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Future Generating Machines...

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gepr

Re: Future Generating Machines...

Absolutely. I couldn't call myself contrarian with a straight face if I didn't enact my belief that adversarial systems can find solutions others can't. Even in the case where we Adversaries don't *need* the niches we create, there are most likely others, who aren't adversarial, just congenitally 6σ. The work done by those of us who don't *need* these weird niches can improve the lives of those who do.

On 3/29/21 11:47 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> It may be necessary or even Good that these machines aim to control, but it can also be good to find ways to beat them. They are dealing with the common cases. Being a common case may in fact make one happy as you say. Conservatives are said to be happier than liberals, right?

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

gepr

Re: Future Generating Machines...

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Well, if psychedelics were fully legal, I'd use them openly ... if that's what you're asking. But my argument that individuals are an approximating simplification threads almost every thought I have that's even slightly related to plectics.

E.g. In about an hour, I'll be on a call discussing the utility of DAGs as models of probability distributions in interventional clinical trials. The video Jon posted talked ominously about reducing humans to variables. But the ominous tone is pure theater, adopted to brew fear (or hook to extant fear). We *are* variables. To whatever extent we can find clusters of variables that are more coherent than other clusters of variables, that's FANTASTIC. But it's harder than it might seem. The starting assumption should be that we are variables and the work is to derive the individual. It isn't be the other way around.

On 3/29/21 11:55 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Is your own refutation of "the individual" the personal experience you
> have, or an intellectual abstraction to which you perhaps aspire to
> experience?

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Steve Smith

Re: Future Generating Machines...

Glen -

I think I *share* the sentiment you present here, though through other
mechanisms (than psi) to dissolve the (illusory/delusional) boundaries
between self/other or more aptly self/whole.   You are apparently
more-better at (or at least more committed to your version of) this than
I am which I envy/aspire.

I suppose all I'm teasing at here is the apparent paradox of (for
example) the "two" of us, trying to serialize things about our "inner
states" to "communicate" between two "individuals".    In the abstract,
I accept the premise that what I consider to be an "individual" (e.g.
me, you, 400+ people reading or hitting delete on this message) is more
a locus or cluster or relative concentration in a high dimensional
field.    Maybe the only answer is to ingest a quantum of the right
mushroom...   or fast/dehydrate until I meet Joseph or Brigham across a
campfire in an arroyo... or meditate until my spirit leaves my body and
apprehends the cosmos directly...

We two "illusory individuals" *appear* (from the perspective of illusory
individuals) to be communicating (poorly or otherwise)....

mumble,

- Steve

On 3/29/21 1:05 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> Well, if psychedelics were fully legal, I'd use them openly ... if that's what you're asking. But my argument that individuals are an approximating simplification threads almost every thought I have that's even slightly related to plectics.
>
> E.g. In about an hour, I'll be on a call discussing the utility of DAGs as models of probability distributions in interventional clinical trials. The video Jon posted talked ominously about reducing humans to variables. But the ominous tone is pure theater, adopted to brew fear (or hook to extant fear). We *are* variables. To whatever extent we can find clusters of variables that are more coherent than other clusters of variables, that's FANTASTIC. But it's harder than it might seem. The starting assumption should be that we are variables and the work is to derive the individual. It isn't be the other way around.
>
> On 3/29/21 11:55 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Is your own refutation of "the individual" the personal experience you
>> have, or an intellectual abstraction to which you perhaps aspire to
>> experience?

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gepr

Re: Future Generating Machines...

Aha! Yeah, we probably do share it. But 2 points in space can be in the same state *without* having a common driver. I.e. inter-subjectivity does not imply communication. En garde! So you may share the same sentiment with an alien consciousness near Sirius. And, although it sounds like I'm just joking, I'm actually trying to say something serious, which is that individuali[ty|sm] carries something like a "locality arrogance" ... the impression that one blob in the pervading field(s) is somehow special or unique, different from all the other blobs. Maybe our modern problem of celebrity and institutional bloat is a function of a finite and fairly small set of possible states of being? And now that we're up to 8B people, each of us is guaranteed to share state with some N others? And anyone who thinks they're somehow special or unique is simply ignorant of those who share their state? If we experience a massive die off, those of us that survive will again be true individuals?

