From extropians-request@extropy.org Fri Oct 21 21:02:24 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 VAA26322 for ; Fri, 21 Oct 1994 21:02:22 -0700 Received: from news.panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA00593; Fri, 21 Oct 94 21:02:18 PDT Received: (from exi@localhost) by news.panix.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) id AAA13671; Sat, 22 Oct 1994 00:02:10 -0400 Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 00:02:10 -0400 Message-Id: <199410220402.AAA13671@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest #94-10-410 - #94-10-418 X-Extropian-Date: October 22, 374 P.N.O. [00:01:36 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org X-Mailer: MailWeir 1.0 Status: RO Extropians Digest Sat, 22 Oct 94 Volume 94 : Issue 294 Today's Topics: _Total Recall_ [1 msgs] BABY: REproduction [3 msgs] INFO: Omega - New local mailing list in Sweden [1 msgs] Marketing AI [1 msgs] Tolerance and nonsense. [2 msgs] URL: CSICOP/_Skeptical Inquirer_ [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: 26230 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: cactus@bibliob.slip.netcom.com (L. Todd Masco) Date: 21 Oct 1994 17:50:40 -0400 Subject: [#94-10-410] URL: CSICOP/_Skeptical Inquirer_ In article , Craig Presson wrote: >A part of the virus coat is "least effort". Critical thinking is very >hard work, and requires that you care about tradition and precision; >letting anything pass for art, scholarship, politics, etc. is easy >by comparison, you just react to the whim of the moment. Certainly true, but I think there's another important effect of the "least effort" influence, masquerading as critical thinking, manifesting itself here. It's very easy to dismiss a cultural meme on the basis of its rhetoric without looking at the role it fills. Deciding that a cultural phenomenon is merely a bunch of sheep flocking to a silly idea out of superstition is much easier than looking at the needs that a meme fills and the reasons that it propogates in the face of less silly memes: I suppose, in short, that what I'm saying is that cultural anthropology perspectives are relevent in looking at our own culture. Quite aside from my willingness to keep an open mind on any subject, I think we're losing an important topic of debate when militant rationalists spend their time ridiculing a meme's adherents rather than seriously trying to address why they hold that meme. Dismissing these memes as nonsense has the effect of avoiding conversation about the conditions which encourage the particular memes to arise. It seems clear to me that nonsense memes arise to fill niches that are left unfilled by less-silly memes. Discourse on what needs provide those niches is, I think, an interesting topic both in the abstract and in a utilitatian sense: "how can we fill these niches with less silly memes?" For example: the "Psychic Friends Network" (or whatever it is) is, on the face of it, quite silly. They claim to be "clairaudios," who can made predictions purely on the basis of voice. Sure, this is with very high probability pure nonsense. But I don't think it's enough to just say that it's nonsense and walk away. Certainly, people seem to be getting something out of calling these psychics, since people continue to call. I don't believe the US Government when they tell me what they do is the result of democratic principles, so why should I believe that the Psychic Friends Network when they says what they do is based upon psychic powers, sspecially when "psychic" is such an ill-defined word? People seem to have a need to discuss their lives with someone else from time to time, often someone who's totally removed from their current stuations and who can provide useful advice or just a receptive ear. In our culture, due to legal concerns and other aspects of a highly- regulated culture, a rigidly defined class of people have arisen to fill this need: Psychologists and psychotherapists. However, this class of people is often perceived as threatening and seeing one professionally is seen as an undesirable admission of weakness as well as expensive and time-consuming. My theory is that what customers are getting is, in effect, cheap and convenient psychotherapy. As the son of a biological psychiatrist, I'm not one who has a high confidence in psychotherapy, but I do realize that it often makes the patient feel better and that this is sometimes enough. So, my theory goes, the Psychic Friends Network isn't really a response of human relativist sheep to readily provided answers, but is just a cheap and convenient psychotherapy service that clothes itself in the word "psychic" to avoid legal hassles. I'm not even certain that the people running it are aware that they're doing the same sort of thing that psychoanalists do, but that's not important to the success of their service. So, whether or not the specifics of my theory are correct, I think that the nonsense meme of "clairaudient psychic abilitues" (as they call it, as I would call it "noticing verbal emotional cues") arises because of a need that is not adequately addresses by rationalist memes. As long as the that need - that niche - is not filled by more rational memes, irrational ones will arise to fill that niche. The specifics of the irrational memes are irrelevent, so attacking them directly is counter- productive at best and excessively cruel at worst. "How do we address this need?" I don't know. And maybe I'm just being over utilitarian, but I certainly think that it's more productive to ask how to address this need than it is to say "these people are behaving like idiots because of relativism." -- L. Todd Masco | "I will not harm the property being repossesed and the items cactus@bb.com | therein or through inaction allow such property to be harmed." ------------------------------ From: hanson@hss.caltech.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 16:07:36 -0700 Subject: [#94-10-411] Tolerance and nonsense. Marvin Minsky writes: >>By learning to think for themselves, of course, the first step in that >>direction being to copy other people who are known to do it well. > >Wow, in my opinion that's absolutely the most important thing. Even in my >adult life, I've found that I deliberately do this. In college I attached >myself to a great young mathematician, Andrew Gleason, and a great young >psychologist, George Miller. In graduate school I was attached to my >fellow students John McCarthy and John Nash (who just won a Nobel Prize). >... The trick is to hang around with your idols, try to anticipate how >they'll solve each problem, or how they'll explain it. After working at >this long enough, you acquire a passable downloaded copy. Alas, this strategy isn't open to most of us. We must learn to think for ourselves mostly by ourselves. Robin Hanson ------------------------------ From: hanson@hss.caltech.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 16:14:16 -0700 Subject: [#94-10-412] Marketing AI Fred Hapgood writes: >Well, exactly. And look how hard slave-owning societies work to >make sure their slaves stick exactly to the defined routines. >*Nothing* is scarier to a slave-owning society than an >autonomous, self-modifying slave. Slave-owning societies are >famously hostile to technological change (at the time of the CW >the South had exactly *one* railroad line) for just this reason: >any change at all might compromise the severity and >relentlessness of their control. Er, this doesn't fit at all with the papers on the economics of U.S. slavery I've been reading for my graduate Economic History course in the last few weeks. Slavery may be bad, but clever slaves were a prized asset, and slave owners weren't afraid of technology. Robin Hanson ------------------------------ From: machado@newton.apple.com (Romana Machado) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 16:26:40 -0800 Subject: [#94-10-413] BABY: REproduction Nanci Clark contributes: >The desire or the choice to reproduce and to birth can and does affect >both men and women in diverse areas of life. We reproduce ourselves >constantly by stating our convictions or our impressions . Each and >every time we communicate, we are sending out signals of ourselves - >dupes. The creative process has often been compared to giving birth - >and as thematically depicted by the abstract expressionists - both the >ecstasy and the pain. Each time I create I feel that I am in perpetual >reproduction. After the sudden rush of conceptualization passes and the >frustration of hard work and labor set in, I am tired albeit fulfilled. Yes. This is memetic reproduction, which is what I meant by "seducing the young." Once communicated, your ideas may go forth, cause themselves to be repeated, and change the world. >Having children is both selfish and delightful. Children bring >tremendous joy and fulfillment not only to their biological parents, but >also to the collective parent - the extended family. > Yes. Most people claim to have some experience of the agony and ecstasy of the process and nature of family life. Genetic reproduction for the sake of the collective's joy may appeal to others, but for me, personal fulfillment lies elsewhere. Fortunately, I have been born into a society where child-rearing is no longer compulsory, and a woman's free choice is not considered a dangerous threat to social order, as it was not long ago. (Unless, of course, we consider abortion.) Margaret Sanger, for instance, was relentlessly persecuted, and jailed nine times, for working to give access to birth control tools and information to all women. > Some individuals have an innate, an inherent need or even curiosity to experience learning and relearning "through the eye of the child. Some >of us hold onto the ego of adulthood and have no interest. Yes, this self-sacrifical and expensive experience does not appeal to me right now, though conditions may change with time, as you point out later. Also, it's not difficult to learn and relearn with a child without actually birthing the child. A few of my friends already have young children, and welcome long visits, and help caring for them; believe me, this gives ample opportunity for observation and learning. Some, lack >patience to deal with the constant interruptions of a child. Some lack the will, or the interest. Some have their resources invested elsewhere. > Some of us >are naturally maternal/paternal and love to fondle and cuddle - easiest >expressed through and given to a child. > Most lovers and pets like to be cuddled; for me, it's just as easy. >While the