA09992@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest #94-8-78 - #94-8-89 X-Extropian-Date: August 6, 374 P.N.O. [00:01:10 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org X-Mailer: MailWeir 1.0 Status: RO Extropians Digest Sat, 6 Aug 94 Volume 94 : Issue 217 Today's Topics: Clobbered my mail. Anyone have archives? [2 msgs] Cryonic suspension [1 msgs] Cryonic suspension/revival [3 msgs] EXTRO: Anyone tape Warding Off Dogmatization panel? [1 msgs] FAQ: version 0.05, request for comments [2 msgs] Information-theoretic death [1 msgs] Physical vs. Metaphysical Reincarnation [1 msgs] Reincarnation, immortality and cryonic suspension [1 msgs] Administrivia: Note: I have increased the frequency of the digests to four times a day. The digests used to be processed at 5am and 5pm, but this was too infrequent for the current bandwidth. Now digests are sent every six hours: Midnight, 6am, 12pm, and 6pm. If you experience delays in getting digests, try setting your digest size smaller such as 20k. You can do this by addressing a message to extropians@extropy.org with the body of the message as ::digest size 20 -Ray Approximate Size: 27120 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Date: Fri, 5 Aug 94 13:11:17 GMT Subject: [#94-8-78] Physical vs. Metaphysical Reincarnation FutureNerd Steve Witham writes: >Let's say in your metaphysics you will be reincarnated somehow >in some sense anyway. > >But do you want to have taken part in making it happen? Or do >you just want your next deanimation to be a chance to have the >cards dealt again? Why not just spend all your lives getting >reshuffled without ever getting down to playing? For what it's worth, I'd like to think that reincarnation means that you keep your general attitude toward things (and hopefully are improving it from life to life) even though specific memories are mostly lost. This actually might relate to uploading--if you have to upload through a channel that can't take all the information about you, what's important enough about you to still be worth keeping? > >A world view that says that nothing I do matters because I'm going >to both do it and not do it anyway...I find hard to think in. >So why bring up the topic? Huh? What version of reincarnation are you talking about? The nearest approach that I can think of is the notion that there's really only one soul which shuttles back and forth in time and is everyone--this idea appeals to me for the elegance of its instant karma, but I don't see any reason to believe in it. Actually, I don't see any strong reason to believe in the standard multi-soul type of reincarnation (nor any strong reason to think it's false), but I do think you're misrepresenting the idea. Nancy Lebovitz nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu ------------------------------ From: Harvey Newstrom Date: Fri, 5 Aug 94 09:44:53 EST Subject: [#94-8-79] FAQ: version 0.05, request for comments A few comments on FAQ version 0.05: - "(Also, extropians have no sense of humor.)" Is this a joke? - "Many environmentalists have a history of deliberate exaggeration of threats, with the attitude that the end ("saving the earth") justifies the means (lying)." This sounds more like political mudslinging than a scientific argument. We really don't care if other people lie, we are concerned that the "science" is inaccurate. I think the later, more scientific discussion is more useful than these leading statements. - "Like socialism, this worked OK for small systems (the size of a family), but should not be tolerated on the scale of the Soviet Union." Do we really need to reference "socialism" when discussing computing? Also, this should be reworded to criticize the system as a failure rather than simply stating that it "should not be tolerated." - What are typical Extropians' attitudes towards women, minority racial groups, and people of nonstandard sexual preferences? Gender can be changed with current medical techniques. Nuero-suspension patients may regrow a body in the gender of their choice. Uploaded beings can define gender in any manner they wish. Thus, gender cannot be considered a limiting or even a permanent factor for any person. Extropians value their consciousness or personality more than their current physical attributes. Racial minorities shift and change definition for different geographical locations or historical time periods. The distinction of being the most populous race on the planet has gone to different races at different times in the past, and will most likely change again in the future. The white race has never held this distinction. Extropians value individualism more than temporary group statistics. Since most "nonstandard sexual preferences" have been documented in virtually all historical cultures and have been observed in virtually all higher species, they cannot really be considered nonstandard. Artificially reducing a culture to