Re: Foresight Recon?

From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Thu May 15 2003 - 00:47:15 MDT

  • Next message: Anders Sandberg: "Re: Journey to the centre of Earth?"

    --- spike66 <spike66@attbi.com> wrote:
    > Several questions came up at the post nanoschmooze
    > gathering gathering. At this gathering^2, we had a
    > number of people who could name all six flavors of
    > quarks, could write out Bayes law, could program in
    > everything from Fortran to Java, and yet there are
    > some basic questions that eluded us all.

    A lot of these questions do seem to have answers.

    > Many of
    > these
    > were on the same lines as the post extro-5
    > gathering,
    > when we pondered such things as: if one were in a
    > tank filled with xenon at 215 atmospheres, would one
    > float?

    If "one" is a normal modern human outside of something
    like a pressure suit, one would be crushed dead by
    most
    things - xenon included - at 215 atmospheres, and it
    wouldn't really matter whether what was left of one's
    body floated or not, at least not to the one. Likely,
    one's body would fail to remain completely coherent
    afterwards, and parts of it would have more floatation
    than other parts.

    > What if one injects a sedative into one
    > carotid artery, and one hemisphere of ones brain
    > is asleep, and one had half an erotic dream, what
    > would happen?

    By what measurement? If one half of the brain were
    asleep while the other remained active, and neither
    could induce the other towards its state (which you
    seem to be implying), see existing literature on
    left/right brain imbalances.

    > If the market and google form two members of the
    > holy trinity, what is the third?

    Who says it's a trinity? Maybe they're two sides of
    the holy coin, or perhaps it's actually a holy
    N-dimensional construct of which we were only able to
    perceive three vertices at once. (And if that's the
    case, perhaps different people can perceive different
    third vertices.)

    > Why is it that about half the spam today is some
    > prole
    > who stole a bunch of money in Nigeria and they want
    > to give it to me?

    It's less than half, but that spam has the backing of
    Nigeria's organized crime (to the severe irritation of
    Nigeria's government, which has a certain section of
    its legal code set up to outlaw that specific
    practice).

    > Has anyone ever actually fallen
    > for
    > that silly gag?

    Yes. Many someones.

    > Since the Nigerian got my name as
    > someone
    > who is trustworthy, who is it that gave it to them?
    > I want to know who considers *me* trustworthy.

    In truth, they don't. They just got your list as an
    email address. Despite what they claim, no actual
    verification of the person behind the address has
    happened, not even (before the spam is sent)
    verification that there is a person behind the
    address.

    > What is the opposite of surreal? Is it surphony?
    > Perhaps surfake? Surimaginary? Or just plain real?
    > Surreal is kind of unreal, in a way, so the prefix
    > sur must mean negative or not or un. So when
    > someone
    > makes a joke that offends or falls flat, could we
    > say that person is surfunny?

    "Sur" would seem to be a subclass of "un". Perhaps
    certain specific cases of falling flat might be
    surfunny, but probably not anything so specific and
    direct as to give noticable offense.

    > How did Palm Pilots get their name? What has a
    > hand held computing device to do with guiding an
    > aircraft or ship?

    Actually, they're legally just "Palm"s now. Legal
    troubles with Pilot Pen of Japan, you see.

    The Birds are for googling. ^_-

    > Why is it that when extropian/SL4/singularitarian/
    > transhumanist types gather, people bring *SO MUCH
    > BEER*
    > and then devour so very little of it?

    Because people think others will consume it, even if
    they themselves do not. It's a social meme. (I, for
    one, wouldn't mind if this got replaced with
    non-alcoholic fruit juice being the default beverage,
    instead of intoxicants or soda. I suppose this would
    require fruit juice to be cheaper - but if it were
    consumed in larger quantities, it might be. Ah, the
    "joys" of catch-21s...)

    > What the helllll did people do before there were
    > computers? Sears and Roebuck catalogs?

    It was a different lifestyle. Many books have been
    written on the actual lifestyles of said eras; there
    is
    even a group (Society for Creative Anachronism) that
    tends to make pretty accurate recreations of medival
    lifestyles, at least for a weekend or so.

    > What did we do before there was an internet?

    See above.

    > What did extropians do before there was google? Did
    > we just go around, like, not knowing stuff?

    Used alternate (if less efficient) means of research.
    Including libraries and magazines. Though consider
    how
    far back extropianism, as distinct from its
    predecessors, goes.

    > When we get wearable internet connections with
    > voice interface and fast google connections 24-7,
    > how are we going to explain to young people how we
    > ever got along without that?

    Direct them to writeups of life as it was in the olden
    days. Hopefully more or less correct ones.

    > Why is it, exactly, that sushi is soooo good? Its
    > nothing but a wad of rice and a slice of bait, yet
    > we
    > cheerfully drive way across town to get some. Why?

    "Pizza for body. Coffee for mind. Sushi...for soul."

    > How many jokes are there that start with some
    > variation of: An engineer, a mathematician and
    > a physicist go to a {fill in the blank}...

    N, of course.