Or, even if the space of states is actual infinite, perhaps there's only a small number of forcing cultures and we'd *have* to fly out to Sirius in order to get out of those overwhelming flows.

On 3/29/21 12:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

> I think I *share* the sentiment you present here, though through other
> mechanisms (than psi) to dissolve the (illusory/delusional) boundaries
> between self/other or more aptly self/whole.   You are apparently
> more-better at (or at least more committed to your version of) this than
> I am which I envy/aspire.
>
> I suppose all I'm teasing at here is the apparent paradox of (for
> example) the "two" of us, trying to serialize things about our "inner
> states" to "communicate" between two "individuals".    In the abstract,
> I accept the premise that what I consider to be an "individual" (e.g.
> me, you, 400+ people reading or hitting delete on this message) is more
> a locus or cluster or relative concentration in a high dimensional
> field.    Maybe the only answer is to ingest a quantum of the right
> mushroom...   or fast/dehydrate until I meet Joseph or Brigham across a
> campfire in an arroyo... or meditate until my spirit leaves my body and
> apprehends the cosmos directly...
>
> We two "illusory individuals" *appear* (from the perspective of illusory
> individuals) to be communicating (poorly or otherwise)....

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Future Generating Machines...

The video animated particles bouncing around to different outlets. It didn't consider the case where an isolated weirdo never even enters one of its hamster wheels.
Such an isolated individual may still have "locality arrogance", but I think there's a plausible case that the agent's evolution is not just a result of the forcing culture. The weirdo may still have other developmental cognitive forcing functions acting on them that only a culture can rescue.

Influencers are just missionaries with a particularly thin message.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2021 2:11 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Future Generating Machines...

Aha! Yeah, we probably do share it. But 2 points in space can be in the same state *without* having a common driver. I.e. inter-subjectivity does not imply communication. En garde! So you may share the same sentiment with an alien consciousness near Sirius. And, although it sounds like I'm just joking, I'm actually trying to say something serious, which is that individuali[ty|sm] carries something like a "locality arrogance" ... the impression that one blob in the pervading field(s) is somehow special or unique, different from all the other blobs. Maybe our modern problem of celebrity and institutional bloat is a function of a finite and fairly small set of possible states of being? And now that we're up to 8B people, each of us is guaranteed to share state with some N others? And anyone who thinks they're somehow special or unique is simply ignorant of those who share their state? If we experience a massive die off, those of us that survive will again be true individuals?

Or, even if the space of states is actual infinite, perhaps there's only a small number of forcing cultures and we'd *have* to fly out to Sirius in order to get out of those overwhelming flows.

On 3/29/21 12:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

> I think I *share* the sentiment you present here, though through other
> mechanisms (than psi) to dissolve the (illusory/delusional) boundaries
> between self/other or more aptly self/whole.   You are apparently
> more-better at (or at least more committed to your version of) this
> than I am which I envy/aspire.
>
> I suppose all I'm teasing at here is the apparent paradox of (for
> example) the "two" of us, trying to serialize things about our "inner
> states" to "communicate" between two "individuals".    In the
> abstract, I accept the premise that what I consider to be an "individual" (e.g.
> me, you, 400+ people reading or hitting delete on this message) is
> more a locus or cluster or relative concentration in a high
> dimensional field.    Maybe the only answer is to ingest a quantum of
> the right mushroom...   or fast/dehydrate until I meet Joseph or
> Brigham across a campfire in an arroyo... or meditate until my spirit
> leaves my body and apprehends the cosmos directly...
>
> We two "illusory individuals" *appear* (from the perspective of
> illusory
> individuals) to be communicating (poorly or otherwise)....

--
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Steve Smith

Re: Future Generating Machines...

In reply to this post by gepr

I don't know if we are converging in our acceptance/dismissal of "the
myth of individuality" or not, but for the moment I am hallucinating
convergence.

I think the distinction we are arriving at *might* be that *every
snowflake is unique* but that this is true in the very same way that
*every stone is unique* and *every tree is unique*.   I think the point
you are making is that that (intrinsic?!) uniqueness should not be
conflated with specialness?

The pinon closest to the bedroom in my house which I sat under and
climbed in regularly for most of my elementary school years *was* quite
special *to me*, up to and including feeling guilty/uncomfortable when I
let my father talk me into trimming one of the lower branches to open up
a larger canopy to sit under.   I could have "groomed the hell out of"
the tree, maybe even nailed up a platform and made a treehouse in it,
but I was (for better or worse) hyper-aware of the details that made it
unique.   My imagination/memory includes (I think) many of it's details
including some of the larger roots humping up out of the ground and the
places I needed to avoid gripping whilst climbing to avoid getting pitch
on my hands.

I believe that Musk's delusion includes the ideation that by moving
himself (and ~1M other individual peoples) to the surface of Mars
(and/or distributed through the asteroid belt) will allow the "forcing
culture" to change enough to match some libertarian-utopian vision he
holds.

I *think* when you debunk the specialness of the individual you are
saying that the uniquenesses (specific construction of any given
snowflake) is mostly irrelevant in many/most contexts.

My nephew is a budding materials scientist with a particular background
in crystallography (his father is a minerologist) and he recently walked
me through, in particular, some of the idiosyncrasies of quartz crystals
and the myriad uses those specifics can yield various useful properties
(in industry).   I went looking for the basis of Kurt Vonnegut's Ice-9
only to find that we are up to 18 distinct crystalline forms... and of
course (in the spirit of the individual/unique) those don't include the
combinatorics implied by contaminants (or intentional dopants, etc.)
which I assume are the basis of the plenitude (effective infinitude?) of
snowflakes individuals.

Individual human beings in the context of groups larger than Dunbar#
pretty much get their meaning through their utility which reflects a
combination of their affordances and their circumstances as much as the
long-term relationships (2,...n-wise) they have with other individuals
(not to mention domesticated/wild/familiar animals, edifices, plants, etc.)

of On 3/29/21 3:11 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

> Aha! Yeah, we probably do share it. But 2 points in space can be in the same state *without* having a common driver. I.e. inter-subjectivity does not imply communication. En garde! So you may share the same sentiment with an alien consciousness near Sirius. And, although it sounds like I'm just joking, I'm actually trying to say something serious, which is that individuali[ty|sm] carries something like a "locality arrogance" ... the impression that one blob in the pervading field(s) is somehow special or unique, different from all the other blobs. Maybe our modern problem of celebrity and institutional bloat is a function of a finite and fairly small set of possible states of being? And now that we're up to 8B people, each of us is guaranteed to share state with some N others? And anyone who thinks they're somehow special or unique is simply ignorant of those who share their state? If we experience a massive die off, those of us that survive will again be true individuals?
>
> Or, even if the space of states is actual infinite, perhaps there's only a small number of forcing cultures and we'd *have* to fly out to Sirius in order to get out of those overwhelming flows.
>
> On 3/29/21 12:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> I think I *share* the sentiment you present here, though through other
>> mechanisms (than psi) to dissolve the (illusory/delusional) boundaries
>> between self/other or more aptly self/whole.   You are apparently
>> more-better at (or at least more committed to your version of) this than
>> I am which I envy/aspire.
>>
>> I suppose all I'm teasing at here is the apparent paradox of (for
>> example) the "two" of us, trying to serialize things about our "inner
>> states" to "communicate" between two "individuals".    In the abstract,
>> I accept the premise that what I consider to be an "individual" (e.g.
>> me, you, 400+ people reading or hitting delete on this message) is more
>> a locus or cluster or relative concentration in a high dimensional
>> field.    Maybe the only answer is to ingest a quantum of the right
>> mushroom...   or fast/dehydrate until I meet Joseph or Brigham across a
>> campfire in an arroyo... or meditate until my spirit leaves my body and
>> apprehends the cosmos directly...
>>
>> We two "illusory individuals" *appear* (from the perspective of illusory
>> individuals) to be communicating (poorly or otherwise)....
>

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Future Generating Machines...

Is there reason to believe that Musk is interested in a libertarian-utopian vision? If specialness is a rare instance of unique, it seems reasonable to take what he's said in public at face value: That by having humans on both planets, "humanity" can be saved from disaster. That's like a Noah's Ark type argument that would suggest that people are more interchangeable. There's no need to keep the copies.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2021 2:47 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Future Generating Machines...

I don't know if we are converging in our acceptance/dismissal of "the myth of individuality" or not, but for the moment I am hallucinating convergence.

I think the distinction we are arriving at *might* be that *every snowflake is unique* but that this is true in the very same way that *every stone is unique* and *every tree is unique*.   I think the point you are making is that that (intrinsic?!) uniqueness should not be conflated with specialness?

