tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post2264259879094820571..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Superlativity Is Neither Enlightened Nor ScientificDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-73650232148668726852009-04-19T13:10:00.000-07:002009-04-19T13:10:00.000-07:00it seems to me that this superlative aspiration is...<I>it seems to me that this superlative aspiration is an irrationalist repudiation of the heart of what Enlightenment has typically seen as its substance -- the struggle for autonomous adulthood (as against subjection by parental, priestly, or otherwise unaccountable authorities) and for the consensualization, via general welfare and the rule of law, of the disputatious public sphere. It is worth noting that many superlative futurologists like to sell themselves as exemplars of "Enlightenment" while indulging in this infantilism, anti-politicism, and irrationalism. In a word, they're not.</I>This a very good point which needs to be expanded.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-34054366738011465342009-04-19T12:26:00.000-07:002009-04-19T12:26:00.000-07:00Beware, Dale Carrico, lest you be squashed like th...Beware, Dale Carrico, lest you be squashed like the mosquito<br />you are!<br /><br />Laura Knight Jadczyk <br />Postcards from the Edge of Reality...<br />13 April 2008<br />"Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don't Rise - An Update for SOTT Readers"<br />http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2008/04/good-lord-willing-and-creek-dont-rise.html<br /><br /><br />[P]eople's emotions can be used to drive them anywhere a clever<br />manipulator wants them to go. That is not to exclude conscious<br />"agents of attack and diversion" either, but let's keep it simple and<br />assume that most people are unaware of how easily they can be - and<br />are - controlled. <br /><br />Over the past 20 years or so, I have learned a lot from those types<br />of individuals, painful though those lessons were, and what I have<br />learned is that, when possible, it is important to continue to focus<br />as completely as possible on putting the needed information together<br />and getting it out there for you, our readers, while giving as little<br />air time to the attackers as possible. One has to have nerves of<br />steel and be free of all self-importance in order to be able to ignore<br />the attacks and attackers. Of course, those attacks have had an impact<br />on us, personally - including our health - as well as the website.<br />Think of how many people will have a knee-jerk reaction and refuse to<br />read the very information that could save their lives because of the<br />accusation "cult"?! A cunning slander that does more damage to the people<br />it puts off than it does to us, actually. It's also very sad that the<br />very people that we seek most to help - the masses of normal, decent human<br />beings, the lost sheep of society - can be so easily sidetracked and<br />diverted from their own best interests and induced to serve the interests<br />of a pathological elite structure that cares nothing for them. . .<br /><br />Miyamoto Musashi, also known as Shinmen Takezō, Miyamoto Bennosuke,<br />or by his Buddhist name Niten Dōraku, was a Japanese swordsman famed<br />for his duels and distinctive style. Musashi, as he is often simply<br />known, became the legendary founder of the Hyōhō Niten Ichi-ryū or<br />Niten-ryū style of swordsmanship and the author of The Book of Five Rings,<br />a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy that is still studied today.<br />My son recently wrote about the present situation:<br /><br />> Musashi never backed down from a fight, whether he knew he could<br />> win or he knew he could lose, and it doesn't matter who, what, when<br />> or where, there is no such thing as an unimportant battle.<br />><br />> Ideally you should choose your battles, but sometimes, the battle<br />> chooses you. A mosquito might be a small creature, easily squashed,<br />> but it can carry a lethal disease, it can kill, regardless of its<br />> size. So some might argue to ignore the mosquito, let it bite you<br />> and others, as usually it can be more or less harmless, but sometimes,<br />> it can kill, and so, in times when a lethal diseases that is carried<br />> by mosquitoes is rampant, you should squash a mosquito, to protect<br />> yourself and others.<br />><br />> "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the<br />> iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he,<br />> who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through<br />> the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the<br />> finder of lost children." <br /><br /><br />lesswrong<br />a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality<br />"Rationality is Systematized Winning"<br />Eliezer Yudkowsky<br />03 April 2009<br /><br />. . .<br /><br /><br />There is a meme which says that a certain ritual of cognition is the paragon<br />of reasonableness and so defines what the reasonable people do. But alas, the<br />reasonable people often get their butts handed to them by the unreasonable ones,<br />because the universe isn't always reasonable. Reason is just a way of doing<br />things, not necessarily the most formidable; it is how professors talk to<br />each other in debate halls, which sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.<br />If a hoard of barbarians attacks the debate hall, the truly prudent and flexible<br />agent will abandon reasonableness.