    > We
    > heard about 800 hundred of them, and we weren't
    > even slowing down when the party spontaneously
    > gave out. Why is it that the mathematician always
    > says something silly and disconnected from reality
    > as we know it? Are there any of those jokes where
    > the mathematician is the smart guy? I like
    > mathematicians.

    Blame stereotyping, if you want: math is the most
    abstract of the three professions; engineering the
    least. Besides, sin(x) is a mathematical function.
    ;P

    > Are there any foods that Homer Simpson does not
    > like?

    Not if he's in the right mood.

    > What happens if an autistic prisoner is sentenced to
    > solitary confinement? Would she know?

    Depends on the prisoner. Possibly, possibly not.

    > How much power could be saved if the light inside
    > the refrigerator were not left on all the time?

    It's not. Put a webcam on a wireless link inside, or
    at least a camcorder set to record so you can view it
    later.

    > Why is it that there are so many extropians with
    > such enormous IQ numbers who cannot deal with
    > any mechanical device more complicated than a
    > cerial box?

    Take it from a Mensan: one IQ measurement does not
    measure all forms of intelligence.

    > Was Monte Hall intentionally screwing with people's
    > minds all those years?

    Provably unknowable, even to Monte Hall (his memories
    could have been messed with). So any attempt to
    determine this is useless, at least for that purpose.

    > If Ameridebt got some loser's monthly payment cut
    > in half, why didn't he just call them again and get
    > it cut in forth, then an eighth and so on until he
    > was debt free?

    Xeno's paradox: smaller chunks, but larger number of
    chunks, keeping the same volume. Besides, cut in half
    was one result, not necessarily a repeatable one.

    > Does *anyone* who hangs out on extropians or SL4
    > ever read actual *fiction*, without the prefix
    > science? Sears and Roebuck catalogs?

    Yes, and presumably yes.

    > How did future fiction ever get the prefix sci to
    > start with? Havent we always had science? Did the
    > inventors of the genre assume we would have more
    > science in the future?

    We haven't always had science. In fact, "science"
    fiction as a genre largely came about as the public
    started becoming aware of the (then) mostly new
    concepts of science: repeatable experiments, theories
    backed or refuted by evidence, and so forth. IIRC,
    the
    term "science fiction" was coined in the 19th century,
    and judging by their works, the early sci-fi works
    apparently did assume that there would be much more
    science in the future. Technically, even Sherlock
    Holmes was science fiction when it was first written:
    it predated (and, by many accounts, largely inspired
    early efforts in) the science of forensics.

    > What do we call those oddball subcategories of
    > speculative sci-fi like that show from the 60s
    > called Wild Wild West, where they had some weird
    > futuristic technologies but was actually set in
    > the past? Is it still science fiction? For that
    > matter, Star Wars is another good example.

    The literary term for stories like Wild Wild West is
    steampunk. There are actually a number of stories of
    that nature; one might look to "The Secret Adventures
    of Jules Verne" to find an example presently being
    broadcast, or google for the term. Likewise, Star
    Wars
    is a space opera, and many of those have also been
    created. Whether or not these genres are science
    fiction depends on one's personal definition of the
    term; perhaps a better term would be science fantasy.

    > How did the diet thread get so huge?

    Consider the number of obese Americans.

    > If we somehow accidentally discovered a seventh
    > quark flavor, wont the physicists be majorly screwed
    > up? Would they attempt a cover-up? Would we call
    > it still-more-strange?

    Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the circumstances,
    peoples' reactions, and other unspecified conditions.

    > Cannot book publishers invent a kind of paper that
    > does not get that old book smell when one's text
    > books get old? Would not it be a terrific business
    > opportunity, to make replicas of old college
    textbooks
    > with new paper, so that one is not constantly
    reminded
    > that one is way into one's geezerhood?

    Said types of paper do exist. However, it proved not
    to be a terrific business opportunity, as opposed to
    constantly coming out with new text to further justify
    replacing the degrading paper. Google for "planned
    obsolescence" to see the general business concept.
    (It's one I personally have little taste for, but one
    must know one's enemy as well as oneself.)

    > If Marilyn vos Savant were to get on drugs and lose
    > her mental focus, would we have to rename her
    Marilyn
    > vos Stupid? Or would she become merely vos Normal?
    > SurSavant?

    Depends on unspecified conditions, but likely no name
    change would result.

    > Would anyone have guessed that a person
    > could make a career out of simply understanding the
    > Bayesian Theorem?

    Would, depending on what? But it is likely that
    someone, at some point in human history (after the
    Bayesian Theorem was known to more than a few people),
    has guessed that someone could make a living off of
    simply understanding things of this nature. More to
    the point: there are other, similar examples of such,
    perhaps with other formulas, but still making it very
    easy to guess this.

    > Assuming the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum
    > mechanics, how can we be *absolutely sure* that this
    > is one of them?

    By definition from Many Worlds. Only a reality that
    exists can be observed from, and Many Worlds basically
    says that all the realities that can exist, do. Since
    we are observing from this reality...



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