From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sun Nov 03 2002 - 13:34:01 MST
On Sun, Nov 03, 2002 at 11:55:57AM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> > > Why? He isn't exactly a moving target. Well, maybe he's moving
> > > but its in a fairly predictable direction.
> >
> > That is just because you don't see the components of my velocity in the
> > other dimensions. :-)
>
> I can't *see* them because they are taking place on sub-light wavelength
> scales, perhaps even sub-Planckian scales. If you want people to see
> you moving, you need to scale your efforts to the resolution of their senses!
> And also -- Brownian motion doesn't count -- it averages out in the long
> run.
Depends on how many dimensions you do it in. The average position might
be zero and you return arbitrarily close to the origin an infinite
number of times, but in higher dimensions the variance spreads out
quickly.
It is a bit like what T.S. Eliot wrote: "We shall not cease from
exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we
started... and know the place for the first time."
> > And everybody will
> > have at least the auto-biography of everybody else - you only make an
> > autobiography to tell people what isn't in the auto-biography.
>
> Boy is that ever going to make interesting reading. Not so long
> ago I was reminded by a friend of one of my own stories that I
> had forgotten. When that starts to happen you know you have lived
> a full life.
I guess unauthorized biographies are what is needed to keep us honest.
And remind us of the stuff we decided to forget ("I did *what* on my
340-years party? Are my radiators red!").
As for the problem of people doing intellectual one-upmanship John
mentioned, I think IA will be the end of it. Anybody can find out
obscure facts instantly, so real style will be finding out *interesting*
facts. And once IA can help with that, people will move to the next
metalevel (stylish facts that fit their personas? Wise facts?). I can
also envision people playing around with the enigmas of Tiberius enigmas
google-style as a parlor game (Emperor Tiberius liked to play
intellectual, so he asked invited scholars abstruse questions about the
classics like "On which hand was Aphrodite wounded?" and "What Song Did
the Sirens Sing?"). Maybe the real challenge is not in answering
questions, but finding interesting and non-trivial questions to ask. A
bit like mathematics.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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