Re: PROPOSAL: New list focusing on mind, brain, and intelligence

Nicholas Bostrom (bostrom@mail.ndirect.co.uk)
Wed, 5 Nov 1997 16:38:03 +0000


Mitch Porter wrote:

> I would like there to be a transhumanist discussion list which
> focuses on topics like:
>
> - Intelligence augmentation
> - Neuroscience, connectionism, brain modification
> - Artificial intelligence, uploading, superintelligence
> - Philosophy of mind
> - Relevant issues from computing (e.g. distributed computation,
> new computational media, etc.)
>
> In other words, everything to do with minds, brains, and
> intelligence.

The way I see it, if it is to be advisable to create a sublist for a
certain topic, then not only must there be a substantial number of
people who are interested in that topic (this condition is clearly
satisfied), but there also have to be a substantial number of people
on the original list who are *not* interested in the topic --
otherwise, why can't we have the discussion on the main list? (We
could even use a prefix like MIND: ). The main way I can think of how
a transhuman mind-list could be useful is that it might pull in
non-transhumsnists interested in the mind. But one would have to
double-post a lot of messeges, or n-post, if one includes the
transhuman mailing list, the philosophy of AI newsgroup, PSYCHE
mailinglists...

In conclusion, I am not convinced that there is at this point "enough
necessity". But I would certainly join the list if it were created,
since I don't want to risk missing any of the interesting posts
that Mitch and others would contribute.

Nick Bostrom
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb