macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) (06/21/89)
Timothy Freedman discusses the proposed sci.sceptic group: :... The moderator of sci.nanotech allowed a call for :discussion to be posted, so it seems that the moderator will :either allow the discussion to happen or appear hopelessly :biased, right? So much for sci.nanotech being a newsgroup that :is so well moderated that it is reliably only about :nanotechnology. :I think a discussion about skepticism cannot be scientific, so it :should not be in the sci hierarchy. The fundamental difference :between mystics and materialists is that mystics value subjective :experiences much more than materialists do. It is impossible to :scientifically decide how important subjective experience is, for the :same reason that is it impossible to scientifically decide whether :brussels sprouts taste good. :Thus the assumption that the outside world exists and is more :important than one's fantasies is a matter of faith. Before :responding to this assertion with a "rational" refutation, look at the :axioms assumed by your refutation, and ask yourself why you believe :them. Eventually faith will rear its ugly head. The moderator replies, in part: :> It's a really dismal sight when a philosopher starts taking himself :> seriously. Generally he begins to think of the truth as those :> things which he can construct a chain of verbal arguments leading to, :> call everything else "faith", and believes it all equally valid. :> You may ignore what the rest of us choose to call "literal, objective :> truth" if you wish. If you do so thoroughgoingly and consistently, :> you will soon starve to death or step in front of an automobile and :> the rest of us will be rid of you. *You may even be "right"* but :> you will still be dead. Why is this religious argument taking place? And why in sci.nanotech? I suggested the answer in an earlier letter, which was apparently lost in transit, since the moderator assures me that all returned letters come with a reason for rejection. It is that the field of interest, nanotechnology, has attracted a strange and thorny variety of science groupie: the Newtonian Fundamentalist. They have been on lean rations lately. As modern physics has gone further and further towards places only the tantrika or acidhead formerly dared tread, the Mechanists and Reductionists have recoiled in horror and retreated to narrow little theoretical islands. I believe that the recent cold-fusion craze is is partially fueled by yearning to believe in and to return to physical, hands-on experimental science as something more than a handmaiden to theoretical science. Let's face it, cloud chambers are pretty boring fare day after day. Nanotechnology promises to change all that. It will bring Geometric Order. The Earth will be parsed to the millimeter, we are told; all the secrets it has been mischievously witholding, like the meaning of life, will be extracted like coffee from coffee bean. Everything will be measured, indexed, annotated, and (most importantly) >reduced< to its component parts, where all confusing complications will be explained as geometric patterns of atoms. Mystics oppose this on principle. Although I tend toward that label myself, I actually think that such studious pursuits are a good thing; I look forward to the nanotechnological revolutions to come, for the most part. What bothers me is the mindset of the Newtonian Fundamentalists. For example, I once sat on the periphery of a conversation where a sort of spokesperson for nanotechnology was holding court. I listened to him wax enthusiatic about diamond houses and stage trees and so on. Finally, during a lull in the conversation, I asked him how advances in nanocomputing were likely to advance progress toward a unified field theory. He reacted as if I had brought up an embarassing or crude subject. "What need do we have for FTL drives," he said, "when we can live for 50,000 years and go anywhere we want at sublight speeds?" Now, it seems to me that this is an unsatisfactory answer. I've had plenty of days in which I wished I could take a ramship with its throttle stuck on, like the one in Poul Anderson's "Tau Zero", and let the universe go hang itself. But in better moods I want to live through the coming times in the civilization I know. Any 50,000 year expedition is going to require taking your own civilization with you, or leading an asocial existence. The speaker also suggested cloning oneself and sending clones, which presumably had replications of your own consiousness, out into the void. At regular intervals the clones would convene for beers and tall tales. I'm not saying such things are impossible. At the moment, they look more possible than FTL drives. But they are worlds apart from human life as we know it. It may be that there is no bottling the genie; we may be forced to deal with human beings which look like cactus or rocks or angels before we get used to the standard model with a paint job different than ours. The capability to manipulate does not make one a responsible engineer - look at the freakish strains of dogs bred by determined individuals. I think that a revolution in technology a la Drexler may be the most dangerous crisis the world has faced, and the greatest danger will be the threat of losing our humanity. I fear the scientist who speaks of reducing men to maps of chemical state machinery, for I have learned that too often the drive to order, to catalog, hides the lust to control. Nanotechnology in the hands of tyranny is terrible to contemplate. And even the most modest misuses of this gift -- for example, half-human, half-chimp farm workers in California's farmlands -- may be technically legal, but may demean us. Michael Sloan MacLeod (amdahl!drivax!macleod) [A quick grep through the archives reveals no references to fundamentalism-- let me repeat, those who have sent letters that vanished with no reply please resubmit... The New Age brand of mysticism is a meme which has as one of its major attractions the power to convince its practitioners that they understand deep and important things without having to think or learn anything. If nanotech is "the most dangerous crisis the world has faced", we must not approach it with a world of mental vegetables. Gray goo is not to be defended against by chanting mantras, stroking crystals, or wishing for FTL travel. It is a serious mistake to confuse ethical issues (such as half-human chimps) with epistemological nihilism as expressed by Mr. Freedman. A consistent moral theory, and a firm grounding in its alternatives, is a must for those proposing to remake the world, I opine. Worshipping a Ouija board, however, does not qualify. --JoSH]
