From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Sun Oct 24 1999 - 21:22:49 MDT
Technotranscendence wrote:
> On Sunday, October 24, 1999 8:52 AM Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > "Ultimately, intelligence will be a force to reckon with, even for the Big
> > Celestial forces. The laws of physics are not repealed by intelligence,
> > but they effectively evaporate in its presence."
With all due respect, what on earth does this mean? The statement,
when subjected to a reductio ad absurdum procedure, evaporates in
its presence.
I have, as some of you know, been corresponding with Remi Sussan on
the subject of his analysis of "Extropianism"; part of my motivation is
the desire that Remi express his highly intelligent results in a manner
inoffensive to List members so they give his remarks the attention they
deserve.
I haven't the faintest idea what a "Big Celestial force" is, or in what sense
"intelligence" may be treated as a "force" except with reference to the
paranormal concept of "telekinesis" or what justifies the extrapolation of
civil law to the ordered sequences of events whose patterns are meta-
phorically called "laws". Many universes are possible in theory, but we
know of only one in fact, and we have learned that its spatial dimension
is expanding such that the apparent distances between objects currently
must increase as a function of the magnitude of the space they occupy.
Give me one good reason for believing that intelligence per se can reverse
this trend or abolish a dynamic universe, or for withholding my judgment
that Ray Kurzweil's statement is, if taken literally, delusional.
When a poetic expression tries to conceal itself behind a cosmological
facade to give the appearance of intellectual respectability, Remi's view
of extropianism as a mythopoetic phenomenon becomes interesting.
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
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