From extropians-request@extropy.org Thu Nov 17 03:03:07 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 DAA11550 for ; Thu, 17 Nov 1994 03:03:05 -0800 Received: from news.panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA09182; Thu, 17 Nov 94 03:03:02 PST Received: (from exi@localhost) by news.panix.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) id GAA05758; Thu, 17 Nov 1994 06:02:55 -0500 Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 06:02:55 -0500 Message-Id: <199411171102.GAA05758@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest #94-11-240 - #94-11-244 X-Extropian-Date: November 17, 374 P.N.O. [06:01:21 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org X-Mailer: MailWeir 1.0 Status: RO Extropians Digest Thu, 17 Nov 94 Volume 94 : Issue 320 Today's Topics: Bush robot, Environment [1 msgs] Bush robot, Environment (Re: HUMOR: tarot) [1 msgs] Environment [1 msgs] ENVIRONMENT: Nature's real plan [1 msgs] Wavelets [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: 30134 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: robj@netcom.com (Rob Jellinghaus) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 13:02:20 -0800 Subject: [#94-11-240] Environment >Why do you think environmentalists are power grabbers? I would tend to agree, in general, that many are. I am a member of the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund, two groups that are not primarily govt-oriented. I am also a member of some not-so-extropianly-correct groups, alas. Oh, well. >the average environmentalist >is not seeking power in general -- certainly no more than any of us are >to advance our viewpoints. Unfortuately, this statement doesn't say much. The same was true of Hitler, in a sense. I don't think environmentalists are anything like Hitler, but your statement's no defense of the extent to which they _do_ seek to coerce others. >1. Natural ecosystems and other natural life forms (e.g., not cows) >are good things worth preserving, even if there is no material benefit >and significant material loss to us from doing so. As others've said, "us" is undefined here. I donate hundreds of dollars a year to environmental groups (actually, thousands, soon). Clearly preservation is worth a lot to me, mainly because I am disgusted with our inability to live without poisoning the world around our major population centers, anf I want to try to minimize the unnecessary-in-principle damage we're doing. >2. Natural ecosystems are being disrupted, species eradicated, and >the environment polluted at rates beyond optimal. Yes. The optimal state of a living process is one of balance--in which the system recycles its outputs, producing no needless waste of materials or energy. This is as true for industrial systems as for living systems. Substantial economic benefits accrue from discovering how to reuse _all_ byproducts of your factory in the factory's process itself. And, of course, the ecosystem (by dint of billions of years of relatively dumb evolution) has managed to do quite well at creating a (materially if not energetically) closed system. We humans are very bad at emulating it. See chapter 10 of Kevin Kelly's book _Out of Control_ for more on this. >3. There is a danger that if we do not reduce such disruption, >eradication, and pollution soon, it will be "too late" (feel free >to give your own interpretation of "too late").> Too many unquantified terms. From the standpoint of millions of years worth of genetic information that's already irretrievably gone, it's far too late already. Do I think the Earth is in danger of eco- collapse anytime in the next century? Only if we continued expanding our population without improving our technology or our impact on the planet one whit. And that doesn't seem likely to me. Nonetheless, every needlessly ruined bit of nature ("needless" in the sense of "could have been saved with a more advanced use of technology or with a better-informed allocation of resources") irks the hell out of me. >4. The Earth will soon have too many humans. >5. The Earth has too many humans already. Much the same position, in a way. As above, I think that we can survive with as many as we have now, but I also think that better access to family planning information and resources would let more people make better-informed decisions about how many kids to have-- and would help them act on those decisions. I have no right to tell others they shouldn't have kids... but I do try to educate people about what is involved in raising a healthy and stable child, and in encouraging them not to have kids if they can't care for them. Clearly government misincentives play into this, but they are only part of the problem. >6. Population should increase until the Earth contains as many humans >as it can support. A rather meaningless question, given the unconstrained terms. >7. Everyone should be content to live in a city. Country living is a >luxury which takes too many resources per individual. I don't think it does, first off (lots of novel solar-powered fully- recycling country homes these days--there go those closed systems again!), and second, I sure hope cities get better at reusing their waste. >8. The Earth is ours, and we have no obligations to other species. Personally, I don't feel obligated to care for other species. I don't like obligations. I do, however, like _choosing_ to care for other species, and I do feel ashamed of the havoc we've wreaked. >9. Intellect is the greatest virtue, and creatures with greater intellect >should eventually replace all creatures of lesser intellect. I think this statement is hogwash. Evolutionarily speaking, a diverse and healthy ecosystem consists of creatures at all levels of intellect and of complexity. Over time, the whole ecosystem evolves to become more complex, almost inevitably. The extent to which we destroy the diversity of our ecosystem needlessly is a measure of the inadequate evolution of technological humans. However, over time, I do think that the onus of evolution has shifted from the organic to the memetic arenas; in this sense, intellect has become preeminent. I anticipate the merging of the organic and memetic evolutionary processes sometime in the next two centuries. Other thoughts: Yes, someone else has read _Out of Control_ on this list. It ranks with _Engines of Creation_ and _Flow: A Psychology of Optimal Experience_ as one of the most extropian, and most exciting, books I have ever read. Plenty of people see, unwilling to spring for the hardback: I can only say, you are missing out on a really delightful experience by doing so. Buy the damn book, now. I also find a lot of the talk here to be focused more on anti-government vitriol than is worthwhile for me. It's fun to get riled up at the tax man. But to the extent that Extropians (and more genreally, libertarians) want to tear down the government NOW without simultaneously constructing voluntary institutions which could perform the functions (education, etc) that most people associate positively with government, they alienate people who think that continuing those functions is more important than a fundamentalist moral outrage at coercive taxation. Yes, I know that Extropians support private schooling, charitable donations, etc. My point is that that support will need to be channeled into a cohesive framework of private institutions ready to come online simultaneously with the proposed eradication of government, before people will realistically perceive that things won't fall apart with no public sector. I think a good many libertarians would rather get the tax man out of their lives NOW, and let the rest sort itself out later. And that's why they are, and will remain, a fringe party. Another area in which Extropians are too dogmatic for my taste is in cryonics. It is continually implied that anyone who isn't signed up for cryonics is "deathist" and un-extropian. I am not signed up, and don't plan t. Why? Because what is most important to me is the survival of life on this planet, until we reach an evolutionary point where we are no longer bound to our current restrictions of technology, mental capacity, and physical form. And if I die, I doubt I will be revived until long after this crucial upcoming point, the hastening of which is pretty much my biggest reason for living. My _personal_ life is as insignificant within the universal system as is, say, the last surviving insect of a particular species in the Amazon. In both cases, we have some unique and irretrievable packet of life-embodied information. Which is more valuable? I see no absolute external criteria for saying that I am. More specifically: the Extropian insistence on personal survival as an essential Extropian value is a matter of _faith_ (that is, non-rationally justified personal belief) that human lives are intrinsically and ontologically more valuable than other lives. It is also a matter of (gasp!) _emotion_--the fear of dealing with the loss of a friend. Do I believe that preserving each and every human life is absolutely vital to the progress of extropy in the universe? No, no more than I believe that preserving each and every other living thing is vital to extropy's progress. What matters is the overall ecosystem--the overall noosphere--rather than any individual part of it. And to that extent, I think cryonics is fundamentally a distraction, not at all intrinsically crucial to Extropian ideals. My desire to preserve nature is at bottom an _aesthetic_ desire--waste irks me. But it is _not_ an _ontological_ desire--I don't want to keep everything in the fershinlugger universe from dying! I am not saying individual death is _necessary_--I am just saying it is not _relevant_. That said, I do admit that cryonics is in keeping with the Extropian tenets of self-improvement. I just don't think self-improvement is necessarily as important as universal extropy increase. Whew. Geez, am I setting myself up as "extropianlier-than-thou"? Anyone want to respond, I wonder? Rob robj@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: "Peter C. McCluskey" Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 08:14:37 -0800 Subject: [#94-11-241] Bush robot, Environment (Re: HUMOR: tarot) goetz@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Phil