From: Mark Walker (mdwalker@quickclic.net)
Date: Fri Feb 22 2002 - 03:17:27 MST
Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> I'm not even sure "maximizing extropy" has any meaning. What if extropy
> is best regarded as a qualitative property and/or something individual
> that cannot be compared across individuals?
>
Indeed, as I have argued before, there are many unanswered questions about
extropy. There is, for example, no straightforward way of analyzing it in
terms of the 2nd law of thermodynamics: we do not always value complexity
over simplicity, e.g., I don't think we value Mozart's music more than his
contemporaries because it is more informationally dense, indeed, perhaps the
opposite in some cases. Is it a simple or complex property? If complex, what
is it a composite of? Is it to be analyzed in terms some simpler property?
Sometimes I see 'growth' mentioned in this connection. Growth to what end?
Growth for its own sake? Does this make fat people and cancers more
extropic? If extropy cannot be compared across individuals then is the most
extropic universe one which maximizes the number of extropic individuals in
it? Of course one might think that such a crowded universe would curtail the
extropy of all the individuals, but how would we know? We said that we
cannot make qualitative comparisons across individuals. How do we know that
extropy attaches to individuals rather than say parts of individuals: who
knows maybe I have extropic arms and entropic legs; oh look she has an
extropic ass. Perhaps extropy is a property that attaches to superindividual
entities: are there extropic couples, or families, or societies, or states?
Does 'extropy' mean something like the pursuit of excellence in terms of
living a good life: attempting to maximize the excellence of my physical,
mental, and emotional characteristics? If so, isn't extropianism simply
perfectionism in thermodynamic drag?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 13:37:40 MST