a subset of its natural or historical membership would be an arbitrary limitation imposed to modify the statistical group makeup. Again, extropians value individualism and diversity over conformity and noncreativity. __ Harvey Newstrom (hnewstrom@hnewstrom.ess.harris.com) ------------------------------ From: dcosenza@netcom.com Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 09:47:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [#94-8-80] Cryonic suspension > Kennita Watson (kwatson@netcom.com) wrote, quoting me: > > >>Actually there are things I'd change but given the choice > >>of keeping what I've got or removing and freezing my head; I'll keep what > >>I've got. > > > >That's why I made whole-body arrangements. I can always change my mind if > > How much does this cost and how much time and effort did it take to set up? A whole body suspension will run you $120k with Alcor, I don't know what the other organizations charge offhand. You can either pay for it up front with cash or check, or you can take out a life insurance policy and name Alcor as the beneficiary. As for time and effort, well, you have to sign several copies of the paperwork, and you also need a witness, so it is a rather tedious undertaking but it seems like a small price to pay for possible reanimation. (Btw, I had a lot of help getting signed up with Alcor, it only took me maybe an hour at most to comeplete my paperwork.) > Also what is the likelyhood of cryonic suspension failing in some > irreversable and fatal way if frozen now? Or in say 20 - 30 years? That's always possible I suppose, but what if it doesn't fail? We don't have any way of knowing the outcome at this juncture, so I'd say being frozen is definately better than the alternative. > I know there is no final authority to answer these questions but I imagine > everyone with cryonic suspension arrangements has some guess in mind. I > can't exactly have this conversation with my friendly insurance > salesperson. > > "Hello; I'm calling to compare rates on my car insurance and by the way I > was thinking about cryonic suspension, do you have any actuarial tables for > people frozen in say 2040?" :-) Ever forward, David -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Cosenza dcosenza@netcom.com PGP 2.3a Public Key available by finger _or_ ftp.netcom.com:/pub/dcosenza PGP 2.3a Key fingerprint = BF 6C AA 44 C6 CA 13 3F 4A EC 0A 90 AE F3 74 6D "When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption." ------------------------------ From: dcosenza@netcom.com Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 09:48:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [#94-8-81] Reincarnation, immortality and cryonic suspension > One of the deficiencies I see with some arrangements is that they keep no > records of reanimation desires. I have arrangements with Alcor, and have never > been asked for "reanimation preferences." snip snip... You can do what I did sometime ago and send Alcor a letter explaining your preferences, and ask that it be put in your file. I think they used to ask members to send in letters for their files... Ever forward, David -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Cosenza dcosenza@netcom.com PGP 2.3a Public Key available by finger _or_ ftp.netcom.com:/pub/dcosenza PGP 2.3a Key fingerprint = BF 6C AA 44 C6 CA 13 3F 4A EC 0A 90 AE F3 74 6D "When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption." ------------------------------ From: schooley@new-orleans.neosoft.com (John Schooley) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 12:05:44 -0600 Subject: [#94-8-82] Cryonic suspension/revival >Nancy Lebovitz >Romana mentions that there are behaviors and treatments that can make >cryonic suspension and/or revival from suspension less likely. >Offhand, the only ones I can think of are cancelling the contract, >going somewhere where the cryonicists can't get to the body quickly, >or something like oxygen deprivation that would damage the brain-- >have I missed something? My guess is that the greatest behavior factor that would make revival less likely is the wainting for physical death before suspension. Suspending one's self before dying would greatly enhance revival prospects. Beside it would be uncertain that a pre-death suspended person could be considered dead. This would probably decrease the threshold of ease of turning off the cooler while increasing the pressure to successfully revive. John Schooley schooley@new-orleans.neosoft.com ------------------------------ From: Max More Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 10:35:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [#94-8-83] EXTRO: Anyone tape Warding Off Dogmatization panel? While we have audio tapes of almost every session from EXTRO 1, unfortunately something went wrong during the taping of the panel discussion on preventing dogmatization. The general opinion seems to be that