From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Mar 30 2003 - 16:21:56 MST
Anders writes
> The serial [way to spread memes] looks like this: ----- You start
> with one reasonable conclusion, which leads to another, which leads
> to another, and so on. Eventually you end up in really wild thinking.
> Which is reasonable if each step in the chain has been correct.
But is this how we actually *ever* think? Even in math?
> Unfortunately, such long chains are fairly weak rhetorically.
> They work great in mathematics and areas where one can really
> do iron-clad reasoning, but for human matters there is so much
> uncertainty and differing interpretations that the steps become
> fragile. Even worse, most listeners can't pay attention to the
> 4711 steps of your reasoning, and will only listen to the
> conclusion - which is too wild.
Well, it's not how I think. Not in philosophy, not in chess,
and not even in mathematics. Somehow, I always know where I'm
going before the chains of reasoning start. An example: yesterday
I had this intuition that one could prove that a complete
quadrilateral (in projective geometry) might be shown to contain
harmonic ratios by use of Ceva's Theorem and Menalaus's Theorem.
(One draws a triangle, places a point somewhere near the center,
and then extends lines from each vertex through the point. If
you then take any two of these points that result on the sides
of the triangle, and extend them outside the triangle, then they
meet, eventually, the side (probably far away from the triangle)
where the two lines came from.) How did I get this idea? Well,
I had stared at many triangles like this and either remembered
that a harmonic ratio was set up on this original side (or else
it just began to look that way). So I fooled around with Ceva's
Theorem and Menalaus's theorem, and sure enough, eventually I
had a proof that indeed, just as you describe, has 4711 steps in
it (fewer, actually).
Okay, so how did I get into cryonics? Did I go through 4711
logical steps? No way! It took about two minutes' thinking.
I was already a materialist, I already thought that future
technology probably could accomplish things beyond our wildest
dreams, and presto! The rest was obvious. Did I want to live,
or not?
> The parallel way is like this: ||||| (I turned it 90 degrees to fit it)
> Lots of short arguments that start out from the current world, and show
> how a small, reasonable step leads to a slightly different world. They
> might not all fit together or be strong arguments (just because people
> spend $$$ on nanotechnology it doesn't have to become useful), but they
> reinforce each other and show that there is a big field of
> possibilities. Often the listener responds by suggesting their own short
> step, and you can start building serial arguments *together* instead.
Yes, but I would stress the almost-unconscious nature of all those
small arguments. Suppose that some Luddite regularly reads the
Extropian list for years. Thousands of little tiny facts will
come to his attention, or perhaps just receive much more emphasis
than he's ever seen placed on them before, and slowly his whole
outlook changes. Then at some fine time in the future, it suddenly
only takes him two minutes also to see the value of cryonics, or
the inevitability of a Singularity.
Now suppose that I were quite impressionable, and had no huge list
of memes, knowledge, and Darwinian ideas, and read over and over
intelligent commentary on a religious forum. Then by and by the
same thing would happen to me, only in the reverse direction.
> Most people are never convinced by a long logical deduction, but
> they are convinced by seeing evidence or ideas again and again.
Yes, exactly so. The only purpose that I know of to lay out all
the arguments carefully in a long thesis is to reassure the believers.
(In math, there is one additional reason: to become absolutely
certain of something you already believe. Andrew Wiles already
strongly believed in Fermat's Last Theorem, and intuited that he
was just inches away from proving it.)
Lee
> I think Gregory Stock makes a good demonstration of this in his book
> _Redesigning Humans_: lots of here-and-now technologies and ideas that
> each are fairly reasonable and likely, but together lead to a transhuman
> future.
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