Goetz) writes in X-Message-Number: #94-11-205: >Is it a matter for localized decision-making? If you carelessly let >everyone do their own thing, bad things can happen. In this case, >if there are no disincentives to population growth or urban sprawl, >everyone will eventually be forced to live in cities unless they can >afford outrageous prices for land. > >I'm not really talking about government vs. anarchy, but about the values >of individuals. If most people agree that city life is good enough, >the minority that disagrees will be screwed, whether by central >decision or by local action. Those who head outward to less populated parts of the universe (or cyberspace) won't be screwed in the forseeable future. I expect that attempts to plan what kind of environment people will live in will be pointless, since within a century almost everyone will prefer virtual realities to natural environments, and in the long run the environment will be completely rebuilt to suit the needs of our "mind children". I don't see any environmental trends that are likely to cause global disasters. -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Peter McCluskey | pcm@rahul.net | vivivi - the editor finger for PGP key | pcm@world.std.com | of the beast! ------------------------------ From: "paul whitmore wit@psych.stanford.edu" Date: Wed, 16 Nov 94 22:19:08 PST Subject: [#94-11-242] Bush robot, Environment without being apocalyptic, it seems evident to me that market structures currently give a false evaluation of the amount of knowledge that has been compiled over evolutionary time scales into biodiversity. there is every reason, extropically, to want to change the way govts and corporations treat the biological heritage we haven't begun to exploit. it is a distortion of current markets, combined with the corrupt and narrowly interventionist vision of centralizing forces like the world bank, that make it distressing to see the waste of information coded into ecologies in the third world. even after nanotechnology becomes a manipulable tool, the size of the search space of possibilities is too vast to throw away all the accumulated decisions invested in current biota. what's inconsistent with saying that govts disvalue life, and that corporations can not capture this resource until capital tax laws make it possible for market mechanisms to harvest it? ------------------------------ From: agraps@netcom.com (Amara Graps) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 01:34:26 -0800 Subject: [#94-11-243] Wavelets Extropes: I'm preparing a paper for a talk in January (Scientific and Engineering Applications on the Macintosh), and I'm wondering if the topic might be interesting enough to extropians for me to try to get a version of the paper published in Extropy. The title of the paper is "Introduction to Wavelets." I'm having a lot of fun with this topic. I was introduced to the field by a NASA-Ames colleague about 6 months ago, and now I'm working on a short wavelets research project. In reading background papers on wavelet applications, I've discovered some very interesting uses of wavelets. One is for data compression of FBI digitized fingerprint images. I am amazed at how much information is easily available on the specifics of the algorithms/basis function used in their compression. I was sure the information would be classified, but I'm easily finding articles in mainstream journals about their scheme. (I was also curious at how much taxpayer-slave dollars are spent in storing the fingerprints. Does 30 million set of fingerprints seem right to you? It seems a little low to me.) The following is a couple of sections (just a tiny subset) from my paper to give you a flavor of wavelets. I hope it's not too "dry"...I've left the equations out, but there's some pretty sophisticated math represented here. Amara ------------------------cut here------------------------------ Introduction to Wavelets by Amara Graps Amara Graps Bay Area Environmental Research Institute/Intergalactic Reality 22724 Majestic Oak Way Cupertino, CA 95014 408-255-6251 agraps@netcom.com Copyright Amara Graps 1994, 1995. All rights reserved. This paper may be reproduced, unaltered, in its entirety, for non-commercial, non-profit use only. Abstract Wavelets are mathematical functions that cut up data into different frequency components, and then study each component with a resolution matched to its scale. They have advantages over traditional Fourier methods in analyzing physical situations where the signal contains discontinuities and sharp spikes. Wavelets were developed independently in the fields of mathematics, quantum physics, electrical engineering, and seismic geology. Interchanges between these fields during the last 10 years have led to many new wavelet applications such as image compression, turbulence, human vision, radar, and earthquake prediction. This paper introduces wavelets to the interested technical person outside of the digital signal processing field. I describe the history of wavelets beginning with Fourier, compare wavelet transforms with Fourier transforms, state properties and other special aspects of wavelets, run through a simple wavelet example, and finish with some interesting applications such as image compression, solving partial differential equations, musical tones and tone- bursts, and de-noising noisy data. Overview of Wavelets The fundamental idea behind wavelets is to analyze according to scale. Indeed, some researchers in the wavelet field feel that, by using wavelets, one is adopting a whole new mindset or perspective in processing data. Wavelets are functions that satisfy certain mathematical requirements and are used in representing data or other functions. This idea is not new. Approximation using superposition of functions has existed since the early 1800's, when Joseph Fourier discovered that he could superpose sines and cosines to represent other functions. However, in wavelet analysis, the scale that one uses in looking at data plays a special role. Wavelet algorithms process data at different scales or resolutions. If one looks at a signal with a large "window," one would notice gross features. Similarly, if one looks at a signal with a small "window," one would notice small discontinuities. The result in wavelet analysis is to "see the forest _and_ the trees." Can you see why these features make wavelets interesting and useful? For many decades scientists have been unhappy with using the sines and cosines, which comprise the bases of Fourier analysis, to approximate choppy signals (1). By their definition, these functions are non-local (and stretch out to infinity), and therefore do a very poor job in approximating sharp spikes. But with wavelet analysis we can use approximating functions that are contained neatly in finite domains. Wavelets are therefore well-suited for approximating data with sharp discontinuities. The wavelet analysis procedure is to adopt a wavelet prototype function, which may be thought of as a bandpass filter (2). Temporal analysis is performed with a contracted, high-frequency version of the prototype wavelet, while frequency analysis is performed with a dilated, low-frequency version of the prototype wavelet. Because the original signal or function can be represented in terms of a wavelet expansion (using coefficients in a linear combination of the wavelet functions), data operations can be performed using just the corresponding wavelet coefficients. This "sparse coding" makes wavelets an excellent tool in the field of data compression. Other applied fields that are making use of wavelets: acoustics, nuclear engineering, sub-band coding, signal and image processing, neurophysiology, music, magnetic resonance imaging, speech discrimination, optics, fractals, turbulence, earthquake-prediction, radar, human vision, and pure mathematics applications such as solving partial differential equations. Wavelet Applications FBI Fingerprint Compression Between 1924 and today, the FBI has collected about 30 million sets of fingerprints (5). The archive consists mainly of inked impressions on paper cards. Facsimile scans of the impressions are distributed between the law enforcement agencies, but the digitization quality is often low. Because a number of jurisdictions are experimenting with digital storage of the prints, incompatiblities between data formats have recently become a problem. This problem led to a demand in the criminal justice community for a digitization and a compression standard. In 1993, the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division developed standards for fingerprint digitization and compression in cooperation with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and some commercial vendor and criminal justice communities. To put the data storage problem in perspective for storing the digital fingerprints, think about the following. The fingerprint images are digitized at a resolution of 500 pixels/inch with 256 levels (8 bits) of gray-scale information. A single fingerprint encompasses about 700,000 pixels and about 0.6 megabytes to store. A pair of hands, then, requires about 6 megabytes of storage. So digitizing the FBI's current archive would result in about 200 terabytes of data. (Notice also that at today's prices of about $1000/gigabyte for hard disk storage, the cost of storing these uncompressed images would be about a 200 million dollars.) Obviously, data compression is important in bringing these numbers down. The data compression standard, denoted "WSQ" (Wavelet/Scalar Quantization) implements a hand-tuned custom wavelet basis developed after extensive testing on a collection of fingerprints. The best compression ratio achieved with these wavelets is 26:1, as the two figures (original and expanded after storing 1/26th of the digital information) below illustrate. References (1) Crandall, Richard, 1994. Projects in Scientific Computation. NY, NY: Springer-Verlag, pp 197-198. (2) Vetterli, Martin, 1992. "Wavelets and Filter Banks: Theory and Design," IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 40, pp 2207-2232. (5) Bradley, Jonathan, Brislawn, Christopher, and Hopper, Tom, 1993. "The FBI Wavelet/ScalarQuantization Standard for gray-scale fingerprint