this was a excellent session. I would very much like to be able to make this tape available along with the others. If any of you made an audio tape of that session please let me know. ExI will be happy to pay you for a copy. Onward! Max More more@usc.edu more@extropy.org President Extropy Institute (ExI) 310-398-0375 ------------------------------ From: dkrieger@netcom.com (Dave Krieger) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 11:25:42 -0800 Subject: [#94-8-84] Information-theoretic death Paul stopped reading my post and started writing his reply right at the point where it got interesting: At 11:46 AM 8/4/94 -0400, Paul Cisek wrote: >>From: dkrieger@netcom.com (Dave Krieger) >>Date: Wed, 3 Aug 1994 10:14:50 -0800 >>Subject: [#94-8-30] Information-theoretic death >> >>>From: pavel@PARK.BU.EDU (Paul Cisek) >>>Date: Wed, 3 Aug 1994 11:11:39 -0400 >>>Subject: [#94-8-25] Information-theoretic death >>> [...] Recalibration will be necessary >whether the new body is biological or mechanical or virtual. The brain >essentially has to learn how the commands it sends down to effectors >(including muscles, glands...) affect the incoming perception - this >is called a circular reaction. If the effectors and receptors are virtual >there still presumably exists a consistency in the environment-mediated >transformation from action to perception. It is this transformation >that the nervous system needs to learn in order to anticipate the >consequences of its actions and to use its effectors. > >>The skills embodied by our biohardware today must logically fit into three >>categories: (1) those skills that are stored 100% in the brain; (2) those >>skills that are 100% somatic (in the spinal cord and other parts of the >>nervous system); and (3) those that are shared between the brain and >>peripherals. This latter case would seem to involve complementary >>components in the two (arbitrary) divisions of the nervous system that have >>co-evolved or co-adapted to mesh well with each other. > >Just about everything would fall into category (3), with the exception of >things that are purely mental (I'd rather not further any theories on just >what may be "purely mental"). And though we cherish all those mental things >so much we would be quite at a loss if our physical properties were radically >changed. And as to motor skills it's meaningless to say that a new host body >(biological/mechanical/virtual) will come "preloaded" with certain skills. >Try to avoid analogies with computers. The nervous system works as a >unified system and it _assumes_ such unification. Fortunately in the >case of replanting brains, the same mechanisms that unify the system may >be used to adapt to a new body. Like Paul, I think most skills are in category (3), but if there exist skills that fit into category (2), I'd like to know why it's "meaningless" to say such skills can be preloaded into a cyborg body, and why Paul thinks such preloading necessarily assumes an analogy with computers. I had no such analogy in mind when I wrote this; servomechanical or even hydraulic systems can accept peripherals that interact with the central system through standard interfaces. What is unreasonable about a system (say, a leg) that can learn from the brain: When efferent motor nerve P fires in pattern Q, the brain expects me to contract muscle X by amount Y? I was saying this more compactly when I went on to say: >>For category (3), if we have the capability to build new bodies in the >>first place (which most cryonicists assume is a simpler problem than repair >>of the brain), it seems likely to me that we should be able to include in >>them the necessary "hooks" (soft- or hardware) to make them do all the >>adaptation, adjusting themselves to the brain's expectations about shared >>capabilities such as hand-eye coordination -- expectations about limb >>length, response time, etc. "Whoops, he reached too low for that one, >>Jerry. Bump the value of _coeffDeltoidStrength_ by .02 and let's try it >>again." dV/dt ------------------------------ From: kqb@whscad1.att.com (Kevin Q Brown +1 201 386 7344) Date: 5 Aug 94 21:50:00 GMT Subject: [#94-8-85] Cryonic suspension/revival In X-Message-Number: #94-8-82 John Schooley (schooley@new-orleans.neosoft.com) said: > My guess is that the greatest behavior factor that would make revival less > likely is the wainting for physical death before suspension. Suspending > one's self before dying would greatly enhance revival prospects. ... John, Unfortunately, in today's legal climate getting suspended before declaration of legal death will (1) almost ensure that you get autopsied, (2) get the suspension team thrown in jail, (3) probably destroy the suspension organization, (4) likely cascade to an edict for thawing out the people already in suspension **, and (5) possibly result in regulations and/or legislation that prohibit cryonics. Alcor had a close call a