The pinon closest to the bedroom in my house which I sat under and climbed in regularly for most of my elementary school years *was* quite special *to me*, up to and including feeling guilty/uncomfortable when I let my father talk me into trimming one of the lower branches to open up a larger canopy to sit under.   I could have "groomed the hell out of"
the tree, maybe even nailed up a platform and made a treehouse in it, but I was (for better or worse) hyper-aware of the details that made it unique.   My imagination/memory includes (I think) many of it's details including some of the larger roots humping up out of the ground and the places I needed to avoid gripping whilst climbing to avoid getting pitch on my hands.

I believe that Musk's delusion includes the ideation that by moving himself (and ~1M other individual peoples) to the surface of Mars (and/or distributed through the asteroid belt) will allow the "forcing culture" to change enough to match some libertarian-utopian vision he holds.

I *think* when you debunk the specialness of the individual you are saying that the uniquenesses (specific construction of any given
snowflake) is mostly irrelevant in many/most contexts.

My nephew is a budding materials scientist with a particular background in crystallography (his father is a minerologist) and he recently walked me through, in particular, some of the idiosyncrasies of quartz crystals and the myriad uses those specifics can yield various useful properties (in industry).   I went looking for the basis of Kurt Vonnegut's Ice-9 only to find that we are up to 18 distinct crystalline forms... and of course (in the spirit of the individual/unique) those don't include the combinatorics implied by contaminants (or intentional dopants, etc.) which I assume are the basis of the plenitude (effective infinitude?) of snowflakes individuals.

Individual human beings in the context of groups larger than Dunbar# pretty much get their meaning through their utility which reflects a combination of their affordances and their circumstances as much as the long-term relationships (2,...n-wise) they have with other individuals (not to mention domesticated/wild/familiar animals, edifices, plants, etc.)

of On 3/29/21 3:11 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

> Aha! Yeah, we probably do share it. But 2 points in space can be in the same state *without* having a common driver. I.e. inter-subjectivity does not imply communication. En garde! So you may share the same sentiment with an alien consciousness near Sirius. And, although it sounds like I'm just joking, I'm actually trying to say something serious, which is that individuali[ty|sm] carries something like a "locality arrogance" ... the impression that one blob in the pervading field(s) is somehow special or unique, different from all the other blobs. Maybe our modern problem of celebrity and institutional bloat is a function of a finite and fairly small set of possible states of being? And now that we're up to 8B people, each of us is guaranteed to share state with some N others? And anyone who thinks they're somehow special or unique is simply ignorant of those who share their state? If we experience a massive die off, those of us that survive will again be true individuals?
>
> Or, even if the space of states is actual infinite, perhaps there's only a small number of forcing cultures and we'd *have* to fly out to Sirius in order to get out of those overwhelming flows.
>
> On 3/29/21 12:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> I think I *share* the sentiment you present here, though through
>> other mechanisms (than psi) to dissolve the (illusory/delusional)
>> boundaries between self/other or more aptly self/whole.   You are
>> apparently more-better at (or at least more committed to your version
>> of) this than I am which I envy/aspire.
>>
>> I suppose all I'm teasing at here is the apparent paradox of (for
>> example) the "two" of us, trying to serialize things about our "inner
>> states" to "communicate" between two "individuals".    In the
>> abstract, I accept the premise that what I consider to be an "individual" (e.g.
>> me, you, 400+ people reading or hitting delete on this message) is
>> more a locus or cluster or relative concentration in a high
>> dimensional field.    Maybe the only answer is to ingest a quantum of
>> the right mushroom...   or fast/dehydrate until I meet Joseph or
>> Brigham across a campfire in an arroyo... or meditate until my
>> spirit leaves my body and apprehends the cosmos directly...
>>
>> We two "illusory individuals" *appear* (from the perspective of
>> illusory
>> individuals) to be communicating (poorly or otherwise)....
>

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Steve Smith

Re: Future Generating Machines...

Marcus wrote:
> Is there reason to believe that Musk is interested in a libertarian-utopian vision?

His acutely evident excess narcissistic hubris?

I'm sure it is yet another example of my "imputation" tendency.   I
"impute" his motives to include a fiction that his vision lives in a
techno-utopian fantasy land where others with his (presumed) acute
technical perspective/acumen can self-select to become the successful
hyper-individual exploiters of a "frontier" (like the one his presumed
Dutch Afrikanner ancestors found in So. Africa a few centuries ago, and
the American Frontiersman version found here in North America) without
too much (any) interference from bureaucracies, etc.   Musk's ability to
*navigate* the existing bureaucracies (with a combination of financial
leverage, popular support, and belligerent ignorance of the relevance of
rules to his context) is (IMO) represents something "unique" to him.
Msr. Bezos and Ssr Branson seem to want to play in the same domain, but
despite Bezos significantly greater *financial* wealth (until this
year), he has not even begun (by some measure) to compete.

> If specialness is a rare instance of unique, it seems reasonable to take what he's said in public at face value: That by having humans on both planets, "humanity" can be saved from disaster. That's like a Noah's Ark type argument that would suggest that people are more interchangeable. There's no need to keep the copies.

He makes that argument as a way of convincing others to pitch in or get
out of his way... but I still suspect him of an acutely narcissistic
desire to create a polyp of humanity built in his own self-image.   I
don't know if Noah aspired to be the captain of a post-deluvian
paradise,   I think he is at least characterized in the Biblical
descriptions as a "loyal channeler of Yahweh's will"?

This is not to say that *my* narcissistic hubristic techno-utopian
fantasies don't get tweaked by most of Musk's techno-developments.
Flying cars, underground ballistic transport, space-flight, colonizing
mars, neural link/lace, what's NOT to like about all that (as a
techno-utopian)?   My alternate anarcho-primitivist pretty much finds
*all* of that something NOT TO LIKE... but that is *my* inner battle.
I'm happy for those of you who don't live with those loud shouting
matches erupting in your head/heart.

>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
> Sent: Monday, March 29, 2021 2:47 PM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Future Generating Machines...
>
> I don't know if we are converging in our acceptance/dismissal of "the myth of individuality" or not, but for the moment I am hallucinating convergence.
>
> I think the distinction we are arriving at *might* be that *every snowflake is unique* but that this is true in the very same way that *every stone is unique* and *every tree is unique*.   I think the point you are making is that that (intrinsic?!) uniqueness should not be conflated with specialness?
>
> The pinon closest to the bedroom in my house which I sat under and climbed in regularly for most of my elementary school years *was* quite special *to me*, up to and including feeling guilty/uncomfortable when I let my father talk me into trimming one of the lower branches to open up a larger canopy to sit under.   I could have "groomed the hell out of"
> the tree, maybe even nailed up a platform and made a treehouse in it, but I was (for better or worse) hyper-aware of the details that made it unique.   My imagination/memory includes (I think) many of it's details including some of the larger roots humping up out of the ground and the places I needed to avoid gripping whilst climbing to avoid getting pitch on my hands.
>
> I believe that Musk's delusion includes the ideation that by moving himself (and ~1M other individual peoples) to the surface of Mars (and/or distributed through the asteroid belt) will allow the "forcing culture" to change enough to match some libertarian-utopian vision he holds.
>
> I *think* when you debunk the specialness of the individual you are saying that the uniquenesses (specific construction of any given
> snowflake) is mostly irrelevant in many/most contexts.
>
> My nephew is a budding materials scientist with a particular background in crystallography (his father is a minerologist) and he recently walked me through, in particular, some of the idiosyncrasies of quartz crystals and the myriad uses those specifics can yield various useful properties (in industry).   I went looking for the basis of Kurt Vonnegut's Ice-9 only to find that we are up to 18 distinct crystalline forms... and of course (in the spirit of the individual/unique) those don't include the combinatorics implied by contaminants (or intentional dopants, etc.) which I assume are the basis of the plenitude (effective infinitude?) of snowflakes individuals.
>
> Individual human beings in the context of groups larger than Dunbar# pretty much get their meaning through their utility which reflects a combination of their affordances and their circumstances as much as the long-term relationships (2,...n-wise) they have with other individuals (not to mention domesticated/wild/familiar animals, edifices, plants, etc.)
>
>
>
> of On 3/29/21 3:11 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
>> Aha! Yeah, we probably do share it. But 2 points in space can be in the same state *without* having a common driver. I.e. inter-subjectivity does not imply communication. En garde! So you may share the same sentiment with an alien consciousness near Sirius. And, although it sounds like I'm just joking, I'm actually trying to say something serious, which is that individuali[ty|sm] carries something like a "locality arrogance" ... the impression that one blob in the pervading field(s) is somehow special or unique, different from all the other blobs. Maybe our modern problem of celebrity and institutional bloat is a function of a finite and fairly small set of possible states of being? And now that we're up to 8B people, each of us is guaranteed to share state with some N others? And anyone who thinks they're somehow special or unique is simply ignorant of those who share their state? If we experience a massive die off, those of us that survive will again be true individuals?
>>
>> Or, even if the space of states is actual infinite, perhaps there's only a small number of forcing cultures and we'd *have* to fly out to Sirius in order to get out of those overwhelming flows.
>>
>> On 3/29/21 12:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>> I think I *share* the sentiment you present here, though through
>>> other mechanisms (than psi) to dissolve the (illusory/delusional)
>>> boundaries between self/other or more aptly self/whole.   You are
>>> apparently more-better at (or at least more committed to your version
>>> of) this than I am which I envy/aspire.
>>>
>>> I suppose all I'm teasing at here is the apparent paradox of (for
>>> example) the "two" of us, trying to serialize things about our "inner
>>> states" to "communicate" between two "individuals".    In the
>>> abstract, I accept the premise that what I consider to be an "individual" (e.g.
>>> me, you, 400+ people reading or hitting delete on this message) is
>>> more a locus or cluster or relative concentration in a high
>>> dimensional field.    Maybe the only answer is to ingest a quantum of
>>> the right mushroom...   or fast/dehydrate until I meet Joseph or
>>> Brigham across a campfire in an arroyo... or meditate until my
>>> spirit leaves my body and apprehends the cosmos directly...
>>>
>>> We two "illusory individuals" *appear* (from the perspective of
>>> illusory
>>> individuals) to be communicating (poorly or otherwise)....
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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Future Generating Machines...

Why bother going to Mars when you could haul some tungsten rods up on your own heavy-lift rockets?

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10section3a.t-9.html

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2021 3:15 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Future Generating Machines...

Marcus wrote:
> Is there reason to believe that Musk is interested in a libertarian-utopian vision?

His acutely evident excess narcissistic hubris?

I'm sure it is yet another example of my "imputation" tendency.   I "impute" his motives to include a fiction that his vision lives in a techno-utopian fantasy land where others with his (presumed) acute technical perspective/acumen can self-select to become the successful hyper-individual exploiters of a "frontier" (like the one his presumed Dutch Afrikanner ancestors found in So. Africa a few centuries ago, and the American Frontiersman version found here in North America) without too much (any) interference from bureaucracies, etc.   Musk's ability to
*navigate* the existing bureaucracies (with a combination of financial leverage, popular support, and belligerent ignorance of the relevance of rules to his context) is (IMO) represents something "unique" to him. Msr. Bezos and Ssr Branson seem to want to play in the same domain, but despite Bezos significantly greater *financial* wealth (until this year), he has not even begun (by some measure) to compete.

> If specialness is a rare instance of unique, it seems reasonable to take what he's said in public at face value: That by having humans on both planets, "humanity" can be saved from disaster. That's like a Noah's Ark type argument that would suggest that people are more interchangeable. There's no need to keep the copies.

He makes that argument as a way of convincing others to pitch in or get out of his way... but I still suspect him of an acutely narcissistic desire to create a polyp of humanity built in his own self-image.   I don't know if Noah aspired to be the captain of a post-deluvian paradise,   I think he is at least characterized in the Biblical descriptions as a "loyal channeler of Yahweh's will"?

This is not to say that *my* narcissistic hubristic techno-utopian fantasies don't get tweaked by most of Musk's techno-developments. Flying cars, underground ballistic transport, space-flight, colonizing mars, neural link/lace, what's NOT to like about all that (as a techno-utopian)?   My alternate anarcho-primitivist pretty much finds
*all* of that something NOT TO LIKE... but that is *my* inner battle. I'm happy for those of you who don't live with those loud shouting matches erupting in your head/heart.

>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
> Sent: Monday, March 29, 2021 2:47 PM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Future Generating Machines...
>
> I don't know if we are converging in our acceptance/dismissal of "the
> myth of individuality" or not, but for the moment I am hallucinating convergence.
>
> I think the distinction we are arriving at *might* be that *every
> snowflake is unique* but that this is true in the very same way that *every stone is unique* and *every tree is unique*.   I think the point you are making is that that (intrinsic?!) uniqueness should not be conflated with specialness?
>
> The pinon closest to the bedroom in my house which I sat under and climbed in regularly for most of my elementary school years *was* quite special *to me*, up to and including feeling guilty/uncomfortable when I let my father talk me into trimming one of the lower branches to open up a larger canopy to sit under.   I could have "groomed the hell out of"
> the tree, maybe even nailed up a platform and made a treehouse in it, but I was (for better or worse) hyper-aware of the details that made it unique.   My imagination/memory includes (I think) many of it's details including some of the larger roots humping up out of the ground and the places I needed to avoid gripping whilst climbing to avoid getting pitch on my hands.
>
> I believe that Musk's delusion includes the ideation that by moving
> himself (and ~1M other individual peoples) to the surface of Mars (and/or distributed through the asteroid belt) will allow the "forcing culture" to change enough to match some libertarian-utopian vision he holds.
>
> I *think* when you debunk the specialness of the individual you are
> saying that the uniquenesses (specific construction of any given
> snowflake) is mostly irrelevant in many/most contexts.
>
> My nephew is a budding materials scientist with a particular
> background in crystallography (his father is a minerologist) and he recently walked me through, in particular, some of the idiosyncrasies of quartz crystals and the myriad uses those specifics can yield various useful properties (in industry).   I went looking for the basis of Kurt Vonnegut's Ice-9 only to find that we are up to 18 distinct crystalline forms... and of course (in the spirit of the individual/unique) those don't include the combinatorics implied by contaminants (or intentional dopants, etc.) which I assume are the basis of the plenitude (effective infinitude?) of snowflakes individuals.
>
> Individual human beings in the context of groups larger than Dunbar#
> pretty much get their meaning through their utility which reflects a
> combination of their affordances and their circumstances as much as
> the long-term relationships (2,...n-wise) they have with other
> individuals (not to mention domesticated/wild/familiar animals,
> edifices, plants, etc.)
>
>
>
> of On 3/29/21 3:11 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
>> Aha! Yeah, we probably do share it. But 2 points in space can be in the same state *without* having a common driver. I.e. inter-subjectivity does not imply communication. En garde! So you may share the same sentiment with an alien consciousness near Sirius. And, although it sounds like I'm just joking, I'm actually trying to say something serious, which is that individuali[ty|sm] carries something like a "locality arrogance" ... the impression that one blob in the pervading field(s) is somehow special or unique, different from all the other blobs. Maybe our modern problem of celebrity and institutional bloat is a function of a finite and fairly small set of possible states of being? And now that we're up to 8B people, each of us is guaranteed to share state with some N others? And anyone who thinks they're somehow special or unique is simply ignorant of those who share their state? If we experience a massive die off, those of us that survive will again be true individuals?
>>
>> Or, even if the space of states is actual infinite, perhaps there's only a small number of forcing cultures and we'd *have* to fly out to Sirius in order to get out of those overwhelming flows.
>>
>> On 3/29/21 12:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>> I think I *share* the sentiment you present here, though through
>>> other mechanisms (than psi) to dissolve the (illusory/delusional)
>>> boundaries between self/other or more aptly self/whole.   You are
>>> apparently more-better at (or at least more committed to your
>>> version
>>> of) this than I am which I envy/aspire.
>>>
>>> I suppose all I'm teasing at here is the apparent paradox of (for
>>> example) the "two" of us, trying to serialize things about our
>>> "inner states" to "communicate" between two "individuals".    In the
>>> abstract, I accept the premise that what I consider to be an "individual" (e.g.
>>> me, you, 400+ people reading or hitting delete on this message) is
>>> more a locus or cluster or relative concentration in a high
>>> dimensional field.    Maybe the only answer is to ingest a quantum
>>> of the right mushroom...   or fast/dehydrate until I meet Joseph or
>>> Brigham across a campfire in an arroyo... or meditate until my
>>> spirit leaves my body and apprehends the cosmos directly...
>>>
>>> We two "illusory individuals" *appear* (from the perspective of
>>> illusory
>>> individuals) to be communicating (poorly or otherwise)....
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