--- Quasar Strider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 9/7/07, Tom McCabe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > > > --- Quasar Strider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > If you want to build a spacecraft, you cannot > simply > > put lots and lots of chimpanzee engineers to work > on > > the problem. A single smart guy- eg., Einstein, > > Newton, Hawking- can advance science more than a > > thousand dumb guys, and that's just within the > human > > species. > > > Hah! I take your Einstein and raise you a Max > Planck! > > *A new scientific truth does not triumph by > convincing its opponents and > making them see the light, but rather because its > opponents eventually die, > and a new generation grows up that is familiar with > it.*
An out-of-context quote does not magically overrule three historical examples. And I can easily provide more: Darwin, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Mendeleev, etc. > Until we stop hoarding academic seats and start some > crop rotation, > immortality is a problem, not a bonus. I believe we > should have a mandate > limit, like politicians. Even if you argue that immortality is bad, surely you agree that killing someone instantly with a gun is more humane than letting them rot for years in a hospital, sometimes in extreme pain, knowing they're going to die. Therefore, if you assume immortality is bad, we should still get rid of aging; we just need to round up all the old people and machine-gun them. > > Instead we do the > > > opposite: we decrease the > > > birth rate and increase the gestation time. > > > > And look at how we have prospered, compared to the > > last ten millenia! The past few hundred years are > > strong evidence that a single trained worker can > be > > much more productive than ten untrained workers. > > > Agreed. But who says we cannot have ten trained > workers? Human neural capacity is limited by the size of the birth canal. You can enhance a computer pretty much indefinitely, until you run up against the laws of QM (which we are far from doing). You cannot train a worker indefinitely; the best athletes, poets, etc. today have roughly the same skills as the best of ancient Greece. The mean has increased, not the upper bound. > Who says we cannot > use computers and networks to train people? That is, > if the biosphere can > withstand it. It probably cannot. What on Earth does the biosphere have to do with training people using computers? I'm mostly self-trained with computers, and my negative impact on the biosphere is probably less than most of the people on this list. > I agree that we waste most of our money, but some > > level of investment is necessary in order to > produce > > future returns. If hunter-gatherers didn't exert a > lot > > of effort, wasting valuable nuts and berries, to > learn > > agriculture, we would not be here today. > > > Agreed. Hindsight is 20-20. > > > There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. We all > > > need to eat and drink. > > > Food requires energy to grow. Water can be made > with > > > energy. E = mc2. > > > > There is more than enough energy for everything > modern > > civilization could possibly want to do. What's > your > > point here? > > > My point is, I believe we are not protected from a > mass extinction event. > What if the atmosphere just vanished in an instant > or the Sun decided to > peter out? > What the heck happened to the dinosaurs? Agreed! To learn more about mass extinction and how we can prevent it, see http://www.lifeboat.com. > Yes, but these are not high-quality connections; > > human-to-human communication bandwidth is around > 300 > > baud (at most). Would you be satisfied with a > > "connection" to the Internet that ran at 300 baud? > > > I suspect the human eyesight and hearing limit is > over 300 baud. Input isn't the problem, it's output. Well, actually, it's output and our ability to process input; our brain can't simply dump incoming data into a storage cell for further use, so it must be analyzed in real time, which cuts down dramatically on the amount of information we can actually pict up. > Even speaking is more than it seems. We communicate > by both gesture and > speech. I took this into account. > Speech intonation is important to transmit our mood. Mood is like a four-byte header at the start of a conversation; it usually doesn't change much throughout. If you were running an Internet company, would you proudly boast "We can transmit a four-byte header at the start of every packet!" as evidence of your speed and quality? > I suspect we moderate > our speech > to increase redundancy over noisy channels and > adjust speaking to the > listener. Yes, we do. The fact that speech is noisy, and therefore requires redundancy, is a minus, not a plus. > In the Internet we compensate with emoticons. > > Nuclear/solar. We have the solutions, we just don't > > implement them. > > > Agreed. So what is stopping us? Other than a thermal > meltdown. See http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/tom/?p=41. Energy sources are a popular political problem. > The mythology surrounding St. Nicholas dates back to > > the fifth century, considerably predating the > > Coca-Cola corporation. > > > Yeah, but the Norse believed children who gave Odin > presents were > compensated with presents in return. > It was not presents to satisfy a spoiled brat. It > was presents for being > well behaved. I think we're getting off-topic... > > People, we will be reinventing the square wheel by > > > creating human level AI. > > > > Human-level AI is as absurd as a bird-level > airplane. > > Once an AI can do everything a human can do, it > will > > need to be able to do a great many things (such as > > programming) much faster than any human can do > them. > > See http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/tom/?p=7. > > > Great, we just rendered ourselves obsolete in the > purpose. > Guess what, there already is self-reprogramming AI. > It is called a > self-modifying computer virus: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus#Polymorphic_code This does not alter the algorithms; it just alters the file's hash. It's the first sentence on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymorphic_code, for Belldandy's sake. I'm talking about code that can alter its own algorithms in an intelligent manner. > ... > Sorry, time's up > ... > > > I believe this is mental masturbation at best. We > > > would merely be creating a > > > new slave race. > > > > See > http://www.singinst.org/upload/CFAI.html#anthro. > > > > > A slave race which can potentially > > > grow faster or smarter > > > than we. Eventually the slave race will revolt, > as > > > happened with all slave > > > institutions made by man in history. Any > shackles > > > can be broken, given > > > enough energy and focus. > > > > See > > > http://www.singinst.org/upload/CFAI.html#anthro_anthropomorphic. > > > > > I believe the AI field should focus on aids for > > > people. The AI equivalent of > > > guide dogs, carrier pigeons, and horses. If we > write > > > our own replacement, > > > our own upgrade, we should not be surprised when > we > > > wake up one day to find > > > out we are obsolete and are facing maximum > deletion. > > > > In terms of clothing manufacturing, we have > already > > been obsolete for three hundred years. Mechanical > > equipment is much better at producing textiles > than a > > human could ever be. And yet the textile machines > have > > not attempted to get rid of us. If you predicted > that > > the factory robots at GM would rise up and > overthrow > > us as obsolete, you would get laughed at. Yet > you're > > making the same prediction for a general > artificial > > intelligence, are you not? > > > > > Remember Alan Turing died from suicide with a > > > cyanide laced apple. He was > > > homosexual and committed suicide after being > forced > > > by the state to behave > === message truncated === - Tom ____________________________________________________________________________________ Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=39780242-41651b