hkhenson@cup.portal.com (06/22/89)
Michael Sloan MacLeod (amdahl!drivax!macleod) recently wrote: >For example, I once sat on the periphery of a conversation where a sort of >spokesperson for nanotechnology was holding court. I listened to him wax >enthusiatic about diamond houses and stage trees and so on. Finally, during a >lull in the conversation, I asked him how advances in nanocomputing were >likely to advance progress toward a unified field theory. He reacted as if I >had brought up an embarassing or crude subject. "What need do we have for >FTL drives," he said, "when we can live for 50,000 years and go anywhere we >want at sublight speeds?" If I was not the person "holding court," I could have been, and want to clear up some erroneous impressions. From the standpoint of nanotech making us richer and giving us better tools, it *would* contribute to advancing progress toward a unified field theory. A unified field theory might help us devise a FTL drive, or it might not. I would be delighted to have FTL, but the point of nanotech exploration of the universe is that we can make do *even* if we never discover FTL (or the universe is wired up so FTL is impossible.) >Now, it seems to me that this is an unsatisfactory answer. I've had plenty of >days in which I wished I could take a ramship with its throttle stuck on, like >the one in Poul Anderson's "Tau Zero", and let the universe go hang itself. >But in better moods I want to live through the coming times in the >civilization I know. Any 50,000 year expedition is going to require taking >your own civilization with you, or leading an asocial existence. I certainly agree with the need to take civilization with you, though crossing the galaxy (if you can average .5c) is a 200,000 year trip. Between galaxies, hoo boy, 30 million ly on the average if I remember right. >The speaker >also suggested cloning oneself and sending clones, which presumably had >replications of your own consiousness, out into the void. At regular >intervals the clones would convene for beers and tall tales. *NOT* cloning! Twins are clones, we need doppelgangers, identical copies. And the need for them is a simple effect of the mind-boggling size of the universe. Even to look at the stars in our own galaxy *if you had FTL* would take longer than the current crop of stars will last. This idea is not original, exponential expansion is the only way to explore space, but rather than send machines, there are a fair number of us, at least a few thousand, who would like to go. "beer and tall tales." sounds more fun, I could have said (and been as accurate) "a scientific data exchange." This too is a consequence of the size of the galaxy and the speed of light, it would take twice as long for those who go to return to the starting point and compare notes. >I'm not saying such things are impossible. At the moment, they look more >possible than FTL drives. But they are worlds apart from human life as we >know it. It may be that there is no bottling the genie; we may be forced to >deal with human beings which look like cactus or rocks or angels before we >get used to the standard model with a paint job different than ours. The >capability to manipulate does not make one a responsible engineer - look at >the freakish strains of dogs bred by determined individuals. I think >that a revolution in technology a la Drexler may be the most dangerous crisis >the world has faced, and the greatest danger will be the threat of losing >our humanity. Ahem. In the Megascale Engineering article, I wrote: Another problem is how to improve ourselves without getting completely lost. Today the mental modules at the root of our personalities change slowly if at all. When our deepest desires can be modified with trivial effort, how much of us will survive? The results of modifying ourselves could be as tragic as being modified by others. This and nanotechnology based "super dope" that made everyone happy, but without ambition (or even the desire to eat) are among the subtle danger we face. >I fear the scientist who speaks of reducing men to maps of chemical state >machinery, for I have learned that too often the drive to order, to catalog, >hides the lust to control. Nanotechnology in the hands of tyranny is >terrible to contemplate. And even the most modest misuses of this gift -- for >example, half-human, half-chimp farm workers in California's farmlands -- may >be technically legal, but may demean us. I would fear such scientist as well, but the more important (it seems to me) direction that science is taking nowdays, is toward appreciating the emergence of phenomena based on complexity. Look at the progress in chaos, or read Minsky's _Society of Mind_. I might add that even today's technology in the hands of tyranny is terrible to contemplate. The students in China used the tools of technology to get word into and out of China, but the government used high tech British cameras to identify those in the square, and showed them on TV for people to turn in. As for your last sentence, I am hard put to deal with the concept stated so well (and funny to boot) by Douglass Adams in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, where the beast stated quite clearly that it *wanted* to be eaten. If we bred (designed?) a chimp *or* human to like picking veggies, is this better or worse than the current stoop labor that causes our fellow humans so much pain? (If the choice were up to me, I would likely avoid the whole problem by making machines that were too simple to worry about them.) Keith Henson (holding court at hkhenson@cup.portal.com and various parties around the bay)