physical pregnancy, I believe, needs to be updated to a more >current technology such as ectogenesis (I think this is the correct term) >or outside the womb, it will probably be safer for women and will >alleviate the nine months of discomfort and hours of frustration and labor. > I agree. We can be sure a mother's body will change, though the specifics differ. Besides the discomfort, inconvenience, and managable pain, there's still a non-negliglible chance of death and other complications; thanks to medical science, this has been significantly decreased from what would otherwise be "natural". As soon as we can figure out how to give birth outside the body, I am sure it will be a great boon, and in great demand (though "natural childbirth" will have its adherents, also). I believe it is reasonable to expect this advance within the next fifty or sixty years. >When we begin to "share pregnancy" by way of fascinating innovations such >as mosaic birth, transgenesis, or hybrid birth, we can become more >creative in reproducing physically. Why not put our best features >forward? Why not reproduce the most stimulating, attractive and creative >aspects of ourselves? > Yes, once the genetic lottery is over, and we can design children, it's a whole different game. A child becomes more like an art project; an expression of the parent's aesthetic. Your scenario is far more appealing. Now, I have little choice over who I produce. Heinleinian "line marriages" are a rational response to the current situation, because a child is always a result of a "line marriage", not a marriage of individual persons. Currently, I would be gambling with both the expressed and unexpressed genes of not just me and my partner, but also me and my partner's family line. If my objective aesthetics disapprove of my mother's looks or my father's intelligence, for instance, and I consider myself lucky to have escaped them both, I can't confer this good fortune on my child, however much I would prefer it. Even with genetic programming, I would still be giving birth to an independent being, one that, I would hope, would think for herself, and therefore would not necessarily be an ally. >Anyway, its a very personal and individual choice, whatever the reason. Exactly, it's a choice that should satisfy one's own desires, not those of a "collective." ............................................................................ Romana Machado romana@apple.com http://www.mps.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/hpp?romanaHQ.html ............................................................................ The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong - but that _is_ the way to bet. - Damon Runyon ------------------------------ From: ahg@lgs.win.net (Andre Gauthier) Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 00:34:52 Subject: [#94-10-414] INFO: Omega - New local mailing list in Sweden >Omega is a new mailing list, intended as a forum for persons >interested in Transhumanism and currently located in Sweden. > >Send mail to: >omega-admin@hu.se - subscription and info requests >omega@hu.se - artices, information, essays, etc. > >More information about Omega and a short transhumanistic >glossary (all in Swedish) can be found at: >http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv89-nun/omega.html > Please explain to me what is Transhumanism. Thanks, Andre ------------------------------ From: fcp@nuance.com (Craig Presson) Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 07:56:17 -0500 Subject: [#94-10-415] Tolerance and nonsense. At 11:45 AM 10/21/94 -0400, minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) wrote: > fcp@nuance.com (Craig Presson) CPresson@aol.com write: [...] >By learning to think for themselves, of course, the first step in that >>direction being to copy other people who are known to do it well. > [...] > The trick is to hang around with your idols, try to anticipate how >they'll solve each problem, or how they'll explain it. After working at >this long enough, you acquire a passable downloaded copy. > >Sometimes I can even get my downloaded ghosts of McCulloch or Feynman to >explain things to me. My Feynman model is quite good at suggesting ways to >think about some things, but it doesn't seem to know enough about quantum >chromodynamics to explain that to me. I can't imagine what's wrong with >it. I am just now finishing _Genius: The life and science of R. Feynman_, which had a great quote about one of Feynman's failures. He had signed up to give a freshman-level lecture on the QM derivation of permissible electron spins (I may have misremembered this slightly), and he had to give up, he couldn't find a way to explain it on a _really_ freshman level. His assessment? "That means we don't really understand it yet." So, maybe no one understands QCD well enough to explain it to computer science professors :-) I did the same thing, although not as consciously. I use my downloaded copy of Lettvin for a BS detector frequently; of course the temptation to run it in "direct" mode as a BS generator is strong also :-) \\ fcp@nuance.com (Craig Presson) CPresson@aol.com\ -- WWW: http://www.nuance.com/~fcp/ -----------------\ -- President & Principal, T4 Computer Security ------> -- P.O. Box 18271, Huntsville, AL 