Re: Wertheim on extropians

Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Mon, 20 Sep 1999 12:18:06 +0000

At 10:17 PM 16/09/99 -0500, Eliezer wrote in response to my comment:

>> an `ineffable something' with no basis beyond crude animism.

>semi-famed) Singularitarian Eliezer S. Yudkowsky thinks that we have
>weird, mysterious, ineffable stuff going on in our neurons, and that a
>form of uploading that neglected this would be around as hard to miss as
>a whack upside the head with a ton of concrete. [...] The problem with
these people
>is that they don't actually believe in their own theories.

I guess I must be the relevant instance of `these people'. If so, I deny the assertion. It might be argued that I'm weirdly ignoring my own *experience* (of ineffable qualia, etc), but my working theory of mind doesn't need anything ineffable, as far as I can tell.

`Ineffable' varies with standpoint, of course. Draw two lines diverging from a single point. Run another line across them. Suddenly an ineffable boundedness has come into existence inside the resulting triangle. Oh no! Where did it come from? Why does it go when I erase one of the lines? Effed if I know.

Damien Broderick