few years ago when accused by an ambitious and incompetent coroner of doing a pre-mortem suspension. Except for these problems, though, pre-mortem suspension should have several advantages. The obvious advantage is less decay from aging / disease before suspension. A less obvious, but perhaps more important, advantage is that the suspension can be scheduled. Currently, suspensions are almost always emergency procedures in which the suspension team attempts to rush to a dying patient as quickly as possible. Logistics problems are enormous and the suspension teams often cannot reach the patient promptly after legal death, resulting in significant ischemic time before suspension, frequently too late for a good perfusion. Of course, it's not always that bad; standby teams often are ready the moment the patient goes down, but there is a large risk that circumstances are not so kind. Kevin Q. Brown kevin.q.brown@att.com kqb@whscad1.att.com ** If the suspension team and patient care (i.e. storage) organizations are different organizations, legal problems encountered by the suspension team are less likely to destroy the patient care organization(s). ------------------------------ From: pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 19:19:56 -0500 Subject: [#94-8-86] Clobbered my mail. Anyone have archives? >Apologies for the bandwidth, but I just destroyed 2 weeks >worth of cypherpunks, extropians, and general semantics mail. Wow. What sort of hard drive do you have that can store that much stuff to begin with? I didn't know they were made that large to begin with. Hanno Archivist ------------------------------ From: dcosenza@netcom.com Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 18:40:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [#94-8-87] Cryonic suspension/revival kqb@whscad1.att.com: > ** If the suspension team and patient care (i.e. storage) organizations > are different organizations, legal problems encountered by the > suspension team are less likely to destroy the patient care > organization(s). How do you figure that Kevin? Seems to me that worst case the storage organiztion would be charged with complicity and best case neglegence, but the patients would probably still perish. Would any criminal lawyers possibly on list care to comment? Ever forward, David -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Cosenza dcosenza@netcom.com PGP 2.3a Public Key available by finger _or_ ftp.netcom.com:/pub/dcosenza PGP 2.3a Key fingerprint = BF 6C AA 44 C6 CA 13 3F 4A EC 0A 90 AE F3 74 6D "When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption." ------------------------------ From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 94 22:22:03 EDT Subject: [#94-8-88] FAQ: version 0.05, request for comments Harvey Newstrom makes a point about Peter McCluskey's FAQ entry on agoric computing (quoting Peter): > - "Like socialism, this worked OK for small systems (the size of a family), > but should not be tolerated on the scale of the Soviet Union." > > Do we really need to reference "socialism" when discussing computing? Also, > this should be reworded to criticize the system as a failure rather than > simply stating that it "should not be tolerated." It actually makes sense but Peter's writing missed a step. What he was saying was, most current software is based on simple designs... And the sentence quoted above should seque into the analogy to socialism something like this: These top-down-designed software systems resemble centrally planned economies, and like central economic planning, they work on a small scale, but begin to break down on a larger scale... -fnerd quote me - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - nutritional information per serving: less than one (1) bit -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvt3niQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2tPEot1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hSnC1R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ From: Safier Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 20:30:39 -0600 (MDT) Subject: [#94-8-89] Clobbered my mail. Anyone have archives? On Fri, 5 Aug 1994, Phil G. Fraering wrote: > >Apologies for the bandwidth, but I just destroyed 2 weeks > >worth of cypherpunks, extropians, and general semantics mail. Where can i find general semantic mail and do they allow people who use the dreaded verb "to be?" Thanx for the FAQ. Yesterday i couldn't spell extropian, and today i are one! RSVP. ***************************************************** Phil o Safier Reckless Photic Driver M I N D G E A R N E U R O T E C H P R O J E C T P O R T S O F T O T A L R E C A L L ( 5 0 5 ) 2 9 3 - 4 6 4 8 A C T U A T E B L I S S "Nobody ever went broke underestimating Americans." ***************************************************** ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V94 #217 *********************************