<br /><br />No. If the "irrational" agent is outcompeting you on a systematic and predictable<br />basis, then it is time to reconsider what you think is "rational".<br /><br />For I do fear that a "rationalist" will clutch to themselves the ritual of<br />cognition they have been taught, as loss after loss piles up, consoling themselves:<br />"I have behaved virtuously, I have been so reasonable, it's just this awful<br />unfair universe that doesn't give me what I deserve. The others are cheating<br />by not doing it the rational way, that's how they got ahead of me."<br /><br />It is this that I intended to guard against by saying: "Rationalists should win!"<br />Not whine, win. If you keep on losing, perhaps you are doing something wrong.<br />Do not console yourself about how you were so wonderfully rational in the course<br />of losing. That is not how things are supposed to go. It is not the Art that fails,<br />but you who fails to grasp the Art.<br /><br />Likewise in the realm of epistemic rationality, if you find yourself thinking<br />that the reasonable belief is X (because a majority of modern humans seem to<br />believe X, or something that sounds similarly appealing) and yet the world<br />itself is obviously Y. . .<br /><br />Maybe there is an alternative phrase to be found again in Musashi, who said: <br />"The Way of the Ichi school is the spirit of winning, whatever the weapon and<br />whatever its size."<br /><br />"Rationality is the spirit of winning"? "Rationality is the Way of winning"? <br />"Rationality is systematized winning"? If you have a better suggestion, post<br />it in the comments.<br />-----------------------------------<br /><br /><br />And stay tuned for the Ichi & Scratchi Show.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-50208716504899164622009-04-19T09:41:00.000-07:002009-04-19T09:41:00.000-07:00> Singularitarians, for example, indulge the wi...> Singularitarians, for example, indulge the wish-fulfillment fantasy of<br />> either personally achieving or at least of bearing witness to the arrival<br />> of post-biological superintelligence, the Robot God Who, if Friendly,<br />> solves all our problems for us, or Who, if Unfriendly, ends the world<br />> in an ubergoo apocalypse, in either case constituting a history-ending<br />> Singularity. . .<br />><br />> According to the terms of my Superlative critique, these hyperbolic<br />> aspirations function more or less as pseudo-scientific correlates to<br />> the conventional omni-predicates of theology -- omniscience, omnipotence,<br />> omnibenevolence -- translated from the project to apprehend the<br />> supernatural divinity of God to the project of a personal transcendence<br />> into a differently super-natural demi-divinity via technoscience,<br />> characterized by superlative aspirations to superintelligence,<br />> superlongevity, and superabundance.<br /><br />An acquaintance of ours wrote (in the comment thread at<br />http://web.archive.org/web/20040613133235/transhumanism.com/index.php/weblog/comments/134/ )<br /><br />---------------------------<br />Uh, I don’t really care about going to a “computronium heaven”, my motivation<br />comes from several big sources, though. One is this: <br /><br />180 million are injured intentionally or unintentionally per year. <br />20 million children die per year from hunger. <br />680 million have a mental or physical illness. <br />25 million are in slavery by force, or by the threat of force. <br />3 billion live on two dollars or less each day. <br />1.8 die every second; 150,000 die per day; and 55 million die per year. <br /><br />And as my Orkut profile says, “Smarter-than-human solutions and technology could<br />provide the leverage we need to reduce these numbers substantially.” <br /><br />Transhuman intelligence is coming. A big part of what Singularitarians are doing<br />is trying to ensure that the first transhuman intelligence is an altruist,<br />with a desire to continue being an altruist. We want the power of transhuman<br />intelligence directed towards humanitarian tasks. Computronium doesn’t really factor<br />into it. It will take *deliberate effort* to make the first transhuman intelligence<br />an altruist. We shouldn’t expect it to happen automatically. And if the first<br />transhuman intelligence *isn’t* an altruist, humanity could be really screwed. <br /><br />Singularitarianism is to some transhumanists as extreme life extension is to most<br />people. Weird, scary, intimidating, implausible, etc. The only way I know of getting<br />around this is reading a lot of literature. . .<br /><br />Also, try looking more deeply into [Yudkowsky's] CFAI and LOGI from the<br />Singularity Institute! People generally assume Sing-ism is some sort of religion,<br />by default, until they actually read these documents and observe the thinking<br />we have been doing. <br /><br />Also keep in mind that one of the founders of the World Transhumanist Association,<br />David Pearce, has long argued for the permanent elimination of pain through<br />pharmaceuticals. . . Is that religious too? How about a world without any<br />murder? Is that a religious aspiration? Maybe a world without slavery would<br />be a more conservative goal? <br /><br />Sincerely, <br />Michael Anissimov <br />Advocacy Director, Singularity Institute<br />---------------------------<br /><br /><br />Dale, don't you realize that by publicly exhibiting your "Superlative Critique",<br />as you call it, you may be delaying a Positive Singularity, which makes you<br />nothing more or less than a child murderer?<br /><br />Don't you realize you are a tool of the Adversary, here?jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com