From: Jim Fehlinger (fehlinger@home.com)
Date: Thu Mar 15 2001 - 23:15:41 MST
"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
> It's a historical simulation of Transition celebrity Eliezer Yudkowsky, of
> course.
Yes, and when are we going to get to see you being interviewed
by John C. Dvorak or Michaela Pereira on TechTV's "Big Thinkers"? ;->
They've already had Gibson and Sterling and Kurzweil, and Dvorak's even
had Vinge on the Singularity, so you wouldn't have to explain to **him**
what the word means.
> A lot of post-Singularity still-human individuals ran it, more so
> as Eliezer is one of the few (historical) personalities that can be run in
> a totally immersive, non-knowing simulation without violating citizenship
> rights... though it does have a certain effect on your personality...
Now that's an interesting parallel to Olaf Stapledon, whose Last
Men project their minds into the past to give comfort and
enlightenment to earlier races. You're going to be the Power who provides
his ancestral simulation as an avatar to the hesitating fleshers.
> You can watch the 24-hour Buffy channel; you can live in an immersive
> Buffyverse Matrix filled with totally realistic personalities for all
> other sentients; you can adopt a Buffy outlook and personality; you can
> assimilate Buffy's historical memories...
No thanks, but I'll certainly be spending a subjective millennium
or two in Lothlorien.
"'There lie the woods of Lothlorien!' said Legolas. 'That is
the fairest of all the dwellings of my people. There are no trees
like the trees of that land. For in the autumn their leaves fall
not, but turn to gold. Not till the spring comes and the new
green opens do they fall, and then the boughs are laden with yellow
flowers; and the floor of the wood is golden, and golden is the
roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the trees is
smooth and grey. So still our songs in Mirkwood say. My heart
would be glad if I were beneath the eaves of that wood, and it
were springtime!'"
> Eliezer Yudkowsky is one of the few historical personalities who
> might be willing to... exist and hurt and be effectively
> annihilated at the end
Um, speaking of Olaf Stapledon, you **have** read _Odd John_,
haven't you?
"When I told John that I intended to write his biography, he
laughed. 'My dear **man**!' he said, 'But of course, it was
inevitable.' The word 'man' on John's lips was often equivalent
to 'fool.'
'Well', I protested, 'a cat may look at a king.'
He replied, 'Yes, but can it really **see** the king? Can you,
puss, really see me?'
This from a queer child to a full-grown man."
Cheers.
Jim F.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:06:25 MST