image compression," SPIE Proceedings, vol. 1961. -------------------------------------------------------------- ********************************************************************** Amara Graps email: agraps@netcom.com Computational Physicist vita: finger graps@clio.arc.nasa.gov Intergalactic Reality bio: finger -lm agraps@netcom.com ********************************************************************** "If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water." --A Bulgarian proverb ------------------------------ From: sullivan@blaze.cs.jhu.edu (Gregory Sullivan) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 94 05:26:22 EST Subject: [#94-11-244] ENVIRONMENT: Nature's real plan I sympathize with some of the ideas expressed by Rob Jellinghaus (robj@netcom.com) in his message; however, I also perceive a somewhat inaccurate and overly sentimental view of ``life'', ``ecology'' and ``nature''. Indeed, the incessant naive romanticizing of ``nature'' that pervades our current culture irks me. First, humans are part of nature. We evolved and we survive naturally. Our supposed ``destructiveness'', ``rapaciousness'', and ``unbalancedness'' are completely natural. Distinctions which attempt to label human actions as non-natural are ultimately incoherent. Second, there is an overwhelming reason to distrust the valorization of human-free ``nature''. Consider the wonderful developments ``nature'' really has in store for the planet Earth. Begin quote from Physics of Immortality by Frank Tipler The Sun is becoming more luminous every day, and in about 7 billion years its outer atmosphere will have expanded to engulf the Earth. Owing to atmospheric friction, the Earth will then spiral into the Sun, and the Earth will vaporize. If life has not succeeded in moving off the planet before this occurs, life also will be doomed. But the physical destruction of the entire Earth is not the only danger the biosphere faces. As the luminosity of the Sun increases, the surface of the Earth heats up, making it too hot for life and, in addition, silicate rocks weather more readily, causing atmospheric carbon dioxide to fall below the critical level for photosynthesis. One of these two effects will wipe out the entire biosphere between 900 million years and 1.5 billion years from now. End quote from Physics of Immortality by Frank Tipler Beautiful and beneficent ``nature'' intends to fry (or perhaps starve) everyone and everything on planet Earth. Ancient redwood trees, spotted owls, paramecium, and even cute fluffy bunnies are all going to die (if they are present on Earth at this far future date). The beautiful, intricate, delicate ecosystems carefully refined over the millennium will be toasted into nullity. The illusory Gaia is unlikely to respond to this affront. It is not necessary to wait 900 million years before experiencing other joyous ``natural'' events. Without human intervention we can expect multiple massive meteor strikes each potentially causing an enormous species die-off. What does this say about ``nature''? It says to me that we are bathetically projecting our own value systems on to processes that must be examined without blinkered sentimentality. I am not arguing that we should callously sacrifice the current biosphere on the altar of arrogance. But we should be aware that ``nature'' will unthinkingly sacrifice the biosphere on the altar of celestial mechanics. Some environmentalists appear to want us all to become idealized low technology peasants or subsistence farmers living ``in blissful harmony with the ecosystem''. (I am not suggesting Jellinghaus has this viewpoint.) But if we do not develop space technology we are doomed. I do wish us to preserve Earth ecosystems for historical/scientific knowledge, for aesthetic reasons and for fun. Now that we are close to a transition toward incredible powers over matter it seems foolish in my opinion to blithely obliterate organisms and ecosystems. I think that Simon is correct that many aspects of environmental ``degradation'' are overhyped or wrongheaded. On the other hand, some species clearly have been destroyed by human actions. Yet, governmental power is a blunt tool which in the past has often destroyed parts of the environment not saved it. An alternate tool that can be used for the preservation of the environment is the recognition and reification of property rights within the environment. In the long term we will have powerful but not unlimited capabilities to resurrect species (Drexler discusses this in one of his updates) and create new ones. Indeed, if we wish and if we do not annihilate ourselves we will be able to construct many worlds with more intricate ecologies than Earth currently has. Lastly, I often hear that ecologies are exquisitely balanced with ``optimal'' energy utilization etc. This static viewpoint should cause one to question why we all are not still trilobites. It appears ecologies maintain a dynamic, mutating ever changing balance or more accurately real ecologies are imbalanced. Gregory Sullivan ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V94 #320 *********************************