35804 -------------/ // (205) 880-7692 Voice, -7691 FAX -----------------/ ------------------------------ From: "John M. Bozeman" Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 20:59:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [#94-10-416] BABY: REproduction >> >When we begin to "share pregnancy" by way of fascinating innovations such >> >as mosaic birth, transgenesis, or hybrid birth, we can become more >> >creative in reproducing physically. Why not put our best features >> >forward? Why not reproduce the most stimulating, attractive and creative >> >aspects of ourselves? >> > >> Yes, once the genetic lottery is over, and we can design children, it's a >> whole different game. A child becomes more like an art project; an >> expression of the parent's aesthetic. Your scenario is far more appealing. >> >> Even with genetic programming, I would still be giving birth to an >> independent being, one that, I would hope, would think for herself, and >> therefore would not necessarily be an ally. >> Isn't there a bit of a conflict between the notion of "designer kids" and the desire for an "independant being"? The reason that I mention this is that I like to read about "new religions" (ie, sects and cults) and I have been somewhat suprised at the possessiveness of some parents toward their kids--particular "open minded" parents. I would love to see numbers (I don't think that they exist) about the violence of the opposition of parents to their children's choice of a new religion. A lot of people, it seems, want their children to think for themselves...so long as they don't think to the point that they exceed cutural boundaries and, say, question capitalism, or embrace an authoritarian set of beliefs. So wouldn't genetic programming be a way of in reality setting limits on our children, as they become "art projects," rathern than affirming their autonomy? Would I get to label my kid 'defective' if he/she became a fundamentalist Baptist rather than embracing my own 'superior' intellectualist memetic/genetic heritage? Just some wonderings from one who would like to aspire toward parenthood someday, John ------------------------------ From: sw@tiac.net (Steve Witham) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 21:24:13 -0400 Subject: [#94-10-417] _Total Recall_ >Action films seem to have particularly fallen for the need to inject >profundity into our lives. These self-embarassed action films leave me >cold. If you're going to have Arnold running around killing bad guys >just do it, don't "stimulate my intellect" with sophomoric plot >devices. > >Buy Buy -- Dan Davis I assume, maybe wrongly, that plot devices get reused when they make movies popular, which (I assume) is related to concerns in the culture at the time. Or, concerns it's popular or cool to be concerned with. I find it fun to wonder about what trends mean, just like I love to look at a commercial and name the insecurity it's trying to exploit. Also, I like the desparate sense in Total Recall, that you run around being a hero to save the world and find out it's all an illusion anyway, only maybe not, so you'd better adjust your maps again and keep running around being a hero, just in case. It's not so much profundity as horror. Horror movies are always about things being wrong in fundamental, creepy ways. --Steve - - - - - - - - - - There's more to aspire to than shoddily built tract homes and th' internet!! --Griffy in Zippy ------------------------------ From: machado@newton.apple.com (Romana Machado) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 18:45:29 -0800 Subject: [#94-10-418] BABY: REproduction John Bozeman asks: >Isn't there a bit of a conflict between the notion of "designer >kids" and the desire for an "independant being"? > A lot of people, it seems, want >their children to think for themselves...so long as they >don't think to the point that they exceed cutural boundaries >and, say, question capitalism, or embrace an authoritarian set >of beliefs. So wouldn't genetic programming be a way >of in reality setting limits on our children, as they become >"art projects," rathern than affirming their autonomy? Playing the random genetic lottery with children's genes "affirms their autonomy"? Disallowing inferior genes "sets limits" on children? The blind hackscrabble of Nature is superior to the caring, conscious hand of a parent? >Would I get to label my kid 'defective' if he/she became >a fundamentalist Baptist rather than embracing my own >'superior' intellectualist memetic/genetic heritage? Choosing genes for a child means that you may design a child to be strong, bright, handsome, and otherwise to resemble your favorite people; there is no guarantee that your children will choose to support your memes. Genetic and memetic reproduction are very different processes. ............................................................................ Romana Machado romana@apple.com http://www.mps.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/hpp?romanaHQ.html ............................................................................ The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong - but that _is_ the way to bet. - Damon Runyon ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V94 #294 *********************************